Similarly to Adobe Animate, although Adobe After Effects includes a few basic audio editing tools, it is best to edit and mix your soundtrack in a dedicated software such as Audacity and to later import finished audio file into your After Effects project. To refresh your memory on how to use Audacity, visit the Animate + Audacity: Adding Sound tutorial page. The only difference is you’ll want to set the Audio Positiondisplay to hh:mm:ss + NTSC drop frames(to reflect the 30fps rate of the After Effects project).
You can watch the finished example below and download the .aep as well as the Audacity and audio files here:
In this example, we will simply be adding an .mp3 file (edited in Audacity) to an existing After Effects project. The .aep file with no sound, and the .mp3 can be downloaded here.The three sound effects that comprise the soundtrack were downloaded on freesound.org. They are under Creative Commons. They can be used for free but their author should be credited:
- “cargoshipstarfleet.wav” by vumseplutten1709
- “sqeeeek_bell_ting2.wav” by “sqeeeek”
- “SFX Magic” by renatalmar
(I credited them in the description of the Vimeo upload as well).
Adding a sound file to an After Effects Project
- Open the After Effects project
- Go to File > Import > File… , select your edited/exported audio file (i.e: letThereBeLight.mp3) and make sure the “Create Composition” box is unchecked.
- Once you click Open, you’ll notice that the .mp3 file has been added to your Project panel
- Click and drag the mp3 file to the Timeline.
- If you press the Spacebar to preview your animation, you should hear the audio synched to your animation. The project is now ready to be exported to Quicktime (review steps on the Adobe After Effects: Rendering page)
