Playing a sound from a rule
The Sound verb: play, loop, stop — no track needed.
A click that clicks, a whoosh on a transition, a wind loop under a scene: these sounds are not tied to the playhead, they happen when something happens. For that you do not put the file on the timeline — you give a rule the Sound target. If you have not built a rule before, read Interactions first.
01Before you start
The sound has to be in the library. Drop the file onto the Files tab (mp3, wav, ogg or m4a). The ▶ button on its card plays it once, so you can check it is the right file — that is the same one-shot playback a rule uses.
02Building the rule
Select the layer that should trigger the sound, open Sentences in the right rail and click + Interaction, then Custom…. Keep the ⚡ Moment mood, choose the trigger — Click, Hover, On Sequence End, whatever fits — and pick Sound as the target. Its hint says it: plays or stops an audio file from Files, no timeline track needed.
The step that appears is Play sound, with four settings:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Play / Stop | Play starts the file now. Stop cuts every playing copy of that file |
| The sound | Which file from Files. If the list only says Import an audio file in Files first, the library has no audio yet |
| Gain | Volume, 0–2. 1 is the file as recorded. Hidden on Stop |
| Loop | Keep looping until a Stop step for the same file runs. Hidden on Stop |
That is the whole verb. Try it with the Try slider or enter play mode and click.
03How it behaves
- Sounds overlap. Each Play starts a fresh copy, so five quick clicks make five overlapping clicks — good for interface sounds, exactly what you want to avoid for a long loop (see below).
- Stop stops all of them. A Stop step for a file silences every copy of it that is playing, looping or not.
- The playhead has no say. A sound started by a rule keeps playing when the timeline pauses and does not scrub. If you need the sound to follow time, it belongs on the timeline as a clip — Audio clips on the timeline.
- Loaded once. The file is decoded the first time it is played and reused after that; the first play can be a hair late on a big file.
04Three patterns
A click sound. Trigger Click, target Sound, Play, pick the file, leave Loop off. Done.
An ambience that stops when you leave. On the layer you enter: Hover → Sound → Play with Loop on. A second rule, Hover End → Sound → Stop, same file. Because Stop cuts every copy, it does not matter if the hover fired twice.
A sound that ends the sequence. Trigger On Sequence End → Sound → Play. Add a Wait step before it if the sound should land a beat after the last frame.
05Sound from a rule and the analysis
A sound played this way is heard but not measured: the audio analysis that drives reactive visuals runs only while a timeline clip with Analyze on is playing or the microphone is live. If a clicked sound should also make the scene pulse, put the file on the timeline as a clip and play that from the rule with Sequence playback instead. See Timeline audio, microphone & analysis.