Email the Instructor

Upload a File

Flash 1 - Beginning

Class ends Sunday June 29, at 5pm

×

Drag your file here to upload it.

Adding Sound to the Timeline

To create the below sound effect of a missile, download the two source sounds used (Mac users CONTROL-click; PC users right click. Then choose "Save this link as..." or "Download link to disk"):

NOTE: Neither I, nor ACC, (nor its parent company Halliburton) advocate firing missiles at cities.

 

[NOTE: this exercise deals only with the soundtrack to the above animation—not the animation itself]

  1. In a new Flash file, import the Jet and Explosion sound files you downloaded.
  2. Drag the Jet sound from the Library to the stage (this places it in frame 1 of Layer 1).
  3. Insert a normal frame (F5) at frame 70.
  4. Press ENTER to hear the sound.
  5. To edit the sound, select any frame between 1 and 70, and press the EDIT icon ( ) on the Properties panel.

Stereo sounds like the Jet display two channels (left channel above right channel). You can adjust the volume of the sound with the square points on the envelope line (control points at the bottom of a channel indicate the sound is silent; control points at the top of the channel indicate the sound is as loud as it can be). You can click to add as many volume control points as necessary to raise and lower the volume at different points during the soundtrack. To eliminate control points, drag them outside of the channel.

Flash has several preset volume effects you can select from the Effect drop-down menu at the top left of this dialog box. To get the sound of the Jet to seem to travel from left to right (this only works if you have stereo speakers connected to your computer), select the "Fade Left to Right" sound effect.

To trim off the initial 3 seconds of sound, making it sound a little more like a missile launch, rather than a jet approaching, move the Sound-In point to the 3-second mark (the timeline is between the two channels). To trim the final part of the sound off, move the Sound-Out point backward to the 6.6 second mark (you'll have to scroll in the dialog box, or press the Zoom Out icon at the bottom to find the Sound Out point). After trimming the sound to the necessary portion, press the Play button at the bottom left of the dialog box (the black triangle).

To see how many frames this sound will last, press the Display Time in Frames button. The edited sound should be about 88 frames. Press the OK button.

Combining Sound

Flash is not a sound editing program. The features above offer the bare minimum of control you'll find in true sound editing programs. But with creative layering and volume control, you can mix several sounds together. To add the Explosion to the end of the Jet sound:

  1. Add a layer titled "Explosion."
  2. Insert a Keyframe in the Explosion layer one frame before the Jet soundwave pattern ends in Layer 1.
  3. Drag the Explosion sound from the Library palette to the stage (since you can't see sound, it is unimportant exactly where on the stage you place it).
  4. Select the keyframe in the Explosion layer that contains the sound, and click the Edit button on the Propery Inspector.
  5. Since the Jet sound fades from the left channel to the right channel, one would expect the explosion to come from the right channel (the destination of our "missile"). In the Edit Envelope dialog box, move the envelope line (by dragging the top left volume handle) 3/4 of the way to the bottom of the left channel, reducing the output of the entire left channel (totally eliminating a channel often makes a sound seem very unnatural).
  6. Drag the red Playback Head above the Timeline to frame 1, and press ENTER.

Both the Jet and the Explosion sounds will compress better in MP3 format than in ADPCM. There are two ways you can set the sound compression format in Flash: on each individual sound, or globally on all sounds at the time of publishing (the latter will be discussed in the final lesson).

To set the Explosion sound to MP3 compression, double-click it in the Library:

In the Sound Properties dialog box the compression options are:

Default: This sets this sound's compression to the global setting specified upon publishing (more on this in Lesson 5)

ADPCM: Best used for short event sounds like button clicks.

MP3: Best used for long streaming sounds like music.

Raw: this setting does not compress the sound at all, resulting in the best quality, but the largest file size. You might select this option for imported sounds already in MP3 format, to avoid recompression.

Speech: this is a particular configuration of ADPCM tweaked for speech. It requires the Flash 6 Player or higher.

In this example, where we have utilized the stereo effect to enhance our presentation, you would NOT check Convert Stereo to Mono (doing so would decrease the file size by half, but lose the effect of the jet fading from left to right and the explosion sound come primarily from the right speaker).

The Bit Rate option can be set between 8kbps and 160kbps (higher bit rates yield better sound, but slower downloads). Try to avoid anything less than 16kbps.(When using ADPCM compression, the Bit Rate options are 5kHz, 11kHz, 22kHz, and 44kHz. 11kHz is best for speech, and 22kHz is best for short musical effects).

MP3 compresson allows a sound Quality option of Best, Medium, or Fast (i.e. worst). Your choice depends on the sound involved. In this example where the quality of the explosion sound is not critical, set it to "Medium" and click OK.