Working With XACT Sound Banks

A sound bank is a collection of instructions about how and when to play sounds. The programmer invokes sounds by their cues, and does not need to know anything about the sound or sounds that a cue uses.

This section steps through the process of building a sound bank using the Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), which includes specifying the tracks that compose a sound, the events that compose tracks, and how to build cues from the sounds you define. For more information on the elements of sound banks, see XACT Concepts.

To build an XACT sound bank, complete the following steps:

• Create a Sound Bank
• Create Sounds
• Build Tracks
• Create Cues
• Edit Transitions

Create a Sound Bank

When you begin a new XACT project, there are no sound banks available. You must create each one you wish to use. You may create as many sound banks as you require.

To create a sound bank

1. Navigate to the Sound Banks menu and click New Sound Bank.

   The new sound bank is listed under the Sound Banks branch of the project tree, and the properties for the sound bank are shown in the property frame.

   Figure 1.  Creating a new sound bank using the menu toolbar

   

   This new sound bank has the default name "Sound Bank".

2. Select the new sound bank.

3. Press F2 and enter a more descriptive name for the sound bank. You can also rename the sound bank by changing the Name property of the sound bank in the properties frame.

Sound Bank Window

Double-click the sound bank in the project tree to open the Sound Bank window.

Figure 2.  Sound Bank window (with data assigned)

The Sound Bank window is divided into two halves, upper and lower, for sounds and cues, respectively. Each of these is further divided in half, right and left, to display the data associated with each (tracks that compose the sound and sounds associated to cues).

The upper left area is the sounds frame where the sounds defined in the sound bank are displayed. The upper right area is the tracks frame where the tracks that compose the selected sound are displayed. The lower left area is the cues frame where the cues defined in the sound bank are displayed. The lower right area is the associations frame where the sounds associated with the selected cue are displayed.

Sound Bank Properties

When the sound bank is selected in the project tree, its properties are displayed in the property frame, and may be changed. The following table describes the properties of a sound bank as they appear in the property frame.

Create Sounds

Once you have created a sound bank, it is empty and ready to construct sounds and associate them with cues. You may create as many sounds and cues in a sound bank as you need.

Before creating any sounds, however, you should first build your wave banks that will hold the wave files your sounds will use. Otherwise, the wave files your sounds need to reference will not be available when they need to be played.

To create a sound

1. Open the sound bank by double-clicking the sound bank in the project tree.

   If the sound bank is already open, select the sound bank window by clicking on its title bar.

2. On the Sound Banks menu, click New Sound. You can also create a new sound by pressing CTRL+D.

   Figure 3.  Creating a new sound bank using the menu toolbar

   

   This creates a sound with the default name "New Sound".

3. Select the new sound.

4. Press F2 and enter a more descriptive name for the sound. You can also rename a sound by changing the Name property of the sound in the properties frame.

Once you have followed this procedure, you'll have a sound, but it will have no content. The next step is to construct the sound, and its behavior, from a wave or multiple waves.

Sound Properties

The properties of a sound are displayed in three sections, for attach properties, mixer properties, and more general properties of the sound.

Build Tracks

A sound is composed of one or more tracks. Each track can contain a single "Play Wave" event, as well as any number of other events (such as markers and level settings). Each track of a sound plays only a single wave at any given time. For more complex sounds, you can create multiple tracks, each with its own "Play Wave" event (and again, each with as many other non-"Play Wave" events as you wish).

Because the Audio Console Application limits the number of concurrent streams coming from the hard drive to 50, no more than 50 tracks should be added to a sound.

To create a track

1. On the Sound Banks menu, click New Track. You can also create a new track by pressing CTRL+K.

   Figure 4.  Creating a new track using the menu toolbar

   

   This creates an empty track with the default name "Track N".

At this point, you have a track that is empty. You must now add events to the track, which will define what the track does. Each track may contain a single "Play Wave" event, and this will typically be the basis of all other events that are assigned to the track.

To add an event to the track

1. Right-click the track's entry in the tracks frame of the Sound Bank window.

   Figure 5.  Adding a new event to the track

   
2. Select one of the event types to add.
3. Set the event's properties in the property frame.

The events that are available, along with their properties, are described in XACT Events.

A "Play Wave" event may be created this way. To associate a wave file with the event, simply drag and drop a wave from a wave bank onto the "Play Wave" event.

Note    You may associate multiple waves to a single "Play Wave" event. Doing so introduces variations to the event. See the XACT Sound and Wave Variations section for more information.

In addition to the steps listed above, XACT provides two alternatives to using the menu to create "Play Wave" events.

To create a "Play Wave" event

1. Open the wave bank where the wave you wish to play resides.

2. Drag the icon for the wave file from the Wave Bank window to the track in the tracks frame of the Sound Bank window.

   This creates a "Play Wave" event that will play the dragged wave when the track is executed.

XACT also provides a drag-and-drop shortcut to create a track that contains a "Play Wave" event.

To create a track with a "Play Wave" event

1. Open the wave bank where the wave you wish to play resides.

2. Drag the icon for the wave file from the Wave Bank window to an empty space in the tracks frame of the Sound Bank window.

   This creates a track with a "Play Wave" event that will play the dragged wave. The track has the default name "Track N".

3. Add more events to the track as you require.

Create Cues

The cues are what the developer will invoke to play the sound.

To create a cue

1. On the Sound Banks menu, click New Cue. You can also create a new cue by pressing CTRL+U.

   Figure 6.  Creating a new cue using the menu toolbar

   

   This creates an empty cue with the default name "New Cue".

2. Select the new cue.

3. Press F2 and enter a more descriptive name for the cue. You can also rename a cue by changing the Name property of the cue in the properties frame.

To assign a sound to a cue

1. Select the sound in the sound frame (upper left).

2. Drag the selection to the associations frame (lower right).

XACT also provides some drag-and-drop shortcuts that combine creation and assignment of cues:

• Drag a sound from the sound frame into the cues frame (lower right), and the XACT will automatically create a cue associated with that sound. Make sure you drag it into an empty area, because this same drag action is used to replace the sound associated with an existing cue.
• Drag a wave from the wave bank into the cues frame. This creates both a sound that plays the wave and a cue that plays the sound.

Cue Properties

The following properties are available by default on a cue.

Edit Transitions

For cues that are interactive (see the Cue Properties section above), an Edit Transitions menu item is made available in the cue context menu. Right-click on the cue and select Edit Transitions to open the Interactive Audio window.

You may choose to view elements by source or by target, with source being the default. Selecting an item in the tree reveals a new set of properties in the property pane. These are the transition properties of the selected cue.

For more information on transitions, see the XACT Interactive Audio section.

See Also

XACT Audio Authoring, XACT Events, XACT Overviews, XACT Reference