1 CREATE A NEW SOUND FILE
Start by launching Soundbooth and click the red Open Record Dialog icon at the bottom of the interface. In the Record dialog, select your method of input from the Device drop-down menu at the top. Enter “Voiceover” for the File Name and then click the Browse button to choose a location for your file. Next, click the red Start Recording button and speak into the microphone. When finished recording, click the Close button in the Record dialog.

2 INSERT VOICEOVER INTO MULTITRACK
There are a couple of ways you can incorporate your voiceover recording into a multitrack project. You could choose File>Save As to save the voiceover file, and then start a new multitrack project by choosing File>New>Multitrack File. Then simply import your voiceover file into the new multitrack project. But instead, let’s click the Tracks button and chose Insert Waveform into New Multitrack File. In this example, the voiceover was a mono recording. Had it been stereo, we could have chosen Insert Channels into New Multitrack File, which would have copied each channel of the source onto a separate track in the multitrack project.

3 INSERT OTHER SOUND FILES
Now that your voiceover is on its own track, go ahead and import some other sound files. Click the Open Files icon (it looks like a folder) at the top of the Files panel and navigate to a folder where you have some saved audio files. Select several files and click Open. Soundbooth will switch away from the multitrack project (it assumes you want to solo edit the last individual file you opened), so to return to your multitrack project, double-click its name on the File panel.

4 ADD FORGOTTEN FILES
You can now drag files from the Files panel to the Editor. Each file will appear as its own track. At this point, if you realized you had forgotten to import a file, you can simply drag it from your operating system’s file browser into the Editor. If you want the file to be added to an existing track, just drop it on that track. If you want the file to appear on its own track, drop it on an empty area below the other tracks.

5 SEQUENCE FILES IN TIME
To sequence the sound tracks in time, simply click-and-drag the tracks left and right in the Editor. Check your work by pressing the Play button at the bottom of the interface and also by dragging the playhead left and right. Keep repositioning the files until you’re happy with the sound.

6 ADD FADES
When you click on a track in the Editor, you’ll have access to interactive controls that allow you to add fades, adjust volume, adjust panning, and edit in/out points. To add fades, click-and-drag the square control points in the upper-left and upper-right corners of the track in the Editor. Drag up or down to control the curve of the fade.

7 ADJUST VOLUME AND PANNING
You can also adjust volume and panning via the interactive controls. For example, to adjust panning, scrub the circular control on the right. (To scrub it, point to it with your mouse, hold down the mouse button, and drag left or right, as if you’re trying to drag the circle out of the Editor.) You can also click inside the numerical text fields to type volume or panning values.

8 EDIT IN AND OUT POINTS
To edit a file’s in point, move your mouse cursor to the left edge of the track until the cursor changes to a bracket-like symbol. Then hold down the mouse button and drag right to crop away the beginning of the file. Drag left to add back the content that you cropped. You can edit the out point by dragging inward and outward from the file’s right edge.

9 GET IN CLOSE
If you need to zoom in to make close edits to a file in just one of the tracks, double-click it in the Editor to open it in its own Editor panel. When you’re done working on it, click the Back button to return to the multitrack project.

10 SAVE YOUR PROJECT
When you’re satisfied with your multitrack project, choose File>Save. We saved our file as an MP3, but notice all the other options, including FLV | F4V for use in Flash projects.

1 ADD A CUE POINT
With your audio file open in Soundbooth, click in the waveform to place the Current-Time Indicator where you want to add a cue point. From the menu, choose Edit>Marker>Set Flash Cue Point. You can also add a cue point by pressing Shift-8 (or the Asterisk * key) on the numeric keypad.

2 ADD & NAME ADDITIONAL CUE POINTS
To add additional cue points, repeat Step One. To give cue points descriptive names, click on the Markers tab on the left to reveal the Markers panel. Click on one of the marker symbols in the Timeline, then type a name in the Marker Details section of the panel. We named our cue points “show star” and “hide star.” You’ll see why once we get to Flash. Note: If you don’t see the Markers panel, choose Window>Markers from Soundbooth’s main menu.

3 SAVE AS QUICKTIME FILE
Now choose File>Save As and in the Save As dialog, pick QuickTime (MOV) as the file format. (FLV, Flash’s native video format, might seem like a better option, but choosing QuickTime will make it easier to import our cue points into Flash). Note: Soundbooth saved two files to your hard drive, the QuickTime file and an XML file that contains data about the cue points.

4 IMPORT ART; CONVERT IT TO SYMBOL
In Flash, import (File>Import>Import to Stage) an object that you would like to appear and then disappear based on the markers that you added in Soundbooth. In our example, we’re going to use a group of stars on their own layer above a colored background. Select your object, and choose Modify>Convert to Symbol. In the Convert to Symbol dialog, name your symbol “star,” choose Movie Clip for Type, and click OK. In the Property inspector, give the name “star” to the Instance of the symbol on the Stage.

CREDIT: ©ISTOCKPHOTO/ESAGI

5 IMPORT QUICKTIME FILE
Go to File>Import>Import Video and in the Import Video wizard, click the Choose button and select the QuickTime file you exported from Soundbooth. Click on the Continue button.

6 IMPORT VIDEO—DEPLOYMENT
In the wizard’s next dialog, choose Progressive Download from a Web Server (the most standard deployment method). What this means is that for the Flash movie to play back the audio, we’ll have to upload two files to the Web: the Flash movie (SWF file) and the FLV file that the wizard will create from our QuickTime movie. The wizard will place that FLV in the same folder as its source. Again, click on the Continue button.

7 IMPORT VIDEO—ENCODING
On the wizard’s next screen, click on the Cue Points tab, then click the folder icon (circled) and import the cue point XML file. Click the Continue button to yes, continue with the wizard.

8 IMPORT VIDEO—SKINNING
Choose None as the Skin type in the wizard’s next screen. Skins add playback controls to media, such as play and pause buttons. Because we just want our audio to play automatically, we have no need for skins. Click Continue, and then click Finish.
After the wizard is done, give the imported media an Instance name of “music” in the Property inspector and move it off the stage. Because it’s just audio, there’s no need for it to be seen.

9 ENTER CODE IN ACTIONSCRIPT
Our goal is to make the stars invisible by default and then we want them to appear when the music reaches the first cue point (“show star”) and vanish when it reaches the second cue point (“hide star”). In the Timeline, click the Insert Layer icon and rename the new layer “actions.” Select the first frame and choose Window>Actions to reveal the ActionScript editor. Here’s the code that we typed above. (Note: For more information on working with cue points via ActionScript, see the online Help for the FLVPlayback component.)

10 TEST YOUR MOVIE
Sure enough, when we tested our movie, the stars were invisible at first. Then, perfectly timed to the music, they appeared and disappeared—right on cue.