You can play short sound effects, musical clips and ambient or musical loops in your story. There are 4 important commands to know for this.
- To play a sound or music effect once, without looping, use the sound command with the sound’s identifier from the sidebar on your script page.
Sound/Music Once Syntax:
sound [identifier]
Example:
sound baby_crying
Helpful note: Multiple sounds can play at a time, so long as there is at least one line of dialogue or directing command between them.
- To make a music or sound effect loop, use the music command with the identifier.
Looping Music/Sound Effect Syntax:
music [identifier]
Example:
music ambient_birds
Helpful note: Only one looping sound can be playing at a time. If there are two music commands in a row, the later one will cancel out the previous.
- To stop the looping music, you have to insert a command into the script.
Stop Looping Music Syntax:
music off
- You may also need to cut sound effects short occasionally, though this will be more rare, since sound effects are already generally short on their own.
Stop Sound Effect Short Syntax:
sound off
*IMPORTANT*
- You must stop music with the music off command by the end of your story, otherwise it will play through the episode break and into the next episode.
- A sound cue will only work if it is followed by dialogue or direction. If you are inserting a sound/ music cue at the end of a chapter, you will need to either insert it before an action that is already in the script, or add @pause for a beat. This includes the music off cue.
CREATIVE NOTE
The “music” command is not strictly for music and the “sound” command is not strictly for sound. Short pieces of music coded in as "sound" can be used to transition smoothly between scenes, or introduce a character. These short pieces of music are called stingers.