mstdn.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
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FediTips has moved!

You can upload audio files on Mastodon. The upload works just like attaching images or videos, but you select a sound file instead. You can also attach artwork by clicking Edit and then Choose Image.

There is no time limit on audio, but it has to be within the file size limit on your server (usually 40MB).

Supported formats are MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, OPUS (rename it to end in .ogg), AAC, M4A or 3GP.

(Music is "Modern Technology" by Mokka Music, used under CC-By licence)

00:00/02:36

@feditips Hey @ivory any chance this is on your roadmap?

@feditips oh ace, must find some audio to upload and see what happens:-)

@feditips @paul it looks like Ivory doesn't know what to do with audio attachments. Is this something you have on the agenda to support?

@mterhar @ivory lets us tap the share icon, then “open in” some browser, and we can listen there. Kind of annoying, though.

@feditips TIL! Never tried this before but that's honestly super neat, great tip!

@feditips Hmm, am I the only one where media on mastodon doesn't work most of the time? Clicking play, nothing happens, playhead dosen't move.

@feditips Oh, and here's the reason btw

@netmikey

Hmm... not sure, but sometimes files don't play properly when post is federated. It may start playing later though, I tried reporting this on Mastodon github and the examples I gave were working by the time people responded to them.

@feditips It's a CORS issue (see my last post) - it kinda always is 😊

@feditips I would add that for the hearing-impaired, the alt-text should describe the audio content. For example, "a slow, bluesy boogie, solo piano with no vocal, single notes more than chords."

@Leisureguy

Indeed! And it means videos need two descriptions: visuals for sight-impaired and audio for hearing-impaired.

@feditips your post IS longer then 500 characters......

@feditips at least on mobile it looks like that your post is longer then 500 characters....

00:00/00:08

@feditips since Mastodon version 4.2.0 the max video size has been increased from 40 to 99 MB (alongside of increased max resolution for video). I believe the VIDEO_LIMIT is also used for audio.

@feditips For me the playback does not work - it's just an image with a non-functioning start-play (triangular) icon and a couple of never changing time numbers.

@feditips

Ditto for me, also on sfba dot social, Firefox browser tab

Whoa

Wait: check that

It *does* begin to play in a newly-opened tab when I click "download"

At the end it doesn't ask me to 'save' anything

cc @karlauerbach

@FinchHaven @karlauerbach

Yeah, it sometimes doesn't federate correctly, but then starts to work later on.

I've tried to raise this on the Mastodon github but the examples I gave worked by the time they were responded to.

@feditips my app will continue playing it even when I browse away. So that's nice. (It's an option.)

@dodoandthebrawn

Yeah, the website interface does this too, it will automatically play separately while you browse other posts (but you can switch it off if you prefer).

@feditips in this case I'm guessing "artwork" means "graphical artwork"? Because I doubt I can attach a statue, or a piece of performance art.

@feditips

What would be cool, if we also could upload ebooks like images, videos and music.

@feditips@mstdn.social looks like #firefish only shows play bar but not alt text and artwork

@feditips could this be used to create a Podcast feed?

@feditips Very useful! Thank you for sharing ☺️

@feditips …current version of #IceCubes app shows the touchable alt text icon, but not the audio attached. Or is this just the same localised to my instance you have mentioned?

@WhombeX

Hmm... hey @IceCubesApp do you support audio playback currently, or is it on roadmap?

@feditips Could it cause the uploader problems if copyrighted material is uploaded?

@mydogwrotethis

Yes, but the same is true of any server on any internet service.

I am not a lawyer, but in most countries I think the responsibility for that is with the person who owns/maintains the server?

If you upload material that breaks your server's rules, the admin may delete the post and/or suspend or remove your account.

@feditips sorry to bother... i've been uploading audio files a long time here but a few months ago m4a stopped working. now i have to convert to mp3 to upload anything. i was wondering if you might know anything about it. (server admin couldn't figure it out either)

@feditips it just says upload failed. it doesn't work on either megalodon app or browser

@yesterdaychild

Is this for any kind of m4a or just a particular file?

I can't find anything about this on Mastodon github, are you comfortable starting a new issue there?

@feditips it's for any audio file i record on my phone. i haven't tried with any other kind of m4a, but my instance admin has, and it seems to work for them iirc.

oh i didn't know this was a thing! i will go look up how to do that. many thanks. i appreciate your talking this over with me.

@yesterdaychild

I'm wondering if there's something specific about your phone's recording format that Mastodon doesn't like, or if it's a wider problem.

@feditips it's possible. what was strange is that it was working for half the year, then it stopped working

@yesterdaychild

Hmm... I wonder if it was to do with an update, either on the phone or on Mastodon?

@feditips @briankrebs Huh. Ivory: @ivory can’t process this audio. I imagine it’s on their to do list

@billgraefe @briankrebs @ivory

Darn... hopefully they get to this at some point!