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Using sounds in Flash


 

    About sounds and Flash

    Adobe® Flash® Professional offers several ways to use sound. Make sounds that play continuously, independent of the Timeline, or use the Timeline to synchronize animation to a sound track. Add sounds to buttons to make them more interactive, and make sounds fade in and out for a more polished sound track.

    There are two types of sounds in Flash Professional: event sounds and stream sounds. An event sound must download completely before it begins playing, and it continues playing until explicitly stopped. Stream sounds begin playing as soon as enough data for the first few frames has been downloaded; stream sounds are synchronized to the Timeline for playing on a website.

    If you’re creating Flash Professional content for mobile devices, Flash Professional also lets you include device sounds in your published SWF file. Device sounds are encoded in the device’s natively supported audio format, such as MIDI, MFi, or SMAF.

    You can use shared libraries to link a sound to multiple documents. You can also use the ActionScript® 2.0 onSoundComplete event or ActionScript® 3.0 soundComplete event to trigger an event based on the completion of a sound.

    You can load sounds and control sound playback using prewritten behaviors or media components; the latter also provide a controller for stop, pause, rewind, and so on. You can also use ActionScript 2.0 or 3.0 to load sounds dynamically.

    For more information, see attachSound (Sound.attachSound method) and loadSound (Sound.loadSound method)in ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference or Sound class in ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference.

    The following videos and articles provide detailed instruction on using sound in Flash Professional.

    Importing sounds

    You place sound files into Flash Professional by importing them into the library for the current document.

    1. Select File > Import > Import To Library.
    2. In the Import dialog box, locate and open the desired sound file.
    Note: You can also drag a sound from a common library into the library for the current document.

    Flash Professional stores sounds in the library along with bitmaps and symbols. You need only one copy of a sound file to use that sound multiple ways in your document.

    If you want to share sounds among Flash Professional documents, you can include the sounds in shared libraries.

    Flash Professional includes a Sounds library containing many useful sounds that can be used for effects. To open the Sounds library, choose Window > Common Libraries > Sounds. To import a sound from the Sounds library to your FLA file, drag the sound from the Sounds library to the Library panel of your FLA file. You can also drag sounds from the Sounds library to other shared libraries.

    Sounds can use large amounts of disk space and RAM. However, mp3 sound data is compressed and smaller than WAV or AIFF sound data. Generally, when using WAV or AIFF files, it’s best to use 16-22 kHz mono sounds (stereo uses twice as much data as mono), but Flash Professional can import either 8- or 16-bit sounds at sample rates of 11, 22, or 44 kHz. Sounds recorded in formats that are not multiples of 11 kHz (such as 8, 32, or 96 kHz) are resampled when imported into Flash Professional. Flash Professional can convert sounds to lower sample rates on export.

    If you want to add effects to sounds in Flash Professional, it’s best to import 16-bit sounds. If you have limited RAM, keep your sound clips short or work with 8-bit sounds instead of 16‑bit sounds.

    Supported sound file formats

    You can import the following sound file formats into Flash Professional:

    • ASND (Windows or Macintosh). This is the native sound format of Adobe® Soundbooth™.

    • WAV (Windows only)

    • AIFF (Macintosh only)

    • mp3 (Windows or Macintosh)

      If you have QuickTime® 4 or later installed on your system, you can import these additional sound file formats:

    • AIFF (Windows or Macintosh)

    • Sound Designer® II (Macintosh only)

    • Sound Only QuickTime Movies (Windows or Macintosh)

    • Sun AU (Windows or Macintosh)

    • System 7 Sounds (Macintosh only)

    • WAV (Windows or Macintosh)

    Note: The ASND format is a non-destructive audio file format, native to Adobe Soundbooth. ASND files can contain audio data with effects that can be modified later, Soundbooth multitrack sessions, and snapshots that allow you to revert to a previous state of the ASND file.

    Add a sound to the Timeline

    You can add a sound to a document using the library, or you can load a sound into a SWF file during runtime, using the loadSound method of the Sound object. For more information, see loadSound (Sound.loadSound method) in the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference or Sound Class in the ActionScript 3.0 Reference.

    1. Import the sound into the library if it has not already been imported.
    2. Select Insert > Timeline > Layer.
    3. With the new sound layer selected, drag the sound from the Library panel onto the Stage. The sound is added to the current layer.

      You can place multiple sounds on one layer or on layers containing other objects. However, it is recommended that each sound be placed on a separate layer. Each layer acts as a separate sound channel. The sounds on all layers are combined when you play the SWF file.

    4. In the Timeline, select the first frame that contains the sound file.
    5. Select Window > Properties, and click the arrow in the lower-right corner to expand the Property inspector.
    6. In the Property inspector, select the sound file from the Sound pop-up menu.
    7. Select an effect option from the Effects pop-up menu:
      None
      Applies no effects to the sound file. Select this option to remove previously applied effects.

      Left Channel/Right Channel
      Plays sound in the left or right channel only.

      Fade Left To Right/Fade Right To Left
      Shifts the sound from one channel to the other.

      Fade In
      Gradually increases the volume of a sound over its duration.

      Fade Out
      Gradually decreases the volume of a sound over its duration.

      Custom
      Lets you create custom in and out points of sound using the Edit Envelope.

    8. Select a synchronization option from the Sync pop-up menu:
      Note: If you are placing the sound on a frame other than frame 1 in the main Timeline, select the Stop option.
      Event
      Synchronizes the sound to the occurrence of an event. An event sound plays when its starting keyframe first appears and the plays in its entirety, independently of the playhead in the Timeline, even if the SWF file stops playing. Event sounds are mixed when you play your published SWF file.

      If an event sound is playing and the sound is instantiated again (for example, by the user clicking a button again, or the playhead passing the starting keyframe of the sound), the first instance of the sound continues to play and another instance of the same sound begins to play simultaneously. Keep this in mind when using longer sounds, as they can potentially overlap, causing unintended audio effects.

      Start
      The same as Event, except that if the sound is already playing, no new instance of the sound plays.

      Stop
      Silences the specified sound.

      Stream
      Synchronizes the sound for playing on a website. Flash Professional forces animation to keep pace with stream sounds. If Flash Professional can’t draw animation frames quickly enough, it skips frames. Unlike event sounds, stream sounds stop if the SWF file stops playing. Also, a stream sound can never play longer than the length of the frames it occupies. Stream sounds are mixed when you publish your SWF file.

      An example of a stream sound is the voice of a character in an animation that plays in multiple frames.

      Note: If you use an mp3 sound as a stream sound, you must recompress the sound for export. You can export the sound as an mp3 file, with the same compression settings that it had on import.

      These choices are explained and demonstrated in this video tutorial by Andy Anderson at InfiniteSkills.com.

    9. Enter a value for Repeat to specify the number of times the sound should loop, or select Loop to repeat the sound continuously.

      For continuous play, enter a number large enough to play the sound for an extended duration. For example, to loop a 15-second sound for 15 minutes, enter 60. Looping stream sounds is not recommended. If a stream sound is set to loop, frames are added to the file and the file size is increased by the number of times the sound is looped.

    10. To test the sound, drag the playhead over the frames containing the sound or use commands in the Controller or the Control menu.

    Remove a sound from the Timeline

    1. In the Timeline layer containing the sound, select a frame that also contains the sound.
    2. In the Property inspector, go to the Sound section and select None from the Name menu.

      Flash deletes the sound from the Timeline layer.

    Add a sound to a button

    You can associate sounds with the different states of a button symbol. Because the sounds are stored with the symbol, they work for all instances of the symbol.

    1. Select the button in the Library panel.
    2. Select Edit from the Panel menu in the upper-right corner of the panel.
    3. In the button’s Timeline, add a layer for sound (Insert > Timeline > Layer).
    4. In the sound layer, create a regular or blank keyframe to correspond with the button state to which you want to add a sound (Insert > Timeline > Keyframe or Insert > Timeline > Blank Keyframe).

      For example, to add a sound that plays when you click the button, create a keyframe in the frame labeled Down.

    5. Click the keyframe you created.
    6. Select Window > Properties.
    7. In the Property inspector, select a sound file from the Sound pop-up menu.
    8. Select Event from the Sync pop-up menu.

      To associate a different sound with each of the button’s keyframes, create a blank keyframe and add another sound file for each keyframe. You can also use the same sound file and apply a different sound effect for each button keyframe.

    Synchronize a sound with animation

    To synchronize a sound with animation, you start and stop the sound at keyframes.

    1. Add a sound to the Timeline in its own layer (see above for instructions).
    2. To synchronize this sound with an event in the scene, create a beginning keyframe for the sound that corresponds to the keyframe of the event in the scene that you want to trigger the sound. You can select any of the synchronization options described above (see Add a sound to the Timeline).
    3. Create a keyframe in the sound layer’s Timeline at the frame where you want the sound to end. A representation of the sound file appears in the Timeline.
    4. Select Window > Properties, and click the arrow in the lower-right corner to expand the Property inspector.
    5. In the Property inspector, select the same sound from the Sound pop-up menu.
    6. Still in the Property inspector, select Stop from the Sync pop-up menu.

      When you play the SWF file, the sound stops playing when it reaches the ending keyframe.

    7. To play back the sound, drag the playhead in the Timeline.

    Edit a sound in Flash

    In Flash Professional, you can define the starting point of a sound or control the volume of the sound as it plays. You can also change the point at which a sound starts and stops playing. This is useful for making sound files smaller by removing unused sections.

    1. Add a sound to a frame, or select a frame that already contains a sound.
    2. Select Window > Properties.
    3. Click the Edit button on the right side of the Property inspector.
    4. Do any of the following:

      • To change the start and end points of a sound, drag the Time In and Time Out controls in the Edit Envelope.

      • To change the sound envelope, drag the envelope handles to change levels at different points in the sound. Envelope lines show the volume of the sound as it plays. To create additional envelope handles (up to eight total), click the envelope lines. To remove an envelope handle, drag it out of the window.

      • To display more or less of the sound in the window, click the Zoom In or Out buttons.

      • To switch the time units between seconds and frames, click the Seconds and Frames buttons.

    5. To hear the edited sound, click the Play button.

    Edit a sound in Soundbooth

    If you have Adobe Soundbooth installed, you can use Soundbooth to edit sounds you have imported into your FLA file. After making changes in Soundbooth, when you save the file and overwrite the original, the changes are automatically reflected in the FLA file.

    If you change the filename or format of the sound after editing it, you will need to re-import it into Flash Professional.

    For a video tutorial about using Flash together with Soundbooth, see Working with Soundbooth and Flash at www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4100_xp.

    Note: Soundbooth is available only on Windows computers and Intel®-based Macintoshes.

    To edit an imported sound in Soundbooth:

    1. Right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Macintosh) the sound in the Library panel.
    2. Choose Edit in Soundbooth from the context menu. The file opens in Soundbooth.
    3. Edit the file in Soundbooth.
    4. When you are finished, save the file. To save the changes in a non-destructive format, choose the ASND format.

      If you save the file in a different format from the original, you will need to re-import the sound file into Flash Professional.

    5. Return to Flash Professional to see the edited version of the sound file in the Library panel.
    Note: You cannot edit sounds from the Sounds library (Window > Common Libraries > Sounds) with the Edit in Soundbooth command. To edit these sounds in Soundbooth, open Soundbooth and select the sound from the Resource Central panel. Edit the sound and then import it into Flash Professional.

    Using sounds in Flash Lite

    Adobe® Flash® Lite supports two types of sound: standard Flash Professional sounds, like those used in Flash Professional desktop applications, and device sounds. Flash Lite 1.0 supports device sounds only; Flash Lite 1.1 and 2.x support both standard sounds and device sounds.

    Device sounds are stored in the published SWF file in their native audio format (such as MIDI or MFi); during playback, Flash Lite passes the sound data to the device, which decodes and plays the sound. Because you can’t import most device audio formats into Flash Professional, you instead import a proxy sound in a supported format (such as mp3 or AIFF) that is replaced with an external device sound that you specify.

    You can use device sounds only as event sounds—you can’t synchronize device sounds with the Timeline as you can with standard sounds.

    Flash Lite 1.0 and Flash Lite 1.1 do not support the following features available in the desktop version of Flash® Player:

    • The ActionScript Sound object

    • Loading of external mp3 files

    • The Speech Audio Compression option

    For more information, see “Working with Sound, Video, and Images” in Developing Flash Lite 2.x Applications or “Working with Sound” in Developing Flash Lite 1.x Applications.

    More Help topics

      Working with sound

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