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Creating Dynamic Soundtracks
Using Chunks and Flash 5
Welcome to the second tutorial in our dynamic audio trilogy:
Creating Dynamic Soundtracks using Chunks and Macromedia Flash.
In the first tutorial, Creating
Dynamic Soundtracks using Layering and Macromedia Flash,
we showed you how to make your sound tracks more interesting
by layering and controlling individual instrument parts using
Flash and DoReMedia Sound Families™. Sound Family Layers
provide the "unmixed" instrument tracks necessary
to accomplish this. But layers are just one of three dimensions
of the Sound Family. The second dimension is Chunks.
What are Chunks?
Chunks are pre-mixed phrases taken out of a musical arrangement.
Chunks open a whole new world of possibilities for audio interactivity
in Flash. And in some ways, they are more powerful and easier
to work with than layers. Rather than individual instrument
parts, Chunks provided with DoReMedia Sound Families are the
most common song sections, such as the verse, chorus,
breakdown, intro, and outro. By shuffling the order and repetitions
of each chunk, you can easily tailor your own musical arrangement
to the timing and visuals of your Flash project.
Why Use Chunks?
Chunks can be implemented in a few different ways. They can
be implemented almost exactly the same way as layers, triggering
2 or more chunks on the same keyframe, and then using volume
envelopes to mute and unmute each piece of audio to create
musical dynamics. Or, Chunks can be used in conjunction with
a "sync track", provided with every Sound Family,
and inserted at various points across the timeline. Using
chunks frees you from the 8 part limitation of Layers, and
allows for more musical variation. Layers give you more permutations,
but less dynamic range. Think of it this way: Layers put together
make up a groove. Chunks put together make up a song.
As described in Tutorial
1, by using layers and volume envelopes, we can
avoid the need to force frame rates (see below). But Layers
can be limiting. You can only have up to 8 layers at a time
(muted or unmuted). You can only have up to 8 envelopes per
layer, which can become an limiting issue with longer or more
complex soundtracks. And layers can be difficult to modify
- if your movie structure changes, or you want to change the
arrangement of your layered soundtrack, you have to progressively
edit every layer's envelope many times. In these situations,
Chunks can save the day.
Chunks are like sound Legos. You simply "attach"
one clip to the next to construct your own musical arrangement.
The nice thing about chunks and Flash is that after you use
a chunk the first time, it's "free". The file is
stored in cache and can be re-used later in your movie without
increasing your file size. And you can associate specific
pages, scenes, buttons and user actions with specific chunks,
making your soundtrack truly interactive.
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