Frequently Asked Questions
How did this site begin?
I first learned and subsequently taught myself the rest of HTML many years ago, about 1995. It started largely with America Online and continued to a "Global Networking" class in high school where I created a multi-page web site using only the DOS text editor. Years followed and I could never come up with a compelling enough idea for my own web site. Then, in 2000, I downloaded a couple clips of music from the forthcoming Gladiator. Using newly acquired editing software I whittled a few down to the essential theme and created my first sound events. Ah-ha, here was finally something nice enough to share with the world.
Audible Beauty, what's that?
Now that I had a concept, I wanted a good name. Audible Beauty was the result of an afternoon's contemplation. It has turned out to be something quite usefully unique. The first incarnation appeared on my Yahoo/Geocities account, a blue marble design and about a half-dozen sounds to be offered from Gladiator, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, on May 28, 2001 [See a screenshot!]. Registration of the domain came in September 2001, right about the time that LOTR kind of took over my passions. Bandwidth and web space was never enough there though, even with those few sounds, so in May 2002 came the move to PowWeb.
From about March 2002 to July there were number of re-designs, including this labor-intensive but ultimately failed one here. The idea was to have unique pages for each movie with different backgrounds and ranges of images - too much! There was a lovely home page of rich brown with buttons for each film and boxed what's new at the bottom at one point also. The current design, especially the logo and the "back to blues" look, was locked in about July 2002.
In April 2005, I moved hosting to Dreamhost and proceeded to create a new design from scratch using skills recently acquired with CSS and other standards-based web design. It was a success and stayed largely untouched until June 2010, when a refreshed look was hung on the existing framework with ease.
What sounds do you have here?
To keep my sanity, I have limited the site to Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Moulin Rouge. I also have kept available sounds originally downloaded from the Gladiator official website in 2000 which went offline long ago.
How about types of sounds?
Two categories: music clips and quotes. Music clips almost always come from the film's soundtrack, from which I glean the best--or at least my favorite--themes. However some of the best movie music does not great sound events make, like particularly drawn out moments or really big orchestra ones. Pretty much all the music clips that make it online have been tried and tested on my own computer for both compatibility (Windows for instance will not play sounds longer than 30 seconds to exit) and quality. Quotes are the dialogue or "lines" that really stand out in the movie.
So, do you take requests?
Yes and no. At first I did, to connect with visitors and have them help me find the best lines, then it got to be too much. Currently, I do not.
What do you use to make or edit sound files?
I use Adobe Audition 1.5 which is a descendant of CoolEdit 2000 where I learned audio editing. Probably the best free editor right now is Audacity.
Disclaimer
Original music and other media belong to the respective copyright holders. Download for your own personal use only.
This [written] work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
AudibleBeauty.net has been online since September 1, 2001.
