Audio Tracks in Timeline

Objective: Understanding audio tracks to create 3D sound!

What is an audio track? An audio track is similar the animation track or activation track except it only deals with audio sound files. You add an audio track via the plus button. It only deals with audio files.

Next, take your audio files and drop it onto the track.

You can play the audio at any point on the track by dragging it around the Timeline.

Another thing that is nice about having the audio track here is you can adjust how the audio comes in. Do you want it to start at full volume, or do you want the sound to fade out. You can achieve this by utilizing the ease in and ease out.

We can also adjust the speed of the audio as well. With the track selected you can adjust the Speed Multiplier. Keep in mind that the speed multiplier adjust the pitch as well as the speed.

You can also set the audio to loop in the inspector.

The inspector also has the option to adjust the volume manually. This way you can fine tune your audio so one sound doesn’t over power another.

The final cool thing is, currently this is set to None for audio source. So this is going to play equally in the left and right ear drum. If we apply an audio source we can make this a 3D sound. Create an empty object and drop it into the audio track. This will pop up an option, select “Create Audio Source”

Now in the inspector, set Spatial Blend to 1, making this a 3D sound.

Now when you play the sound it is really quiet. This is because in the scene view there is a little sphere, this is the distance at which the audio comes out. If you increase it you can adjust the length in which the audio plays. Now when you play the audio it is louder the closer it is to your objects.

This is how you can play with audio sources and have them in 3D. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your audio sources/audio tracks and I’ll see you in the next tutorial!