Lesson 1

Table of Contents

Viewing Waveforms on a Timeline

While we’ve made some comparisons to conventional DAWs, what does not seem familiar is the lack of any kind of timeline where the imported audio is displayed as a waveform. For that, Wwise has a unique layout designed just for working with music.

  1. From the menu bar, choose Layouts > Interactive Music or press F10.

    The Interactive Music layout appears.

    The striking difference about the Interactive Music layout is the presence of the Music Segment Editor in the lower right corner. Just like a DAW, this editor displays waveforms of any referenced audio files within a clip, which is positioned on a track. You can see the name of the audio file at the bottom of the clip, the track name displayed in the track header, while the Music Segment name is displayed at the top of the Music Segment Property Editor.

    When playing a Music Segment, you’ll see a yellow Play Cursor move across the timeline above the Music Segment Editor.

  2. Play the Explore-Theme Music Segment.

    Selecting a different Music Segment in the Project Explorer is similar to loading a different DAW project, in that a completely different timeline will be displayed.

  3. Choose and then play the Explore-Arpeggio Music Segment.

    Notice how the Music Segment Editor immediately reflects the change by displaying the waveform of the different audio file.

    It's possible to freely position the Play Cursor at any point in the timeline in order to quickly audition certain sections of a Music Segment. This is not the behavior that you would encounter when playing Sound SFX objects in the Actor-Mixer Hierarchy, which always play from the beginning. Simply drag the Play Cursor or click its desired location on the timeline and it will jump to that location.

  4. Practice moving the Play Cursor before playing from a desired position.

    You hear a sparse variation of the main theme with subtle arpeggios pulsing through the chord changes.


Was this page helpful?