Newbie help with adding music tracks

[sfogarty]

I'm a newbie and seem to be getting along learning the program. I have encountered a problem however, and haven't been able to solve it myself. I have added an MP3 as background music. It plays well and starts over again as I have it set up. Now, I've added a 2nd MP3 music track to the slide show. I still have play background music checked along with repeat music options checked. The problem is.... I can't get the 2nd track to play. The first track plays fine, then there is a few seconds of silence, then the 1st track begins again but it has skipped maybe 3-4 seconds of it. If I remove the first track and try to play the (prior) second track, it works fine. Why can't I play track one, have a few seconds of silence and then have the second track play? I'm using XP and version 4.14. Thanks.

Sandra

[Ken Cox]

Sandra

welcome to the forum

try taking the music out-- both tracks

then add it again and see if it plays both

ken

[sfogarty]

Hi Ken: Thanks for the welcome. Ok, I tried that. It did the same thing.... it played the first track, then a few seconds of silence, then track one started again less a few seconds from it's beginning. Both tracks are listed on the project options/music tab. If I just have track one on there, it repeats fine. Does it make a difference that the slides have already begun to repeat? I would think that the music tracks would begin independently of what the slides are doing since I've added the music thru the options/music and not an individual slide....

Do you have any other ideas?

Thanks.

Sandra

[pixelpete]

Sandra,

I'm sure you'll get some answers on how to make PTE do what you want, but here's an idea that's somewhat outside of PTE. You could join your 2 MP3 files into one using a sound editor like Audacity (free). You can put as many seconds of silence between them as you like, and even fade one out and fade the other in, etc. Then save it as one MP3 and use it as your only music file in your slide show. It will just play and repeat the one new. longer MP3.

pete

[LumenLux]

Sandra, Pete's advice is of course good and should be a solution for you. Out of curiosity though, you may want to add a few slides temporarily to test your theory of the recycling slides being a factor in confusing the expected music flow.

[Alan Lyons]

Hi Sandra,

Welcome aboard, I always do as Pete says and combine all sounds into one MP3. This prevents delays in your computer loading a second MP3 while also loading picture files. But you can also use seperate tracks. What you need to do is sellect piece 1 to play from say, slide 1 in the slide options. The following slides should have "continue playing sellected track" sellected. When you want to change to your 2nd track, you sellect " start new track" in the slide option. The following slides should have "continue playing sellected track" sellected. If you combine the tracks in 1 MP3 all you have to do is sellect "play backround music " in the Project options.

Good luck with your work,

Alan

[sfogarty]

Hi Everyone: Well, I downloaded Audicity and the related driver for exporting MP3s. Somehow, with luck and fumbling around, I was able to combine the two tracks into one track and get it exported as a new MP3 file. Then I removed the two separate tracks from options/music and put in the one track, aptly named mixed music. It worked! Seems like a pain in the rear to me to have to do this when the rest of pic2exe is so easy to use.

I'm sure I'll have other questions for the board. Thanks for your responses.

Sandra