Taking Music from Adobe Soundbooth to Flash

CATEGORIES: Flash, Soundbooth, Tutorials | Marcus Geduld | March 10, 2009

Not only is it possible to add music to a Flash movie but it’s also possible to trigger events at certain points in the song. We’ll start in Adobe Soundbooth, add cue points there, and then import everything into Flash. The trick is to export the music in QuickTime format from Soundbooth and then allow Flash to covert it to an FLV file. Most people associate FLVs with video, but they can hold audio and cue points, too.

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.

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