Is there a way of locking start of music track to a particular slide?

[Photofanatic]

Hello Again

I am back working on my slideshow again and I have carefully worked out the times of where certain parts of the show start and then edited the lengths of my background tracks so that certain tracks synch with that point on the slideline.

When I have replayed the show I have realised it would be better with a title slide at the start which is quite long. This has thrown out the timings of the exisiting slides and their start point on the music track.

I know you may say that I should have done the show in its entirety before adding the music but I just wondered if there was a was a way of locking a slide to a particular point on the music and then adjusting the timings of the othre slides before it to accomodate the lentgh of the additional slide?

I am still unsure about sycnh slide to music or automatically spread settings in the music menu - I suspect it may be somthing to change here - I normally find I have more control if I go with synch slides to music option.

Thanks

Joy

[davegee]

If your music file is a SINGLE MP3 then I would add an offset equal to the Title Slide Duration to it's track in the MUSIC OPTIONs.

You could also add the same offset to multiple tracks.

You could then add a different piece of music to cater for the Title slide at the beginning.

DG

[PGA]

I am still unsure about sycnh slide to music or automatically spread settings in the music menu - I suspect it may be somthing to change here - I normally find I have more control if I go with synch slides to music option.

Joy,

That doesn't surprise me.

"Project Options | Main > Synchronize music and slides" doesn't do what most people expect it to. It doesn't do something clever to match slide changes with appropriate parts of the music. What it does do comes into play if you do a "Preview from current slide" (which is the little icon to the right of the Preview button). With "Synchronize music and slides" ticked, PTE will position both the visuals (images) and the audio (soundtrack) to the correct point on the timeline before starting the playback. With "Synchronize music and slides" unticked, PTE will position the visuals but start the audio from the very beginning. Why anyone would want that is beyond me, but that's what it does!

"Project Options | Main > Auto-spread slides along music" also doesn't do quite what folks might expect. It does spread the slides evenly along the piece of music but only in a kind of temporary sense. At any time you can untick this option and your previous manual programming of durations will be restored. To get the slides evenly spread on a permanent basis you need to go to the Timeline view and then do "Timed Points | Arrange All Points"

Peter

[Photofanatic]

Hello again

Thanks for your answers which have pointed out the difference between the synchronise music/sldies and auto spread - but I would still like to know the best way if there is one of 'locking' the start of a music track to a particular slide so that if other slides are added or deleted the lock point stays in position and the timings of the slides in between are auto adjusted accordingly.

If this isnt possible it would be an extremely useful feature for future versions of PTE!!!!

In answer to Dave - I dont join all my music into one MP3 (maybe that would be better? ) - I have separate tracks to suit the mood/content of the slides but to be really effective the start of a different music track needs to synch with a particular slide which, if other slides are added or removed - this gets messed up!!

Thanks again

Joy

[Photofanatic]

I have just noticed 3 buttons called 'New Transtition' 'Cut Transition' and 'timed points' in the timeline view - can anyone explain these? - maybe these will answer my original query? Dont want to mess around too much in case they mess up my 'work in progress!

Thanks

Joy

[jkb]

Joy,

If you don't want to mess up your 'work in progress' then save it as a different project name & play around with that to see what happens. You can then always return to your original project & know it will be untouched.

The 3 buttons can be useful if you need to add/removed slides.

Cut transition, removes the selected transition & in effect moves all your transitions along to the right.

So if you cut transition 3 then slide 3 moves along the timeline to the position of slide 4. Slide 4 moves to 5 etc.

Note, this is just the placing of the transitions, it does not remove the slide

What you have to watch with this is that you can end up with overlapping transitions (where the grey bars overlap)if the original transition time of say slide 4 is longer than the length of the original transition 5.

Difficult to explain, but play around with a few slides of different transition lengths & you will see what happens.

New Transition, does the opposite to cut & moves your transition points to the left.

So if you have a large gap between slide 2 & 3, position the cursor on the timeline between 2 & 3 (but nearer to 2) click New Transition & all the remaining transitions from 3 to the end will move left. Again it is just the placing of the transition on the timeline, it does not alter the positions of the slides.

Again watch for overlapping transitions.

Timed Points has several options. Shift Points allows you to move selected points left or right by a specified amount. So if you know you need to insert an extra slide between 2 & 3, select all the points from 3 to the end (click on 3 & then shift/click on the last point). Select Shift Points & enter a value equal to the length of time you need for your new slide, say 5secs. This will then move all your points along the timeline by 5secs. It is sometimes better to move them by more than the time you think so there is plenty of room to insert your extra slide, you can later move them all back a bit when you have set the correct time for the new slide.

To insert your new slide, click on the timeline at the insertion point & drag your slide from the file list. Or right click & insert blank slide if you are just adding a title.

To keep your music in sync with your images you would have to add an offset as has been suggested elsewhere.

So if your music starts with slide 3 & you insert an extra slide between 2 & 3 of 5secs, you would then need to add an offset of 5secs to your music.

This will obviously leave you with a gap in your soundtrack if you originally had music covering slides 1 & 2. So you would need to add some extra music of the required length.

Hope this helps.

Jill

[davegee]

Hello again

Thanks for your answers which have pointed out the difference between the synchronise music/sldies and auto spread - but I would still like to know the best way if there is one of 'locking' the start of a music track to a particular slide so that if other slides are added or deleted the lock point stays in position and the timings of the slides in between are auto adjusted accordingly.

If this isnt possible it would be an extremely useful feature for future versions of PTE!!!!

In answer to Dave - I dont join all my music into one MP3 (maybe that would be better? ) - I have separate tracks to suit the mood/content of the slides but to be really effective the start of a different music track needs to synch with a particular slide which, if other slides are added or removed - this gets messed up!!

Thanks again

Joy

Joy,

Typically, how many tracks would you have?

DG

[fh1805]

Jill,

There are some "horses for courses" in there! For example: inserting an extra slide between #2 and #3...

In the Slides view, one can simply drag it in from the File List panel and it will be assigned default duration and transition and everything from #3 onwards will be moved right to accommodate it.

From the Timeline view, one can drag and drop it into the gap. It will again be given default transition and default transition duration but slides #3 onwards remain exactly where they were. Slide #2 gets shortened. The inserted slide is given a slide duration that equals from the place where it was inserted up to the start of the original slide #3.

Both those are, to my way of thinking, simpler methods than your suggestion. Both carry the same "health warning" about transition times and possible overlaps that you mentioned.

regards,

Peter

[jkb]

Peter, I agree. I was simply explaining to Joy what the buttons did as she asked for an explanation.

Personally, I usually just insert the extra slide in the slide view & then amend timings as required.

Or on the timeline select all the slides after the point I want to insert & drag them along to right manually allowing enough time for the slide I want to insert. Both much quicker than using the buttons.

Jill

[Igor]

We will work on this subject in version 7.5