MetaSound Audio Containers Template

Overview

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The Audio Containers Template improves the production speed and the user experience of MS graphs. The containerization logic helps you transition from other sound engines and offers a fast learning curve.

It works by using new UE 5.8 features and a diamond-shaped procedural node placement.

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Installation

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The MetaSound Audio Containers Template is part of the Unreal Tech Audio Toolkit plugin, so follow the installation instructions here.

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Quick Start

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Create a new MetaSound graph. Select the “Template” drop-down and click on “Audio Containers”. This will open the “MetaSound” tab and show the Root Container.

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You can now start your implementation logic using the different containers. When you select a container class, an arrow will appear on the left to drop-down the container properties.

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These are the following:

• Wave Group Container: It plays a wave file from an array. By default, it randomly selects the asset, but it can be set to shuffle. If a stereo file is put inside a wave group container, it will set the whole graph to a stereo format. You can set it to loop, and to start from a random time.

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• Audio Container Crossfade: It applies a crossfade transition between different containers. You can change the name of the parameter with the “Crossfade Parameter Name” variable. This name is used when interacting with Blueprints. You can also apply a smoothing time, which will avoid jumps when modifying your parameter.

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• Audio Container Parallel: It simply plays all child containers at the same time.

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• Audio Container Random: This container uses the same selection logic as the Wave Group Container, but differentiates itself by randomizing containers instead of wave files.

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• Audio Container Sequence: It plays the first container, waits for it to finish, then starts the next one, and so on. Only the last child of a Sequence container can loop.

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• Audio Container Switch: It uses an int parameter to select a container. You can change the name of the parameter with the “Switch Parameter Name” variable. This name is used when interacting with Blueprints.

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Each container also has a “Modifier” category, which can apply playback, volume, pitch, and lowpass randomization effects.

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Going further

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UX features

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The Audio Containers Template inherits from Unreal Engine’s native user interface. This can bring readability issues when embedding lots of different containers.

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Nevertheless, it also comes with useful possibilities, such as native copy/paste and undo functionalities. Whenever you realize you need to apply a container on top of everything you have already made, you can avoid re-doing your entire template by copy/pasting your root container. First, save the MS file, copy your highest-level container, and change it for the new one. Then, inside the children of the new container, paste, and you should have your old root container data inside the new one.

Note: the shortcut for copy/pasting the container data is not Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V, but Shift+RMB / Shift+LMB.

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If the manipulation fails, you can always undo it until your old container comes back. This copy/paste feature is also interesting if you want to store a template configuration inside a blank MS file and reuse it for future needs.

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MS templates can also be converted to a full editable graph. To do so, select the “Template” drop-down and click on “Convert from ‘AudioContainers’… “. This will erase your container's data, so do a backup if necessary. You will start your graph from the nodes placed by the template. While editing a template, you can show/hide the graph with the top-right button of the header.

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Changelog

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1.0 - Initial version

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