Adobe Captivate 2: Silence Isn’t Always Golden

Adding narratives (audio) to your Captivate projects is one of the best ways to enhance the user experience and make your CBTs more effective.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to adding audio: hire the audio talent, or do it yourself. Between the two, hiring the talent is almost always the way to go. Of course, that assumes you have the budget to hire audio talent–it could get expensive.

If you’re looking to save money, don’t be afraid to record the audio yourself.  You can record your own audio easily enough: all you need is a microphone, a computer with a sound card, Adobe Captivate 2 and time. (Time to practice the audio before you record, and lots of time to "clean up" the audio after you’ve recorded it.)

Here’s How To Record Your Own Audio:

1. Open a project and then open a slide (we typically attach audio to the slide, not slide objects)
2. Choose Audio > Record
3. Click the Record button

   You may see the message below if this is the first time you’re recording audio in Captivate. In that case, click the Yes button.

   

   After clicking Yes, you will see the Calibrate microphone/line-in dialog box.

   Speak into your microphone until your microphone is calibrated. Then click the OK button.

   

   And just like that, you’re being recorded.

   

4. When finished, click the Stop button and then click OK

Now that you’ve recorded your own audio, you are likely to run face-first into a common problem: there are annoying "lip smacks," flubs and background noise, or static, throughout the audio.

You can fix several problems without having to re-record.

Here’s How To Delete Lip Smacks and Other Flubs:

1. Show the Timeline
2. Double-click the Waveform (it’s the last object on the Timeline) to show the Edit Audio window
3. Select the Lip Smack or other unwanted audio element and click the Delete selection button on the Edit Audio toolbar

   

4. Click OK

You will find that using the Delete selection button works great. But what if you want to remove background noise such as static? Or a door slamming?

If you use the Delete selection button, you’ll end up shortening the distance between syllables which will result in audio that plays too fast. Instead of removing the static, consider using one of the following two methods: Insert Silence or Adjust the volume.

Here’s How To Remove Background Noise:

1. Show the Timeline
2. Double-click the Waveform
3. Select the noise you want to delete
4. Click the Insert silence button on the Edit Audio toolbar

   

5. Click OK

Because the quality of your audio will only be as good as your microphone, and the quality of your "studio," the Insert silence technique only works moderately well. If you play the audio clip back, you’ll actually "hear" the silence because the part of the audio where you’re speaking still contains static that you cannot isolate and delete using Captivate. So what do you do with that pesky static? Instead of inserting silence, consider lowering the volume for the problem audio.

Here’s How To Adjust the Volume:

1. Show the Timeline
2. Double-click the Waveform
3. Select the problematic audio element
4. Click the Adjust volume button on the Edit Audio toolbar
5. Drag the Volume slider down to the 20-30% level

   

6. Click OK

Want to learn more about Adobe Captivate 2? Click here.

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