Forum Discussion
Audio Pains in Storyline 360
Hi Everyone,
I posted yesterday about the audio waveforms not showing up on the timeline, and now I’ve hit even more problems. I’m trying to sync some bullet points to the audio, but the timing is completely off. For example, if a bullet is supposed to show at 2:00 in the audio, I set the cue point at 2:00 on the timeline, line it up… and it shows up before the audio even gets there.
Yesterday I tried using the waveform to help, but it never showed up on the timeline at all. Today I thought I’d try playing the audio directly on the timeline and dropping in cue points as it played—but nope, that didn’t work either. The slide runs, but there’s no audio playing when I use the timeline controls.
I just can’t figure out how to sync the text with the audio, and it feels impossible right now.
Any help or guidance please?
Thanks!
Do you have a trigger to play the audio? That is the only way I know that the waveform disappears and the audio does not play using the timeline controls
14 Replies
Hello ThereseMicha925
I am not able to replicate. Timeline and syncing seem to be working as expected. Can you share a slide that is experiencing this issue?
Normally I do this one of two ways.
- I make an audio waveform; I put a gap where I want the bullet to drop in. I play the slide and listen to the audio and drop the bullet in when needed. No triggers.
- I make a audio waveform for each bullet and just match them on the slide. This way I can move the or rearrange them if needed.
With out seeing your file it's hard to see what is happening. If you want to drop it in the post, I will look at it and see if I can find the glitch.
Thanks, Ron and Eric. Since I can’t share the original file, I copied the slide into a new file and got it ready to send over. To my surprise, the waveform actually showed up in this new version, and the play control on the timeline worked just fine, and I was able to correctly place the cue points. What do you suggest me to do?
Do you have a trigger to play the audio? That is the only way I know that the waveform disappears and the audio does not play using the timeline controls
Okay, I think I’ve found an acceptable workaround. I removed the audio buttons first, which finally let me see the waveform and play the audio on the timeline. From there, I added my cue points, aligned the text, and got everything running the way I wanted. Once that was done, I re-added the buttons and tested again. The timing wasn’t 100%—the text shows up just a little ahead of the audio—but overall, it’s close enough and works fine.
Thanks so much to everyone for your time, help, and advice.
I am curious how well this solution will work if the user does not hit play until after the slide has played for a while
Interesting. You might want to consider importing all of your slides into a new project and see what happens. There could be some corruption in the original file.
Yes, I do. I created custom buttons to play and pause the audio because auto-played audio is not allowed.
Then you will not be able to sync the audio that way using the trigger disassociates the audio from the timeline.
workarounds are difficult but may be better to put audio on a layer and sync animations on there.
That's true. When I moved the buttons, the waveform appears and the audio plays well on the timeline. However, I need the audio to be played by users. Could you please elaborate on the audio layer thing? or is there any other way to allow users to play the audio?
I just wonder why Storyline have the auto play when it is not 508 compliant feature?
Autoplay is not necessarily non-compliant it must have the ability to silence it which storyline allows. As storyline will not autoplay at the beginning they would claim compliance.
If you are pausing the audio and letting the timeline run, it will be very difficult to sync audio with animations. It may be easier to let the timeline run and mute the audio.
Thanks, Phil. On my end, the slide auto-plays as soon as I open it, which is why I had to create the buttons. Coming from a Lectora background, I feel like Lectora handles this feature much better—they actually just give you a simple checkbox to toggle auto-play on or off.
And thanks again for the sparkle light tip. At this point, I think I’ll just give up on the syncing and let the slide run on its own.
I agree with Ron this only works if you press play at the beginning.
Yes, you and Ron are right😢I think I'm going back to my initial thought, no synch!
Both, thank you though!
