Recipe 17.6. Applying Effects to Sounds

Problem

You want to apply effects such as panning and fading to your sounds.

Solution

Select the keyframe with the sound, and choose from the Effect menu.

Discussion

You can add envelope effects to your sounds in Flash by choosing from the Effect menu. First, select the keyframe to which you have applied the sound. Then, in the Property inspector locate the Effect menu, and choose the effect that you want to apply.

Flash offers you seven presets to choose from in the Effect menu:

None

This preset is the default value, and it plays both the right and left channels at 100% volume.

Left Channel

This preset plays the sound from the left channel only.

Right Channel

This preset plays the sound from the right channel only.

Fade Left to Right

This preset plays the sound such that it begins playing completely in the left channel, and ends playing completely in the right channel.

Fade Right to Left

This preset plays the sound such that it begins playing completely in the right channel, and ends playing completely in the left channel.

Fade In

This preset plays the sound such that it begins with the volume at zero, and it gradually fades in the sound until it reaches full volume by the time one-quarter of the sound has played.

Fade Out

This preset plays the sound such that it begins at full volume and plays at full volume for the first three-quarters of the duration of the sound. Then, over the last quarter, the volume gradually decreases until it reaches zero at the end of the sound.

Additionally, you can create a custom sound envelope effect by choosing the Custom option from the Effect menu, which will cause the Edit Envelope dialog box to display.

The top waveform represents the left channel, and the bottom waveform represents the right channel. You can use the mouse to grab and drag any existing envelope handles on either channel to adjust the volume. You can add more points (up to eight total) by clicking on the volume envelope line. You can also remove envelope handles by dragging them off of the waveform.

You may find that the envelope effects in Flash can be quite useful to you in many situations. For example, it is a great way to quickly add a basic fade to a sound. However, for more complex effects, you will need to use a third-party audio editor in order to add effects. For example, you cannot add distortion, pitch, or equalizer effects using the Flash envelope tool. And even though you could, theoretically, add a phase effect within Flash by creating a custom envelope in which the panning is shifted quickly from one channel to the other and back, over and over, the process would be tedious. You would be much better served to use a third-party editor that can process the entire sound and add a phase effect with a few clicks of the mouse.

Also, be aware that when you add an envelope effect to a sound in Flash, you are adding that effect to the instance only: other instances of that same sound will not have the same effect applied to them. And if you remove the instance to which you have applied the effect and then add the sound to the keyframe again, you will need to also reapply the effect.

See Also

One of the ways that the envelope effects can be employed most often in your Flash movies is to set in and out points for sounds. For more information on this topic, see Recipe 17.7.