Sound Files

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The type of sound files you can import depends on your operating system. For instance Windows supports WAV files and Macintosh supports AIFF, but Windows and Macintosh both support MP3. There are additional sound types that may be compatible with your operating system.

When working with sound there are some terms you will see frequently, and it's important to understand what they are.

  • Sample rate — In a digital recording, the computer examines the sound wave and takes snapshots of its amplitude. The snapshots are called samples, and the speed at which they are taken is the sample rate. In most consumer's digital audio, the sampling rate is 44.1khz or 44,1000 samples per second. The sample rate is used to describe sound along the x-axis.

  • Bit depth — Measures sound along the y-axis. Bit depth is either 8- or 16-bit for digital audio. 16-bit offers more clarity and truer sound.

  • Panning — You can assign left and right channel information for stereo sound. Stereo is played through two simultaneous channels, and each channel has a unique position. Mono is a single channel and is best used for dialog or sound effects.

Importing sound files

You need to get the sound files into the Library of your movie; to do this, follow these steps:

  1.  Habitat Alert site   Navigate to the chapter29_exercise folder and open  ecard1.fla.

  2. Choose File Import to Library.

  3. Navigate to the location of your sound files. Select one or multiple files and open. To practice, navigate to the chapter29_exercise files and select  heron_audio.mov.

  4. Press F11 to open the Library panel. You can see that your sound file is now added. Leave this file open for the next exercise.

Adding sound to the Timeline

It's a good idea to add a new layer for your sound because it makes it easier to identify. Plus if you have multiple sounds in your movie, you'll need to put each one on its own layer. To add sound to the Timeline of a movie you can practice on one of the e-cards for the Habitat Alert site. To add sound to the Timeline, follow these steps:

  1.  Habitat Alert site   Select the forever3 layer and add a new layer. Name this layer sound.

  2. Select Frame 1 of the sound layer.

  3. In the Property inspector on the far right is a Sound field. Click the drop-down menu and you will see the  heron_audio.mov file you imported. Select it.

  4. The Effects menu and Edit button in the Property inspector are activated. You won't be adding effects now but be aware that they are here and available. You'll be using the Edit button in the next section of this chapter.

  5. In the Sync field, click the arrow to open the menu, and choose Event. The options are:

    • Event — This is the default selection and is best used with shorter sounds.

    • Start — This is similar to Event. The Start option starts the sound and plays it entirely. If used on a button, the sound plays only once, and only one instance of the sound can play at a time. This means that if you happen to mouse over another button while the sound is playing, another instance will not begin to play at the same time.

    • Stop — This stops sounds that were cued using the Event or Start options. For streaming sync, you need to determine how many frames you want to have no sound in and then remove the appropriate number of frames (Shift+F5) for the part of the animation you want silence in.

    • Stream — This option locks the movie's frame rate to the playback of the sound. This is not recommended for looping sound but is great for scored music, lip sync, multitract, and component audio.

  6. Enter the number of times you want your sound to loop in the Property inspector.

  7. Save your file. A copy of this file is saved in the habitat_alert_final_designfiles\Flash folder as  ecard1_sound.fla in the final site file folder. Leave this file open for the next exercise.



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Macromedia Studio MX Bible
Macromedia Studio MX Bible
ISBN: 0764525239
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 491

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