audio narrative question

[Darrell S]

I have a slide presentation and would like to add a narrative to it. When I
load the presentation and select Side Show... Record Narration... I click on
Set Microphone Level I get the ! warning that PowerPoint is not receiving
sound from the microphone. My mike is on and working fine. To test it I
opened Sound Recorder and make a short wav test file. Worked fine.

The instructions following the PP notice say I should open Multimedia in
Control Panel. I don't have that icon under Control Panel. Is this
something I should load from my Windows CD?

 

[Sonia]

Look for "Sounds and Audio Devices on the Control Panel. I think in previous
versions of Windows it was probably labeled Multimedia. Click on Volume tab and
under Device volume click on Advanced. Then click on Options > Properties and
then click on the radio button next to Recording. Make sure that you have
Microphone checked. Click OK and then under Microphone make sure that the
Select button is checked and the Volume slider is in the middle or at the top.
Close out the windows and the Control Panel and try again. Does that correct
the problem?
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Darrell S]

Thanks for the advice, Sonia, but everything is as you suggest. It would
seem that if my mike input records OK using MS Sound Recorder (which it
does) it would also record OK using PP.

On occasion I mute my mike in the Play panel to stop the feedback. When I
do this I don't hear myself talking into the mike but Sound Recorder still
picks up the input and records it just fine. Then I can hear myself during
the playback. Just to make sure though, I removed the Mute setting from
the play. I use Sound Blaster as my sound system. Could that make any
difference?

 

[Sonia]

I really can't say because I always prefer to record outside of PowerPoint and
then insert individual sound tracks per slide. I find the quality much better.
I have a USB mic which also seems to improve the quality.

 

[Darrell S]

I still haven't got the Narrative deal working but I tried your idea of
making individual audios for each slide using Sound Recorder. It works
well. It has the added advantage of continuing to work even if I remove
some of the slides, since the timing etc is dedicated to each slide. After
a new slide comes up the attached audio plays and at the end of the audio
the next slide is automatically displayed etc. etc.