Can I interrupt slideshow music in Mac Photos?

Question

Level 2

172 points

Can I interrupt slideshow music in Mac Photos?

I have created a slideshow on my Mac using Photos. I have picked some suitable music. One or two of the slides are in fact short videos with their own sound track. The sound track and the background music play simultaneously. Is there any way to pause the background music when a video with sound is running on the slideshow? Seems like a fairly obvious thing to want to do, but I can't find anything in Photos Help or in these discussions.

iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12.5), New for 2012. 8Gb

Posted on Jul 31, 2017 10:15 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

202,055 points

Jul 31, 2017 12:53 PM in response to Living Fossil

iPhoto did automatically reduce the volume of the background soundtrack, while a video has been playing, but Photos does not do that. You would have to create a special background music track that has silent parts while the videos are playing.

You can edit a song in GarageBand and make parts of the song fade out and in again, if you add the song to an audio track and adjust the automation curve for the volume.

A quick and dirty way to have background music playing while the slideshow is playing would be to play you background music in iTunes and not as part of the slideshow. then you can stop or silence the background music in iTunes while Photos is playing your videos.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

202,055 points

Jul 31, 2017 2:52 PM in response to Living Fossil

If you do not need to to pause the slideshow or advance it manually, like when playing directly from Photos, you could export the slideshow from Photos as a video without a background music track.

Then import the exported video to iMovie and create your soundtrack in iMovie. This will allow you to control the volume of the background music and to add jingles and other sound effects.

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Answer 3

Living Fossil Author

Level 2

172 points

Jul 31, 2017 2:58 PM in response to léonie

Thanks for the suggestion, but it seems to be a bit complicated for my needs, especially as I'm not familiar with iMovie without asking my grandchildren!. I think I will separate out the movies and simply use the still photos for my slide show. That way I can synchronise with the music track without the fadeout problem.

I have not yet decided how to present the final result to the person it's intended for - basically I want them to have some slide shows with music, a few short videos, and a set of the original photos for them to manipulate themselves. They've almost certainly only got a PC, so I need a cross-platform solution. I think a DVD will probably do it. I may of course still need iMovie, or I might use Toast as I understand it better. Anyway thanks for all your help.

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Answer 4

Living Fossil Author

Level 2

172 points

Jul 31, 2017 12:56 PM in response to léonie

Thanks - I see that would work but maybe I should be looking elsewhere for a cross-platform solution. Pity the way Apple has reduced the functionality of the program.

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