Want to see Adobe Audition CS6 at work?

Posted on by Larry

While Adobe Audition CS6 is announced but not yet released, Adobe has given the Digital Production Buzz special permission to use it next week in our booth to record and edit all our interviews and coverage at the 2012 NAB Show.

The NAB Show BuZZ will be using Audition in a true production environment – creating more than 70 interviews and more than eight hours of special programming over the course of a week. If you are interested in seeing the new software in action, stop by our booth: South Hall, Lower Level booth 11505.

Yesterday, I released video training for Adobe Audition CS6. One of the reasons I created my Audition training was to train our production crew on the new software.

NOTE: There were actually three reasons I created my Audition video training:

  1. I needed to train the NAB Show BuZZ team on how the new software works.
  2. Audition is a very cool program in itself with a lot of neat features.
  3. Audition will be sold separately by Adobe and works with Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro 7, Final Cut Pro X, and Avid Media Composer.

So, you don’t need to give up your video editor to be able to use the power of Audition. This last point was the key factor in deciding to provide training for this sound editing powerhouse.

Working with the pre-release team at Adobe has been a real treat – and much of what I learned from them I poured into the training.


I was a huge fan of Apple’s Soundtrack Pro. In fact, I left ProTools exclusively for it about ten years ago. So, I was especially sad when Apple killed it last summer. Now that I’ve spent time learning Audition, I discovered power and features that Soundtrack lacked.

In years past, we used Soundtrack for all our NAB audio editing. This year, we are switching to Audition. In addition to its editing prowess, four things about it really impress me:

  1. The ability to create multitrack templates, which can include media, effects, and track settings. When we are doing the same thing over and over, this is a huge timesaver.
  2. The hum and noise removal filters are amazing. I never TRY to record bad audio… but, sometimes, you know, life happens.
  3. An infinite ability to change fade shapes, not just linear fades, but cosine fades as well, to smooth audio transitions.
  4. The speed of export. Soundtrack Pro was fast. Audition is faster, especially when using WAV.

For many, the fact it also runs on Windows is a big plus, but we’ve always been a Mac shop, so that feature doesn’t affect me particularly. The only missing feature that I used constantly in Soundtrack Pro is a roll trim between two audio clips.

When we are interviewing at the NAB Show speed and quality, and speed, are critical. I’m looking forward to putting Audition through its paces and will report on our results shortly after the show.

As always, let me know your thoughts.

Larry


5 Responses to Want to see Adobe Audition CS6 at work?

  1. Russ Bradbury says:

    Larry,
    REALLY! looking forward to your NAB show coverage.
    Your interviews are always of the highest standards.
    Audition CS6, yes will give it a try out.
    But the fact remains that if you are an Audio Professional working in post production the de-facto standard is Protools.
    I have been using Protools 10 for a while now and whether it is one of our HDX systems or “have-my-own-personal-iLok-will-travel” then I can edit anywhere I want. NO license restrictions, other than if I lose my iLok.
    (But I have “zero-downtime anyway”)
    The Avid channel strip plugin is a MUST-HAVE.
    So for about £350 I can look at files from the thousands of professional video/audio post houses/dubbing theatres round the world.
    Just wish I could open up a Protools 10 window with Media Composer 6 but we have been assured by Avid they are working on this to fix it in their next release for PT 11 and MC 7, so you can probably guess where Avid are headed.

    • Larry says:

      Russ:

      All good points. ProTools is state of the art software. But audition is world-class in its own way, tightly integrated with adobe, able to work with FCP, and available without iLok.

      For FCP users looking for something after SoundTrack, both ProTools and Audition are excellent choices.

  2. Russtafa says:

    Larry,
    There is NEVER one piece of software which does everything you want or need, the day that happens will be a minor miracle!!
    Audition is excellent in some respects and does stuff very very well other audio editing software cannot do.

    Adobe licenses you to TWO machines only and you can only use “one instance” of this at a time according to the license agreement.
    With Protools and the iLok, the iLok represents the “license” and as long as I have my iLok can move from machine to machine as I wish…there IS a difference, Adobe and many other will not allow the 3rd machine to run. That is why I keep a very close watch on my iLoks!!

    Your training for Audition WILL be excellent, and I would recommend anyone reading this to purchase it to get a good “heads up” and working quickly and efficiently

  3. David says:

    Hi Larry,

    Thanks, as ever, for all your hard work. You’ve always been my favorite NLE instructor!

    Regarding Audition CS6, I was wondering if they’re reintroduced control surface support (it seems missing from the 5.5 version I have). There’s an iPad app I have for less than $10 that provides motorized fader-like features, but while I can still use it in FCP 7 and STP I haven’t been able to get it going in Audition 5.5. Any idea?

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