Audio won't play in Animate

[wesleywalker]

I'm trying to import some audio into an Animate project on my MacBook Pro, but when it gets added to the project, it is represented by a flat line, and when I press play, there's only silence. I've imported it as a PCM wave file, an AIFF file, and an mp3 file, and none of them work. What should I do?

[mark@headTrix]

if its a flat line, it seems that the clip has no audio. Have you been able to play it elsewhere? Have you added audio in Animate before?

Thanks,

mark

[wesleywalker]

It's an audio clip that I worked on in Adobe Audition, and it works perfectly there.

[mark@headTrix]

ok. after you import it into the timeline, try moving the playhead down the timeline, lets say to frame 50 (you made need to add more frames to hear the full sound) and on frame 50 or so, press F5 or right-click> Insert Frame

Now your sound should play when you press enter or if you test your movie (Command>Return)

Hope that helps. If not, please send me the audio file.

thanks,
Mark

[n. tilcheff · Accepted solution]

Hi mate,

Before you feed an audio file to Animate, make sure it is 16-bit, 44kHz PCM.

Then it will work.

CBR MP3s work too.

[wesleywalker]

Apparently it's a 32-bit 44.1kHz PCMwav file. How do I change that?

[n. tilcheff]

In an audio application such as Audacity, Audition or other audio converter.

Go from 32-bit to 16-bit; 44.1kHz is what you need.

[Rubiana Choong]

thanks. you made my day!

[Rubiana Choong]

hi. i have done all the above steps, which is put the sound in the library, add a new layer, put sound in new layer, allow it to fade to right and also stream it. but it still cant play my sound. 

this is my problem
i place my sound in a graphic symbol.. and when i press enter > it has sound.. only no sound when i export movie or publish movie/window exe. can someone please help me with this?

thanks.

* but if i place the sound on the main timeline.... it works fine.

[n. tilcheff]

Sounds inside Graphic Symbols are for preview purposes only.

All sounds for video export have to be on the Main Timeline.

[Rubiana Choong]

thanks.... so even in movie clip also cant play?

[n. tilcheff]

Movie Clip is a different story. It will play, but you may face other complications, while exporting.

[AndOr26367]

Nick, my own audio file is WAV format and is both 16 bit and 44.1 kHz, which I've imported into an audio layer in Adobe Animate, but when I test the movie in a browser, the audio never plays unless I've got it on loop and I click somewhere on the playing movie itself in the browser. On second play, the audio kicks in. Is this just a feature of testing, and all will work fine hosted on a server? My end format: I've converted the Animate file to HTML5 Canvas and then imported into a Captivate course I'm building. The audio doesn't play there either on course export to HTML5, though the video aspects work fine. Should it play fine once hosted on a server? What else might be a problem? I've thought about attaching the audio to the imported animation once in Captivate, and do an interactive layer on top of the video (it's really just an intro an overlays will be used to display content in Captivate anyway as I need to be able to track those items with Captivate's Advanced Actions and variables.) Any info helps, as I'm not expert with sound files, I just play around with Audition or Audacity until something works. Thank you 🙂

[kglad]

with html5 you need user interaction (eg, a click) to start audio

[AndOr26367]

Thanks for the response. I've got an action to stop on frame one where there is a play button, so the animation doesn't just start if the viewer isn't ready. The audio is on slide two. The play button sends the viewer to slide two on; is that not enough to launch the video as it does the visual animation? Do I actively have to add an actionscript element that says play sound, then?

I found this on a search . . . this what I need? (Although I don't understand the Channel bit):

Sound.play(startTime:Number = 0, loops:int = 0, sndTransform:flash.media:SoundTransform = null):SoundChannel

------------edit-----------------

OK, code snippets in-app gave me the following, but it's referencing an external sound at a URL, whereas I've imported a sound into it's own layer (which plays fine in test mode); confused, so any addt'l help is appreciated (and any animate/as3 resources you recommend):

/* Click to Play/Stop Sound

Clicking on the symbol instance plays the specified sound.

Clicking on the symbol instance a second time stops the sound.

Instructions:

1. Replace "http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/sound/song1.mp3" below with the desired URL address of your sound file. Keep the quotation marks ("").

*/

button_1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, fl_ClickToPlayStopSound);

var fl_SC:SoundChannel;

//This variable keeps track of whether you want to play or stop the sound

var fl_ToPlay:Boolean = true;

function fl_ClickToPlayStopSound(evt:MouseEvent):void

{

if(fl_ToPlay)

{

var s:Sound = new Sound(new URLRequest("http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/sound/song1.mp3"));

fl_SC = s.play();

}

else

{

fl_SC.stop();

}

fl_ToPlay = !fl_ToPlay;

[kglad]

you don't need code to play sound, though that can be used, but not the code you showed which is actionscript 3 and not applicable to html5/canvas projects that use javascript code.

anyway, if your sound is attached to a layer in the main timeline and the sound starts on frame 2, a this.stop() on frame 1 with a button that directs the timeline to play will work (if the code is correct and the sound is attached correctly).  ie, copy and paste the code you used and copy and paste a screenshot of your main timeline showing, at least, the frames with the start and a bit more of your sound.

[AndOr26367]

Thank you @kglad . . . I appreciate the info. My other system that houses creative software is down, so I can only emil at present, but will get screenshots when I'm back up. So if I want to use js instead of  as3, do I place js code in the same window as I would the as? 

[kglad]

yes, you would use the actions panel for code in as3 and in canvas/html5

[AndOr26367]

This is what I have in the actions panel:

-------------------------------

this.stop();

this.button_1.addEventListener("click", fl_ClickToGoToAndPlayFromFrame.bind(this));

function fl_ClickToGoToAndPlayFromFrame()

{

this.gotoAndPlay(2);

}

this.stop();

--------------------------------

. . . and the action works as anticipated, except the sound doesn't play when I open the file in a browser.

Update: after a search on CoPilot, it brought to my attention the whole browsers blocking autoplay—which would affect me testing the animation in a browser. *Doh!* So I'm thinking that the interaction of the user clicking the play button will bypass that, but maybe is not giving the sound enough time to load as it starts immediately upon play (in the second frame with the visual action as well). If so CoPilot mentioned the need to possibly add a buffer at the start of the audio file, like .5 seconds (I'm assuming of 'silence' . . .  But not sure this would fix the problem?), or increase the preload time. There are so many factors using Audition to import sound files, edit, export for use in Animate, then export to work in HTML/JS for another import to Captivate and publish as a course. (ack *help!*) They're all Adobe apps at least, but man, is there an expert or Community on here that focuses on all of these to get audio to work appropriately? I'm looking into the Preload thing . . . thanks for pointers in any resource direction or definitive fixes!

[kglad]

users have to interact (eg, click) with your app.

[AndOr26367]

Yes, obviously. That's why I have them "click" a button. Visual movement happens, audio does not. Also after importing the animation into Captivate and publishing. Maybe I need to take this to a Captivate conversation . . .

[kglad]

if the sound is attached to a timelime, it must be sync's to stream

[AndOr26367]

OMG - that was it! And only after you wrote that did a synapse in my brain connect with a memory from like 25 years ago when using Flash and having the same problem. You'd think I would've remembered, as frustrated as I was back then. This was a total repeat. Thank you so much for the simple reminder / fix @kglad.
Sorry, Kglad - I was looking all over for the Mark this as Correct Answer . . . then I realized I'd responded in a string started by another which was already answered. *facepalm* . . . Anyway. Thank you so much for being willing to read my questions and respond despite this being another's answered thread (you genuinely wanted to be helpful not just rank up 😉  Made my day.

[kglad]

that was a pretty nice reply. and you're very welcome.