Importing Audio Files

Unreal Engine provides several features for you to create the desired audio for your project. Sound Wave assets are representations of audio files and are one of the basic building blocks required to work with many of those features. You can create Sound Waves by importing audio files into the Unreal Editor.

Supported Audio Files

All imported audio files are converted to 16-bit .wav files internally. As such, exporting (by right-clicking a Sound Wave and selecting Asset Actions > Export...) will produce the converted file and not the originally imported file. Additionally, 24-bit files are not dithered during conversion so importing 16-bit files is recommended.

How to Import an Audio File

1. In the Content Browser, click the Import button.

   

2. Select the file you wish to import using the File Explorer.

3. Find the newly created Sound Wave asset.

   

4. To preview the Sound Wave, hover over it until a Play/Stop toggle button appears and click it.

   

5. Double-click the Sound Wave to open the Details panel. You can view and edit the properties of your asset here.

   

You can also import audio files by dragging them from Windows Explorer directly into the Content Browser.

Unreal Engine also supports importing first-order ambisonic files. See Native Soundfield Ambisonics Rendering for information on importing and using ambisonic assets.

Compression

All Sound Waves are compressed with the Default Audio Compression Type specified in the Project Settings. You can also set the codec and quality level for each platform and Sound Wave.