Flash CS3 sound tutorial

Draft

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Overview

This is part of Flash CS3 tutorials. Daniel K. Schneider 18:13, 9 September 2007 (MEST).

Learning goals

Learn how to use sound with Flash 9 (CS3) components

Learn a little bit of Action Script 3

Prerequisites

Flash CS3 desktop tutorial

Flash drawing tutorial

flash layers tutorial

flash button tutorial

Moving on

The Flash article has a list of other tutorials.

Flash Video component tutorial

Quality

This text should technical people get going and may not be good enough for self-learning beginners. It can be used as handout in a "hands-on" class. That is what Daniel K. Schneider made it for...

Level

It aims at beginners. More advanced features and tricks are not explained here.

Learning materials

Grab the various *.fla files from here:

http://tecfa.unige.ch/guides/flash/ex/sound-intro/ (not yet sorry)

Basics

Sound types

Flash can handle several sound formats:

• AAC (Advanced Audio Coding):
• AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) - Mac only ?
• MP3 (Moving Pictures Expert Group Level-Layer-3 Audio)
• AVI (Audio Video Interleave)
• WAV (Waveform Audio Format)
• AU (Sun)

(Some formats may depend on whether quicktime is installed)

Import sounds

Background sounds

To import (small) sound files

• File->Import->Import To library

Attaching sound to a frame

Create a new layer and import sound to a frame

• You can attach sound to any frame via the properties panel
• Select a sound from the sound pull-down menu
• Configure it in the same panel

Configuration of sounds

In the configuration panel you can change certain parameters and also edit a bit.

• Sync: Sound is synchronized with the timeline. You may have to extend sound time line. Hit F5 somewhere.
• Event: Sound plays by itself until its done (independently of the rest)
• Start: Will only play the sound once.
• Stop : Will stop the sound (therefore include it before or after a sound frame.
• Stream: Will try to match the length of sound until the end of the animation.

Editing sounds

Getting the Edit Envelope editor

• Click in the sound layer.
• In the Properties Panel, Click the Edit ... button next to the Effect: field
• This opens the Edit Envelope editor.

Manipulation of the sound envelope

• You can drag left/right Time In and Time Out controls in middle pane
• You can drag down volume controls (black lines on top). Click to insert a new distortion point.

Load sounds

ActionScript 2

var mySound:Sound= new Sound();
mySound.loadSound("track01.mp3" , true);
mySound.onLoad = function() {
mySound.start();
}

Links

Sound textures to download

• SimplyTheBest.net - MP3 sounds. This is a nice site. Ads are not annoying.

Documentation

• Working with sound (Adobe, using, AS2, not AS3)