For Beginner

Info:
VirtualDJ is the hottest AUDIO and VIDEO mixing software, targeting DJs from the bedroom, mobile, and professional superstars like Carl Cox.
With VirtualDJs breakthrough BeatLock engine, songs will always stay in beat, and the DJ works their mixes incredibly faster than they ever could.

The automatic seamless loop engine and synchronized sampler lets the DJ perform astounding remixes live, with no preparation at all. The visual representation and the cues allow a DJ to clearly see the song structure, and never be surprised by a break. The vinyl controls will let you scratch like on a real turntable, except that with the beatlock engine your scratches will never end out of the beat.

Add to that the infinite number of cue points a DJ can save for each song and large collection of wonderful automatically beat-synchronized effects.

And with VirtualDJs large collection of skin interfaces to suit everybody from the beginner to the professional DJ, the possibility to record the DJs mix to then burn to CDs, to broadcasting on the Internet and/or the DJs own radio station, to use headphones to preview the song, or use an external mixer to perform in a club; VirtualDJ is a DJs ULTIMATE mix software.

Lastly, enter the new era of DJs mixing video enhanced songs (DVD, DivX, MPEG...) which can be sent to monitors, TVs, a projector for display on a giant screen.


VirtualDJ brings all that and more to the DJ in the most easy-to-use way and at the most affordable price for the ULTIMATE DJ MIX EXPERIENCE Read more

Features:
up to 99 independent zero-latency players with:
Standard controls (play, pause, stop, cue)
Pitch control with Master Tempo (from -100% to +100%)
3 band equalizer High, Mid, and Low with Kill and +/-30db gain
Independant key control
Resonant filter
One-click beat matching and synchronization (FAME algorithm)
BeatLock engine for keeping songs in-sync and in-time
Dynamic beat-matching visualizer
Automatic beat-matched crossfading
Automatic BPM and KEY calculation
Automatic pitch matching
Automatic audio gain matching
Real scratch simulation
Automatic seamless and beat-aware LOOP functionality
Synchronized sampler with 12 instant record and playback slots
Time-Stretch and Master Tempo Pitch algorithms
Automatic first beat and last beat detection
Automatic 4/4 phase detection
Infinite number of cue points per song saved for instant recall each time the song is loaded
Beat-aware effect plugins (included: beatgrid, flippin doubles, vocal remover, frequency filter, flanger, backspin, brake, etc...)
VST effects compatibility (PC version Only)
Video mix with windowed or FULL SCREEN TV output using 2nd video output
Karaoke CDG+MP3 and/or ZIP support
FreeFrame and custom video effects
Infinite number of video effects applied simultaneously
DJ-specific video transition plugins
Song database engine with easy-to-use search feature
CoverFlow or text-only song browsing
Compatible with iTunes playlists (iTunes DRM files not supported)
MP3 ID3 Tag compatibility
User-defined automatic filter folders
Automatic Hot-Swap of external hard drives
Ready-to-burn recording of a DJs mix to CD
Broadcast on the Internet
CD to MP3 encoder
Multi-channel sound card, dual-sound card or Y-splitter output for real-time monitoring or external mixer use
ASIO soundcard compatibility
CoreAudio soundcard compatibility
Fully customizable skin engine and shortcut macro engine
VDJScript: powerful macro language used in skins, shortcuts, or controller mapping
Compatibility and customizable mapping with most external MIDI and HID controllers (more than 80 included, many more downloadable)
Optional automatic playlist mixing: VirtualDJ recognizes the style of the music (techno, hip hop, lounge) and adapts the mix accordingly
ContentUnlimited: search and play any song from our subscription plans with more than 15 million audio tracks, thousands of high quality video and karaoke files

LiveFeedback: get live recommendations based on what you play and the feedback from millions of other DJs around the world

System requirements:
MINIMUM system requirements:
Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ XP
1024x768 resolution
DirectX compatible soundcard
512MB RAM
50MB free on the hard drive
RECOMENDED system requirements:
Intel® Core™ 2 or AMD Athlon™ X2
Microsoft® Windows 7 Professional (or newer)
1280x1024 resolution (or higher)
Multi-channel DirectX compatible soundcard
1024MB RAM
200MB free on the hard drive
Additional requirements for Video mixing:
2048MB (2GB) RAM
ATI™ or NVIDIA® video card w/256MB of Dedicated DDR3 RAM
Video card must support dual-screen output
Supported Operating System:
MINIMUM: Microsoft® Windows XP SP3 or newer
RECOMMENDED: Microsoft® Windows 7 Professional 32-bit
Microsoft® Windows 95, 98, ME, or older are not supported
Screen Shots: Click on the image to view large screen

Exercise Files:
Sound.fla
CheerfulSong.mp3

In this lesson, were going to learn how to control sound in Flash using ActionScript 3. Were going to learn:

• how to load an external sound file into a Flash movie
• how to play and stop the sound
• how to detect when the sound clip has reached the end

Exercise files accompany this article - we have a Flash document named Sound.fla and an mp3 document named CheerfulSong.mp3. Please make sure to save them both inside the same folder. In the first part of this tutorial, well learn how to load CheerfulSong.mp3 into our Flash movie using ActionScript. Instead of importing CheerfulSong.mp3 into Sound.flas library, both files will remain separate from each other, but we will use ActionScript so that we will be able to play the sound from within the Flash movie.

Lets begin.

Loading and Controlling an External Sound File

How do you control sound using ActionScript 3?
To control sound in your Flash movie using code, create a Sound object using the the AS3 Sound class to control the sound .

A Sound object can be used to do the ff:

• load an external sound file into a Flash movie
• start the playback of that loaded sound file

STEP 1

Open the Sound.fla file. Youll see that there are two buttons on the stage - play_btn and stop_btn. But lets ignore those buttons for now. First, lets write some code that will load and play the sound right away. Select frame 1 of the Actions layer, then go to the Actions Panel and type in the following lines:

var mySound:Sound = new Sound();
var myURL:URLRequest = new URLRequest("CheerfulSong.mp3");

The first line (var mySound:Sound = new Sound();) creates an instance of the Sound class. Ive named it mySound. We will use this to load and play the external sound file named CheerfulSong.mp3.

The second line (var myURL:URLRequest = new URLRequest("CheerfulSong.mp3");) creates a URLRequest object. This is used to specify the path to the external file that we want to load.

STEP 2

So now that weve created those two objects, we can now load the external sound file. Use the load() method of the Sound class and pass to it the URLRequest object:


So in our example, we would write:


This instructs our mySound object to load the file specified in myURL (which is CheerfulSong.mp3). So go back to the code and add the following line highlighted in bold:

var mySound:Sound = new Sound();
var myURL:URLRequest = new URLRequest("CheerfulSong.mp3");

mySound.load(myURL);

STEP 3

If you test the movie at this point, you wont hear the sound just yet. Thats because we just told Flash to load the sound. We havent given the instruction to start playing the sound yet. To make the sound start playing, we use the play() method of the Sound class:

var mySound:Sound = new Sound();
var myURL:URLRequest = new URLRequest("CheerfulSong.mp3");

mySound.load(myURL);
mySound.play();

So if you test the movie now, you should hear the sound playing.

The play() method of the Sound class has 2 optional parameters:

1. startTime - this lets you specify the point (in milliseconds) where the sound playback should start
2. loops - this lets you specify how many times the sound should repeat playback

For example, lets pass values to these 2 parameters like so:


The first value refers to the startTime parameter. Here, weve specified a value of 25000 milliseconds (or 25 seconds). This means that when the sound begins playing, it will start playing at the sounds 25-second mark, instead of starting at the beginning. So it will skip the first 24 seconds of the song when the playback starts.

The second value refers to the loops parameter. Weve specified a value of 2. This means that the sound will play 2 times. When it plays the first time and then reaches the end, it will loop back to the startTime and play one more time.

Test the movie in order to verify, and then change the play statement back to mySound.play(); (without any parameters), and lets continue.

STEP 4

If we want the sound to play only after the play button (named play_btn) has been clicked, then well have to create a mouse click event listener for the play button, and well transfer the play sound statement inside that event listener:

var mySound:Sound = new Sound();
var myURL:URLRequest = new URLRequest("CheerfulSong.mp3");

mySound.load(myURL);
// Make sure that you remove the play sound statement
// that was here, and transfer it into the mouse click
// event listener function

play_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playSound);

function playSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySound.play();
}

Here, weve created a mouse click event listener function named playSound, and weve transferred the mySound.play() statement into that event listener function. So now, when we test the movie, the sound is only going to play when the play button is clicked.

STEP 5

So now that we can play the sound, how do we stop it?
You can NOT stop the sound using the Sound class (e.g. Sound.stop() will not work). Another class is used for that - the SoundChannel class - which has a stop() method that will let you stop a sounds playback.

Lets go ahead and create an instance of the SoundChannel class. Im going to name it mySoundChannel.

var mySound:Sound = new Sound();
var myURL:URLRequest = new URLRequest("CheerfulSong.mp3");
var mySoundChannel:SoundChannel = new SoundChannel();

mySound.load(myURL);

We now have a SoundChannel object named mySoundChannel.

STEP 6

Think of the SoundChannel as the object that houses or contains your sound. In order to place a sound inside a SoundChannel, you assign the play sound statement to a SoundChannel like so:


So in our example, we would write:


This assigns mySound.play() to mySoundChannel, so that the sound is going to play inside mySoundChannel. Lets go ahead and assign mySound.play() to mySoundChannel in our code:

var mySound:Sound = new Sound();
var myURL:URLRequest = new URLRequest("CheerfulSong.mp3");
var mySoundChannel:SoundChannel = new SoundChannel();

mySound.load(myURL);

play_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playSound);

function playSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySoundChannel = mySound.play();
}

STEP 7

So weve now assigned our sound to a channel. In order to stop the sound, then well have to stop the SoundChannel that contains the sound. We will use the stop() method of the SoundChannel class like so:


This will stop whatever sound that is playing inside the mySoundChannel object.

Lets put this stop statement inside a mouse click event handler for the stop button (stop_btn) so that our sound will stop playing when the user clicks on the stop button:

play_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playSound);
stop_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, stopSound);

function playSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySoundChannel = mySound.play();
}

function stopSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySoundChannel.stop();
}

Here, weve created a mouse click event listener function named stopSound() for the stop button. This event listener function contains the mySoundChannel.stop(); statement. So now, the user can click on the stop button in order to stop the sounds playback.


And that concludes the first part of this tutorial. But dont close your Sound.fla document just yet. In the next part, well learn how to write some code that will enable Flash to detect when the sound has reached the end. This is useful if you want your Flash movie to do something once a sound clip has completed playback.

Detecting when a Sound has Reached the End

In some cases, you might want to enable Flash to detect when a sound clip has reached the end. Lets say, for example, you have a song thats playing in the background, and youd like Flash to display an image or a message only when the song has completed playing. To be able to detect when a sound file has reached the end, you can use the Event.SOUND_COMPLETE event of the SoundChannel class. This event gets dispatched once a sound file completes playback.

STEP 1

Lets go ahead and add an Event.SOUND_COMPLETE listener to our code. Im first going to create the event listener function, which I will name endOfSound.

function playSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySoundChannel = mySound.play();
}

function stopSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySoundChannel.stop();
}

function endOfSound(e:Event):void
{
     trace("Sound playback is complete.")
}

Here, we have an event listener function named endOfSound. When this function gets called, its going to trace a message to the Output window.

STEP 2

Now that we have this event listener function, we then need to add the event listener to our SoundChannel object. When youre adding an Event.SOUND_COMPLETE listener, the event listener must only be added AFTER the line where the play sound statement has been assigned to the SoundChannel (i.e. after the SoundChannel = Sound.play() statement). In our example, this line would be:


And in our code, this line can be found inside the playSound event listener function. So we must add the event listener for Event.SOUND_COMPLETE right AFTER that line:

function playSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySoundChannel = mySound.play();
     mySoundChannel.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, endOfSound);
}

function stopSound(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     mySoundChannel.stop();
}

function endOfSound(e:Event):void
{
     trace("Sound playback is complete.")
}

Now that the event listener has been added, Flash can now detect when the sound has reached the end. If you test the movie now and play the song, the trace statement will output the message once the song reaches the end. So whatever other instructions youd like to tell Flash to do once the song has reached the end (e.g. play another song, stop the animation, go to the next frame, display an image) should be placed inside the Event.SOUND_COMPLETE event listener function.

Lastly, lets learn how to stop playing multiple sound clips all at once.

Stopping All Sounds at Once

In our example, were only playing one sound file. But what if you have multiple sound clips playing all at the same time and youd like to stop all of them at once? You can do that by using the stopAll() method of the SoundMixer class. In the example below, we have some code that stops all the sound clips that are currently playing, when a button is clicked:

// Assume that stopAll_btn is a button 
// that already exists on the stage
stopAll_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, beQuiet);

function beQuiet(e:MouseEvent):void
{
     SoundMixer.stopAll();
}

Here, weve created a mouse click event handler that will enable the user to stop all sound clips that are currently playing by clicking on the button.

And those are the basics of how you can use the AS3 Sound class and the AS3 SoundChannel class in order to work with sound in Flash. And with that, this tutorial is now concluded.