Hands-On: Flash MX 2004 Working with Sound File

Exercise 20: Creating Sound Loops

Creating Looping sounds requires another program such as Sonic Foundry, or Acid Pro, but Flash MX 2004 does have some ability to edit sound loops placed on the Timeline. You can determine how much time a sound loop plays from once to forever as well. Background music might be nice on a site, but some of your visitors might not like the idea of not being able to turn off the music with a button.

1. Create a new Flash file to work with sound loops, name it soundloops.fla.
2. Click the File menu > Import to Library > Import to Stage, or Open External Library.
3. If you choose to Open External Library, add the looping sound to this document by dragging the sound file to the Stage.
4. Click [Control] + [F3] to open the Properties Inspector panel or use the expand arrow on the panel.
5. Select the keyframe containing the sound you want to loop, in this case that will be the only Frame on the Timeline.
6. Click the Down Arrow on the Sound: popup and select the file you Imported to the Stage.
7. Click the popup to select Repeat if it is not already showing.
8. Enter the number of times you want the sound to loop (up to 9,999, that I doubt seriously that anyone would remain on any given Web page that long).
   
   
9. If you change the Loop option popup and set it to Loop you will force the sound into an infinite loop.
10. Save your file, we’ll come back to it again in another exercise.

Note: the effects applied (including Sync and Looping) will only modify the selected audio file. Each copy of an audio file dragged into a Flash movie is controlled independently.