written by: Cindy Swanson © 2001

As a neophyte to FLASH with a background in professional music, I was compelled to find out how sound was created and used in the medium. I was intrigued not only by the fact that with Flash you can make and publish your own movies, but that this includes making the soundtrack!
Many artists are attracted to Flash because it gives them a way to produce their own movies independently. However, for some that means their new role not only includes coming up with a concept, but developing all aspects of it - including sound.

As artists, we're trained visually, but not sonically, although many have a sensitivity that extends to other art forms. If you naturally have a great ear, or have some music training, it may not be a problem to balance the audio elements of your movie. Even so, it can't hurt to develop a greater awareness of sound. And if you can't carry a tune, not to worry. You might already be judicious about your sound effects and dialogue, and as far as filling your music library goes, there are plenty of sources. Online archives as well as real, live composers who would love to write and record original works for your production.

On the Internet as well as anywhere else, music styles are most often a matter of personal taste. More universal, however, is the fact that some sounds are just plain annoying: the same short clip of music looping endlessly while a movie is buffering (on a slow computer, which, let's face it, most folks have) or sound effects that suddenly blast out at a much higher volume above muffled dialog.

While surfing the web for Flash cartoons (with the help of AWN's WEBGUIDE) I've found that sound design ranges from shabby to ultra-professional. Some use voice acting or music only; others combine it with sound effects and/or music.. There is no one-way to do this, which means there is still a door wide open to originality. The music itself ranges from electronic to "real" instruments; original theme songs to old stock movie music to contemporary composers who quote well-known songs. A great many of the Flash offerings out there are inconsistent in terms of sound balance. Many have really nice sound effects, but some are paired with dialog that sounds either muffled or tinny, and others are louder than they need to be in comparison to the backgrounds, dialogue or music. This is still a young medium, though, so on with the experimentation! Hopefully, the technology will continue to improve and set us free from (among other things,) our audio limitations.

So, how is sound captured, saved and used on the web?
According to James Dalby, Senior Animator at ideaRAGE, an interactive entertainment company which recently came home with the 'Best of Show" award at the Internet World Wireless Convention in NewYork, "There are many ways of doing it, depending on if it's vocal audio or music." The process begins with voice actors reading the script and recording the dialog. The audio program of choice at ideaRAGE is LogicAudio, along with ProTools. James, who has also held a position as Senior Animator at AtomFilms, has used Q-Base as well. The next step is running the audio effects. ".maybe you want to give them that 'Darth Vader' [effect]. once that's all complete, we save our files to the highest quality there is-- 44khz, with 16 bit audio --and we save that as a WAV file, or if you're on a Mac you save it as an AIF file.
" And what about MP3 files? Do they come into play here? "
Flash uses the MP3 compression to reduce the file size immensely. And you can notice that. If you've ever used Flash 3, when they didn't have MP3 compression, and then used Flash 4, there was probably a 700k or more file size difference. If you ever want to use an MP3 file in your Flash product, you just have to go online and download software that converts MP3 to either a WAV or an AIF file. It's really simple. In fact, a lot of the independent Flash sites use it." (Flash accepts WAV or AIF files, and compresses it again when it exports.) "There are various archives of sound effects online, if you can't afford to buy a CD, but you'll have varying quality; you may not know what you're getting. If you know how to make your own sound effects and record them well, that's probably best.
" And burn them onto a CD? "
yes, you can if you want to for storage, or you can also have 'em nested on your hard drive.
" Sounds can be recorded directly onto the hard drive with the sound recorder utility that comes standard in most computers. And if you want to achieve a more professional studio effect? ".
then use the more expensive programs, like QuickTime's Pro Player or Q-Base" which can read and convert files. Note: another type of file, the MIDI, is also available. However, since it is of a mathematical nature (like vector images), it only contains synthesized sounds instead of audio. As such, MIDI is left to the mercy of the quality of the soundcard on a listener's computer.

So now, in re-tracing our steps, we've got voices/sound effects/music in some form: an MP3 file from an online source, a CD, an original recording (possibly mixed and edited with a program like ProTools or AudioLogic) done in either a studio or directly onto your hard drive. These options range from free to expensive; from do-it-yourself to investing in higher-quality recording hardware, digital audio editing software, studio time, or the services of composers, musicians and voice artists. Next, if they're not already a WAV or AIF file, they get converted by downloadable software, some of which is free or low cost. Now, they can be imported into your sound library in Flash.

But wait! There's more!

File size is an important issue for the web, and since the compression of files lowers their overall quality along with the file size, some fine-tuning is required. It's something like a J-PEG becoming grainier with each squeeze. Dalby continues: "Sound is very important. It's what takes up most of the file size. If you send the audio file into Flash-- the full, decked-out 44khz with 16-bit audio -you can set the amount of compression that will happen in the actual Flash file itself.. and you can play with varying degrees of compression." In addition to setting voices and sound effects at different rates of compression, you can make the most of your sound quality while considering your file size by "budget[ing] yourself when creating sound.try some loops.. if you use a full orchestra, expect a larger file size." Having the entire dialog on one single sound file (layer) can also reduce the file size. Doing sounds by layer "..can actually help you visually, [to]see what's going on in the timeline. I usually keep the music in the top layer, the dialogue in the second layer, and any sound effects after that." It's also "OK to drag a sound to an empty frame on any layer, as long as it hits the mark." Speaking of hitting the mark, another thing to consider is whether a sound is an Event ("like a helicopter flying by, which happens in the background"), or a Stream ("like footsteps", which must be synchronized). Also, as I (the writer) learned in my first Flash class at the Webisode Academy, streaming sounds don't require a full download before they start playing, but event sounds do. Yet another item is whether your sound is in Stereo or Mono, and of course, Mono is a smaller file size.

Exactly what size should the file be, then?
For portfolio presentations on CD, James recommends going with the best quality, since file-size wouldn't be a concern. For webisodes, the file size depends on how long they are. (Keep in mind that once sound is applied, it's combined with the other elements of Flash to form one file, not a separate one from the animation, so the file sizes mentioned in the following refer to the whole enchilada unless otherwise specified) One episode Dalby worked on when he was at AtomFilms was 4 minutes long and just under 2MB, which is large because it ".has lots of audio and lots of sound effects and lots of dialogue. But if you take all the audio out, it's only about 700k." Another episode was only a minute long, but 700k for the whole thing, including sound. " If it's really short, and doesn't involve a lot of extravagant artwork, it should be close to 500k [up] to a megabyte. But if it's short, has a lot of detailed animation and sound, it's going to naturally start peaking up above a megabyte and maybe 1.5. And if you actually go through and do the long 4-, 5-, 6-minute presentation with full audio and full sound, you could reach up to 3 or 4mb." At this point, " It's best just to tell your audience 'This is going to take a while to load, and here's a little game to play while your waiting'.it's good to keep 'em intrigued."

Among the most helpful resources I've come across in finding digital audio editing tools was CNET.com's Music Center. (http://music.cnet.com) under "Creating Music". There was a listing of shareware and freeware for converting sound files, as well as step-by-step instructions and reviews of the products. I found that www.sonicfoundry.com and www.cakewalk.com were interesting, too. At Digital Hymnal, there is a glossary of electronic music terms such as "MIDI" and "sample". A couple of interesting websites to find music are www.freelibrary.com, and www.partnersinrhyme.com, which has among other things, loop collections designed especially for Flash animators. A recent article from OnMagazine entitled "Where To Find Legal Music Online" lists and reviews several online sources. Typing in "musician referrals" and "composers for hire" also yielded some interesting results.

About Copyrights and catches:
Be sure to look for words like "Royalty Free". Some sites advertise free music and sounds, but there is actually a price. you advertise for them by displaying their banner or installing their button on your website. Also, CD's with royalty-free sounds are available in stores, but again, there are strings attached. My new $10 clearance-shelf acquisition requires me to use no more than 150 of its 6000 sounds in one of my works. The company also wants to be listed in the credits. So it's a good idea to read the fine print! One web designer was actually listed on a music software website for copyright infringement. Ouch! See the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998. Another helpful site for research on this subject is Musician's Intellectual Law and Resources Links. There are links to musician's websites from there as well.

There are also quite a few books out there about web design, but few of them have much to say about audio. Those that do address it at all seem to agree that the best way to avoid copyright issues is to record your own sound. They also generally recommend importing lower sample rates for voices (8khz) than for sound effects (8-11.025khz); and more for music(22khz), with a lower bit depth (8-bit). Some books also offer their own suggestions about websites for free audio download, although they're not 100% current. One of the best suggestions that still works is to try Music + Flash. Two books that discuss audio in more depth than average are: Web Design In A Nutshell, by Jennifer Niederst (O'Reilly, USA 1999) and The Complete Reference: Web Design, by Thomas a Powell ( Osborne/ McGraw-Hill, 2000) Another that had a shorter audio chapter, but specific-to-Flash instructions was Flash 5 Virtual Classroom by Doug Sahlin (Osborne/McGraw-Hill). I didn't see any books coming from the other direction: Audio design for the Web.

As for the future of music and sound on the web, I look forward to its evolution as technology improves and content becomes more sophisticated. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to share some of the results of my search with you. I hope this article provides a good starting point (or a worthwhile stop along the way) in the addition of sound to your visual creations. Happy experimenting and good luck on all of your endeavors!

Cindy Swanson is a professional musician and music instructor. She is beginning her way into another passion of hers, the craft of animation.