Where to add audio files (mp3) in FS

Mel Leavitt

How do I add audio files into FS? Do I just drag and drop into Memories or is there a better place to store and listen to audio.

Alan E. Brown

Memories would be a great place to store audio files, assuming that the content is related to one of your deceased relatives in Family Tree. Just make sure that you tag the audio Memory to your relative(s) so that the audio will appear on their individual Memories pages. That will make it available to others who want to learn more about those people.

Mel Leavitt

Thank you Alan E Brown. I tried uploading the audio files into memories however apparently there is a file size limit which the audio files exceed. I'm not a techno guru. Is there a way to reduce the size of these files without decreasing the quality of the file?

Alan E. Brown

@Mel Leavitt Yes, the file size can be reduced to be under the limit of 15MB. There are two basic strategies that can be used (separately or together):

• Use an audio tool to compress the audio files more. Factors such as the bitrate, sample rate, and channels (stereo to mono) can significantly reduce the file size. Personally, I use the free tool Audacity to make such changes, but there are many tools available for doing this. Some of these changes will reduce the quality of the recording, but often you can make some adjustments without any noticeable reduction in quality.
• Split the file into sections. I typically do this after I've tweaked the compression. Depending on the content, there will often be logical breaks where you can split the content. Again, I use Audacity to do this, but many tools are available for this purpose. It's best to use this strategy sparingly, since it's difficult to make it clear to listeners what order they are to be listened to. And of course it's more work to set the titles, tags, and other parameters for multiple audio memories. But it can be done.