How the hell do you add sound to your Cinema 4D project? The documentation doesn’t help and any online search for answers keeps bringing up sound effectors and MoGraph or 3D sound rendering. But what do you do if you simply want soundtrack-style audio in your project so you can sync up your animation to it? I went nuts looking for the answer.

1. You need to add a Loudspeaker object to your scene. Choose Objects Menu/Sound/Loudspeaker. A 3d speaker will appear in the center of your world.

2. The sound file must be a wav file (I think). And the sound file can not be higher than 44.1Hz. If you add a 48Hz file C4D will just ignore it, won’t play it and make you scratch your head. Use a sound program or even an NLE to render out your sound file to 44.1Hz if needed.

3. You need to connect your loudspeaker object to an external sound file. To do this you need to open the Timeline (Window Menu/Timeline). Find your Loudspeaker Object in the list in Timeline and (using the menus in the Timeline) select File Menu/Add Special Tracks/Sound.

4. Next, twirl down your Loudspeaker Object in the Timeline by clicking on the small + icon at its left. Find “Sound” in the list and click on it to select it.

5. With “Sound” selected in the Timeline, go to the Attributes Manager and find the “Sound” field. Hit the “…” button to browse for your sound file and select it. The name of the file will appear in the field now.

That’s it. Your sound will now play as soon as you hit the play button. You don’t need any keyframes for it to start playing. If you’re using a version of C4D prior to R.11 the sound may not be included when you render, but at least you will be able to sync things up and you can add the sound again in your NLE or in After Effects.

If you don’t want the Loudspeaker Object to be visible in your animation (and I don’t know why you would) there are a number of ways to make it invisible. The method with the most sense is to select the Loudspeaker from the Object Manager, and in the Attributes Manager under the Basic tab select Visible in Editor: Off.