The audio in my Engage and Quizmaker interactions are much louder than my regular narration. I have tried to go back and adjust the volume in each audio file of the interaction; however, it still seems to be a noticeable difference. Does anyone have any recommendations for fixing this?
Are these Engage and Quizmaker interactions inserted into a Presenter course? There are some great suggestions from Mike and Leslie in this thread on ways to export and edit the audio to ensure consistency across files. Additionally, I wanted to point you to this blog post about audio recording best practices to ensure you're recording audio the same way in each file.
Thank you for your response. These are Engage interactions. I recorded the audio for the Engage interactions at the same time as the Presenter slides and I am still hearing a large spike in volume in my Engage interactions when it is packaged. I understand that it is possible to export audio files from presenter; however, I do not see how you can easily export audio files out of Engage to level them.
It seems that even thought the files are the same volume going into Engage, when it is packaged for some reason the volume increases.
Sara, I am experiencing the same issue as you and the audio was recorded professionally and externally, then imported into the course. This is a mismatch between Presenter and Engage.
I'm having the same issue and haven;t figured out a solution. All my audio was recorded by a vendor, and when reviewing my published course, the engage slides are MUCH louder than the rest of the slides. Looking forward to a solution!
Hi! This is something that has been brought to the attention of our QA Team and there is another thread here. I will make sure that this thread is added to that working list so that I can provide an update when available, but in the meantime you may want to package your files and submit yours as well so that we can have a look.
Just want to chime in that I've experienced the exact same problem. All audio was recorded at the same time and volume level. However, the Engage audio ends up being much louder when published.
Not sure if you are just posting so that you can follow along and get updates :)
You may find that audio for Articulate Engage interactions embedded in an Articulate Presenter course is a bit louder than the rest of the course. This is an issue that we are aware of and any updates will be posted here.
Getting ready to launch a 32 hour course only to find out (during Q.A.) that the audio is significantly louder when playing engage interactions. Please Articulate, we need a hero now!
Found a batch processor that will reduce my audio files by about 6dB (there are other presets, but this is about right on to match presenter slides). It's called Acoustica Standard Version and it's only $39.00. You can find it at www.acondigital.com in the downloads section. Once batch processed, I'll re-import the audio files (much faster than manually reducing volume using audio editor inside of Engage), and then re-publish my presentation. This should do the trick. Good luck community!
Looking for a solution and hero here too. Have there been any changes in the past 11 months? Hoping for a solution. If not, I'll look into the product Doug D brought to our attention.
Has anyone figured the exact percentage to reduce volume in Engage to match Articulate. Guesswork is tricky.
Thanks for reaching out here and I don't have any further updates to share at this time, but the link that Leslie shared above will be updated once there is an update and we'll also include information in this thread.
It will be nice when Articulate has resolved this issue. In the
meantime, I do recommend Acoustica Standard Edition. I believe I lowered
the audio files approximately 6.0dB to make them match the audio level
of non-Engage screens. Of course this will depend on the level of audio
you are beginning with. See below for my standard for audio levels
'before' importing into Articulate.
I always batch process my audio files to match levels before importing
them into Articulate. I use The Conversations Network 'Levelator' which
takes your .wav files and automatically adjusts the levels for
consistency. The 'Levelator' has been free. It's kind of hard to find
now, but if you can find it, definitely a well worth having tool!
I have all of our voice talent run their audio through the Levelator before uploading to our servers. This way I know all audio files will be the same level every time. Good luck, and I'm glad you found the Levelator. It's becoming rare.
Well Doug...your advice saved my project! I used Levelator and then reduced the volume of the Engage files by 6.0dB (an automatic setting) in my trial version of Acoustica Standard Edition. (I will be buying this software for sure!). The process worked! Thanks for helping the community.
Last question. Does Levelator work by averaging a group of files or can you run one file through and get the same result? (The site is closed so no threads to read).
23 Replies
Hi Sara,
Are these Engage and Quizmaker interactions inserted into a Presenter course? There are some great suggestions from Mike and Leslie in this thread on ways to export and edit the audio to ensure consistency across files. Additionally, I wanted to point you to this blog post about audio recording best practices to ensure you're recording audio the same way in each file.
Ashley,
Thank you for your response. These are Engage interactions. I recorded the audio for the Engage interactions at the same time as the Presenter slides and I am still hearing a large spike in volume in my Engage interactions when it is packaged. I understand that it is possible to export audio files from presenter; however, I do not see how you can easily export audio files out of Engage to level them.
It seems that even thought the files are the same volume going into Engage, when it is packaged for some reason the volume increases.
Has anyone else experienced this?
Hi Sara,
Here are directions on how to export the audio from Engage.
Sara, I am experiencing the same issue as you and the audio was recorded professionally and externally, then imported into the course. This is a mismatch between Presenter and Engage.
I'm having the same issue and haven;t figured out a solution. All my audio was recorded by a vendor, and when reviewing my published course, the engage slides are MUCH louder than the rest of the slides. Looking forward to a solution!
Hi! This is something that has been brought to the attention of our QA Team and there is another thread here. I will make sure that this thread is added to that working list so that I can provide an update when available, but in the meantime you may want to package your files and submit yours as well so that we can have a look.
Just want to chime in that I've experienced the exact same problem. All audio was recorded at the same time and volume level. However, the Engage audio ends up being much louder when published.
Thanks Bob. Be sure that you are subscribed to the thread so that you will be notified of any updates available.
same issue!
Hi Amy!
Not sure if you are just posting so that you can follow along and get updates :)
You may find that audio for Articulate Engage interactions embedded in an Articulate Presenter course is a bit louder than the rest of the course. This is an issue that we are aware of and any updates will be posted here.
Getting ready to launch a 32 hour course only to find out (during Q.A.) that the audio is significantly louder when playing engage interactions. Please Articulate, we need a hero now!
Hi Doug! As you can see from my post above, we are aware of the issue, but I have no update to provide.
Found a batch processor that will reduce my audio files by about 6dB (there are other presets, but this is about right on to match presenter slides). It's called Acoustica Standard Version and it's only $39.00. You can find it at www.acondigital.com in the downloads section. Once batch processed, I'll re-import the audio files (much faster than manually reducing volume using audio editor inside of Engage), and then re-publish my presentation. This should do the trick. Good luck community!
Thanks for sharing Doug!
Looking for a solution and hero here too. Have there been any changes in the past 11 months? Hoping for a solution. If not, I'll look into the product Doug D brought to our attention.
Has anyone figured the exact percentage to reduce volume in Engage to match Articulate. Guesswork is tricky.
Hi Donna,
Thanks for reaching out here and I don't have any further updates to share at this time, but the link that Leslie shared above will be updated once there is an update and we'll also include information in this thread.
It will be nice when Articulate has resolved this issue. In the
meantime, I do recommend Acoustica Standard Edition. I believe I lowered
the audio files approximately 6.0dB to make them match the audio level
of non-Engage screens. Of course this will depend on the level of audio
you are beginning with. See below for my standard for audio levels
'before' importing into Articulate.
I always batch process my audio files to match levels before importing
them into Articulate. I use The Conversations Network 'Levelator' which
takes your .wav files and automatically adjusts the levels for
consistency. The 'Levelator' has been free. It's kind of hard to find
now, but if you can find it, definitely a well worth having tool!
Good luck!
Thanks so much for replying Doug. Your help is much appreciated!
I found an archived verson of Levelator. It is no longer being supported but I am going to give it a try.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130729204551id_/http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator/
P.S. - Levelator works great on Windows 7 even though it was only updated for Vista. Thanks for the tip.
I have all of our voice talent run their audio through the Levelator before uploading to our servers. This way I know all audio files will be the same level every time. Good luck, and I'm glad you found the Levelator. It's becoming rare.
Well Doug...your advice saved my project! I used Levelator and then reduced the volume of the Engage files by 6.0dB (an automatic setting) in my trial version of Acoustica Standard Edition. (I will be buying this software for sure!). The process worked! Thanks for helping the community.
Last question. Does Levelator work by averaging a group of files or can you run one file through and get the same result? (The site is closed so no threads to read).
Glad I could help Donna. The Levelator is set to adjust the volume of
each .wav file to it's maximum potential without peaking, be it one or many.
Thanks Doug. Now that I know how it works I can make best use of the tool.
Hi all,
I wanted to provide an update here, as Studio ‘13 Update 8 was just released, and included a number of fixes which you can see in the release notes available here. The item you all may be particularly interested in is how it fixed an issue where Engage '13 interactions embedded in a Presenter '13 course are louder than the rest of the course. You can download the latest update here, and after downloading and installing the latest update you’ll want to republish any existing content to ensure that the updates and fixes are applied.
Let us know if you have any questions, either here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly.
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.