Uploading a Song to a Phone System

In this post we hash out if you need to use on hold music in your business phone system, how to choose the best music to heave customer satisfaction, and what audio file formats work all-time with modern concern telephone PBX systems.

We likewise prepared a detailed walk-through tutorial to help you convert the music files into the proper format before uploading information technology to your telephone organization.

Spring straight to tutorial: How to format music files earlier uploading to your PBX phone system

Does your business organisation need on hold music?

Silence is gilded. However, it'southward non when it comes to putting your customers on hold.

Look at the tweet below, I call back it sums it up quite well:

On hold for over an hour, there is not even any music to feel like there is someone on the other end

Yes, if y'all service clients over the phone, your business needs on concord music.

How to pick best on concur music for my business concern?

On hold music has a clear purpose – to convince your clients stay on the line and non to hang up. Afterwards all you do want to talk to them.

The better is music you utilize, the higher are the chances your clients will actually look for you (or your customer / sales representative) to pick upward the phone.

While using generic on hold music in your business phone organisation is a good get-go, it all-time to put some though into what sort of music is all-time for your business organisation.

What kind of music works best for YOUR clients?

When choosing music for your company'due south client facing phone system, consider this 4 simple tips:

1. Choose music that fits your industry / brand

Align music with your type of industry, business organization, and / or your make.

I wouldn't use upbeat goofy music in an bookkeeping or legal firm's phone system but it would work great for a childcare.

ii. Choose music that volition audio well over the phone

Use music with steady, mid-tempo crush. Avert extremely fast or slow music.

Avoid sudden book drops or peaks. Avoid complex musical arrangements with wide dynamic range.

Classical music may be your first pick due to its general appeal just it oft sounds terrible over the phone.

Avoid musical genres that focus heavily on specific low or high frequencies. All these cute bass drops will be completely lost when transmitted over the phone line.

3. Spread Holiday cheer

Don't be afraid to cheer upward your customers with Halloween or Christmas music during the appropriate holiday season.

But be aware that not everyone is celebrating these holidays, so know your client!

4. Keep it simple

There are likewise technical limitations to consider (more on this later).

Overall, go on information technology simple to make sure the music sounds good even on a low-quality phone line.

Since the music will have to be compressed into lower quality format, complex music with lots of details and nuances will audio messy over the phone.

Gratuitous infographic: How to choose best on concur music for my business organization

Can i utilise a popular song as on hold music?

If yous simply thinking of downloading a popular vocal from you favorite digital store and uploading it to the PBX arrangement, I would strongly advise against it.

That would illegal and punishable under the copyright police in most countries.

As a rule of thumb, you must obtain permission from the copyright possessor to utilise whatever copyrighted content, especially for the commercial use.

Depending on your upkeep and the specific artist you accept in listen, this may be possible. However, working out the licensing understanding may get complicated and quite expensive. Some artists may fifty-fifty pass up it outright.

If you withal want to try, here's a post that explains how you lot can legally play copyrighted music in your business.

Alternatively, you lot can easily license affordable royalty free music created specifically for commercial use, including on concord PBS systems.

Here are some on hold music samples that, according to our customers, work great in their telephone systems:

When licensing music for your business organization PXB, I mostly recommend using music that is not registered with performance rights organizations (PROs).

This volition save yous the demand to check if you are required to obtain a separate operation license from a PRO in your country.

Related: Heed to our best on hold music (top x nigh downloaded).

Related: Download ready to use on agree messages for your business phone.

how to ready on hold music for upload to a PBX telephony arrangement

best audio formats for on hold music

It's important to format the music in a specific manner to make sure your PBX provider can use it.

Just imagine spending hours looking the perfect on concord music track and uploading it to your phone arrangement, only to get the error similar this:

The agree music file you lot recently uploaded contains errors and cannot be utilized with your service. This is typically caused by an invalid music file format.

Permit'south wait at some of the about common technical requirements shared to by most PBX service providers.

What audio file formats tin can be used for on agree music?

The default telephony standard is mono 8-bit PCM μ-Police sound with a sampling rate of 8Khz.

This standard is designed for voice (and not high quality music) and provides acceptable results with minimum bandwidth.

Let's run across what this means:

1. Mono

The vast bulk of modern music is recorded in stereo. That is, using audio two aqueduct, commonly referred to left and correct.

Mono recordings only incorporate 1 audio channel.

2. PCM

PCM (pulse code modulation) refers to uncompressed WAV files.

3. 8 Bit depth

In digital audio using PCM, flake depth is the number of bits of information in each sample. Generally speaking, the higher the bit depth, the improve is the recording. For instance, a CD quality recording has sixteen bits per sample and DVD-Audio and Blu-ray support up 24 bits per sample.

Many modern PBX systems also accept 16 Scrap audio for on hold music.

4. uLaw

The μ-law algorithm (often referred to as "u-police force") is a companding algorithm often used in 8-scrap PCM digital telecommunication systems. The purpose of this algorithm is to improve the quality of the audio signal with express bandwidth. In elementary words, it tries to make a crappy sound sound better.

5. 8 kHz Sampling rate

In audio, the sampling rate refers to "samples per 2d". For case, a CD recording uses 44.ane kHz rates, which is 44,100 samples per 2nd.

The telephone signals intended to behave the human speech only can be sampled at a much lower charge per unit, allowing a sampling charge per unit of eight kHz.

You lot can encode both WAV and MP3 audio files to qualify for the to a higher place standard but we generally recommend avoiding lossy compression formats and apply WAVs for best results.

Free infographic: Recommended audio file format for on agree music

The above file format should satisfy the bulk of modern PBX systems. Nonetheless, please note that the specific requirements may vary across different providers.

specific technical requirements past provider

That'south not a comprehensive list by all means simply this should help you to see the differences.

Intermedia Cloud PBX
WAV or MP3, mono, sixteen Bit, viii or 11 kHz, PCM

FreePBX
WAV, mono 16 Fleck, 8 kHz, u-Law

Panasonic
WAV, mono, 16 Bit, eight kHz, mono, PCM

Skype for Business
WAV or WMA, mono, 16 Bit, 8 or 16 kHz, PCM

Telus
WAV, mono, 16 Flake, 8 kHz, PCM.

Cisco
WAV, mono or stereo, viii or 16 Bit, viii/16/32/44/48 kHz, PCM or µ-Law.

XBLUE
WAV, mono, 16 Bit, 8 kHz, PCM

Tutorial

Objective: Catechumen CD quality WAV to eight kHz mono WAV

In this tutorial we'll convert i of our regular music files into the format that should work in any of the PBX systems listed above.

Here's our source file:

Positive royalty free acoustic popular background instrumental music with warm comforting experience for product review video, promotional video, infomercial, corporate or preparation vlog, presentation, on-concur music, event, real estate video, and commercial business organisation use.

TIP: When doing audio format conversions, first with the best possible source quality.

Thus, we will use WAV file (as opposed to MP3) as the starting betoken.

Here are our requirements:

1. The file must in WAV format.
2. The file must be 16-bit mono format.
3. The sample rate must be 8 kHz.

To perform the conversion nosotros will use Audacity, a gratuitous, open source, cantankerous-platform audio editor.

1. Load WAV file into Brazenness

load-wav

Load the file via the Open File bill of fare or simply elevate and drop it into Audacity.

two. Convert to mono

convert wav to mono

Tracks -> Mix -> Mix Stereo Down To Mono.

3. Alter sample charge per unit to 8 kHz

change sample rate

In the lower left corner change the projection rate to 8,000 Hz (8 kHz).

4. Export new WAV file

export wav

File -> Export -> Export as WAV.

You can also utilize Audacity to export 8 Fleck WAV, u-law, a-law files, and many other formats.

v. Here's the consequence (xvi Bit viii kHz mono WAV)

Questions? Comments?

This post explored how you tin can cull, license, and change file types for on hold music.