AV News 200 - May 2015
A u d io in P ic tu re s T o E x e
Andrew Chadwick
Introduction
In the past the conventional wisdom was that you needed a separate audio
editing program to produce the soundtrack for an AV sequence. However I
believe that PTE (PicturesToExe) is now capable of managing this, even for a
reasonably advanced sequence.
Audio features have been around in PTE since the very early stages. Looking
over previous versions I have installed on my computer, even version 4.47
allowed a sound track made up of multiple audio files back-to-back and had the
ability to add audio clips linked to individual slides. Most of the multi-track features
I am going to talk about were present in version 6.5, but adjustment was by
numerical settings which was not easy. Version 7 added recording capabilities
and the ability to drag audio files onto the timeline. However adjustments were
still numerical. Finally version 8.0 introduced easy graphical manipulation of
audio.
My intention is to encourage readers to explore the audio features in
PicturesToExe version 8. To this end the article is written like a tutorial and to get
the most out of it you need to try things for yourself.
The article is divided into four sections. 'Introduction' covers what the article is
about and why I have written it. 'Basic Features' describes the use of the principal
features in some detail. 'Applications' explains how you might use these features
in a sequence. 'Advanced Features' covers some other aspects very briefly and
leaves the reader to investigate further, once they are familiar with the basics.
I am assuming that the reader has a copy of PTE version 8 and has some
experience with using it and has some familiarity with audio files and multi-track
mixing. There are now two versions of PTE, Essentials and Deluxe. The
Essentials version has all the features I am going to talk about apart from volume
envelopes. For this you need the Deluxe version.
I strongly recommend you experiment for yourself. To do this you will need
three or four short audio files of maybe a minute or two, one of which should be
some commentary. Although it is possible to record audio using PTE, the current
article will not cover this.
I have tried to use the same terminology as in PTE and be consistent
throughout the article.
The meaning of the following terms is particularly important:
An audio file is a computer file containing sound.
An audio clip is part or all of an audio file that has been added to the timeline
in PTE.
A waveform is the depiction of an audio clip on the timeline consisting of a
darker green representation of the amplitude enclosed in a light green
rectangle.
Descriptions such as Project Options | Audio are shorthand for the full
instruction 'select Project Options then in the resulting menu select Audio'.
Many of the things mentioned in the text are also highlighted in the various
figures, so do have a look at these if you get stuck.
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