Repeating Sounds

Flash's sound-repeating parameter allows you to play a sound several times in a row without adding other instances of the sound to a frame. Type a value in the Repeat field in the sound area (the right side) of the Frame Properties tab of the Property inspector. Flash plays the sound the specified number of times. You can repeat event sounds and streaming sounds. The sound's Sync parameter applies to the whole set of repeated sounds. You can also set sounds to loop until further instruction.

To set a Repeat value

1.	Create a 5-frame Flash document with a short event sound in keyframe 1. This task uses a sound called Drip.AIFF.
2.	In the Timeline, select keyframe 1.
3.	In the sound area of the Frame Properties tab of the Property inspector, from the Repeat pop-up menu, choose Repeat (the default setting).
4.	Type 3 in the field to the right of the Repeat menu (Figure 15.39). Figure 15.39. Typing a value in the Repeat field tells Flash how many times to play the selected sound. Flash extends the sound's waveform by stringing together three copies of it. In the Timeline, Flash displays as much of the extended waveform as will fit in the available frames (Figure 15.40). Figure 15.40. When Repeat is set to 0, Flash displays just the original waveform in the Timeline (top). When Repeat is set to 3, Flash displays as much of the repeated waveform as there is room for (bottom).
5.	Save this document for use in the next task; name it RepeatSnds.fla.

Tips

• To make a sound repeat continuously until you issue an instruction to stop the sound, choose Loop from the Repeat menu (Figure 15.41).

  Figure 15.41. Choosing Loop from the Repeat menu in the Frame Properties tab of the Property inspector sets the sound for the selected keyframe to play over and over until there is an instruction to stop that sound (or stop all sounds).

  

• Although you can use the Repeat parameter with sounds whose Sync parameter is Stream, doing so adds to the size of your exported file.

• To see the extended waveform graphed against seconds or frames, click Edit in the Frame Properties tab of the Property inspector. The full sound appears in the Edit Envelope window (Figure 15.42).

  Figure 15.42. You can see a precise waveform for the repeated sound graphed against seconds or frames (shown here) of your movie in the Edit Envelope window. The grayed-out waveforms are the repeated portion of the sound.

  

• Because Flash links the repeated sounds and displays them as a single sound in the Edit Envelope window, you can edit the repeating sound. You can change the volume so the sound gets louder with each repetition, for example. You learn about editing sounds in the following section of this chapter.