Creating audio

Before you can upload media to UpStage to use in your cyberformance, you must either find or create it. If you’re finding media items online, they must be in the public domain or have a license allowing you to use them. Usually you’ll want to create your own media that’s specifically designed for the theme and artistic style of your cyberformance. This chapter provides tips for creating audio for UpStage.

Audio files can be music, sound effects, pre-recorded voices, or any other kinds of audio tracks. UpStage’s on-stage audio tools allow for simple manipulation including looping, adjusting volume, and playing multiple tracks at once. If you want to do more sophisticated audio mixing, you can use your preferred audio mixing software and send a live audio stream to the stage. See the Streaming section for information about how to do that.

File formats

The following audio file formats can be uploaded to UpStage:

  • .ogg – open format, lossless
  • .flac – open format, lossless
  • .webm – audiovisual media format, royalty free
  • .wav
  • .mpeg
  • .mp3
  • .aac
  • .aacp
  • .m4a

File size

It’s important to keep media file sizes as small as possible to avoid slow-loading stages or lag for people on slow connections. We set the default limit of 1MB for graphic and audio media uploads to encourage you to compress your files as much as possible. An UpStage administrator can override this limit for individual users, but this should only be done when there’s a good reason.

As audio files can easily exceed 1MB, one option is to cut up a large file into several smaller files which are all under 1MB.