Simple Audio Editing in Captivate - extremely helpful tips for the novice user

The very basics of noise removal for audio editing in Captivate 

INTRODUCTION:
This blog post is not about uses for audio in eLearning: if you want to learn about when to use audio in your eLearning course, a good article to read from Integrated Learning Services is:
http://blog.integratedlearningservices.com/2011/10/uses-for-audio-in-elearning.html
This post simply provides a few technical tips of editing audio in Adobe Captivate. Although these tips are very basics, they have been extremely useful to me. So I thought I would share them to others.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN RECORDING:
What Microphone should I use?
Last week, I was watched the eLearnChat with Rick Zanoti with host Dr. Pooja Jaisingh discussing Adobe Captivate 6 and I asked a question about good microphones to use while recording. I use Logitech which works okay, but I figured if I asked these experts, I might get some good ideas and I did! Here is what Rick, Dr. Pooja, Coline, and many others from the chat room suggested, not necessarily in this order:

• Rode HIS
• Shure PG 42
• Blue Yeti (Portable)
• Plantronics
• Logitech

Write a Script for eLearning:
Writing scripts for eLearning is an art and not covered in this post. If you want to learn about how to write scripts for eLearning: eLearning Brothers has a short article called Tips to Writing Better eLearning at: http://elearningbrothers.com/tips-to-write-better-elearning/ or Clive Shepard from eLearning Network at: http://24tips.elearningnetwork.org/2010/12/write-voiceover-script-2/

Planning:
I paste my scripts in the Slide Notes section on each slide within Captivate (Window/Slide Notes, click the large plus sign to add slide notes and simply paste them in or write them in), This will come in handly later on as you read through the instructions.
Okay are you ready for the actual technical tips for audio editing, here we go:
Watch DEMO using Captivate

AUDIO EDITING Using eLearning Suite and Adobe Audition - *round-tripping
in Captivate: Record Audio

1.       In Toolbar: Audio/record to/slide. (calibrate, if necessary).

2.    Click on Captions & Slide Notes to view your notes. 

2.       Click the red button to record audio (F5), click the square button to Stop (F4), click SAVE.

3.       Highlight audio in timeline, right click, select Find in Library (Ctrl B).

4.       In library Right click and select Edit with Audition (Ctrl U).

Note there is also the option of doing some basic editing using Captivate's editing tool.

Watch DEMO of Noise Removal Using Audition:

In Audition: Remove noise

1.       Highlight a silent piece of the audio, click (shift P) to Capture noise print.

2.       Click: Ctrl A to select all.

3.       In toolbar select: Effects/Noise Reduction and Restoration/Noise Reduction (process), Click Apply.

4.       In toolbar select: Effects/Amplitude and Compression/Normalize (process)

5.       Normalize to: 10-20 percent

6.       Click Ok

7.       Click File/SAVE or (Ctrl S) and it will automatically update in Captivate.

*Round-tripping with audition makes it very simple because you don't have to file/save into a folder and then re-import into Captivate. You simply open Audition within captivate and when you are finished editing the audio file, click SAVE and the changes are automatically saved in Captivate

In Audacity

1.       Highlight a silent piece of the audio

2.       Click Effect/Noise Removal

3.       Get Noise Profile

4.       Ctrl A to select All

5.       Effect/Noise Removal

6.       Noise Reduction (db) 10-20 or play around with it and preview

7.   File/Save the file into a folder and import into Captivate.

If you have come this far, I'd appreciate it if you leave comments, make suggestions, provide feedback or constructive criticism.