Applying the Transporter Sound

As visually interesting as we've made this effect, "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." That is, without the sound of the transporter the effect is somewhat lifeless. So, for this task we'll be adding the transporterbeam.wav sound file to the sound track, which will really bring this project to life.

Add the Transporter Noise to the Transporter Beam

Change to the Available Media view of the Media panel by clicking on the Available Media button.

Select the transporterbeam.wav sound file and drag and drop it onto the Audio 2 track on the Timeline.

Position the clip so that its tail end exactly lines up with the tail end of the still image clip.

Did You Know?

You can use sounds creatively for effect. You may have noticed that the transporterbeam sound file is quite a bit longer in duration than the transporterbeam video file that it's supposed to be associated with. The reason this works is because we want to hear the transporter working before we actually see it. We also want to continue to hear the transporter fading away, even after the visual image of the transporter is no longer on screen. Working with sound is an art in itself and the more you use it, the more you'll see that sometimes you want sounds to fade in or fade out at different times other than when you might intuitively or logically expect. It's not unusual for a film editor to let viewers hear a sound first before showing the visual, such as the sound of a train whistle at the end of a scene of two people talking indoors. It's not until the next scene that we see the train.