The question of adding music came up on the Anime Studio Forum so I thought I'd briefly describe how I do it here.
In editing software I compile all the storyboard images to create an animatic. I also sometimes roughly animate the images in Anime Studio to give an idea of the action. After the dialogue tracks are added I often add music and effects to get a feel for how things are progressing. For the music I use Magix Music Maker. Magix has an excellent range of samples available but you can, of course, use any instrument samples. You can also use your MIDI keyboard for creating melodies and chords if you wish as within Music Maker is a full orchestra of authentic sounds available. Luckily Music Maker has a video window so I can load the animatic and build up a music track to match the visuals where I think music is required.
This is an early version of part of the animatic that I've added music to. I've since changed it a little to make it a bit more dramatic after a colleague made a few suggestions.
For dialogue I have each character recorded separately. I then load the track into an audio editor and select and save each line. This makes things much easier when animating as each line can be loaded into Anime Studio for Lip Synch. I give each character a track in the video editing software also.
That's it for now. Until next time....
All text and images (c) 2011 Dale Hemenway
