audible "phfff"/click sound between each slide narration

[beeneeb]

Originally Posted by Slabahn

Found the solution. My microphone is a dual jack set up that goes through the sound card to record. The sales guy I spoke with said that the quality of the sound card can be the problem. He recommended a USB port headset (26 bucks) because a USB routes around the sound card and works directly with the software (his explanation..don't know if its correct or not. BUT the most import thing is it took care of the problem. No more hiss and pop at the transition of each slide.

Awesome! Thanks for letting us know!

[Richard Mark]

Slabahn,

I'm having the same problem that you had with a click noise at the slide transition point. It seems you solved yours by substituting a USB headset/microphone

My problem it that I'm using two different methods of recording, both of which use USB input and still have the problem.

I'd be grateful if you could post more information on your solution.

Thank you

[Slabahn]

Hey Richard,

I sent a note to your first message that was in email type form. I listed all the things I tried. Maybe some might solve your particular problem.

If you do find a solution, please post for my own knowledge!

Thanks,
Stacey

[GerryWaz]

At Articulate Live 2009, Fellow MVP Spectre delivered just a fantastic talk on getting good recordings ( http://upload.articulate.com/2009/Ph...90308-1121.zip ).

One thing he suggested in his talk--building a Porta-Booth--really helped us (slide below is from Phil's talk). Came back from that conference and built one right away.

A fabric storage bin and a few sheets of acoustic foam--and a good cutter and "a little sweat equity" and I had our inexpensive Porta-Booth built.

When recording, the mouse is well outside of the booth opening and we get great results.
It also helps, sometimes, to have two people doing the recording. One narrating and the other controlling the PC (able to "hide" the mouse from the mic better). Then syncing animations after.

[UnkieXeon]

Hey guys and gals,

I would like to point out an issue that can happen when using a microphone/soundcard that records audio with a DC offset. What this means is any audio recorded with this type of microphone/soundcard will place the audio waveform below or above the zero crossing and in essence create a click or pop at the beginning or end of an audio file. Adding silence to remove the pop/click only make s the issue worse as this will create what is known as an audio spike forcing the wave to quickly jump back to the zero crossing. I have included images of this issue below. Please note this is NOT an issue with the Articulate software but instead how a microphone of this type introduces a current to a signal while recording. Typically this issue is caused by a sound card but not always the case. use the images below and the Audio Editor in Articulate Presenter '09 to help determine this issue.

The Red line in the image below shows the audio waveforms true center. As you can see this is offset from the zero crossing (grey line).



The 2 images below are a zoomed in section of the DC offset where the red line is the zero crossing. Again you can see the audio’s true center sits below the zero crossing.

The picture on the right shows what happens to the audio waveform when you attempt to silence the audio. All silenced audio will return to or lay on the Zero crossing but will create a spike where the silenced audio ends (yellow dotted line). This will inevitably cause the audio to pop or click at this point. If there is audio on a slide before this silenced section a pop/click will be heard at this point as well.



Hope this helps.

[Richard Mark]

Dave,

Thanks for your comments. I "recorded" a four-screen presentation in Articulate without any microphone connected to the PC. Same problem. I assume you are aware that Brian has a copy.

Would no mic behave the same as a mic with a DC offset? The soundwaves on the files that I have created all look like the centerline of the soundwave is equally above and below the zero crossing.

For what it's worth, here is a list of what I tried so far. SB stands for Adobe SoundBooth, which is what we use to record, since another problem in Articulate makes it difficult to use the Articulate audio editor for precise editing in long presentations.

Record within Articulate = CLICKS
Record one large file in SB, break into small, per slide files (MP3), Import into individual slides in Articulate = CLICKS
Record one large file in SB, save as MP3, import into slide one of Articulate, move markers to fit individual slides = CLICKS
Record one large file in SB, save as .WAV, import into slide one of Articulate, move markers to fit individual slides = TOTAL NOISE
Record individual files in SB, import into individual slides in Articulate = CLICKS
Record in Articulate, export for cleanup in SB, import back into Articulate = CLICKS

Thanks.

[Justin]

Here's an article that outlines some best practices for importing audio into Presenter:
Articulate 101: Importing Audio into Presenter - Articulate – Word of Mouth Blog