Import Audio Problems in Storyline

Jun 06, 2018

I appears that when you import an Audio (wav) into Storyline, that the audio quality is degraded. And, when publishing, the audio is of very poor quality. Is there a fix for this issue?

11 Replies
Dave Schulz

I guess I was able to answer my own questions here. It appears to be a Storyline bug/flaw. Audio editing and processing is poor within Storyline. The fix here is to do the video work and timing in Storyline (which is does quite well... actually Storyline is the BEST when it comes to this task)... Then... produce it (along with the poor audio)... import into Camtasia... remove the poor audio and add the the original audio source into Camtasia, which does a much better job with audio processing. 

It appears that searching for past issues on this same problem, that I found posts that were many years old. On those older versions of Storyline, there was a option to change the bit rate. However, that appears to be no longer the case in Storyline 360, or... none that I was able to locate. So... we move on.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Dave,

It sounds like you've got a method that'll fit your needs, but I did want to chime in about the bitrate piece. 

If you record narration in Storyline, MP3 files are generated with an audio bitrate of 192 kbps. These audio tracks are stored in your project file. (Tip: To make a backup copy of your narration or use it in other projects, export it from Storyline 360 or Storyline 3.)

When you publish, any MP3 files get re-encoded at the audio bitrate you choose in the quality settings.

  • Standard quality uses an audio bitrate of 56 kbps.
  • Custom quality lets you select an audio bitrate between 16 kbps and 160 kbps.
  • Optimize Audio Volume normalizes audio throughout your course for consistent volume across all slides. If your course audio already has consistent volume, you can speed up the publishing process by unchecking this option.
Trina Starnes

First off. I love using Storyline. I'm a big fan.

It would be awesome if Storyline could edit, process and publish the audio track as well as it does everything else. I've created three story files in the past month and everything is great except the audio. I have the same issue as Dave. I record the audio (in Audacity) and it sounds great during playback from within Audacity. When I import (I've tried .mp3 and .wav) into Storyline and play it back from within Storyline the degradation is there, but it is still a usable track. However, when I publish the file and watch/listen to the .mp4 it sounds awful. I don't have Camtasia and would love the solution to stay within the Storyline application. 

I'm going to try your suggestions today Ashley and will report back. 

Thanks Storyline staff for great response time and help!

Trina Starnes

Ashley, I think the Publish Options you highlight are only available when you publish to LMS. I don't see them when publishing .mp4 output.

I also tried recording directly in Storyline and upon publishing, the audio sounds just as bad as when I record from Audacity, import to Storyline (in either .wav or .mp3) and publish the content.

I'm going to download the trial version of Camtasia and try Dave's approach of doing the final publishing using a different product. 

Dave Schulz

Hope that works for you, Trina. One other note on the audio.... I have two different project.... one with the video MP4 output (that is this issue described above). However, this other project is publishing to HTML5 on the Articulate Review site... and there is no issue with the audio there. So, it appears that Articulate needs to fix the Video publishing audio codecs/bit rate for MP4. And.... I ditto Trina's comments about Storyline... Still the best product out there to create projects.

Crystal Horn

Thanks Trina and Dave for the confidence in Storyline!  We have the issue with audio quality in the published video output on our radar.  I'm adding your experiences to our documentation so we can keep working on it.  I'll let you know here if we have any new information to share!

Also, this user guide section explains how to adjust the quality settings for video output.  You may have manipulated these already, but I just wanted to be sure you saw them too!

Dave Schulz

Thanks, Crystal... yes, I saw the setting to select the video quality. However, even the very high audio quality doesn't seem to fix the quality as the bit rate it not adjusted by using this option. The very high setting should be selecting a different codec, but it doesn't. Hopefully, a new rev will fix the issue. Until then... much thanks for your help and direction.

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