Voice overs for question wording (e.g., audio cati style)

[I][edited from support email][/I]

I heard that you can program MediaLab to "read" the questions to the participant. So, if they have headphones, they can see and hear the text of the question before choosing a response. I have read the documentation and could not figure out how you would do this. (I think that backsounds won't work for this since it plays continuously and there seems to be more documentation about recording the respondent's voice, rather than the intereviewer's voice.) Would this require recording a separate sound file for each question, then "attaching" it to that question? Also, is there any mechanism in MediaLab to record these questions being read aloud, or would we have to create the mp3 file with another software?

Yes, this is usually done with backsounds--i.e., simply requesting that a particular sound file start playing when the question starts. You are correct that backsounds play to completion--but only until another backsound is encountered. This conveniently solves the problem of voice-overs running over because each question has its own. You do need to record the sound files yourself, but it's pretty easy. You can either type sndrec32.exe at the Run command on the Start menu to pull up Window's tape recorder, or you can download a nice freeware audio application like Audacity from [URL="http://www.download.com"]www.download.com[/URL]. The latter is a great application (especially for free!) that will allow you to pull up and edit your sound files with ease, and even convert them into MP3 or whatever format you like.

Hope that helps,
Blair