Working with Audio | Camtasia Studio 4: The Definitive Guide (Wordware Applications Library)

In the previous chapter, I taught you all about how to import media clips, including audio, as well as how to add them to your Timeline for inclusion in your final production. This is fine and dandy if you already have some audio clips lying around that, by some miracle, are perfect sounding and already perfectly cut to the length of your video. Chances are, however, that you’re not quite that lucky. This section is sort of a catch-all for all things audio. As you’ll soon see, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover:

We’ll start by going over the essentials of recording audio narration using the Voice Narration tool.
We’ll talk about how to perform some basic editing of your audio directly on the Timeline.
Of course, sometimes those tools are insufficient when you need to do something a tad more advanced (such as mixing two audio sources). It’s times like these that you’ll need to break out the Camtasia Audio Editor, and I’ll give you the full details on how to use it.
Finally, I’ll give you some tips for getting a good recording from any source (including system sound). If you’re having trouble with the logistics of getting your system set up to record sound, you might want to look here first. Appendix C, “Equipment Buyer’s Guide,” is also a good resource for those who are experiencing poor quality. It discusses the most common microphone setups, and can let you know when it’s time to upgrade one or more components.

The Voice Narration Tool

Whether you end up adding voice narration to your video is a matter of personal taste. Some people decide to use captions and/or frequent callouts in lieu of narration, particularly in locked-down corporate environments where not every machine is equipped with a sound card. With my clients and trainees, I always strongly recommend that they narrate their videos. In addition to adding a more personal touch to your content, you’ve got a whole new stream of information available to you, an ability to engage another of the senses. The multimedia aspect has the capacity to truly draw the user into the video experience. And for vision-impaired users, it may be the primary (or only) way of receiving your information.

Say you do decide that narration would work well for your video. The next logical question is when you wish to add it. As I’ve mentioned earlier in this book, you can do so while you’re recording your screen video. Many users of Camtasia Studio prefer to do it this way (I’m told), mainly because there’s a certain simplicity in recording everything at once. I find that this system works mainly for quickie tutorials where you’re nursing somebody you know through the process of executing a computer task. This is the kind of video where a barrage of awkward pauses and “Ums…” is completely acceptable, since it’s likely that only one person is ever going to see it.

For soon-to-be-published tutorials and marketing spots, however, the task of recording everything in one take, while maintaining an acceptable level of polish, becomes a virtual impossibility. You’ve got to keep one eye on what you’re doing with the mouse and keyboard, another eye on the storyboard to know what you should be doing next, another eye on your narration script, and yet another eye on your Camtasia Recorder interface to make sure your audio levels are okay. That’s a lot of eyes. It therefore behooves you to focus on the screen video aspect at record time, and to narrate your video footage after the fact, in post-production.

Fortunately, this is not a complicated thing. When you decide to make an audio recording with Camtasia Studio, you actually have a couple of different options available to you. For one, you’ve got the Camtasia Audio Editor, which is a separate audio program inside the Camtasia Studio suite of applications. It’s a wonderful resource, and we’ll be covering it in just a bit.

The Voice Narration tool functions just a bit differently. It is embedded into the main Camtasia Studio interface, and with good reason. Its singular purpose is to let you narrate what’s going on in your video. When you record narration with the Voice Narration tool, your Video Preview is playing back through the Timeline as you go along. During recording, you’re simply talking about the various topics as they’re happening on-screen. It’s an organic process that feels very easy and natural.

So how do we get going? For starters, I recommend performing a first editing pass on your project prior to laying in your audio. Why is this? Well, when you add narration with the Voice Narration tool, you’re synchronizing that audio with the video content. Keeping things neatly synced then becomes a challenge when you have a lot more editing to do. As I explained in Chapter 9, you have the ability to lock certain tracks so that any editing changes you make don’t affect that track. So, if you have an audio track already in place on a video you want to extensively edit, you’ve got two choices:

Leave your audio track unlocked so that everything stays in sync throughout the editing process. Unfortunately, this means being very aware of where the sound waveforms are and only cutting video sections where there are pauses in the narration, or you could find that individual word and sentence fragments have been unintentionally destroyed.
Lock the audio track so that it isn’t touched when you edit your video. However, keep in mind that cutting out sections of video will knock your audio and video tracks out of sync, forcing you to do some creative audio editing later to resynchronize them.

Either way, editing gets a lot more complicated once you’ve laid in an audio track. So do yourself a favor and edit the video first, keeping one eye on your script (now that you have an eye to spare) to make sure you’re leaving enough room in the video to eventually say what you want to say.

So, you’ve got a nicely edited video. The final step before recording is to make sure you’ve got your audio hardware set up correctly. See the end of this section for setup tips, and also be sure to check out Appendix C, “Equipment Buyer’s Guide,” to see if you’re missing any vital components. Now, on to recording your narration…

The first step is to open the Voice Narration tool, done thusly:

From the Add section of your Task List, choose Voice Narration….

or
Choose Voice Narration… from the Edit menu.

The Voice Narration pane appears. Before we actually begin recording, we have a few options to set. Our first choice pertains to which track we want to use, and yes, there is a difference between these tracks. The Audio track 1 has historically been reserved for pre-existing audio tracks of AVI files. It’s where your audio would be if you recorded the narration during the actual capture. So, if you plan on doing background narration for videos that already have some sound effects in them, you’ll want to use your Audio 2 track if you don’t wish to over- write the audio that’s already there.

There’s another thing about Audio 1 that you should know: It is inescapably tied to your Video track. If you want to edit the Video track, then the sound data in the Audio track 1 is along for the ride. There’s no locking, hiding, or otherwise protecting it. They’re a package deal. Therefore, pick Record to audio track 2 if you think you might want to lock it. This is particularly important for background music tracks, since even the slightest edits can (and probably will) wreak total havoc on the timing of the music, the results of which are pretty jarring to the ear. As a general rule, I use Audio 1 only for the audio I recorded during capture (usually system sound, keyboard and mouse click sound effects, or PowerPoint audio), thus leaving the Audio 2 track for narration and possibly background music.

Caution

Since the Audio track 1 is tied to your Video track (whatever that track may contain: AVI video, title clips, still images, etc.), keep in mind that the Audio track 2 will be your only option if there’s nothing currently on your Video track on the Timeline. So if you immediately head over to the Voice Narration tool upon starting a new project, the Record to audio track 1 button will be grayed out.

Our next set of choices concerns the portions of the audio track we wish to use for recording. Camtasia Studio is kind enough to auto- terminate our recordings based on the parameters that we set here. We’ve got three options from which to choose:

Until end of selection on timeline. If you have a particular section of your Timeline selected, this option will only record as far as the right-hand edge of that selection, ensuring that any pre-existing audio outside your selection remains untouched. It’s particularly helpful for recording retakes on the Audio track 1, where you’ve got a sentence that needs to be redone buried inside a bunch of narration you’re more or less happy with. You cannot make Timeline selections while in the Voice Narration pane until you click this option.
Until end of clip. This option is especially handy if you’re working with Audio track 1, and certain clips already have audio in them that you don’t want to disturb. When the playback head reaches the end of the current clip, the recording will stop automatically.
Until end of timeline. Recording won’t stop until the end of the last clip in your Video track. When working with Audio track 1, be careful that you don’t have any audio in front of the seek bar you want to save, as this option will mow down everything in its path. With Audio track 2, any audio in front of the recording will be pushed to the right if there’s not enough space.

Regardless of what you choose, there is one option that’s brand new to version 4 that can make life much easier if you suddenly find that the amount of planned narration vastly exceeds the length of your video footage. Checking Auto-extend last video frame while I continue narrating takes the final frame of the selection, clip, or Timeline (whichever you chose) and automatically extends it while you continue talking. The result is pretty seamless; no one will ever know that the original segment wasn’t long enough. Of course, Camtasia Studio also offers a way of doing manual frame extensions while recording audio, and I’ll talk about this in a moment.

If you’ve already got audio anywhere on your Timeline when you set out to record, one option you’ll probably want checked is Mute speakers during recording. If left unchecked, all sound will be played back during recording. As you can imagine, having other bits of audio blasting from your speakers (and having your mic pick up the ambient sound) while you’re trying to record your narration will probably lead to some nasty background artifacts that you really don’t want on your narration track. So, what if the sound between your Audio tracks 1 and 2 are supposed to interact, and you therefore need to hear what’s happening on the other track while you’re recording? Leave Mute speakers during recording unchecked, and invest in a good pair of closed-ear headphones. That way, you’ll be able to hear the playback of your other track, but your microphone won’t. In fact, I generally recommend having an audio setup that allows you to monitor what your mic is picking up, anyway. While it might seem unnecessary (considering that you’re already in the same room with your mic), what you hear and what your microphone hears may not be the same thing. When I started monitoring my input, I was able to catch errors and anomalies as soon as they were recorded. I could then quickly correct them. We’ll talk more about audio monitoring in Appendix C, “Equipment Buyer’s Guide.”

The final part of the Voice Narration pane lets you adjust the volume of your mic as well as your audio settings if you haven’t already done so. Just speak into the microphone normally while you adjust the accompanying slider. We’ll discuss volume adjustment in detail in just a moment.

If you’re not seeing any activity at all on the volume bar when speaking into the mic, then there’s a problem. Address it by clicking the Audio Setup Wizard… button. This is the same wizard you adjusted back in Chapter 5 when setting up the audio for recording your initial footage. It’s this dialog that lets you choose the device and source from which you want to record.

image from book

While you got a look at the Audio Settings Wizard back in Chapter 5, let’s do a quick refresher. Here are the basics in terms of choosing the right device and source to record your audio:

Audio device. Your sound card will be listed here, as will any software-based recording devices. If you have an audio interface, it too will be represented here, possibly with multiple listings that correspond to the box’s various inputs. USB mics and webcams (if they’re audio-enabled) will also be present. Make sure you have your sound card selected if you wish to record system sound.
Recording source. Certain devices (especially sound cards) offer multiple input sources, and this section gives you the chance to select between them. You can pick Microphone, Speaker Audio, or both if you want to capture everything. There’s also a Manual Input Selection option for more off-the-wall choices. For example, virtually all sound cards have a microphone port. Many others also sport a Line In jack as well, which you could use for recording from an external CD device or your iPod.
Input level. This slider control allows you to set the volume of your currently selected input source. To do this, you’ll want to first check your levels by speaking into the microphone.

For the best results, try to keep the peaks of your audio just below the maximum, somewhere orangey-red. If the peaks of your audio are consistently maxing out in the red, then some portions of your audio may be clipped when digitized, and the result does not sound pretty. Just adjust the slider up or down to find the right level while speaking normally into the microphone. For owners of audio interfaces, keep in mind that most of these devices have their own hardware and software controls for volume, and as such, tweaking the slider may do nothing. Consult your interface’s documentation for details on adjusting the recording volume.

If you don’t trust yourself to accurately find the “sweet spot” of your audio volume, consider letting Camtasia Studio do the heavy lifting for you. Click Next, and you’ll be able to automatically set the recording volume by clicking Auto-Adjust Volume. You’ll be given a brief sentence to read into the mic (though you can probably get away with saying anything you want), and Camtasia Studio adjusts your recording volume based on what the microphone picks up. After soliloquizing your way to an ideal audio level, click Finish to lock in your adjustment.

Caution

Unfortunately, the wizard cannot be used to alter the format in which the audio will be compressed. With the Voice Narration tool, your recordings will always be saved using TechSmith LAME MP3 encoding. Even if you change this setting in the wizard, your alterations will have no effect. If you want to encode in a different format, you’ll need to use the Camtasia Audio Editor, which we’ll discuss later in this chapter.

So, once you’ve got your source selected and your levels adjusted, it’s time to start recording. Pick a quiet time of day and post a sign outside your door that says, “Quiet, please. Recording in progress,” or perhaps something a bit surlier depending on how much you like your officemates. Please see the buyer’s guide in Appendix C for some good information on setting up your workspace for desirable acoustics.

Now that you have your options set, here’s how to actually record your narration using the Voice Narration tool:

Place your green seek bar at the point in the Timeline you wish to begin recording. If only recording a selection of content or recording until the end of a given clip, make sure you’ve set the appropriate record option on the Voice Narration pane. If recording to Audio track 2, bear in mind that you are not allowed to record from a spot on your Timeline where recorded content already exists in that track. Delete the old content first, or at least move it out of your way.
Click the Start Recording button. This will start the playback head in motion, and you will see your video progress in the Video Preview.
Speak into the microphone at the appropriate points in your video.
If the amount of script exceeds the amount of footage, consider clicking the Extend Current Frame button to “pause” the video playback head while you finish talking, and then click Resume Video Playback to keep going. In actuality, it stretches out the frame on which you first clicked the button, spawning all the video frames you need in order to finish up your spiel. This extension will appear on the Timeline as a separate clip.
At some point, you’ll want to stop recording. This can be done either automatically (e.g., at the end of a selection or clip), or manually by clicking the Stop Recording button.
You’ll be prompted to save the recording as a WAV file. Simply navigate to your project folder and specify a file name. Click Save to preserve the recording, or Cancel if you’re not happy with your narration and want to begin again.
If you recorded to the Audio 2 track, the WAV file will appear both in your Clip Bin and in the appropriate place on your Timeline, where it can be further edited if desired. If you recorded to the Audio 1 track, the file won’t be available as a separate clip in your Clip Bin, as this content gets effectively bound in place on the Audio 1 track.

As for recording over old content, you’ll get different behavior depending on which track you’ve chosen. If you record to Audio track 1 where there’s already pre-existing content, the Voice Narration tool will simply record right over the top of it. You’ll still be prompted for a new file name, although it will appear on the Timeline as if the changes have simply been merged into the old track.

Note

Keep in mind that the new content is in fact kept in the file you just created. If you recorded over the pre-existing audio track of an AVI file, for example, the sound data in that original file was not affected when you recorded over it. Pursuant to Camtasia Studio’s non-destructive philosophy, all of these items are tracked by the project file. The media files themselves aren’t touched.

With Audio track 2, you cannot record over old content. It’s not kosher to place the seek bar in the middle of an existing audio clip and click Start Recording - you’ll get an error message if you try. You’ve got to start in a blank spot on that track. So what happens if there are audio clips to the right of your current recording, and you end up exceeding the available empty space by making a lengthy new recording? No, those clips aren’t cannibalized; they just get pushed to the right:

image from book

1. My Timeline with a pre-existing audio clip in my second audio track. 2. This clip gets pushed to the right when I record a longer new clip right before it.

Tip

If you want to get a better view of your audio waveforms, simply resize the Timeline to give your audio some breathing room:

image from book

The audio tracks will expand, whereas the others will remain the same height. And of course, using the Zoom tools will do the same thing on the horizontal plane.

The duration of your recorded content is up to you. Each new recording creates an audio file, and this can lead to problems considering that most of us stammer or otherwise mess up from time to time. A full- length video is a looooonng way to go without making a mistake. So how do we address this? Some people create a new recording for every sentence, or every clip, or every topical section, while still others just throw caution to the wind and try to do the entire video in one take. Both ends of the spectrum have their advantages and disadvantages. More files give you additional flexibility because you can quickly move clips around and edit them more freely without affecting the timing of the other clips (provided you’re recording to Audio track 2, that is). However, more files also mean more “stuff” to keep track of.

One option is to record everything at once, saving it as one file, and then split it up and move the parts around during the editing process, which we’ll be talking about next.

Basic Editing of Your Audio Tracks

Once you’ve got some audio clips on your Timeline, they can be edited just like any other series of clips. Again, there are a few differences between the Audio 1 and Audio 2 tracks. Let’s talk about these differences for a moment:

The Audio 1 track is the counterpart to your Video track. You have no control over the placement and duration of sound clips in your Audio 1 track - the duration and location of an Audio 1 clip exactly mirrors its corresponding video content. All cuts to your Video track will also affect Audio 1, and vice versa. The two tracks are inextricably bound together.

Caution

If your newest recording on the Audio 1 track ends up spanning multiple video clips, Camtasia Studio will split the audio content in the project file, assigning a particular segment to whatever video clip you were on at the time. If you decide later to change the order of your video clips, the audio will be jumbled as well. Keep this in mind if the order of your video segments is still up in the air. If you have one sentence that spans the gap between video clips, the sentence will be cut in two when you change the order!

In a moment, we’ll be talking about some “audio only” edits you can perform (such as fades, volume adjustments, and silencing out a selection) that won’t affect your Video track. But when it comes to the synchronization of the elements in Audio 1 with your video content, every sentence is pretty much glued in place. Your PIP Audio track functions very much the same way; it too is tied to its corresponding Video (PIP) track.

The Audio 2 track offers a lot of comparative freedom. You can add as many sound clips to your Audio 2 track as you like. You may freely move these tracks around and change their order. Additionally, unlike the clips on your Video track, your clips do not necessarily have to butt right up against one another. You can leave some blank space between clips, making it easy to fine-tune the synchronization of your audio clips to whatever’s happening in your video.

Another advantage of the Audio 2 track is that you can leave numerous portions of your clips on the cutting room floor, and it won’t affect your Video track (or Audio 1), provided you lock your Video track. Conversely, you can apply the lock to Audio 2, and any video edits won’t hurt your narration.

While these are significant differences, there are also some commonalities. Let’s now discuss some basic editing techniques you can perform on your sound files, regardless of what track they’re in.

Trimming a piece of an audio clip is done the exact same way you do it for video:

Make sure that any tracks you do not want trimmed are safely locked.
On the Timeline, select the section of audio you wish to trim. Remember, with content on the Audio 1 track, any video within that selection also gets the ax.
Click the Cut Selection button ( ).

or

Press Ctrl-X.

Unlike the editing of video content, where trimming is basically the one-trick pony of your whole editing arsenal, you’ve got a few additional techniques you can use to bend your audio content to your will. Camtasia Studio is kind enough to make these tools accessible directly from your toolbar:

From left, Fade In, Fade Out, Volume Up, Volume Down, Replace with Silence, and Audio Enhancements.

Taking advantage of these tools is simple: Just select the content to which you’d like to apply one of these effects, and then click the button to apply the effect.

Caution

Remember that these tools will affect any and every audio track that isn’t locked tight. If you’re not careful, the execution of that Replace with Silence command you used to stifle a cough might also have just gotten rid of an entire measure of your background music as well as a sentence fragment on your PIP audio track. Be sure to make judicious use of track locking in order to avoid these difficulties.

These six tools do the following:

Fade In. Begins the selection at 0% volume, and as the selection progresses, gradually and steadily builds up to 100%. The speed of your fade therefore depends on how much material you select.
Fade Out. Essentially the same process, except in reverse. Handy for bringing background music to a close.
Volume Up. This raises the volume of your selection by 25%. Clicking the button multiple times has a cumulative effect. Just be sure not to increase the volume to the point that the sound exceeds 0 dB, where clipping (and therefore distortion) will likely occur.
Volume Down. Clicking this button reduces the volume of your selection by 25%. I’ll often use volume reduction to “balance” my tracks, making sure that my background music doesn’t overpower my narration, for example.
Replace with Silence. This option reduces the volume of your selection down to 0%. It’s excellent for getting rid of clicks, pops, and other annoyances that would otherwise mar a good recording.
Finally, we come to Audio Enhancements. This is a new feature (actually, a new set of features) with Camtasia Studio 4, and it gives you a tremendous advantage in cleaning up an essentially good but flawed audio track. Let us examine this pane in greater detail.

The Audio Enhancements pane consists of special filters that can really help improve how your audio sounds. With these filters, you can normalize the volume, knock out background noise, and even improve the vocals. Let’s begin with the volume.

If you’ve done some audio recording in the past, you may have noticed that the volume of your recorded material wasn’t entirely consistent. This can happen for several reasons. Some people have a natural tendency to trail off as they approach the end of a sentence. Others fail to maintain a consistent distance between their mouth and the microphone. And most of us just have a particular rhythm to our speech where the loudness naturally waxes and wanes. Volume differentiation can also happen when you record different audio segments on different days. The microphone placement and your distance to it probably varied a bit, and the new segment can sound a little different as a result. Camtasia Studio offers a way of overcoming these inconsistencies.

In the section marked Dynamic range control, click Even out volume levels. You’ll notice that the waveform on your Timeline changes. Depending on the level of normalization you select, this will bring the volume levels of all your narration more in line. Note that you can select between high, medium, and low volume variation, and even select custom values if you’re the sort who likes to tweak in order to achieve the best possible outcome. Click the Show advanced options… link to adjust the following using the corresponding slider controls:

Ratio. How much compression (increased loudness) gets applied to everything above your established threshold (see below).
Threshold (dB). The threshold is your baseline of how loud the audio should be before Camtasia Studio begins to limit it.
Gain (dB). This setting can increase overall volume by a set amount after compression is applied.

These three settings will all change by an incremental amount whenever you adjust the (high/medium/low) volume variation levels, and once you’ve found a level that you’re more or less happy with, you can customize the individual settings from there. And keeping in line with Camtasia Studio’s non-destructive policy toward original video and audio footage, all the tools on the Audio Enhancements pane are applied without actually touching the underlying files. This means that you can undo the effect(s) whenever you wish. If ever you want to remove the Dynamic Range control, just uncheck Even out volume levels, and you’ll find that the original audio has returned in all its glory.

Caution

Keep in mind that the Dynamic range control options, along with the other settings offered by the Audio Enhancements pane, apply changes to all audio on your Timeline, regardless of what you have selected, regardless of what track(s) contains the audio, and regardless of whether any (or all) of these tracks is locked. Everything will change when you execute an audio enhancement command.

The next section, Background noise removal, is designed to get rid of excess noise in your recording. This tool can target things like the hum of your computer fan and other equipment, distant voices from across the hall, or the sounds of traffic from outside. It does this by silencing everything that falls below a certain decibel level (the noise), while keeping everything above its established decibel level (your narration). There are a couple of ways in which you can help the noise removal tool do its job:

First, you’ll need to select whether you want the tool to Automatically try to detect noise on the timeline, or if you’d rather Manually select a region of audio with noise but no voice narration. I generally find the latter more effective, particularly if you recorded in a loud environment where the noise floor was high, meaning you have less difference in volume between your signal (the desirable part) and all the noise. Just select a small snippet of your Timeline where you weren’t speaking. It doesn’t have to be much; the one-second pause between two sentences will work just fine.

Once you’re ready, just click Remove Noise. The audio waveforms on your Timeline that were once green will suddenly turn maroon. You can preview the changes by playing back your Timeline content per usual. You can do a quick “before and after” comparison by selecting a sample of narration, playing it back, and toggling the Restore noise check box to sample the original audio. If you notice certain anomalies with Restore noise enabled (such as the ends of words dropping off), you can reduce the sensitivity of the noise removal tool with the Adjust sensitivity slider control.

Caution

While Audio Enhancement capabilities such as these can employ little tricks to increase the perceived quality of your narration, nothing can take the place of a high-quality original recording, and no amount of waveform manipulation will yield a truly higher-quality file than your original audio. These techniques can do wonders to clean up a good recording, but they cannot salvage a bad one. Therefore, try to avoid the complacent attitude that you can always “fix it in post.” A carefully recorded master file may reduce or eliminate the need to apply audio enhancements entirely, and those that are applied will be all the more effective.

Noise reduction is a good example of this. If there’s not a lot of noise in the original recording, then the noise removal tool can better target what little there is, while leaving the desirable portions untouched. Also, the noise removal tool has a hard time differentiating background noise that occurs while the narrator is speaking, so while it’s a handy tool to have in your arsenal, it does have its limits. So keep it happy by feeding it good, wholesome recordings instead of auditory junk food, and it will serve you well for many years to come.

But we’re not finished yet with the audio enhancements. There is a third (somewhat hidden) tool, called Vocal Enhancements, that you can bring up by clicking the Show me more audio options… link at the bottom of the pane. This tool sports several options, the first of which is vocal optimization. This tool helps remove annoyances like plosives (those “popping p” sounds) and sibilants (“hissing s” sounds). Since the algorithms it needs to effectively do this are somewhat different for the male vs. the female voice, you’ll need to pick the gender of the narrator by clicking the appropriate button.

You also have check boxes for eliminating clipping (where part of a loud waveform gets chopped at the 0 dB threshold) and clicks (mouse click sounds, microphone rustling, and other assorted fizzles and pops that just shouldn’t be there). You can set the sensitivity of the click removal tool by adjusting the accompanying slider.

The Camtasia Audio Editor

While the Voice Narration tool is a well thought-out means of quickly getting some narration into your project, sometimes you need a little more power and flexibility. For example, you might want to:

Record multiple takes of each sentence without having to save off a new file each time.
Make use of the clipboard to cut, copy, and paste audio segments.
Mix your recording with another audio file, such as some music.
Record in a higher (or lower) quality format than the TechSmith LAME MP3 encoding in which the Voice Narration tool always records.

In cases like these, Camtasia Audio Editor^[*] is the tool you should be using. It is a stand-alone audio editing application that can create audio from scratch as well as weave an audio track into a video or still image file (thus creating an AVI video). It does not tie in with the current open project in Camtasia Studio, so if you want to narrate your video project, you’ll either have to edit and then produce it as an AVI so that it can be opened in Camtasia Audio Editor, or simply add audio to the various AVI clips you recorded before combining them into a presentation. I know this sounds complicated, but the separation of video and audio editing can in fact work quite nicely to your advantage, and later on, I’m going to show you a couple of different possibilities as to how you can make it happen. For now, though, let’s dive right into the nuts and bolts of using the application.

In this section, I’m going to teach you all about using this wonderful utility for narrating your videos. Though I think the Voice Narration tool is exceptional for banging out a quick voice-over on a simple project, it simply doesn’t hold up to the rigors of assembling narrated sequences for longer, more polished videos, where higher quality is demanded and multiple retakes are standard.

Let’s start with opening the program:

From the Start menu, go to All Programs > Camtasia Studio 4 > Applications, and finally choose Camtasia Audio Editor.

or
From within Camtasia Studio, choose Camtasia Audio Editor from the Tools menu.

or
From within Camtasia Studio, choose Camtasia Audio Editor from the Launch other tools button on your toolbar, which looks like this:

Once you’ve opened up the application, you’re generally greeted with the welcome screen that looks like this:

image from book

You’re given three options:

Create a new audio file. This starts the main user interface with a blank waveform and five seconds of space on the Timeline. This space will automatically increase to accommodate your audio and video as you record or import files.
Edit an existing video, audio, or image file. An Open dialog will appear, letting you navigate to a file. Your file options include video (AVI), audio (WAV), and still images (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG).

Edit a recent file. If you’ve used the Camtasia Audio Editor before, this drop-down list contains all your most recently edited works.

Note

If you don’t want to see this welcome screen in the future, just clear the check box labeled “Show this dialog at startup.” Should you ever desire it back, you can activate it again by choosing View > Options… and clicking “Display welcome dialog on startup” on the Program tab.

Now, just as with the Voice Narration tool, it behooves you to first set up your capture device and check your levels. Our first stop is the audio preferences tab of the Options dialog. If you choose Options… from the View menu, and then click the Audio tab, you’ll have a dialog that looks like this:

image from book

Here you have a couple of check box options that give you a bit of control over how you record:

Allow audio to extend video length will extend the final frame of your video to accommodate your audio track if the length of your narration ends up exceeding the length of your video.

Mute audio while recording will refrain from playing back any sound currently on the audio track while you’re recording, so that the sound coming out of your speakers doesn’t feed back into the microphone. A quick click of the Audio Setup Wizard… button will give you the same options for selecting your Audio Capture Device as well as the Audio Capture Source should your capture device support more than one.

Note

Note that on the Audio tab, as with every tab in your Options dialog, you can choose to return to “factory default” settings by clicking the Default button. Since the Audio Capture Device and Audio Capture Source settings are both taken from the operating system, these are the only two options that are unaffected by clicking this button.

Now, go ahead and exit the dialog. We’re going to check our levels next. To the right of your toolbar, you should see a small gauge called Recording Level:

Speak into the mic to check your levels. You can adjust the sensitivity of your capture source by clicking the small speaker icon. A slider called Recording Volume will appear (which you can also bring up by choosing View > Recording Volume…) that you can then adjust to bring your normal speaking voice up to line level (yellow to orange usually, with peaks in the red just below the maximum).

Another thing we might want to do before we start recording is to adjust our audio format and attributes. As I mentioned, you can do this in the Audio Setup Wizard, but to access the dialog more quickly, just choose Audio Properties… from the Edit menu:

image from book

The Voice Narration tool didn’t give you the option of setting your audio properties, so you were pretty much stuck with the TechSmith LAME MP3 encoder at 44.1 kHz, mono. These are your default settings here as well. As I mentioned in Chapter 7, “Recorder Tools Options,” I prefer to save my master recordings in an uncompressed (PCM) format. You can always compress and/or downsample later if file size gets to be an issue.

Now that we have the setup particulars out of the way, let’s take a look at our standard recording interface:

image from book

Here are the various components we’ll be working with:

Menu bar. Umm… it’s a menu bar. All your various commands are available here.
Preview area. If you open an AVI or still image in the Camtasia Audio Editor, it will display here.
Record and playback controls. Buttons for recording, playing back, and navigating your file.
Recording Level. Lets you monitor the pickup of your recording source and adjust its sensitivity accordingly.
Audio waveform. This is a visual representation of your audio sample data. Portions of the waveform can be selected for editing.
Seek bar. This is the starting point of any pasted or mixed-in insertions.
Playback head. The current point in the playback of the file.
Waveform edit toolbar. Commands you can execute on a waveform selection. These include fade, adjust volume, silence or delete selections, zoom, and undo/redo.
Position gauge. Shows both the current elapsed time as well as the total duration of the file.

Now that you’ve got a basic orientation to the interface, let’s actually record something. You can place the seek bar wherever you want the recording to start, and since this is a new recording, we should probably begin at the beginning.

Here’s how to record your narration with the Camtasia Audio Editor:

If narrating a video or still image, choose File > Open… to navigate to the desired file. Click Open once you’ve found and selected it.
Click on the Timeline to place the seek bar where you want recording to begin. This is typically only necessary if there’s a lengthy pause between the start of the video and the spot where you’ll begin the narration (for example, if you plan on adding a musical intro piece).
Click the Record button () to start recording.

or

Choose Record from the Edit menu.
Record your narration. You can pause at any time by clicking the Pause button ( ) or choosing View > Pause.
At the conclusion of your narration or if (well, probably when) you make a mistake, click the Stop button ( ) or go to View > Stop. The waveform image of what you just recorded will appear on your Timeline.
If you stopped recording due to a mistake, go back and preview your audio (and I’ll show you all the details of navigating your audio coming up next), stopping just before the sentence that contains the error. After you’ve made sure that the seek bar is placed correctly, repeat steps 3 to 5 to continue (and eventually conclude) your narration.

Tip

If you’ll recall, I mentioned that image files can also be opened for adding sound. The resulting file is actually an AVI file, with the video portion being entirely consumed by the image. While I don’t typically add audio to images during my Camtasia Studio work, I’ve found the Camtasia Audio Editor to be an incredibly handy stand-alone tool for annotating a picture.

For example, you can send someone a diagram with an audio track explaining its significance. Or add a heartfelt message to a meaningful picture of yourself to share with a loved one. It’s great for quickly sharing a “talking picture” with others. Just remember that the software automatically uses the TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC), so be cognizant of this codec’s content and distribution limitations when using the Audio Editor for this purpose.

Navigating Your File

By now, you should have made your first tentative steps toward recording some audio segments. At this point, it will be useful to quickly familiarize ourselves with the accompanying navigational controls, which can help you move through your content with a minimum of fuss. The following table describes the buttons in the record and playback controls area.

Open table as spreadsheet

Name	Menu	Hotkey	Notes
Record	Edit > Record	---	Sets the recording process in motion.
Play the entire file	View > Play All	---	Plays from the beginning of the file, regardless of the current location of the seek bar or playback head.
Play	View > Play	Spacebar	Sets the playback head in motion.
Pause	View > Pause	Spacebar	Stops the playback head in place. Choosing Play once more will resume from that point.
Stop	View > Stop	---	This will stop the playback head, returning to the location of the seek bar.
Beginning	View > Beginning	Home	This command returns the playback head to the beginning of the file.
Previous Frame	View > Previous Frame	Left Arrow	Moves the seek bar backward by a single frame.
Next Frame	View > Next Frame	Right Arrow	Predictably, this moves your seek bar forward by one frame. These two commands are useful for fine-tuning the location of the seek bar for when you want to resume recording from an exact location.
End	View > End	End	Knocks your seek bar all the way to the end of the file, which is handy for adding a musical outro.

With the latter four navigational hotkeys, you can also add a selection to the mix by holding down the Shift key as you execute them. For example, by pressing Shift-End, you’ll select everything from the seek bar’s current location all the way to the end of your file. Of course, as you’ve probably already discovered, using the mouse to click and drag a selection works, too, but I find that the keyboard shortcuts (especially Previous Frame and Next Frame) are particularly useful for making precision selections.

Selections are useful not only for specifying which part of your file will be on the “business end” of your next editing command, it’s also handy for doing retakes. Say you’ve got a sentence with some overlap- ping background noise from outside. Rather than simply placing your seek bar and clicking Record, you first select the errant sentence. This ensures that only that space in your Timeline will be available for recording, and that your recording session will auto-terminate just before the playback head reaches the parts of your recording you want to keep.

Now, selecting appropriate content is a lot easier when you’re focused on a particular section of your recording rather than seeing a bird’s-eye view of the entire file. This is where zooming comes in. When you’re zoomed in on some content, a scroll bar appears on the Timeline, just below your waveform area. This scroll bar can be dragged around to reveal other sections of the file. It also helps to resize the application window of the Camtasia Audio Editor to give you a bit more screen real estate to work with. In addition, the following four commands will help you gain a much better view of what you’re doing:

Open table as spreadsheet

Name	Button	Menu	Hotkey	Notes
Zoom to Selection		View > Selection	---	Takes the current selection and zooms it to take up the full length of your waveform area.
Zoom In		View > Zoom In	Ctrl-+	Zooms in by a certain percentage, always keeping the seek bar within view.
Zoom Out		View > Zoom Out	Ctrl-–	Zooms out by a certain percentage.
Zoom to 100%	---	View > Zoom to 100%	---	Makes the entire length of your file visible in the waveform area.

As you may have noticed, the specific commands for selecting and zooming work slightly differently here than they do in the main Camtasia Studio interface, but a bit of practice should have you zipping through your file and selecting its desired portions like a champ. Of course, now that you have a part of your audio selected, what can you do with it? Plenty, as it turns out. Let’s therefore move on to the available editing commands.

Editing Your File

Now that we’ve got some audio on our Timeline, we can manipulate that audio data, such as fading it in or out, controlling volume, and of course, getting rid of sections. Just as with Camtasia Studio, you’ve got some basic editing commands right on your toolbar. Let’s take a look at these in the following table:

Open table as spreadsheet

Name	Button	Menu	Hotkey	Notes
Increase Volume		Edit > Volume…	---	Increases the volume of your selection. The toolbar button increases the volume by a set amount, whereas the menu item lets you select the level of volume.
Decrease Volume		Edit > Volume…	---	Decreases the volume of your selection.
Fade In		Edit > Fade In…	---	Fades in the volume of the selection. The toolbar button will automatically fade from 0% to 100%, whereas the menu item allows you to set the fade percentage.
Fade Out		Edit > Fade Out…	---	Fades out the volume of the selection.
Replace with Silence		Edit > Replace with Silence	---	Removes the audio within a given selection, replacing it with silence equivalent to the length of the selection.
Insert Silence	---	Edit > Insert Silence…	---	This command lets you inject a given number of seconds to the right of your seek bar, moving the rest of the content over.
Delete the Current Selection		Edit > Delete	Del	Removes the selection, closing the surrounding audio around it. For example, if you have three sentences, and you delete the second one, playback will then move from the first directly to the third with no pause in between.

One interesting thing noted above (and a departure from the way things work in Camtasia Studio) is that selecting a volume or fade command from the menu gives you greater control than simply clicking its corresponding toolbar button. For example, if I select an area and click Fade Out, the command happens automatically, fading from full volume down to nothing. If I choose Edit > Fade Out…, then I get a dialog that looks like this:

image from book

…thus allowing me to set the precise level of fade.

Another freedom given to you by the Camtasia Audio Editor (and not available in Camtasia Studio) is the ability to use your clipboard to move and copy audio content. Say you want to swap the order of two paragraphs. Do you simply rerecord them? Of course not! Just select the first paragraph, cut it, place your seek bar after the second paragraph, and paste. The remaining audio moves over to accommodate your inserted content.

In addition, if you should ever desire that your pasted content over- write whatever’s to the right of your seek bar, you can do that as well. The Camtasia Audio Editor actually sports two different Paste commands. The first, called Paste (Extend), pushes the rest of your content over so that nothing gets deleted. This is the “standard” paste function that gets executed when you press Ctrl-V. Another function, available only from the Edit menu, is called Paste (Overlay). Executing this command means that when you paste in a selection, a portion of the audio content directly to the right of the seek bar (equivalent in length to your pasted selection) will be replaced. Be careful with this feature, as it’s easy to destroy content unintentionally.

Yet another advantage that the Camtasia Audio Editor has over the Voice Narration tool is the ability to insert additional audio files. These commands let you navigate to a WAV file and insert it right into the current Timeline starting at the seek bar’s current location. Just as with the Paste commands, you have different options as to how you want the inserted content to interact with what’s already there. The following three commands are available exclusively from the Edit menu:

Insert Audio File (Extend). This inserts the chosen audio file into the Timeline, pushing all current content to the right of the seek bar over to make room for the inserted file.
Insert Audio File (Overlay). This inserts the audio file into the Timeline, and anything caught in the path of this new content will be replaced. Keep in mind that the new content will only replace enough of the old stuff to make room for itself. So, if the undesired portions currently sitting to the right of your seek bar are length- ier than the file you’re about to insert, you’ll want to double-check the end of the file and mop up any remaining unwanted material as necessary.
Insert Audio File (Mix). This inserts the audio file, mixing its content with whatever audio is already present on the Timeline to the right of the seek bar.

The latter command is really exciting, because you can effectively mix two different kinds of content into a single track. For example, if you’ve got narration, and you want to have a light background music track at the same time, you can effectively combine the two files into a single track, and then import it into your Audio track 2 in Camtasia Studio, thus leaving Audio track 1 in place for system sound and sound effects. It allows you to “cheat” a little, working in different levels of audio that would otherwise exceed Camtasia Studio’s track limit. The problem when combining tracks in this manner is that editing then becomes difficult, and should you ever desire to separate the two tracks again, well… forget about it.

I therefore encourage you to follow the procedure I’ve laid out below if you want to mix audio data using the Insert Audio File (Mix) command:

Edit your video narration file completely, so that the only step remaining is to add the other audio file. Note the file’s duration.
Choose File > Split > Save Audio As… to save off a separate “clean” copy of your narration.
Choose File > Save to save your video and audio narration as an AVI.
Open and edit the other audio file, making sure that the duration is the same length as that of your AVI. This is done by inserting silence into various portions of the audio clip. The point of this exercise is to have a good sense of how the elements in the two files are going to interact, and as such, it’s important that the durations of the files be identical.
Choose File > Split > Save Audio As… to save off the copy of this file you’re going to be inserting.
Reopen the AVI file you created in step 3. If necessary, place the seek bar at the location you wish to insert the audio file.
Choose Edit > Insert Audio File (Mix)… to lay down the new file you created in step 5.
Preview your work to make sure that the two sound files match up as expected, and that your video and audio sequences synchronize nicely.
Choose File > Split > Save Audio As… to save off your custom audio “mix.” It is this file you’ll be importing back into Camtasia Studio for use in your Audio 2 track.

Since this is above all an audio editing application, there’s really nothing here for editing your video. However, one nicety that’s included is the ability to extend the length of a video clip or still image to accommodate an extra sentence or two of narration. If you go to add your audio narration and suddenly realize you’ve left too little room to actually record what you want to say, you can add some video “dead space” to squeeze in the remainder of your audio script.

So, here’s how to extend the length of your video or still image clip.

Open your AVI or image file if you haven’t already done so.
In the case of an AVI, place your seek bar on the frame of the video you’d like to extend. With still images, the placement doesn’t matter.
From the Edit menu, choose Extend Frame….
Choose the number of seconds to add to the resulting video’s duration, either by entering it directly into the field or by clicking the spinner buttons to the right of the field to increment the duration by one second per click. You may extend a frame by up to 10 minutes (600 seconds). Fractions of seconds may be entered, provided the extension is at least one second long. Click OK to continue.
You’ll see the total duration change on the Position gauge to reflect the extension.
Make a note of the location and duration of this extension. You’re likely to need this info later when resynchronizing your audio in your Camtasia Studio video project.

Using the Camtasia Audio Editor in Conjunction with Camtasia Studio

So, you’ve learned how to create and edit audio segments in the Camtasia Audio Editor, but you may be wondering just how to reconcile your editing work here with your video edits within the main Camtasia Studio application. After all, we’re in the business of recording audio to augment our video content, are we not? So, let me take you through two different models for combining the talents of Camtasia Studio and the Camtasia Audio Editor. This procedure detailed below is actually pretty representative of my own real workflow…

Let me explain how you too can utilize the Camtasia Audio Editor as part of your preferred process.

Open your video project in Camtasia Studio and edit it to your liking, paying particular attention to the timing of elements. It’s important to make sure you’ve got enough space during your video footage to fit in all your narration (and still take a breath or two somewhere in the middle).
Produce your video as an AVI file. This file serves only to be fed into the Camtasia Audio Editor so that you can effectively time your narration. You won’t need the file for anything after recording the narration.
Open the AVI in Camtasia Audio Editor. Record your narration, going back to rerecord segments that didn’t turn out well. If you have to extend the video anywhere to accommodate your narration, you may freely do so. However, make a note of both the duration and location of this extension, as you’ll have to do the same thing in your actual video project. Otherwise, your audio will be longer than your combined video when importing the audio file back into your Camtasia Studio project.
Save the audio as a WAV file, choosing File > Split > Save Audio As….
If desired, mix in another audio source (such as background music), and then save a new audio file under a different name by repeating step 4.
Go back to Camtasia Studio, importing the audio file you created into the Clip Bin.
Add your audio clip to Audio track 2. It appears as a single long track. If you ever need to adjust the order of your video clips, you can use the Split command (Ctrl-D) to split up your audio track, and then adjust the order of both tracks to make sure that your audio stays with its corresponding video.
Save your project, and produce it to whatever format you desire.

This is the way I typically work, as a matter of personal taste. Keep in mind that there’s another method that other users employ with success. I don’t personally do this because it forces you to only work with AVI clips in Camtasia Studio, thus robbing you of the advantages of the CAMREC format. Plus, there are some additional issues with adding audio to unedited video content. But it is another effective way of combining the power of Camtasia Studio with the Camtasia Audio Editor.

This second method of using Camtasia Audio Editor in conjunction with Camtasia Studio goes like this:

Record your initial clips in the Camtasia Studio as AVI files.If you have already recorded your footage in CAMREC format, you can break them down and extract the AVIs by launching Camtasia Studio, importing the files into your Clip Bin, and then right-clicking the CAMREC files and choosing Extract Camrec Contents….
Don’t drag anything to the Timeline just yet. However, now that you have all needed files just sitting there in your Clip Bin, it’s probably a good idea to Save it as a new project so that you don’t have to repeat this step later. After saving, go ahead and Close the project.
Open an AVI file in Camtasia Audio Editor. Record your narration, going back to rerecord segments that didn’t turn out well.
Save the changes back to the AVI by choosing File > Save (Ctrl-S).
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each individual AVI in your project.
Reopen your project file in Camtasia Studio (or start a new one and import your media files if you haven’t yet done so). Start dragging clips onto your Timeline. You’ll now notice the presence of sound in the Audio 1 track.
Edit the project to your liking, being cognizant of where your audio segments are so that you don’t inadvertently trim out the middle of a sentence. It helps to zoom in as well as increase the vertical size of your Timeline, so that you can use the actual waveform as a guide.
Save and then produce the project to your desired format.

Caution

You may be looking at the above procedure and thinking, “It seems weird to add audio narration to video clips that haven’t been edited yet. Can’t you create the Camtasia Studio project first, make your edits, and then add audio to the clips? Nope. Well, I suppose you could, but the results aren’t pretty.

If you add an audio stream to one of the AVIs in your project, your audio won’t show up in the edited clip on the Timeline when you reopen the Camtasia Studio project. The one exception to this is if you extend either the audio or video in the Audio Editor. In that case, you’ll reopen the video project to find that your edited clip does indeed now have sound, but oops! All your edits are suddenly gone.

Recording System Sound

Up to now, you’ve learned about your various software options for getting your narration into Camtasia Studio. Now we’re going to discuss changing the recording source from the microphone to your internal system sound. From PowerPoint presentations to games to Windows alert sounds, sometimes you’ll want to record the audio from your computer. This handy guide will help you do just that.

Technique 1: Using Your Sound Card

If your microphone is plugged into your sound card (which it probably is, if you’re not using an audio interface), you’ve likely been using “Microphone” or “Line In” as your audio capture source. It may interest you to know that most modern sound cards offer an input source that “listens” directly to what’s happening on the system. Camtasia Studio’s Audio Setup Wizard will almost always select the correct source for recording your system sound automatically. Just select your sound card as the Audio device and then choose Speaker Audio (what you hear) as the Recording Source.

If, for some reason, Camtasia Studio does not correctly select the source, you can choose one manually by choosing Manual Input Selection as the Recording Source and picking your source for the system sound. Different sound cards call it different things. If your sound card offers one of the following as an audio capture source:

Mixer
Mono Mix
Stereo Mix
Wave Out
What You Hear

…then you’re in business. What’s nice about using your sound card for recording system audio is that everything is happening right on the sound card - you don’t even have to buy a cable. In fact, a few sound cards will even let you select multiple sources from which to mix audio.

When exploring all the possible sources offered by your sound card, it’s just a matter of selecting each one individually, and then doing a test capture to see if the source is indeed picking up your system sound as expected. I’ve outlined a testing procedure for you at the end of this section. Once you’ve got the correct input source selected, recording system sound works just like recording your microphone.

Technique 2: Total Recorder

If you don’t have the hardware setup to record your system sound, you might want to consider a software-based solution. High Criteria, Inc., offers one such solution in the form of their Total Recorder 6.1 audio capture utility. A demonstration version is included on the companion CD. Total Recorder installs a special driver that works to capture the digital sound directly from the output of your sound card. Aside from Technique 1, this is the only means of recording system sound that preserves the audio in 100% digital form (in other words, no conversion takes place).

Once you’ve got the application installed, simply run it and click the Record button. This puts Total Recorder into “listening” mode, and recording begins when the actual audio does. The only major drawback is that Camtasia Recorder/Studio cannot utilize the Total Recorder driver - only the Total Recorder application itself can. This means that you’ll have to save off a separate audio file, import it into Camtasia Studio along with your recorded video, and then resynchronize the two streams.

Technique 3: Creative Cabling

So you’ve tried every potential audio input source that your sound card has, and nothing picks up your sound card’s audio. You may also be in a “locked-down” work environment where you aren’t allowed to install driver software. In this case, you might need to invest in a cable or two to make the recording of system sound an option for you. The easiest solution is to purchase a single stereo cable with a stereo mini-plug on each end, jacking one end into your line out or headphone port and the other into the microphone port. You’ll probably have to adjust both the recording and playback volume settings in your Windows Volume Control panel, but this is a workable solution. The only inconvenience is having to unplug the cable end every time you want to play back what you’ve recorded. This problem can be circumvented with the additional purchase of a stereo Y-cable, so that you can plug your “recording cable” and your speakers into your line out port simultaneously. This has the added advantage of actually being able to monitor what you’re recording.

Another solution, rather than going from the headphone jack to the microphone port, is to cable from the headphone jack into one of the audio input ports on your preamp, or into your audio interface if you happen to have one (and you totally should - see Appendix C for a discussion of this point). This can allow you to mix audio content from your speakers with another source (such as a microphone). If using an analog preamp, the output from the preamp would then feed into your sound card.

There is but one drawback to both of the “creative cabling” options. The first two techniques we discussed allow you to record everything digitally. With this technique, however, you’re taking a signal destined for loudspeakers (an analog signal), and then re-digitizing it when the signal travels back into your sound card by way of the microphone port. This digital to analog to digital conversion will probably mean somewhat poorer quality than you would otherwise have gotten.

Technique 4: Miking the Speaker (Not Recommended)

There is of course one additional “poor man’s” solution, namely to set up your microphone next to your speaker. This has the advantage of being able to record your voice and system sound at the same time (though most sound cards will let you do this also). It has the major disadvantage of picking up all other ambient sound in the room, and the sound quality is, well… something akin to a grainy Xerox copy of a vibrant color photograph. I do not recommend this option, but enough people will end up doing it anyway that I may as well teach you how to do it “right.”

First off, it’s helpful to use an omnidirectional microphone for this purpose, so that your voice and your speaker (or your two speakers, in the case of stereo recording) are picked up equally (see Appendix C for the lowdown on microphone directionality). Also, I find that I can reduce ambient noise on the recording by lowering the recording volume of the mic while increasing the playback volume of the speaker. Finally, if you’re recording a stereo source, make sure that the micro- phone is equidistant from your two speakers so that both channels are picked up. You’ll be converting a stereo signal to a mono one, but it’s a lot easier than separately miking both speakers.

Testing Out Your Settings

If you’re testing out audio input sources to see what works for you, or even after you’ve found what you’ve needed and are just gearing up to record your session, I strongly recommend performing a brief test to make sure you’re picking up system sound okay before committing to a full-length recording.

Just follow these steps to do a quick 10-second sound check:

Make sure you’ve got the right audio input source selected.
Perform an action on your machine that gets some audio cranking out of those speakers. Opening a movie trailer or a music MP3 file will do the trick.
Don’t forget to enable the Record Audio command in Camtasia Recorder.
Start the capture, making sure to check your audio levels in the Statistics and Properties area of your Recorder window. If you see movement on the audio levels bar, then you’re picking something up.
Wait about 10 seconds, and then close whatever sound or video file you opened. You should be hearing nothing but silence at this point.
Now, as a final sanity check, stop the recording and preview the clip. Does your recording play back the audio at a volume and quality level that’s appropriate?

Provided your sound test works out, then you’re ready to roll on a full-length recording. If not, here are a few handy troubleshooting tips you may find useful. These tips apply to recording your microphone as well as your system sound.

If there’s no sound on your video preview…

When recording from Camtasia Recorder, make certain that your Record Audio check box is checked. Forgetting to set this option is typically the most common cause of dropping an audio recording.
Make sure that the correct audio capture device and capture source are set in your Audio Setup Wizard.
Check to ensure that your Volume slider isn’t set to zero.
Double-check your connections. If capturing microphone audio to your sound card, make sure that the line going from your preamp is plugged into your microphone port as opposed to one of the myriad other jacks on the back of your card.
If using a preamp (whether analog or digital), double-check the volume dial on the unit itself, making certain that you’ve adjusted the right dial for the input port in question.
If using an audio interface, USB headset, or any other microphone with a USB or Firewire connection, check to make sure you have the latest drivers for your unit installed.

If the sound in your preview is muffled, garbled, or just not at the level of quality you expected…

When recording to Camtasia Recorder or the Camtasia Audio Editor, check your Audio Format settings. Master-quality recordings should have an audio format of PCM (uncompressed), with attributes of at least 44.1 kHz, 16-bit mono.
It’s possible that your recording volume is set too loud, and that clipping is occurring. Camtasia Recorder, Camtasia Audio Editor, and the Voice Narration tool in Camtasia Studio all have a volume unit meter to test out your recording volume. Double-check it to make sure you’re not “residing in the red zone.” If it’s too high, adjust the dial on your preamp/audio interface, or turn down the volume of your capture source in the Windows Record Control panel.
One of the links in your audio recording chain (microphone, preamp, sound card, cables) could be malfunctioning, or be of such poor quality that it requires replacement. Swap out one component at a time to see if you can find the culprit. Note that this doesn’t always have to be costly. My setup once experienced a sudden onset of horrible staticitis, and after nearly ripping out my hair from trying out new components with no change in quality, I finally discovered that the $5 cable going from my preamp to the sound card had become damaged. In this case, a quick trip to Radio Shack had me back in business. If it turns out that one of your components does need to be retired, be sure to look at Appendix C, “Equipment Buyer’s Guide,” for help in finding an acceptable replacement.

^[*]Included as a free application with Camtasia Studio, the Audio Editor is a next-generation version of TechSmith’s legacy DubIt utility.