Sound in AE

infokill

infokill

Well-known member
Ok like always i have a really rookie question.
First working with sound in AE.
Problem: i dont hear anything. i imported a .wav and put it into the timeline but hear nothing when i hit play. same when i import a clip, i dont get the audio for it.
I know its something simple im over looking :/
Help
 
Ok i figured out i can only hear it when i do a preview, so my new question is how do i enable AE to play sound while im working on the timeline? like other NLE's?
Thanks!
 
hit the "0" on the numberic keypad to do a ram preview, or just the decimal point to do audio only.
 
Yup, a RAM preview is in order. But, with the sole real exception of Time Remapping which can yield neat results, I don't know why you would ever want to do anything audio related in AE. There's no real point.

One good thing is at least you are paying attention to sound. But, use a tool for its purpose, and AE is Photoshop for video. It's not Vegas, it's not Premiere, it's not Final Cut and so on. Leave the audio for video to appz that are more inclined that way, and start thinking of the same crafting of video you are striving for in AE with your Audio. Sound Forge, Audition, Pro Tools LE, Wave Lab are good places to begin.

Not knockin ya, it's just important to use the best tools for the job you can. Take a look at some dedicated audio editors, and you won't be dissapointed.
 
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Thanks for the help.
But what im trying to do is match my animation to the beat of the music, thats why i want to hear the sound while i set keyframes and such. kinda the way i edit to music in other nle's.
remember im still a rookie so if there is an easier way to do what im trying to do forgive my ignorance lol.
Thanks
 
infokill said:
Thanks for the help.
But what im trying to do is match my animation to the beat of the music, thats why i want to hear the sound while i set keyframes and such. kinda the way i edit to music in other nle's.
remember im still a rookie so if there is an easier way to do what im trying to do forgive my ignorance lol.
Thanks
Click to expand...


You can check out "Creating an Animated Volume Meter" from Creative Cow.com. That will show you how to integrate audio to trigger events, no extra plug ins needed. That is a good example of using some of AE's internals to animate with audio, and though you prolly don't want a volume meter, the basics can apply to anything, really.

Mostly it uses the "convert audio to keyframes" option under the keyframe assistant.
 
sound is the worst thing in AE.
once I have tryed to make a visual effect for a sound effect in a music video. it has taken ages, to position the effects right.
 
AE is not an audio program. Never has been. The first problem is you are limited to making changes at the frame rate of your composition. This is just not what AE was designed to do.

However, I have created many, many animations synched to audio. If you have an audio track in a composition, use the shortcut "LL", which will solo the audio waveform. Between a combination of the nuber keypad 0, RAM previews, and the ability to actually look at the waveform, you should have no trouble at all synching a comp to an audio track. If the default length of the audio preview isn't right for your project, you can change it in the prefs.
 
I think you'll also hear the sound while holding down Controlkey and scrubbing. Maybe it is helpful...

mfg

axn
 
^Thats actually what i want to do exactly! But holding down the controlkey and scrubbing didnt seem to work for me. any other way?
 
Nope no working for me :(
i hold the control key down and scrub on the timeline and hear nothing.

ALSO
To avoid another post, how do i speed up a clip in AE? i nested a comp i wanted into another comp but i want to speed it up a little. can i do that?

Thanks.
 
Menu - Layer - Time Stretch... if the Stretch column in the timline is hidden.

I don't understand that Controlkey doesn't work. Which version do you use?
 
Push the . key on your far right handside numeric keypad for playback in realtime if that helps.:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
I got the effect i wanted thanks everyone.
One more question though, when i convert audio to keyframes and try to copy and paste the keyframes to my scale properties i get and error saying "i can not paste from 1 dimension(s) to 3"
Dont know what that means?
and how can i paste it to my scale prop.?
Thanks again everyone.
 
is it a 3D layer? you might delete the Array in the script (if you use expressions (i think the best way)) in the second line.
 
^didnt understand what you just said lol. still a newbie.
but no its not a 3d layer and im not using expressions.
im using 6.5
 
The Scale-key is a fieldparameter which contains two values, width and height. The Slider-key contains only one value. You nedd an Expression to handle this.

Code: 
[thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Left Channel")("Slider"), thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Right Channel")("Slider")]
 
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