In today’s digital age, there are many interfaces that we use to communicate. From our computers to our mobile phones, these tools help us stay in touch with people from all over the world. For the most part, these tools are digital representations of audio.
In addition to helping us listen to sounds in the real world, these digital signals allow for recording sound and manipulating it in a way that was impossible before. Here is a guide on how to hear the audio in After Effects.
What is sound?
Sound is an oscillation that travels through the air. When you hear the sound, you hear something in your ear that creates vibrations. To hear the sound, you have to have something that produces a vibration in the shape of sound waves. This something is usually called an acoustic source (a speaker or microphone).
Sound waves are made up of three components: pitch, volume, and time. Pitch refers to the frequency at which a sound wave vibrates. Volume is how loud it is. Time describes how long it lasts before it dies out or stops vibrating altogether.
When you record audio using software like Adobe After Effects, these three components are recorded as well!
Types of Sound Files
The most common type of sound file is a WAV file. These files are uncompressed, and they can be easily edited with most audio editing software. They are great because they’re easy to work with and don’t require any special software to open them.
AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) files are compressed, but they can still be edited the same way that WAV files do. They have a bit higher quality than WAV files due to the compression, so you may want to use them if you need to edit a lot of sound files in After Effects.
MP3, OGG Vorbis, MPEG Layer-3, and AAC are more complex audio formats requiring additional software to work with. These formats may produce better results than WAV or AIFF when it comes to editing or compression.
FLAC and Apple Lossless are lossy compression formats that offer higher performance than other sound files. This means that these formats require less space on your computer drive for smaller sound files with better quality.
How to start hearing sound in After Effects
- Enable the audio interface in After Effects.
- Choose the Audio tab in After Effects to find your audio interface.
In order to hear any sound, you must have a speaker connected to your computer. This can be done by connecting a line-out cable directly from your computer’s speakers or plugging it into an amplifier or sound card input jack.
Mute and Un-Mute Audio
The first step to recording audio in After Effects is to mute the audio track. This will allow you to focus on what you’re doing with your video and ensure that the sound doesn’t get in your way.
To mute the audio, go to your Audio Track and click on Mute from the command palette. Once muted, click on the Record button at the top of this tab to start recording an audio track.
Change the Volume of Audio
After Effects is a program that can record, mix, and manipulate audio. While these features are very helpful, they also make it difficult to adjust the volume of recorded sound. Thankfully, there is a method to change the volume of registered sound in AfterEffects. Here’s how:
Start by opening up the project file that you want to work on. If you want to work on an audio-only project file, such as one for voiceover or narration, open up the “Audio Only” project file instead of the regular “Project” file.
Next, click File > Import > Audio From Disk and then double-click the file you want to add to your project from your hard drive. This will import the audio as a WAV file into your project so you can begin working with it.
Once you have imported an audio clip into your project, go to File > Project Settings > General tab and check off Enable Volume Control. This will give you access to an additional slider in the Timeline panel, which can be used for adjusting the volume of your audio clip over time.
If you would like to adjust just one part of a long audio track without changing its overall volume level over time, change its
In After Effects, you can hear audio files that are stored on your computer or imported from other sources.
