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going to be used as live sample sets for a performance, and they all needed to be in good shape—and coherent in both volume and texture. This is where the efficiency of the editor came in handy; I was able to drag entire folders into the audio file pane, burn through them quickly, then save the files in a batch. This editor seems made for high-volume work, and I literally saved hours because of the workflow provided by Audition. One of Audition’s unique features was brought into the forefront: the Match Volume processor accepts a list of files, analyzes them, then adjusts the perceived volume of each file in order to get the sample set to settle into a whole. Sometimes, when embroiled into a large project, you can start getting too focused on details to be able to see the overall picture. Having a tool like the Match Volume system allows me to have the system take care of some of the mundane work, and keeps me focused on problems areas that require my attention. Less fatigue, faster processing, and easy handling of large numbers of files made this task much less onerous than it could have been. Interaction with video editing If you know anything about the developers behind Adobe products, you know that they have plans on your workflow: they want to have a solution for each step of the creative process, and want to have things integrated at a very high level. One of the areas where this is most apparent is in the interaction between Audition and Adobe Premiere, one of the leading non-linear video editing systems on the market. Within Premiere, there is an Edit In Audition command with the timeline for audio. You can edit a single clip, which invokes the file editor and allows you to do in-place edits. You can also edit the entire sequence, which creates an Audition session for interchange between the two programs, and provides all of the audio contents necessary to do more detailed audio editing than you would want to perform within Premiere. If you work with other video editing tools, the easiest way to interface with Audition is to create a video file and open it within Audition; it imports both the video and audio into the editor and lets you quickly get to work. Once done, you can export your session as an OMF, which is a standard that works among many professional products. It also has an export routine specifically for Apple’s Final Cut Pro. If this sort of transfer is important to you, you should test-drive the export handling features of Audition to make sure it will meet your needs. Conclusions Audition is a very deep program that is difficult to completely describe (or even test) in a finite amount of time. By giving you some idea of how I used it, and how it

might work in your workflow, I hope I’m contributing an important part of your deciding if the product is worthy of the time and energy it takes to learn it. I’ve been doing audio file editing since the days of Sound Tools and Alchemy, and have owned (and beat upon) every editor on the market. Some have become favorites, some have become toss-offs, but each seems to leave its mark on my work habits. Audition has always had a special place in my heart, mainly because of the spectral editing that I find so incredibly useful for cleanup work. Using the Windows version was sometimes difficult, because some of the conventions were a little different than those of other editors, and because there was no easy avenue for cross-platform work. Even though this is the fourth version of Audition, it needs to be thought of as a “1.0” release. It suffers from some issues related to a newly minted rewrite, and is missing some features that are considered standard for most current software, but is also backed by over a decade of audiofile and multitracking expertise. So, despite its few rough spots, I’m a serious advocate of this software. The rewrite (necessary to bring it to the Mac, but also part of Adobe’s plan to make inter-application workflow more seamless) has eliminated some of the idiosyncrasies that I found irritating, greatly improved the user interface, and makes new editing and processing functions available that are irreplaceable. Whether it will work for you is a call you’ll have to make; the lack of MIDI may prevent it from becoming a serious DAWreplacement, as might the lack of hardware controller support. But a quick download and test of the Audition software is likely to help you experience editing options that have never been part of your tool chest, and can help you decide if Audition is right for your needs. At this point, my workflow has become so standardized that I didn’t think I’d choose to take on any new software packages. But in this short test, Audition has become part of my everyday workflow, part of the kit that I use to teach audio and media technique, and something I recommend to anyone that wants to take audio manipulation to a new level. Price: $349 (see Adobe’s website for information on upgrade and bundle pricing; Audition CS5.5 is part of the Production Premium and Master Collection bundles) More from: Adobe, www.adobe.com Darwin Grosse (grosse@recordingmag .com) is a recording musician, producer, sound designer, engineer, and avid skier living somewhere very high above sea level in the Colorado Rockies.
RECORDING OCTOBER 2011

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Recording - October 2011

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