Problem with looping an audio file.

Dec 07, 2016

Hello! I know how to make an audio file loop. You make a trigger so that the file plays at the beginning of the timeline, and then another so that the same same plays again once it completes. No problem there.

I made a perfect loop in Audacity, but when I import the file into Storyline, there is a fraction of a second gap in the audio at both the start and at the end. This shows up on the timeline (see attached file). This gap is not in the Audacity file, but, and this is the extra weird part, it's also not in the file in Articulate when I go to edit the audio to remove the gap. So to reiterate, the gap is visible on the timeline (look closely!) but not present when I try to edit the file.

This means I can't edit out the gap, and there is an audible pause when the audio resets that makes it sound like I don't know how to make an audio loop (I totally do). What's up with this and how do I remove it?

4 Replies
Alyssa Gomez

Hi Fraser,

Thanks for sharing your file here. I did some testing, and even cropped your audio file to only 5 seconds, and I still heard a short gap between loops. This one's got me stumped  - at this point, I would recommend reaching out to our Support Engineers directly so they can investigate further. And if you don't mind, please share your case number here so I can follow along with the case, as well. 

Fraser Hawkins

Hello Alyssa,

I sent the issue to your support engineers, and they managed to export the file as an MP3 and then edit the gap at the end of the file. Even then, however, there was a still a significant gap in the audio that makes the loop unusable. I assume this is because of the time it takes to load a new loop after the first one has played. That's a bit disappointing, TBH! My case number was #00968618.

Fraser Hawkins

I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before, but I solved the problem in Audacity. I just made the looped track, then cut and pasted it end to end enough times that it filled out my slide. A bit more memory intensive, but not a problem, and it wouldn't work if you needed the background music to play indefinitely, but it worked here. Thanks for your help Alyssa!

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