Jason Levine on Adobe Audition

Have you heard that Adobe Audition is coming to the Mac platform? Audition for Mac is destined for a Winter 2010 public beta. Be sure to get the full scoop from Adobe Labs. While you are there, sign up to be notified when the beta program opens.

n00bs, do not be intimidated

If audio production interests you, but you think it would be too complicated or time consuming, listen up! I have been interested in this stuff, myself, for a long time. I have played around with very basic utilities, but watching my husband work his magic with Pro Tools is mind boggling. Living vicariously through James Allen, who provided me with Audition generated things like this

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and this

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for professional effort such as the Michael Jackson Tribute on GK International while he helped me out with some CodeBass sound bites, it still seemed too complicated for my pea brain to handle.

When I saw the article about Audition for Mac, and being a MacBook Pro user, I decided to reach out to an official authority on the topic, Sr. Worldwide Evangelist, Creative Solutions (ie, all Creative Suite stuff) Jason Levine.

My exact question was, “What are the top 3 things you would say to someone who only just discovered that Adobe has an audio production tool?  Pretend I am a complete production work n00b who wants to start goofing around.  What would you tell me?” (We don’t have to tell him we weren’t pretending.)  Keeping in mind that Audition is currently only available for PC, he provided me with the following very intriguing response:

1) Familiar tools, familiar panels, familiar look and feel. If you’ve ever used an Adobe software tool before, Audition (on the Mac) won’t feel terribly different, particularly if you’re coming from Premiere, After Effects, Soundbooth or even Photoshop. Selection tools, Zoom tools, even the Paintbrush and Healing Brush all function just as they do in the other applications, but here you can leverage them on your audio. Audition also takes great advantage of the mouse wheel (or, the equivalent ‘wheel’ motion on the Magic Mouse) for extremely fast zooming and navigation which makes scanning through you audio files (to mark/find/fix & edit) super-efficient and accurate.

2) Transparent Conversion/Effects Processing/Dithering. One of the most crucial processes when mastering audio for Blu-ray, Audio CD or even the web, Adobe Audition has always been known for it’s sample-rate conversion/file exporting and transparent noise reduction processes. This means you can convert 192k/32-bit to 48k/16-bit and it truly sounds ‘the same’. Noise Reduction processes are literally artifact-free (in many cases), and more importantly, that process can be achieved with ease. One of the core competencies of the application, then and now.

3) Easy In/Easy Out (file import/export). Because of it’s wide variety of natively-supported audio formats, it’s pain-free to import your audio, work in a 32-bit floating-point environment (no matter what the original bit depth…Audition works natively in 32-bit float, giving you an incredible dynamic range) process/effect/edit your audio, and export out. This also makes it easy to import files from any popular NLE (ie, Premiere Pro, FCP, AMC) and send it back. Audition (PC) currently supports batch-processing as well. Again, very easy to setup, unbelievably fast to execute.

Well, he had me at Photoshop. I’m one of those types who will spend 30 minutes hacking at something only to find out later that learning it properly would have saved me 25. It sure sounds like you can jump in, romp around, and do some neat stuff whilst deciding if sound production is something you want to do by hobby or by trade. Given that there is a FREE trial, I am now out of excuses… and so are you. Hurry up and give me a reason to create the CodeBass Sound Bite Library.

Thank you, Jason, for the inspiration! Jason is a very helpful and talented dude. We share an affection for a good bassline, though he actually plays one. I am pleased to say you will be seeing more about him here on CodeBass in the future!  He has a blog loaded with great information. Be sure to check it out.

No Responses to “Jason Levine on Adobe Audition”

1. Music and Adobe Tech: CodeBass | In Flagrante Delicto! says:

   June 25, 2010 at 3:34 pm

   [...] are a few other articles up there as of this writing, including information about Jason Levine, Matt Gifford, and Matt Legrand; with a bunch of great stuff coming [...]