Adjust project audio level to same across all slides

[Guest]

Captivate v5.5

I have a project created with v5.5. It has multiple slides most of themj with narration that was created over a few days.

When playing back the whole project the volume on some of the slides is louder and on others it is not so loud - and of course I want the same level across the whole project.

I have tried  Captivate's "Noramlise" opion:

Audio>Edit>Project

Ctrl+A to select the all audio

Click Adjust Volume

Select Normalise (select best volume)

OK>Save>Close

But nothing changes. Either "Normalise" option does not work or my expectaions of "nomalise" is not what I think it is.

Can anyone explain (simple steps please) how to adjust the audio of all slides so when played back they are all at the same level.

Noel

[Lilybiri]

Noel,I will mostly use Audition for that purpose, but I believe it is also possible with the free Audacity.

Lilybiri

[Guest]

Hi Lilybiri,

Problem I am having is as follows;

I am recording each slide's audio using Audacity (based on your good suggestion in another thread) and saving them to a folder, slide 1 slide 2 etc. Doing this can take more than one session over one or two days.

I then import the audio to the respective slides in the project, but when I play the whole project back the audio level varies from slide to slide..not every slide, just one or two.

As all the audio is now in the project - I am assuming the only way to adjust the volume to the same level across all slides is to use Captivate's "Normalise" option - but as said above this does not seem to make any difference.

Maybe I am doing something wrong - so maybe someone who uses noramlise with success could explain where I am going wrong..

Having selected all the audio (Ctrl+A) I select Adjust Volume, Select Normalise and Click OK.

Should I do anything else before clicking OK???

[RodWard]

Captivate's Normalise option only works when you have a given audio clip open.  The changes will only apply to that selected clip.  For those that have the e-learning Suite and Adobe Audition there is the option to export all audio from a project file and normalise all clips at once.  If you don't have ELS then that doesn't help.

[Guest]

Rod,

Thank you very much for clarification.

I dont have the ELS and Adobe Audition, Captivate does not tell you that these are required in order for the Captivate nomalise option to work - so I have to ask - why the **** is there an option to normalise audio in Captivate if it does in fact not work in Captivate ???

[RodWard]

As I mentioned Noel, the option to Normalise DOES work in Captivate when applied to single audio files. 

[Guest]

So in order to get the same level of audio across all slides I have to go through the noramlise process slide by slide, even though Captivate offers the option to edit the Project audio?

12 projects - each project approx 50 slides....wow!

If that works, then that is at least better than nothing - but it seems to me Captivate have failed their customers in this area.

Rod - your help and guidance as always is great and I am not directing my frustration at you. Without you and others like you I would be hanging from a rafter in a barn by now!!

NEL

[Lilybiri]

Noel,

I never used Audacity, but wonder if it has not the feature of Audition where you are able to level the sound volume on a lot of audio clips? That is not called normalizing, which is indeed for one file, and have no idea how it is called in Audacity at all. When I do VO it also happens that not all audio clips have the same volume for a bunch of possible reasons, so I will choose a clip with the correct sound volume and  instruct Audition to make all clips sound that way.  Would not dream about doing that in Captivate, and Normalize each individual clip will not result in what you expect.

Lilybiri

[Guest]

I have posted a question on Audacity's forum asking if it is possible / how to set the same level of audio across multiple audio files.

Thanks....

Noel

[Sreekanth_S]

You can normaize multiple tracks in Audacity. Import all the audio files, select all of them, and Normalize. There is an Export Multiple option as well to export them back, but that part has never worked for me because of some missing dll file.

Sreekanth

[Guest]

I am confused...

You say you can "normalise" multiple tracks in Audacity but Lilybiri informs me that what I am trying to do (set the audio to same level across multiple slides) is not called Normalising.

I will see what the Audacity forum / manual has to say on the subject.

Thanks,

Noel

[bkittila]

Did you ever get a solution to your problem?  I am running into a similar issue and am under a tight deadline.  Also I'm a very new Captivate and Audacity user........

[Guest]

@bkittila,

Simple answer is "No"...I never did get any suggestions that worked for me.

Here is what I do so you might try it and see if it works for you.

1. Record the projects audio slide by slide using Audacity and save each slide's audio into a folder...slide 1, slide 2 etc.

2. From the Filmstrip in Captive, right click slide 1 followed by Audio/Import and from there locate the folder with the audio and import the audio for slide 1. Continue doing this until you have added all the audio to all the slides.

3. Go to Captivate's Audio/Edit/Project. This should bring up a window with the audio for the whole project. Click on the displayed audio and using Ctrl+A select all of the audio.

4. Click Adjust Volume/Normalise/OK

This is what i have been doing...I am sure there is a smarter, better option out there to level off all your audio but without knowing what it is, this works for me.

Noel

[bkittila]

Thanks for the response - unfortunately, this will undo all my timing and closed captioing (I think that I saw this in an earlier post also).  I guess I will make sure that the volume is okay before going into other edits.

Thanks again!

[Guest]

Sorry I could not help.

Noel

[bkittila]

No, it is helpful and I really appreciate the response.  I'm still learing and now I know this is a step that needs to be taken care of early so that I don't loose work.