Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

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Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby hcajones » Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:59 pm

I am using PS Gold 5. I have a show with a soundtrack consisting of ten individual pieces of music. If I shorten a section of the show by, say, deleting ten slides, the soundtrack remains the same, which forces the soundtrack farther into the following slides -- it moves the end of one piece of music and the beginning of the next piece of music. Sometimes this doesn't matter, but sometimes doing several changes like this means lots of tracks end up starting or ending at the wrong places. Is there any way to lock the beginning or end of a single piece of the soundtrack to a specific slide so that it will not move no matter what else you do with the soundtrack? I hope this question makes sense.

Thanks!

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby pilotdan63 » Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:04 pm

You can do many things with your audio sound track to make it line up as you would like, however it usually takes a lot of adjusting to get the timing to come out just right.

You can set set the Start and Stop points to where you want your sound track to start and stop in the timeline by right clicking on the track where you want to make a change.

1. Right click at the point in the timeline where you want to start or stop your track.

2. Select either Start or Stop Track Here from the menu that appears.

You can read more about the music and sound effects settings in the Proshow Gold user guide - chapter #11 starting on page #185 here:

http://files.photodex.com/docs/manuals/ProShowGold5.pdf

Good luck :-)

Dan

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby BarbaraC » Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:08 am

When adding or removing slides or when altering duration, many people are trying to adjust slide timing to that of the music. In your case, you're trying to do the opposite--adjusting the music to the slides. Given that ProShow isn't an audio editor, it can do nothing more than the most rudimentary things. Your wish is understandable, but it's doubtful it can ever be fulfilled. Even full-fledged video editing software relies on separate audio editors for sound work.

So when you remove slides, you'll have to compensate in one way or another for their loss, either by replacing them with something else or by physically moving the start point of the soundtrack.

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby debngar » Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:35 am

Though you can't exactly lock the piece of music to that selection of slides there are ways to cope with that.

You could sync that particular series of slides to the music. But I personally don't like that option because it makes all slides in that selection the same slide time which can interfere with recommended slide times for styles used and may not fit with the tempo of that song.

Look on the Photodex BLOG for the tutorial on how to sync slides to music.

http://www.slideshowblog.com/2013/04/qu ... n-proshow/

The alternative is to determine how much time needs to be removed from the applicable song and cut off that amount from the beginning or end of that song in the sound management audio editor. I do this quite frequently, cutting off time at the beginning and fade in so the song ends as it should as I think the viewer remembers the end more than the beginning. If you cut the song off at the end, you'll want to fade it out to avoid the abrupt change in songs.
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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby BarbaraC » Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:03 am

debngar wrote:If you cut the song off at the end, you'll want to fade it out to avoid the abrupt change in songs.

And if you choose the fade-out method, make sure it's a long fade-out. Otherwise, it still sounds like a door shutting, albeit not one that's slammed shut.

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby debngar » Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:31 am

BarbaraC wrote:
debngar wrote:If you cut the song off at the end, you'll want to fade it out to avoid the abrupt change in songs.

And if you choose the fade-out method, make sure it's a long fade-out. Otherwise, it still sounds like a door shutting, albeit not one that's slammed shut.

Barbara


Yes, applying a minimum 5 second fade in or out helps avoid an obvious interruption in the audio flow of the show when approaching the next song. A fade in can be overlapped onto the end of the previous song if necessary to avoid too much dead air in between songs. That takes some fiddling with offset tool using a negative number. Or some users prefer to shift the music in the timeline physically with the mouse.
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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby BarbaraC » Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:47 am

Here's an article I wrote on the subject for ProShowThink: Go Gracefully between Songs in ProShow

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby Jean-Paul » Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:21 am

debngar wrote:Though you can't exactly lock the piece of music to that selection of slides there are ways to cope with that.

You could sync that particular series of slides to the music. But I personally don't like that option because it makes all slides in that selection the same slide time which can interfere with recommended slide times for styles used and may not fit with the tempo of that song.

Hi Debbie and jcajones,

Here's how you can sink a portion of a show to a music piece while keeping proportions the same as existing times:
1. open your show in ProShow
2. select the group of slides to which you want to sink the music piece
3. on the “BUILD” tab click on the music icon on the tool bar, the show option window will open in the music section
4. click on “Sync Slide to Audio” button at the bottom of the window, the Synchronize Show to Soundtrack window will open.
SELECT THE FOLLOWING SETTINGS:
select Sync only the currently selected slides > select both, Adjust slide times, Adjust transition times > select Keep proportions the same as existing times > select Match to length of selected track(s) > select your music piece(s).

I use that method in almost every show I create, it works very very well if the time difference is reasonable of course. I think this info can also be helpful to “hcajones”.
I don't know why this method was not describe in the Photodex tutorial.

Have fun,
Amicalement, Jean-Paul

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby im42n8 » Wed Apr 17, 2013 10:59 am

The thing about "synching" a track of music to slides is that the slidetimes and/or transition times are adjusted to match the music. Basically, you are still "attaching" music to slides/images (which anyone can do) ... that TYPICALLY, there is absolutely NO SYNCH in the technical sense. That means that the only link between the music and the images is that the two are playing at the same time. Any appearance of an image showing, disappearing, or moving to the beat at some point during the playing is purely coincidental.

If you want a proper synch of the images to the beat (or off-beat), you will still need to go through each image on each slide as the show is playing to determine how to adjust the transition time and/or the slidetime to match the music beat(s) -- that is, adding or removing time.

That means that if you've "synched" (via the Proshow synchronize feature) the music and images, you have a baseline from which to calculate further adjustments as you work from left to right, adjusting images to the music beat. You will have each sound track starting at the slide you want them to start / end at.

That also means that if you remove 2 seconds early in a show (which you've already "synched" music to slides), somewhere before the next soundtrack, you must add 2 seconds (to a transition or slidetime) to keep the next sound track starting at the desired slide.

As Debbie said, there is no way to lock a piece of music to a slide. However, you CAN put a music track into a slide as a "sound." That way, the music track is ALWAYS associated with a particular slide (and slides that follow it). You will have to understand that the sound track will START at the start of that slide's Slidetime (the time associated with a slide, in this instance, is the slide time and the transition to the right of the slide). You make the sound play beyond the slidetime. Then, it's just a case of adjusting the other slides slide times and transitions accordingly.

It's a brief intro to the topic ... but, it should give you enough to get going. That and what other's have already dealt with.

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby BarbaraC » Wed Apr 17, 2013 11:47 am

im42n8 wrote:If you want a proper synch of the images to the beat (or off-beat), you will still need to go through each image on each slide as the show is playing to determine how to adjust the transition time and/or the slidetime to match the music beat(s) -- that is, adding or removing time.

This statement deserves a big fat underline. There's simply no other way to attain perfect timing.

Barbara
Last edited by BarbaraC on Wed Apr 17, 2013 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby debngar » Wed Apr 17, 2013 12:08 pm

Jean-Paul wrote:
debngar wrote:-snip- But I personally don't like that option because it makes all slides in that selection the same slide time which can interfere with recommended slide times for styles used and may not fit with the tempo of that song.

Hi Debbie and jcajones,

Here's how you can sink a portion of a show to a music piece while keeping proportions the same as existing times:
-snip-
SELECT THE FOLLOWING SETTINGS:
select Sync only the currently selected slides > select both, Adjust slide times, Adjust transition times > select Keep proportions the same as existing times > select Match to length of selected track(s) > select your music piece(s).
-snip-
Amicalement, Jean-Paul


Hi Jean-Paul,

You are correct. I was inaccurate in how I worded the above information and should have worded the post to say that "it changes the slides times and/or transitions to something that usually doesn't really fit the pace/flow of the music".

Regardless of choosing to proportionately adjust or not, using the sync slides to music doesn't produce an end product that suits me, which was my main point. I'm glad if it's suitable for other users. But I still would choose editing the music with Proshow to fit my segment of slides over the other choice.

The only time I personally might use the feature is when compiling a very quick slideshow using music that has a very slow tempo set to images with little to no movement, probably no slide styles and AB fade in between.
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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby Jean-Paul » Thu Apr 18, 2013 9:42 am

debngar wrote:Hi Jean-Paul,

You are correct. I was inaccurate in how I worded the above information and should have worded the post to say that "it changes the slides times and/or transitions to something that usually doesn't really fit the pace/flow of the music".

Hi Debbie,

I think your original thread was perfectly ok, it answered directly the original post.
I simply added information on a second method to sink a sound track (piece of music) to a group of slides.
Our main goal is to give helpful information to the original poster.
These features are all very good but they must be used wisely.
Example: if you need to adjust 12 seconds of a 4 minutes and 30 seconds piece of music (sound track) to 25 or 30 slides, that represents very small fractions of a second per slide and transition. After doing such a sink, it is very simple to fine tune slide and audio.

On a personal note, setting images (photos) to the rhythm of a musical arrangement, has nothing to do with the original post. It is a totally different subject .

One of the most complicated thing in communications, is to keep things simple :D

Have fun,
Amicalement, Jean-Paul

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby BarbaraC » Thu Apr 18, 2013 10:11 am

Jean-Paul wrote:On a personal note, setting images (photos) to the rhythm of a musical arrangement, has nothing to do with the original post. It is a totally different subject

Timing music with motion after having moved a track or changed slide times is most certainly part of the process and completely pertinent.

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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby im42n8 » Thu Apr 18, 2013 10:31 am

I totally agree with Barbara. If you do not adjust your timings accordingly, you are only placing music in a slide show. Anybody can do that. It's simple, easy, and mindless.

If you do not tweak the transition and/or slidetimes (to the music beat...) after moving a music track or changing the length of a transition and/or slide time, you are going to have a problem with your audience (in general). What you end up with, if you DO NOT do this, is a show that people will typically tend to force themselves to watch or one that they will NEVER watch again (ever). In any case, you are NOT doing your audience any favors if you don't tweak to the beat (or off-beat...).

This is totally pertinent information and pretty much a requirement if you want a professional, not amateurish, end product.

Dale
Last edited by im42n8 on Thu Apr 18, 2013 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Can a soundtrack location be locked in?

Postby debngar » Thu Apr 18, 2013 10:38 am

BarbaraC wrote:
Jean-Paul wrote:On a personal note, setting images (photos) to the rhythm of a musical arrangement, has nothing to do with the original post. It is a totally different subject

Timing music with motion after having moved a track or changed slide times is most certainly part of the process and completely pertinent.

Barbara


I agree with Barbara and Dale.

If the purpose isn't to bother producing a pleasing display, then apply the Wizard, sync slides to the music and just hope for the best. While it's a simple method, it rarely produces a compelling show viewers will likely want to watch more than once.

syn·chro·nize (sngkr-nz, sn-)
v. syn·chro·nized, syn·chro·niz·ing, syn·chro·niz·es
1. To occur at the same time; be simultaneous.
2. To operate in unison.

1.
a. To cause to occur or operate with exact coincidence in time or rate: We synchronized our watches.
b. To cause to occur or operate at the same time as something else: They synchronized their trip with the annual tulip festival.
2. To arrange (historical events) in a synchronism so as to indicate parallel occurrence.
3. To cause (soundtrack and action) to match exactly in a film.[/i]
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