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SOUND
Using Flash is like waking up from a great dream about Internet sound only to realize it wasnt a dream. Using Flash, you can stream music or voice with no trouble and no annoying pop-up window! Your buttons can cry "click-me!". Your home page can sing. Your used-to-be-humdrum site amazes visitors by talking to them just fine over a 56K modem. You can design websites with soundtracks or just add cool sound effects to your buttons. Flash will play musical tracks over each other, so you can have music in the background while someone talks!
Before you get too crazy throwing every possible sound you can think of in your Flash movie, keep in mind that some people dont like techno funk quite as much as you do. There are many different types of music today, and its very easy to alienate users by playing music they dont like. Music should be used with care and should support the theme of your site. Make sure you dont make it too loud. Corporate users are easily embarrassed when their computer suddenly starts blaring. For example, even though our web design course main page could probably use sound we'd rather keep page size small and browsing discreet.
What Type of Sound File Does Flash Use?By default, Flash exports all sounds in MP3 format. MP3 is a type of sound compression that works by, among other things, chopping off all sounds that are inaudible to the human ear. Apparently our hearing isnt all that great, because when Flash applies MP3 compression to a sound, youll notice a huge difference in file size. A sound that used to be 300KB could quite often drop down to around 6KB! Streaming fans rejoice! You can control the amount of compression Flash applies to your sounds. The more compression, the more sound Flash chops off. Flies that are compressed more download faster, though. Applying the right amount of compression is up to you, and is just another one of the tough choices well have to make while journeying through this thing we whimsically call life. You can also get sounds from the Internet. Search for sounds, or try this link for some good sound resources: www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/flash_sound_sites.htm You can, of course, record you own sounds. Well discuss recording in depth during the Sound Software section.
Importing Sounds Into FlashJust like images, sound files come in all kinds of different compression types. Flash will accept WAV files (PC), AIFF files (MAC), or MP3 sound files from either computer. You can import sounds into Flash just like you would import any other item, Click FILE-> IMPORT, and select the desired sound file. The Sound will appear in the Library.
If youre going to create your own sounds or edit them with sound editing software, youll often have to save the file as a WAV or AIFF. There are different settings you can apply when saving that increase the file size, but improve clarity. If youre given the option when saving, its usually best to use 16-bit 22 kHz mono sounds. Stereo uses twice as much data as mono. Flash can import sounds saved at different "sample rates", but the compression wont sound as good. Dont worry too much about sample rates. Well get into it more later on.
**NOTE: There are a bunch of pre-made sounds for you in the Common Library (WINDOW-> COMMON LIBRARIES-> SOUNDS), but Id advise against using them. Youre not the only person who knows about the common libraries. The fastest way to lose respect from another Flash designer or future employer is to have them recognize an item that came with Flash in your movie. Creativity counts, folks.
Placing Sounds Into Your Flash MoviePlacing sounds into your movie is a snap. Sounds dont need their own layer, but youll be happier if you give them one
The Sound will pop into the frame. Make sure you have enough frames on that layer to display the sound. You can add more frames by sleecting a later frame and hitting F5.
To Stream, or Not to StreamFlash can handle sounds in two different ways, Stream or Event. A streamed sound plays as it comes into the computer. You dont have to wait for the entire file to download. An event sound must fully download before it plays, but is stored in the memory for later re-use. After youve placed a sound into Flash, youll have to decide if the sound should stream or not.
Streamed Sounds Streaming allows Flash to play sounds as they arrive without waiting for the whole sound to download. Streamed Sounds work well for songs, soundtracks, voice files, and other longer sound files. If a user had to wait for a whole song to download, they get pretty upset. Streamed sounds play as the playback head moves across them. If the playback head stops, the sound stops. If the sound layer runs out of frames, the sound stops.
Because streamed sounds are tied to the playback head, they work great whenever its important for sound to exactly follow the animation, like when you add soundtracks to animations or give voice to animated characters. When the characters mouth moves, the streamed sounds come out! Flash assigns streaming sounds top priority and will drop animation frames if the sound is in danger of being cut. People deal with choppy animation pretty well. On the other hand, when sound comes out choppy, people tend to freak out. Streamed sounds are not saved into RAM. If you need to use a streamed sound again later, Flash will have to download it all over again. Its in one ear and out the other.
Event SoundsUnlike streamed sounds, an event sound must completely download before it plays. The upside is that the sound is stored in memory and if you want to use it again theres no download time. Event sounds work great for any short sound that youll use repeatedly, like button noises or looped sounds. By default, sound inserted into Flash as an event sound.
Assigning Event or Stream to a SoundSelecting event or stream for a sound is easy.
Remember that a streamed sound must have enough frames to allow for display of the whole sound. An event sound will play even if its only on one frame.
Looping a SoundYou can loop an event sound by entering the number of loops needed on the Sound Panel.
Stopping SoundsYou can stop sounds in three ways
Adding Effects to SoundsThere are some cool effects you can add to sounds. You can fade in or out, left to right or right to left, or you can customize your fade with custom. Flash is not a sound-editing program, though.
Using the Custom Sound Editor To edit a placed sound, click the sound on the timeline and click Edit on the Sound Panel The Sound Edit Envelope opens up.
When you edit a placed sound, youre only changing that sound, not the Library item.
Composing in Flash Heres a nice trick. You can bring a couple of event loops into Flash. Because events are stored in memory, you can use them over and over again. You can carefully place all the sounds a bunch of times. Using Edit on the Sound Panel, you can make some sounds quieter and others louder. If youre creative enough, you can make a whole soundtrack out of four or five looping small sounds fading in and out over each other.
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