Preparing Audio Files

Anime Studio allows multiple sound files to be added to an animated sequence including separate sounds for sound effects, dialogue, and a background music track.

Several sound-editing software packages are available that can help you record and create the needed sound files. Two good options are Cool Edit and Sound Forge. When recording and mixing the soundtrack for the animation, be sure to check the starting and ending of the audio file because the ability to edit sounds in Anime Studio is limited.

Another aspect of the audio file to keep track of is where the final animation will be viewed. If the animation is intended for the Web, you’ll want to keep the size of the audio file down without losing any of its quality. The audio settings you use really depend on the type of sound you are using. Consider the following options:

• CD-Quality Music: To get CD-quality music, use a sampling rate of 44.1 KHz with 16-bit resolution and stereo. This will result in large files, about 10.3 MB for a minute.

• Standard Music: If you drop the sampling rate to 22.5 KHz with 16-bit resolution and a single mono channel, you can drop the file size to 2.5 MB for a minute.

• Sound Effects: For sound effects, you can keep the sampling rate at 22.5 KHz with 8-bit resolution in a mono channel to get the size down to 1.25 MB per minute.

• Voice: If you are dealing with only voice and quality is less important than size, then using a sampling rate of 11.25 KHz with 8-bit resolution in a mono channel results in a file size of 630 KB per minute.

If you have a video-editing package at your disposal such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, then you can select to simply export the Anime Studio animation without sound and use the video editor to add a soundtrack. Video editors offer more flexibility than Anime Studio for working with sound.