Audio Player Assistance

Community resources General
1

I’m seeking the community’s guidance to identify an audio player for my needs. I’m a voice over actor and singer and I’m looking for an embeddable audio player for my vocal demos as well as songs from my band. I’ve searched the Webflow forum and have found several though the posts are several years old. These include:

Each seems to have advantages and disadvantages and I’m beginning to hit analysis paralysis. The features I’m looking for:

  • Easy to integrate (I chose Webflow because of it’s user design and outstanding tutorials)

  • Display multiple tracks

  • Only allow one track to play at a time

  • Allow tracks to be downloaded (important for potential clients)

  • Simple controls

My favorite example is from this site:

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Another example is from this site:

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image616×533 46 KB

I intend to place the player in the hero section of my site and have five tracks for VO and three tracks for music. I have a CMS plan so I can use that but I’m uncertain where I would need to have the actual tracks reside. I’ve read some issues with Dropbox but I’m uncertain of other inexpensive options.

My read-only link:

https://preview.webflow.com/preview/man-in-the-vox?utm_medium=preview_link&utm_source=designer&utm_content=man-in-the-vox&preview=88986371fd433bfb84acfcfc82d54fea&workflow=preview

Published link:

https://man-in-the-vox.webflow.io/

Bottomline is I’m getting in my own way and need guidance on an appropriate direction to get where I’m trying to go. I am grateful for any assistance.

2

Hi Bruce,

Depending on the total number of tracks and the arrangements you want, I’d probably recommend building this custom rather than using a platform like Soundcloud. That gives you;

  • Styling freedom
  • Arrangement freedom
  • The download button support
  • Freedom from 3rd party branding & popups
  • CMS integration support - one table for Tracks, one for Playlist groupings where you can easily select and arrange the audio elements you want for display

The playback and possibly the waveform could be handled by a JS player like Plyr.js. The rest you’d control from JS, e.g. pause-others-when-one-is-played.

However, all of the above requires some comfort with coding and HTML work to build out the integrated feature the way you want. Great for a long-term plan, maybe less great for a low-budget project.

My main concern with a solution like Soundcloud ( which I’ve used often ) is that the multiplayer arrangement is based on playlists, so you’d have a lot of playlist creation and then very little control over the embedded IFRAME element. However it’s fully-built, and solves the one-at-a-time need.

I’d take a close look at the Supersparks offering as well. While it’s not free, it’s designed to integrate with Webflow and might be worth the added cost if it closes exactly the right gaps for you with no custom development work.

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