Audio over multiple slides in Storyline

Thank you so much, Steve! I am very comfortable coding JavaScript and HTML so I think this option should work

One of the cool things about this setup, you can control the audio (starts, stops, volume, loads) through a JavaScript trigger.

If you're able to place the js library files somewhere central (yourURL.com/js/soundmanager.js) you can add the JS include line to every publish by editing your player template (in Storyline's install directory). Once you've done this you don't need to do any surgery after publish. Everything can be added / done through JavaScript, provided you've added your media files to the package or can reference them somehow. 

I've had some luck adding media files to the resources before publish. Files retain their name under story_content/external_files.

Steve,

This sounds like a great way to navigate around an issue that surely should be a standard feature.

I have followed your link and make out some understanding between your posts and the link provided - however I don't know much about JS and HTML - I'm very much a GUI person.

Is there a "guide for dummies" that exists to make this work?

I have an audio file (elevator music) that I'm trying to get to play over the first 5 slides of my course.

At the moment, I have had to slice and dice the audio file for each slide to make it "sound like" a continuous audio file - but as you can imagine, the results come off quite amateurish. 

Any additional assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I agree! I've been trying to do the same. Has anyone found any other ways to go about this? I can't understand those directions at all...

It would be great if this were built into the program. I have not tried the work around suggested by Steve yet but from what I am reading it sounds complicated.

starting the file works well, the problem is with pausing or stopping the file, the storyline elements won't talk to the javascript elements.

we are testing a few options now.

Are there any more works arounds to this yet?

Any updates on this topic?

I am also interested in any updates for this feature. I want my 37 second audio (background music) to loop continuously throughout the course (42 slides, self-paced). 

Hi Silvia!

This is our documentation on the issue, but you are welcome to use the community suggestions if needed.

Hi There,

creating a soundtrack over multiple slides - is this possible yet? I think adding audio to a scene would be great... Can't find any way of doing this, it's self pacing so not something I would like to split up audio for.

James

Hi James!

No update on this feature.

Articulate Storyline doesn’t support background music or audio that spans across multiple slides. When you import a PowerPoint presentation into Storyline that includes Articulate Presenter playlists, the playlists won't be imported.

James,

Here's a demo I created of a workaround for this in storyline 2. I called it background music, but its just a way to play an audio track across multiple slides. I think the demo is pretty much what Steve was suggesting but using the <audio> tag instead of a soundmanager plugin.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for popping in to share Jackson :)

Instead of using multiple slides - could you convert your slides to layers, and have the music playing on base layer?

Another good thought Jeff - and you'll just want to ensure you set the layer properties to work with the base layer (i.e. not pausing the base layer, etc). You can read more about the layer properties here. 

The way i do this ( not only for audio, but also continuously animated backgrounds and video ) is preparing 2 separate Storyline files. 

- 1) bg.story.   your background file..a 1 page file with seamless audio, video or animations

-2) slides.story. Your actual storyline slides with several pages..

-3) publish your slides.story to html when ready

-4) import your published html as webobject into the bg.story

now you have seamless background audio or video, with a nice flexible setup

That's a solution I hadn't heard before for the background audio in Storyline - I'm curious if you have an example to share of how this looks once set up so that others in the community could take a look. Does the background file include a long timeline to have the audio or the functionality to loop it by jumping to the same slide again and replaying? 

Hi Ashley, i was preparing a sample with looping video background. But then projects bulked en masse. Will try to wrap that up and a audio one too soon.

Ashley, I was able to create a bg.story file at Math described and then set it to loop using a trigger to play media when the media ended. This permitted a nice fade out-fade in transition so it sounded seamless. 

My question for Math is how do I set the bg.story so that the embedded HTML file fully fills the stage area? 

Hi Richard,

For audio...  put your speakers so wide from eachother that your sure they cover any screen resolution... ;-) Just kidding on that one...

If you got images or video...  make sure both bg.story and slides.story are the same size and big enough to cover the stage area. Another option might be using CSS to create a looping bg in the bg.story.

Hi Richard,

Glad you were able to get something set up - you may also want to look at the player/browser settings as detailed here in terms of how the content will scale to fill the browser window and then also the story size that you're setting for both of the stories. 

I am searching this topic, as I am about to present internally on my work-around for this. The course I was doing was short - an animated video of sorts. So, rather than putting the content on different slides, I made one slide with all the content on it. This way I could run one audio file in the background. Make for an 'intense' Timeline - but it worked. I was able to use the other features of Storyline that programs like GoAnimate did not accommodate and have audio playing throughout.

This portion of my course ended up being 159 seconds long.

Hi Linda!

Articulate Storyline doesn’t support background music or audio that spans across multiple slides. When you import a PowerPoint presentation into Storyline that includes Articulate Presenter playlists, the playlists won't be imported.

Not sure if you are looking for community feedback or just popping in to share the status of your project. 

I'm sure the community would love to check it out if you could share :)