Narration in modules
January 20, 2017 12:00 AM
I am trying to insert recorded narration into a Lectora title. I have not yet recorded the narration. What is the best way to go about recording it? Last year, my supervisor and I recorded audio on my laptop (I think through PowerPoint) and it was a mess getting it on Lectora. I ended up converting to .wav files before the audio would play correctly. I have a laptop, and access to an iPhone and iPad (but both have limited memory, so transferring files quickly would need to be easy, because I'd do it frequently). We would need to record the narration for each page separately, because I like to have the next button be invisible until the audio play is finished.
Any thoughts on best ways to accomplish this? Thanks in advance!
Discussion (6)
For the rare occasions when I did the narration myself, I used Adobe Audition with a Rode Podcaster microphone. Audition is a quite professional software so it's of course doing whatever you want.
Audacity is free audio software that should also be fully sufficient for recording simple narration.
Both will let you directly export mp3.
You can use Lectora itself. "Tools" > "Audio recording". I have never used it, but maybe it's enough for your purpose.
I'll add in that Camtasia can be really helpful for adding closed captions. I do not know if Audition does this as well as it is considered non-standard software, which is a lengthy process in my organization. If nothing else, you can import most file types that you would use for saving the file. From there, you can add have Camtasia convert the audio to text and make the corrections where it doesn't do so well. If you're using your own voice, there is an option to "train" the software to better recognize your voice.
We've used Audacity in the past and a Blue Yeti USB microphone to record on our laptop. I'm no audio pro nor experienced voice talent, so there was a lot of time spent editing the audio and doing some retakes. Audition also does both - but it's a little more advanced in what it can do which can be daunting to some especially if not done on a regular basis. There's lot of tutorials out there for Audacity and performing basic editing in it especially for removing background noise.
Another option(don't hate me for this) is if you have Adobe Captivate and are Ok with robo-esque voices, you can use the text to speech option there and then export the Mp3 or Wav files and bring them into Lectora. We've done this on a number of occasions where it was needed quickly, and real voice talent wasn't a necessity. I will say that James is really the only good voice on there that is worth using. A note if using this method, you will have to pay attention to your words and how the voice pronounces them, you may have to put in extra commas/spaces, paragraph breaks and may also to phonetically spell some words it has troubles with - or make up your own spellings that it can read. For example: semitrailer needed to be written out as sem-eye trailer.
Previously we've also used an iPhone to record. Quality is halfway decent, but yes, you need to transfer files and rename them to use them.
Thank you all for your suggestions. Unfortunately, I don't have Audition, but I did play around with the recorder that's built in to Lectora and I think that'll do the trick.
I've found it easier (and usually more cost-effective) to engage an online voice acting service rather than record myself - they're reasonably cheap, professionally recorded and snipped into separate audio files ready to drop into your course.
Much less hassle than fiddling in Audacity to remove background noise - just make sure you get your script 100% nailed down before you record as
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