Add audio to the Time Editor

The Time Editor supports following audio file formats:

• .wav
• .aiff

Note:

• Maya does not support the .mp3 audio format.
• Playback speed must be set to Real-time or you are only able to hear sound while scrubbing, not during playback. To do this, right-click Maya's Time Slider and choose Real-time from the Playback Speed options.
• You can play multiple audio clips at the same time, but you cannot modulate the clip volume, weight, loop, or hold them.

To add audio files to the Time Editor

Select File > Import Audio Clip from the Time Editor menu bar to open a File Browser where you can locate an audio file to load into the Time Editor. An audio track is created.

You can also drag audio files into an empty area of the Track Editor Time View.

Zoom in to view the audio waveform of each clip.

Audio offsets in the Time Editor

You can use audio offsets to build a delay into your audio file. For example, suppose you created an animation of a bird walking a tightrope, and you wanted the sound file to play after the bird reached the end of the rope. If you knew that the bird reached the end of the tightrope at time 108, you would specify a sound file offset of 108 in the File menu Sound file offset field. See the Audio section in Import Options for more.

To offset an audio clip in the Time Editor

1. Import the audio by right-clicking the Volume icon () in the Time Slider Playback Options and selecting Import Audio clip to Time Editor. Each audio file becomes an audio clip in the Time Editor.
2. Position each file with the offset you want, or double-click the clip to access the Attribute Editor tab for it and change the Offset setting.