Right now, there’s really no way for musicians and sound artists to utilize product pages or dynamic pages for audio samples of their work in a way that can be integrated with either native Wix apps or external platforms like Soundcloud or Spotify.
This leads to a cumbersome process of designing individual pages that have to be continuously updated and reformatted as we create new work, rather than simply designing a store page or dynamic page once and populating it with content from a data or store collection.
For example, I’m a composer who would like to be able to create store products available in both digital and physical formats, each of which comes with its own audio sample (not itself for sale but essential in marketing each product). Since there’s no way at all to link an audio file to a non-audio product, let alone create a product with hybrid digital and physical options and house all this content on a single product page, I can’t utilize dynamic content for my site.
At the moment, the only way to take advantage of dynamic pages in this way is to provide a text link in the product description of a store item. This method allows for little display customization, has almost no interactivity, immediately directs the user away from your site, and leads to a browsing experience that’s overly cumbersome and frustrates users (particularly on mobile platforms).
Some of us are more code savvy and are trying to implement work-arounds, but I personally know dozens of musicians who have decided on less-robust platforms over Wix precisely because of its lack of audio support in dynamic pages.
Pleeeeeeeeeeease! This would also be great for integrating ‘Voice Reply’ for comments or to have a dynamic playlist that is not through the pathetic Spotify app. There is a Voice Reply app in the Wix store but it is kinda limited.
This first post hits the nail on the head, weird that several months later Wix still has the same problem. Also a simple option on the music player to select physical or digital product to buy is a no brainer, and means the samples on the site can be used for both
I questioned wix on the phone call follow up they do and in email and they said both times that they only pursue the features that people voted on and there’s demand for. i think they really need to get their act together with this one!!!
I’m Rob, a Product Manger at Wix in the Media Group. I’m happy to let you know that we are in the process now of creating a code-able audio player, and getting the audio file type added to the Wix database. Initially the player will be able to work with single tracks of audio, and playlists can be created via the database.
We are looking at further integrations with Internal and External Audio sources.
I am very curious to know what types of things you are trying to achieve with audio in Wix Code!! Any ideas or requests you have can be added here and I’m more than happy to discuss the possibilities
Like I say above, here’s some features I’m looking for (some of these aren’t necessarily Wix Code specific)…
— attach audio file to a non-audio product in Wix Stores
— include a single-track audio player on a product page with basic user interface (play/pause, interactive progress bar), customizable style similar to the non-dynamic player already available in Wix, and the ability to customize where it’s located in the page layout
— same capability on a dynamic page
— ability to hide any text (title, artist, etc) associated with the audio track in the player (i.e. keeping a minimal design with just the play/pause button and progress bar)
Good news, Rob! Hope it will be soon.
In addition to the features described above, I would like to be able to add the player as an element of Repeater, in order to connect it like other Repeater elements to the database (for example, like video player)
Thank you Rob, I would like to add that what would be very useful is a simple option on the music player to select physical or digital product to buy (eg: “format” then dropdown to select options), so the samples on a playlist site can be used for both. Currently the dynamic store pages can’t embed individual playlists for each CD release (only the same playlist on all), this is a big problem. Also, the ability to embed html on a individual store pages, such as to a YouTube video, so that each page is more easily customisable, as obviously that function is very limited just now
Oh Wow! Awesome news @robrush ! Just saw this, have been researching this since on the Wix Forum since before Xmas. What I would like to create is a music licensing site utilizing audio in databases and on dynamic pages category & item pages.
In my wildest dreams, I would like to connect the database to the Wix Music Player on Dynamic pages. Or at least something akin, though I will see sometimes I feel limited by Wix Music’s formatting options and the load time can get wonky. Wix Music, like Wix Stores is all set up for e-Commerce. For my specific purposes I don’t have need for e-Commerce, I’m not selling tracks directly off the site, but if Wix is thinking broader I’d imagine there would be people who may benefit from this capability.
These are just a few examples of sites that aren’t built on Wix, BUT if we could connect audio dynamically COULD be built on Wix:
Create Dynamic Category page for song database where clients can
a. search through our entire music catalogue
b. filter catalogue by eg. Genre, Mood, Instrument, Artist etc
c. listen to a short 10 second audio sample
d. either add song to a “favorites” list and/or “add to cart” (great for membership sites especially)
e. if we have an add to cart feature client needs to further be able to select:
i. Type of License
ii. Purpose of License
Create sister Dynamic Item page for each song where clients can:
a. View track info
b. Listen to multiple versions of the song eg. Full Song (with lyrics), Instrumental (no vocals)
c. Display suggestions below for “You May Also Like These Songs”
This is beyond what I want to do, but if we are thinking broader and what other Wix users would likely want to achieve for a “music licensing” site, in addition to a Dynamic Item page for each song, a lot of music licensing sites will also have a Dynamic Item page for Artists that show:
a. Artist Profile
b. Songs by that artist
c. A “You May Also Like These Artists”
eg. https://www.marmosetmusic.com/artists/sun-shapes
3.1 And/Or another Dynamic Category & Item Page that displays “Featured Playlists” aka a curated collection of songs eg. Musicbed
Of course to achieve all of the above we would need to be able to connect to Repeaters and utilize reference fields in my databases. The main thing is we need to be able to add mp3 files in the database! I would also hypothetically be happy if we could connect the content to a Table… I tried that already, but honestly, I don’t like how the Tables format on mobile.
Other things:
If you take a look at the site examples above:
Under the Artist/Song Columns you’ll see rich text links that take you to either the Track’s Dynamic Item page or also the Artists’s Profile page
When you press play the music player actually pops up at the bottom of the screen, a full screen music player. (Unlike Wix Music which is a static application box that sits on the page).
As you can see from the examples, at the very least I need to be able to connect an mp3 from the database to a play button that I display in a Repeater and/or Table. But ideally, need to connect it to an actual music player (like the Wix Music Player application - but the purpose here isn’t for the
“song” or “album” to be purchased directly off the site - or from Wix Music - but to provide audio samples and then allow the user to request or purchase a license by either filling out a form of some sort or request a demo. In future, you could even connect it to some membership type site where clients can save their favorite tracks or create their own playlists.
Oh wow. Okay, I think that’s everything! So excited for future developments.
@aaronhelgeson Thank you for the feedback. I’ll try to approach these 1 by 1.
— attach audio file to a non-audio product in Wix Stores
do you mean the product page itself? We are looking into the ability to add audio to a product description, much like you add video now. this way you could add an audio sample to any kind of product. Is this what you had in mind?
— include a single-track audio player on a product page with basic user interface (play/pause, interactive progress bar), customizable style similar to the non-dynamic player already available in Wix, and the ability to customize where it’s located in the page layout
In theory this could be done with the player we are releasing. it would require some coding to show or hide the player and dynamically assign the audio to the player based on the product that is being displayed, some kind of logic like… if product_id = xxxx then, show the audio player and assign this audio. if you really want the custom positioning this could be acheived.
— same capability on a dynamic page
This is what we are shooting for, an audio player that can work in dynamic pages, and in repeaters, with data sets providing the source audio and metadata.
— ability to hide any text (title, artist, etc) associated with the audio track in the player (i.e. keeping a minimal design with just the play/pause button and progress bar)
I agree, and I think you’ll like what we have in store
@fordcreatv Thank you for the detailed response! I have done a lot of research in the realm of licensing music, and selling audio in a more commercial environment. I absolutely understand the use case you’re talking about there, with different license and purchase options
What we are creating now is a very basic player that can get information from a database, including the source audio, so if you are able to set up a database that contains all the info you need to filter the audio, it should be possible with our new player, although it will be database intensive.
You have some great site examples there, and i think most of them should be able to be achieved with your own db structure, that will be able to contain mp3 files, and the audio player that can be attached to dynamic pages and repeaters. with the repeater, you can even build your own “playlist” in the first version of the audio player which will play a single track.
In the bigger picture, we do have the Wix Music system, which contains a lot of the elements, but not all, that you are speaking about, such as genre, artist name, 30 second samples etc.
The Wix Code integration with Wix Music is a different discussion, we are looking into opening up the Wix Music catalog information to code, much like how stores and bookings have opened their info to code for read only display.
The deeper integrations with Wix stores, and the “site based” audio player that sticks to the bottom of the page are all things we are considering as well.
Thanks again for your response! It was very helpful.
Fantastic. We would love to use it for sermon archives for our church. Very similar to what the others are requesting. Your playlist feature sounds great, search function would also be helpful.
