WHAT IS ADOBE AUDITION?
Adobe Audition is a digital audio workstation developed by Adobe Inc. featuring both a multitrack, non-destructive mix/edit environment and a destructive-approach waveform editing view
Audition is a comprehensive toolset that includes multitrack, waveform, and spectral display for creating, mixing, editing, and restoring audio content. This powerful audio workstation is designed to accelerate video production workflows and audio finishing — and deliver a polished mix with pristine sound.
Along with tools for color, audio, and graphics, Premiere Pro works seamlessly with other apps and services, including After Effects, Adobe Audition, and Adobe Stock. Open a Motion Graphics template from After Effects or download one from Adobe Stock and customize it — all without leaving the app. And Premiere Pro integrates with hundreds of partner technologies.
FeaturesOf Adobe Audition
- Improved playback and recording performance [NEW] Playback over 128 audio tracks or record over 32 tracks, at low latencies, on common workstations and without expensive, proprietary, single-purpose acceleration hardware.
- Improved multitrack UI [NEW] …
- On-clip gain control and waveform scaling [NEW]
ADVANTAGES OF ADOBE AUDITION
Pricing, System Requirements, and Setup
Adobe Production Premium then does a Render and Replace, where the original audio gets replaced with the Audio Extracted2.wav file shown in Figure 3 (below), and Figure 4 (below Figure 3) shows the audio file in Audition. And we do in fact see several significant pops and clicks in the waveform now opened in Audition, as shown in Figure 4. Make sure that the system meets the minimum requirements for Adobe Audition. No matter your individual circumstances, if you have unneeded background noise in your audio, the best tool to clean it up is the Noise Print feature in Adobe Audition. Luckily for you, if you’re editing with Premiere Pro, you should have Audition already installed on your computer. Audition is a comprehensive toolset that includes multitrack, waveform, and spectral display for creating, mixing, editing, and restoring audio content. This powerful audio workstation is designed to accelerate video production workflows and audio finishing — and deliver a polished mix with pristine sound.
Audition began its life as a program called Cool Edit by Syntrillium Software. I remember it from its multitrack-enabled Cool Edit Pro days. Adobe bought the product from Syntrillium roughly 15 years ago, relaunched it soon after as Audition, and has developed it ever since.
As with other Adobe software, you “buy” Audition by subscribing to one of the company’s Creative Cloud (CC) plans. Audition by itself costs a rather high $20.99 per month on an annual plan, or $31.49 on a month-to-month plan. It’s also available as part of a package with all of Adobe’s professional products, including photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and more, for $52.99 per month as part of an annual plan or $79.49 month to month, although students and teachers can get it for as little as $19.99 a month. When you stop paying, Audition stops working and you keep nothing.
Forums › Adobe Audition › Dealing with distorted audio. I ran the original distorted audio through a few restoration processes. The end result isn’t perfect.
Whether any of these plans make sense to you depends on your needs. If you’re the type of audio engineer who buys a program once and uses it professionally until it’s no longer supported, years down the line, Audition will prove a much more expensive proposition than Logic pro X a flat $199.99 forever, with free upgrades). But if you tend to upgrade your audio workstation often, paying hundreds of dollars up front and then $99 or $149 every couple of years to get new versions, Audition makes more sense. Audition’s best value proposition is if you’re already working in Adobe Premiere and pay for a full CC subscription anyway, in which case Audition is already part of the package. Still, to put all of this in perspective, three years of working with Audition will cost you at least $755, and possibly more if you choose a different plan or go month-to-month. That’s a lot.
To install Audition, you need a PC running Windows 10 64-bit or a Mac running macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or newer. For this review, I tested Audition CC 2019 on an Apple MacBookPro15-inch (2017)with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD running macOS Mojave 10.14.6, with a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 USB interface attached. I ran into no bugs throughout the review period, which is nice to see (although increasingly common, even with Audition’s complex competitors).
There’s no hardware copy protection dongle required with Audition, as there is with pro tools You do need to run the Creative Cloud desktop app in the background, which you install as part of the setup process. By default, Audition CC collects usage data, and to stop it you have to manually opt out once the program is installed.
There are always going to be imperfections in your production audio. Instead of scrapping it, use these tips to clean it up in Adobe Audition.
No matter how experienced your audio crew, there are always issues that will find their way into your recording. It happens. But resist the urge to scrap your audio and go straight to ADR, because you might be able to salvage that audio. There are several options you can utilize in order to save this audio, but one option that’s gaining steam within the industry is Adobe Audition.
With that said, here are five tipsfor cleaning up your audio in Adobe Audition. For each tip, we’ll run through how you can fix the issue and then post a helpful professional tutorial to guide you step by step. Let’s get started.
1. Fix Distorted Audio
There may be moments in post when you discover that your field recorder settings were simply too hot. This is a problem that frequently rears its ugly head in documentary film work, especially for those working as a one-person crew. When your audio is too hot, it’s going to distort — but fear not. It can be fixed.
- Access the Waveform of your audio by double-clicking on the track.
- Head over to Window > Amplitude Statistics.
- A new window will open. Click on the Scan option in the lower left-hand corner.
- Once it scans, find the section that says Possibly Clipped Samples.
- Click on the small Diamond Shaped Node next the number. This will take you to where your audio is clipping.
For an in-depth look at how to use the technique above, check out the great tutorial from Mike Russell. He’ll run through the Amplitude Statistics process, then show you how to fix distortion in two different ways.
2. Use the Spectral Frequency Display
Have you ever been out on location filming and some secondary interference messed with your audio? Maybe someone on set sneezed or had their cell phone ring. Maybe an airplane flew overhead. Noises like these can be taken out of your audio with the Spectral Frequency Display.
- Open your audio Waveform by double-clicking it in the Files Panel.
- As the Waveform opens in the Editor Panel, look toward the bottom of the panel.
- There is a small divider. Click and Hold to pull that divider up, revealing the Spectral Frequency Display.
- Now you have a visual reference to find the noises you need to take out.
Check out the tutorial below where Maxim Jago from Lynda.com takes us through the step-by-step process of using the Spectral Frequency Display to clean up your audio.
3. Use Adaptive Noise Reduction
Adobe Audition Distorted Audio File
Another way to reduce unwanted noise from your audio is through the use of the Adaptive Noise Reduction effect. This effect works really well at removing ambient background noise and wind noise. This effect can be applied in real-time through the Multitrack Editor, which is really handy. Here’s how to get started using the Adaptive Noise Reduction effect.
- Activate your Waveform by double-clicking your audio source in the Files panel.
- With your Waveform selected, head over to either the Effects Rack or the Effects Top Menu.
- Then go to Noise Reduction/Restoration > Adaptive Noise Reduction.
Now that you know how to access the Adaptive Noise Reduction effect, let’s find out how to precisely use the effect to clean up audio. Here’s another video from Lynda.com that runs through the process.
4. Remove Echo
Echo is another issue that you may hear in your audio from time to time. It happens, especially when you’re filming at a location with a lot of reflective surfaces. Surfaces like concrete, tile, brick, and metal will reflect sound and bounce it all over the space, which in turn can give you some unwanted reverb.
Unfortunately, Audition doesn’t include any really polished effects that can handle this issue. However, there are several plugins you can purchase that won’t break the bank. Two great plugins you can use: Acon Digital’s DeVerberate and the SPL De-Verb plugin from Plugin Alliance.
In the tutorial below, Curtis Judd gives us an in-depth tutorial on how to utilize both of the above plugins to reduce and remove echo issues from your audio. Now, you should be completing your audio mix in something other than your NLE, but if it’s a quick video project and you have echo issues, know that you can use these plugins with Adobe Premiere Pro CC.
5. Use Frequency Analysis
Another way to locate noises in your audio is by using the FrequencyAnalysis option. By activating this window, you’ll be able to see the frequencies in your audio file, which then allows you to find where random issues of clipping, excessive bass, and other noises are located. Here’s how to access this menu option.
- Go to the Window top menu, and click the Frequency Analysis tab.
- Choose Logarithmic from the Scale drop-down menu.
- Start your playback. To Freeze, click one of the eight Hold buttons.
Now that you know how to access Frequency Analysis (as well as how to apply frequency holds), let’s turn to a full tutorial (once again from Mike Russell) on how to effectively use this feature for audio clean up.
Drop your comment
Adobe Audition Distorted Audio Download
Using the Effects Rack
The screen shots in these lessons were taken using the Classic workspace, so it’s recommended that you select it. Choose File > Window > Workspace > Classic, and then reset it to the default by choosing Window > Workspace > Reset Classic.
- Choose File > Open, navigate to the Lesson04 folder, and open the file Drums110.wav.
- Click the Transport Loop button so the drum pattern plays back continuously. Click the Transport Play button to audition the loop, and then click the Transport Stop button.
- Click the Effects Rack tab, and drag the panel’s lower splitter bar downward to extend the panel to its full height. You should see 16 “slots,” called inserts; each can hold an individual effect and also includes a power on/off button. A toolbar is located above the inserts, and meters with a second toolbar are below the inserts.
- To add an effect to an insert, click the insert’s right arrow and choose an effect from the drop-down menu. For the first effect, choose Reverb > Studio Reverb. Inserting an effect turns its power button to “on” (green) and opens the effect’s graphic user interface. You may need to move the effect’s graphic user interface window to load more effects. For the second effect, similarly choose Delay and Echo > Analog Delay.
- Turn off (bypass) the Analog Delay effect by clicking its power button. Press the spacebar to begin playback, and then turn the Studio Reverb insert’s power button on and off to hear how reverb affects the sound.
- Click the Rack Effect – Studio Reverb graphic user interface window to bring it to the front. Press the spacebar again to stop playback.
- When playback is stopped, you can choose an effect’s preset. Click the Studio Reverb’s Presets drop-down menu, and select Drum Plate (Large). Begin playback.
You’ll hear a more pronounced reverb sound. Note that the effects’ graphic user interface window has an additional power button in the lower-left corner to make it easy to bypass/compare the processed and unprocessed sound.
- Click on the Analog Delay effect graphic user interface to bring it to the front, and then turn on its power button.
You’ll hear an echo effect, but it’s not in time with the music.
- To make the delay follow the rhythm, double-click in the Delay parameter’s numeric field, type 545 in place of 200, and then press Enter (Return). The echoes are now in time with the music. (Later in this chapter we’ll explain how to choose rhythmically correct delay times.)
Keep this audio file open as you continue.
Removing, editing, replacing, and moving an effect
Rather than present a structured exercise, try the various bulleted options that follow to see how they work. After each action, choose Edit > Undo [name of action], or press Ctrl+Z (Command+Z) to restore the project to its previous state:
- To remove a single effect, click the name in the effects’ insert and press the Delete key, or click the insert’s right arrow to choose Remove Effect from the drop-down menu.
- To remove all effects in the rack, right-click (Control-click) anywhere on an effect’s insert, and then choose Remove All Effects.
- To remove some effects in the rack, Ctrl-click (Command-click) in each effect insert containing an effect you want to remove. Then right-click (Control-click) anywhere in any selected effect’s insert, and choose Remove Selected Effects.
- To edit an effect when the effects window is hidden or you closed it, double-click the effect’s insert, click the insert’s right arrow, and then choose Edit Effect from the drop-down menu, or right-click (Control-click) anywhere in an effect’s insert and choose Edit Selected Effect. Any of these actions bring the effects window to the front and open it if it was closed.
- To replace an effect with a different effect, click the insert’s right arrow and choose a different effect from the drop-down menu.
- To move an effect to a different insert, click the name in the effect’s insert and drag to the desired destination insert. If an effect already exists in that insert, the existing effect will be pushed down to the next higher-numbered insert.
Bypassing all or some effects
Adobe Audition Distorted Audio Converter
You can bypass individual effects, groups of effects, or all effects in the Effects Rack by doing any of the following:
- The power button in the lower-left corner of the Effects Rack’s panel bypasses all enabled rack effects. When powered back on, only effects that had been enabled prior to bypassing are turned back on. Bypassed effects remain bypassed regardless of the “all effects” power button setting.
- An alternate way to do the preceding bullet item is to right-click (Control-click) on any effect’s insert and choose Toggle Power State of Effects Rack.
- To bypass some effects, Ctrl-click (Command-click) on each effect’s insert you want to bypass, right-click (Control-click) on any of these inserts, and then choose Toggle Power State of Selected Effects.
“Gain-staging” effects
Sometimes inserting multiple effects in series causes certain frequencies to “add up” and produce levels that may exceed the available headroom. For example, a filter that emphasizes the midrange could create distortion by increasing levels above acceptable limits.
Adobe Audition Audio Editing Software
To set levels, in the lower part of the Effects panel use the Input and Output level controls (with associated meters). These controls can reduce or increase levels as needed.
- Close the project without saving so you can start fresh. Choose File > Open, navigate to the Lesson04 folder, and open the file Drums110.wav. Do not start playback yet.
- In any effect’s insert, click the right arrow, choose Filter and EQ > Parametric Equalizer from the drop-down menu.
- When the Parametric EQ window opens, click the small box labeled 3 in the EQ graph and drag it to the top of the graph. Close the Parametric EQ window because it’s no longer necessary to have it open and take up space.
- Caution: Turn your monitoring levels way down, and then press the spacebar to initiate playback. The excessive levels will trigger the Output meter’s red overload indicators to the meter’s right.
Turn up the monitoring level enough so you can hear the distortion this causes. The Input and Output level controls default to +0dB gain, which means neither the signal coming into the Effects Rack, nor the signal leaving it, is amplified or attenuated. However, the massive EQ boost is overloading the output.
- Reduce the Input level until the peaks no longer trigger the red distortion indicators after the meters have been reset (see the following tip). It’s generally good practice to keep the Output control at +0dB and compensate for the excessive levels by trimming the Input level. This will likely require reducing the Input to -35dB or so.
Keep this project open for the next lesson.
Adobe Audio Audition Free Download
Altering the effect’s wet/dry mix
An unprocessed signal is called dry, whereas one to which effects have been applied is called wet. Sometimes you want a blend of the wet and dry sounds rather than all of one or the other.
- With the previous project still open and the levels set properly to avoid distortion, click the Mix slider below the meters and drag left.
- Drag the slider to the right to increase the amount of wet, filtered sound, and drag to the left to increase the amount of dry, unprocessed sound.
Applying effects
Inserting an effect doesn’t change the file but instead plays the original file back through the effect. This is called a nondestructive process using a real-time effect, because the original file remains unaltered.
However, you may want to apply the effect to the entire file, or only a selection, so that saving the file saves the processed version.
- Close the project without saving so you can start fresh. With the program open, choose File > Open, navigate to the Lesson04 folder, and open the file Drums110.wav.
- In any effect’s insert, click the right arrow, and choose Reverb > Studio Reverb.
- When the Studio Reverb window appears, choose the preset Drum Plate (Small) from the presets drop-down menu.
- The Process drop-down menu, located in the toolbar at the bottom of the Effects Rack panel, allows you to apply the effect to the entire file or just a selection. For this lesson, choose Entire File.
Click the Apply button. This not only applies the effect to the file to process it, but removes the effect from the Effects Rack so the file isn’t “double processed” from the effect being embedded in the file and from a processor remaining in the rack.
- Close the project without saving by choosing File > Close All.
Let’s move on to lessons that show how individual effects change the sound.