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The Correct Way To Use Audio in After Effects 47 Comments

In this tutorial, I show you the proper way to import and interact with audio in After Effects. I show you how to convert your MP3s into AIFF files using Quicktime. I also, show you the proper way to do fades and cross dissolves using Plugins.

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47 Comments

  2. Daniel Nelson

    Great post as always, Nick!
    One more thing you can do that I find helpful is to hold down the command key (on a Mac) while scrubbing back and forth in the timeline. Doing this you´ll hear the sound as well. :)

    Reply

  3. Richard Cave

    Cheers Nick, On the videogame animation that i did i had that awfulfull glitch spent hours trying to resolve it, not realising that the mp3 was the problem.

    Dont feel an idiot know and a bit more confident,

    Thanks for sharing,

    Rich

    Reply

  4. Brian

    Nice little tidbit. But what about the new Quicktime X? Since They killed quicktime pro in Snow Leopard, the export options are for apple TV, iphone, and youtube. Kinda disappointed in that.

    Reply

  5. Nick A

    Good tips! thanks a lot. I was using the audio levels and always wondered why the fades were so fast.

    Quick side note: if you don’t have quicktime pro which I think is required to export AIFF. You can do it directly from itunes by rightclicking any song and selecting ‘create AIFF’ version. If the option is not available you can fix that by going to itunes>preferences>import settings.

    Reply

  6. CornFedCreative

    Yeah – you’ll run into these same problems if you use MP3s in Final Cut Pro and other NLEs.

    P.S. – Lowering/raising audio by 6 dBs (not 3dB) will lower or raise the volume by half (or double).

    Reply

    • fs

      sry guys but i jest read this and i had to correct u…it’s every 10 dB that the volume (loudness) is doubled

      (but every 6 dB the sound level is dobled)

      =)

      Reply

  7. wk

    Pop, click… problem solved! Thanks again man.

    I was hoping that you would get into scrubbing and time marking/syncing. But, based on the other posts, maybe I’m already doing this right. ;P

    Reply

  8. lool @ U

    Thank you very much for this useful meaningful blog….

    Reply

  9. Randy

    Awesome! Always had trouble with sound in AE. But not anymore! What is the name of the song you used during the video? Sounded prety sweet.

    Reply

  10. Karpathia

    Great tip !
    It seems the audio comes about 10s late when you do the previews in the tutorial, your voice is always flowing but the music from the file in AE comes about 10s after you press the button to preview it.

    Reply

  11. joanne

    Ah, you caught me red-handed. I’m guilty of using the levels that way… though I do do a prior edit in soundtrack pro first.
    Thanks for the lesson.

    random; have you covered a lesson about using the masks in after effects?

    Reply

  12. ITV teacher

    Great job nick. Just wanted to point out. if you have i-tunes setup to use aiff as exports you can right click and “create AIFF” and then show in finder…..Workflow thing! saves me time.

    Reply

  13. roboto

    hi nick!!

    thanx i didnt know it!

    im pretty new round here but have made me a cinema 4d user, before i was a maya user but i think cinema 4d is more my style, so thank you for your amazing lessons.

    there is something i was wondering, if you check my site you will se that im very into retro graphics and i use a lot of wireframe objects in after effects, but how i can do that in cinema 4d?

    this is my site http://www.myspace.com/shapelessportrait

    would be cool to have a tutorial about it

    and check this video, im sure taht is all made with cinema 4d, reminds me your lessons about sexy textures and cs tools

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWw9b-BNPE0

    enjoy it

    Reply

  14. John Stanowski

    I used to use mp3s in commercials all the time (that’s how the vo’s came) but I’ve only had click and pops once or twice. Other than that they worked fine. Can you tell us why we shouldn’t use them?

    Reply
    • The Gorilla

      thegorilla

      It may be less noticable with voice overs, but you WILL get pops when using MP3s. It’s just not good practice in AE.

      Reply

  16. Rickard Bengtsson

    What about wav?
    Anything’s basically better than mp3 but I’ve heard many people saying that wav is the best.

    Reply

  17. daya

    hi pal,

    I have a issue with audio in aftereffects CS3
    I used a widescreen square pixel comp(PAL) setting. And just dragged a audio(mp3) to comp window and set up a small animation with text then pressed ’0′ for RAM preview. it works perfect. But when I see the movie in final render the audio doesn’t sync with the animation.

    after saw this tip, I extracted the audio to aiff format from the .mov file(it was actually a show reel downloaded from internet) but I face the same problem :( help me on this, my personal showreel is struck up with this damn issue.

    PS : will offer gorilla a banana if it’s fixed ;)

    Reply

  18. Craig Wall

    Nick (or anyone)

    Good idea or bad idea to use unlicensed movie for a demo reel?

    Let me rephrase this…what is commonly done?

    Reply

  19. Devin Singleton

    Great post, really helpfull.

    Also I see you have quite a bit of the Roots in your music collection… Big fan?
    Probably one of the best live shows on the planet.

    Reply

  20. MW

    Thanks for the tips! My problems with aifs is getting them to preview before putting them in a comp – instead of opening in a qt-esque player just to listen to a file it keeps opening in a footage viewer window, which is no use. Anyone else had this and found a work around?

    Reply

  21. Lars EID

    damn, i had no idea mp3′s did that. thanks so much for the insight. *gonna go convert all of my projects sound files to AIFF now* ;)

    from student in training

    Reply

  22. Cris McRae

    You mentioned the lack of resolution in Ae for aligning an audio file, but how are you supposed to get precise placement. Are you suggesting using dynamic link to Soundbooth, if thats possible, or are you talking about trimming off fractions of a second in the front of an audio file and re-importing it into AE, back and forth until the alignment is right????????? That could be a lot of work.

    Reply
    • The Gorilla

      The Gorilla

      If your trying to match the beat, Just match the video as close as you can. Even if you fix one beat to be exact, chances are that the next one will be off. Just edit your track it a “real” audio program and bring it in AE for animation.

      Reply

  23. MarcyVF

    thanks. I think you might check your Screencap app’s audio settings or something, the music is delayed heavily. I don’t need to explain, I bet you know already.

    helpful stuff!

    Reply

  25. lonny

    Hey nice job on the tut.

    I have to jump in and make a suggestion though. Using AIFF’s is REALLY bad. There are lots of known problems with AE and aiffs, even in AE 5. I work in television and avoid AIFF’s like the plague. They nearly always cause synch problems

    I’d always recommend using WAV (16 or 24 bit) for audio, either OSX or Windows. Use Audacity to convert your audio. It’s free: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

    Anyway, great site keep it up.

    Reply

  26. aDupan

    thanks for the tutorial– it really helped me.. i was lost –a mute button who would know? also correct formats use did the trick.
    Thanks again.
    A.D.

    Reply

  27. Specimen 99

    Thanks, perfect tutorial. I knew there had to be a better way to do sound levels in AE.

    Reply

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