Camtasia Studio Learning Center

Learn how to add or replace voice narration in existing recordings. Includes how to record to track 1 or 2, auto-extend the last frame, or extend a video during recording.

Camtasia Studio Video Tutorial

Overview of the Voice Narration Interface

Voice Narration is used to insert narration into the video using the playback of the clips on the Timeline as your guide. When using Voice Narration, the video plays along within the Preview Area while you are recording your voice.
Once the recording of the narration is complete, the Voice Narration audio clip that you have created is saved as a file and inserted into the Timeline at the correct position to correspond to the clip or clips that you were narrating.

How to Record Voice Narration

Before beginning, verify a microphone is attached to the computer. There are several options to setup before beginning recording.

Voice Narration Setup

• Select the Mute speakers during recording.  Unless you need to hear the audio as you record, we recommend that you mute the speakers to prevent inadvertently recording unnecessary audio.

•  Choose an Audio track.

Note: When you record to Audio track 1, the audio becomes linked to the video. Later, if you need to edit or change the video this becomes more difficult. Recording to Audio track 2 initially provides you with more flexibility to edit and change your narration.

• Choose the Recording duration.  

Note: Recording will start from the location of the seekbar (green triangle) on the timeline.

Until end of selection on timeline: With the seekbar make a selection on the timeline.  The Voice Narration recording will only record for the length of the selection.  

Until end of clip: Place your seekbar at the location the recording should start.  The recording will continue until the end of that clip.

Until end of timeline: Recording will continue until the end of the timeline.

Auto-extend last video frame while I continue narrating:  Choosing this option will extend the last video frame of the stop point and allow for the Voice Narration to continue recording.  This feature applies to all of the recording durations. 

• Run the Audio Setup Wizard. You may want to run the Audio-Setup Wizard before recording if you haven’t already. In the Recorder, click Audio Setup Wizard to open the audio wizard.  For more information about the Audio Setup Wizard check out the Working with Recording Audio tutorial for more information. (ADD LINK)

How to Start and Stop Recording

• To begin recording, click on Start Recording.

While recoding your voice narration the Extend Frame button is enabled. Clicking on Extend Current Frame will pause the playback of the video and extend the current frame. This is helpful when there is not enough video available for amount of narration recorded.

To resume video playback and to continue recording narration, click Resume video playback.

• Click Stop Recording when finished narrating.

Note:  If you have enabled the Auto-Extend last video frame while I continue narrating feature the recording will continue until you click on the Stop Recording button. 

• Save the file.

• Click Finish to return to the Camtasia Studio editor.

How to Remove Unwanted Audio from Audio Track 1

•  If you have audio on Audio Track 2, and do not want to remove it, make sure you lock the track.

• Use the seekbar to highlight the audio you want to remove.  You can choose to remove all of the audio or just a portion of it.

• Click on the Silence Audio button.

How to Remove Unwanted Audio from Audio Track 2

• Right click on the audio clip on Audio Track 2 you wish to remove and select Remove From Timeline.

How to Move Audio from Audio Track 1 to Audio Track 2

When you record audio while making your screen recording, the audio is automatically dropped on Audio track 1. To lessen the difficulty of working with your video and audio being linked together, we recommend moving your audio to Audio Track 2.

• From the Camtasia Studio Editor (make sure you have audio on your timeline) choose File > Save Audio As > and choose .MP3 or .WAV. 

Note:  The quality better of your audio will be better if you save your audio in the Wave format.  Saving you audio as a Mp3 file will apply compression to the audio, which will degrade the quality.  Since the audio will need to be produced still, the audio quality will lessen even more during production.

Note: All of the audio on the timeline will be saved into this file, including any audio on Track 2.

• Select the entire timeline with the seekbar, and click on the Silence Audio button.

• Click the Import Media link, and import the file into Camtasia Studio.  After the file has been imported add it to the timeline.

For more information about Voice Narration please see:

Audio Enhancements