Any news on Adobe Audition 4?

[diggum]

Hi everyone,

Durin from the Adobe Audition engineering team checking in on the discussion. First, I wanted to thank everyone for the rational, even supportive, response and speculation about Audition 4 (or whatever clever naming scheme the Adobe Marketing team comes up with.

I'll be happy to answer any questions that I can, with the caveat that there's some aspects that I can't comment upon until official announcements have been made.

Briefly, here's an overview of what to expect:

- Audition 4 is a complete, ground-up rewrite of the Audition codebase with a focus toward multi-platform compatibility, multiple CPU core support, and improvements to workflow and productivity. We recognize that for most Audition users, it is not their primary production application and therefore it needs to launch and operate FAST. Creativity suffers while staring at a progress bar.

- Our development team is about the same size as it was before Adobe acquired Syntrillium, with many of the original engineers. This made a re-write much simpler than it could have been, but to refer to updating more than a decades-worth of Windows-specific code as "simple" may be a bit of an understatement. To accomplish the performance we demanded for this release within the schedule required by the corporate business goals, we had to make some tough decisions about what was required for this release and what could be deferred for a future update. We attempted to prioritize these decisions by speaking with several of our large and small customers and through surveys with our internal pre-release users. Most of the features that have not been ported at this time have been discussed here and in other forums already, but the big ones are certainly CD Burning, the Phase and Pan spectral frequency views, a handful of effects (scientific filters, tone and noise generation, advanced pitch tools,) MIDI/VSTi sequencing, some multitrack niceties (clip grouping, clip stretching, metronome,) and legacy session support. In some cases, we are working on alternative or third-party solutions. In others, we simply plan to complete and improve these features as we move forward.

- The improvements are numerous, and I hope, impressive. Where possible, we've removed every modal operation (where the entire application is tied up while a task is processing) pushing these to separate cores and operating in the background. The Mastering Rack from Au3 Edit View has been replaced with a dedicated Effects Rack that mirrors the Multitrack rack. The editor offers split-screen waveform/spectral views which makes editing and restoration much quicker. Many of the restoration effects are built into a Diagnostics panel which makes it fast and simple to DeClick, DeClip, Mark Audio, or Delete Silence.

- All native effects are multi-core aware and channel-agnostic where possible. We've merged the "Track Freeze" feature from Audition with the Background Mix aspect of Audition 1.5 and CEP to operate on a dynamic, track-specific basis, updating quietly in the background only when you've made a change to the tracks effect parameters. We've worked with many troublesome VST authors to ensure we're as compatible as we can be, and where the problem lies in a particular vendor's implementation, attempted to give them as much information as possible to enable them to repair the problems in their effects. Additionally, Mac users will have access to AudioUnit effects.

Thanks again for your support of an audio application I've been fortunate enough to be a part of for several years now. I really enjoy the tool and team, but I've also met some amazing people creating amazing projects that give at least a little credit to the program on which I've worked so hard. It's great to see what art people can create when given the tools. I'll answer any questions that I am at liberty to discuss, and artfully dodge the rest.

Durin
Adobe Audition

[Hink]

very cool post, thanks...I have been a user since the CE days but skipped AA3 after switching to Samplitude Pro. Obviously I'll be interested to see if there is a reasonable upgrade path for me

[headquest]

Durin, many thanks for that very helpful update, which has answered many questions I had about Audition 4.

It seems like a while since Audition 3, and it is clear now why the next update has been a while in the works. The improvements you are making sound very promising, and I look forward to trying the finished product.

However, as an Au3 customer, I wonder at this point whether the next upgrade will be more of a step forward (with speed improvements/etc) or backward (with missing features). There seem to be many things gone for now, or which the CD burning is the most serious for me, but also you mention clip stretching... does this mean that the iZotope Radius timestretch is no longer included?

Like all Au3 users I will need to evaluate this carefully, and perhaps wait until Audition 5 allows you time to reintroduce the features I already use, love and need. Either way it is great to know that Audition is in good hands, and has a continuing future. Thanks!

[diggum]

The Audition team also splits its time working on Soundbooth, so that definitely has been a factor on the lag between Audition releases.

iZotope does remain a valuable contributor to Audition with several effects and proprietary algorithms. The iZotope Radius stretch remains in Audition 4, and in fact has been improved. In Audition 3, the stretch tool would use iZotope OR Audition based on some internal rules that were largely a mystery to users. With Audition 4, we've altered the tool to allow you to select which algorithm you want to use. The iZotope Radius algorithm is MUCH slower, but handles large stretches without introducing too much artifacts whereas the Audition algorithm is significantly faster and allows for dynamic stretching (ramping from 0% to 100% stretch, for example) but is not quite as clean when making large adjustments.

One more thing to note is that Audition 4 will be able to share a system with older versions without conflict, so you can enjoy the benefits Au4 offers while still falling back to Au3 for those features you may rely upon which have yet to be ported.

Durin, many thanks for that very helpful update, which has answered many questions I had about Audition 4.

It seems like a while since Audition 3, and it is clear now why the next update has been a while in the works. The improvements you are making sound very promising, and I look forward to trying the finished product.

However, as an Au3 customer, I wonder at this point whether the next upgrade will be more of a step forward (with speed improvements/etc) or backward (with missing features). There seem to be many things gone for now, or which the CD burning is the most serious for me, but also you mention clip stretching... does this mean that the iZotope Radius timestretch is no longer included?

Like all Au3 users I will need to evaluate this carefully, and perhaps wait until Audition 5 allows you time to reintroduce the features I already use, love and need. Either way it is great to know that Audition is in good hands, and has a continuing future. Thanks!

[headquest]

One more thing to note is that Audition 4 will be able to share a system with older versions without conflict, so you can enjoy the benefits Au4 offers while still falling back to Au3 for those features you may rely upon which have yet to be ported.

Ah, that's interesting to know
And thanks for the other answers

[camsr]

What's with the removal of the scientific filters and pitch bend? Those are my two most used operations in this great editor.

[diggum]

What's with the removal of the scientific filters and pitch bend? Those are my two most used operations in this great editor.

And two effects I would have personally loved to get ported for this release, which turned out to be some of the least-used effects - at least according to the results of our surveys. Let me stress that at this time, no "missing" feature has been removed. They simply haven't been ported and updated, but the original code is not compatible with the new foundation. It wouldn't have been possible to drop the old effects in as-is and worry about improving them later - while the DSP code itself often remains the same, all the pieces that plug into the player, interface, memory handling, etc need to be rewritten.

Some of the tradeoffs we needed to make to ensure we met our release schedule were simpler than others. (Does anyone here actually rely upon the MIDI Sequencer for professional music production?) Others were difficult and were definitely argued for until feature development stopped and the remaining time spent on in-depth testing.

I think for some Au3 users, Au4 will not satisfy them due to these missing features which they've come to depend upon. In this case, I hope you will continue using Au3 and give us another chance when Au5 is released. I also hope you'll at least download the trial of Audition 4 and see if the improvements are enough to consider using it to at least complement your existing workflow. For many Au3 users, and certainly folks who have been using Soundbooth or SoundTrack Pro or even Audacity, I think Au4 will be a dramatic improvement to how they approach editing and restoring audio. For video production users, OMF and Final Cut XML support will be huge.

Anyhow, with regards to your question, I'll add a note to the Feature Database items for these effects that we have another request for them to be reintroduced asap. Certainly the feedback we receive from longtime Audition users will be weighted heavily for some of these requests.

Thanks,
Durin

[headquest]

+1 for the scientific filter - one of the Au3 effects I have relied on a lot. It's good to hear that it will probably return in Au5.

[Ozpeter]

Durin, I don't know whether I'm kidding myself that in days gone by I had some influence in getting a basic midi sequencer added to Audition, but I certainly was a prominent supporter of the idea in the face of some quite vociferous opposition.

I still think that in a program that still has some claim to be suitable for ground-up music production, provision for recording virtual instruments has a place. And that doesn't mean that a midi sequencer is implied.

Think of it this way. You want to include a piano (say) on a track. If you are lucky you might have a real one available, which you mic up and record in the usual way. But I'd hazard a guess that more people involved in music production these days have non-real pianos available than real. You could of course go through some hoops to get the sound of a virtual piano into a midi-less Audition, but why not make it possible to do it in the one program? Maybe don't even provide for midi data recording, but just provide for the recording of the output of a VSTi on the track. So that way there would be a close parallel between having the sound of a piano captured by a mic and fed down a mic cable and that signal recorded as audio, or, the sound of a VSTi triggered by a midi keyboard connected by a midi cable.

Of course with no midi sequencer you can't then start fiddling with the midi data to alter the original performance, but you can't do that with recorded sound of the real piano either, so logically it's not a problem if you are considering Audition as a sound recording and editing program. It's just a matter of how the sound is created in the first place.

Obviously it won't be there at the outset but I'd still argue for owners of virtual instruments not to be totally excluded from the Audition party.

[headquest]

Playing devils advocate... I think that most people who own virtual instruments will have a proper MIDI sequencer host that they would use for doing that job properly, and not in some half-baked way. Audition's strength is really in post production, and I for one felt that Au3 was an awesome audio programme that had the worst ever MIDI sequencing built in (but very hidden from view, and frankly I found it unusable).

There's the issue of marketing too. Au3 may well have had VSTi support and MIDI sequencing, but I didn't see any attempt to market it to musicians in the usual places (sound on sound, music tech mag, electronic musician, computer music, etc).

So my request is that MIDI sequencing (at least) is left out permanently. I would like to see Au4 or at least Au5 equal the amazing audio power of Au3, but with added speed/etc and the workflow improvements mentioned. Sometime after that if Adobe really want to enter the music production/sequencing fray, well then that's for the future.

As for whether it would be useful to have a VST instrument added into an effects slot and then have the audio output recorded into a standard audio channel in Audition ... well that would I think have been a far better way to go in Au3 anyway, and it would definitely be useful - on that point I would certainly agree.

@ Durin: could you confirm if Rewire host support will still be in Au4?

The other thing I need to request again is for a tempo automation lane (in Au5 perhaps...) as for using the .cel loop content and getting the best out of the iZotope timestretch etc it would be great to have a tempo lane there, even in an audio-only programme. Thanks

[deleted]

DELETED

[diggum]

OzPeter,

Absolutely, and I don't think most people were OPPOSED to a good MIDI implementation and VSTi support. (Okay, there were a few very vocal critics...) I was working with the group developing the sequencer and was personally a little disappointed with the final result. It's functional, but some of the limitations necessary to hook it into the Audition audio engine made it a less-than-ideal experience. Of course, I can be a bit of an idealist and perfectionist, so I see all the flaws and even imagine many that don't exist.

The lesson I learned from that experience was that it's often better to NOT introduce a new feature if it can't be completed to the level of ease and performance I expect and that's evident in the rest of the application. In the case of the Sequencer, I don't feel we met the bar on this particular feature. The level of interest from users wasn't sufficient to get the support and resources necessary to create a brilliant sequencer, and much of the time that could have been spent improving it was spent hooking it into the audio engine that wasn't really designed for it.

I hope that when the time comes that we can revisit this, we can take the time to build a really useable, high-performance sequencer. I'll be back at KVR at that time begging for input

Durin

Durin, I don't know whether I'm kidding myself that in days gone by I had some influence in getting a basic midi sequencer added to Audition, but I certainly was a prominent supporter of the idea in the face of some quite vociferous opposition.

I still think that in a program that still has some claim to be suitable for ground-up music production, provision for recording virtual instruments has a place. And that doesn't mean that a midi sequencer is implied.

Think of it this way. You want to include a piano (say) on a track. If you are lucky you might have a real one available, which you mic up and record in the usual way. But I'd hazard a guess that more people involved in music production these days have non-real pianos available than real. You could of course go through some hoops to get the sound of a virtual piano into a midi-less Audition, but why not make it possible to do it in the one program? Maybe don't even provide for midi data recording, but just provide for the recording of the output of a VSTi on the track. So that way there would be a close parallel between having the sound of a piano captured by a mic and fed down a mic cable and that signal recorded as audio, or, the sound of a VSTi triggered by a midi keyboard connected by a midi cable.

Of course with no midi sequencer you can't then start fiddling with the midi data to alter the original performance, but you can't do that with recorded sound of the real piano either, so logically it's not a problem if you are considering Audition as a sound recording and editing program. It's just a matter of how the sound is created in the first place.

Obviously it won't be there at the outset but I'd still argue for owners of virtual instruments not to be totally excluded from the Audition party.

[diggum]

@ Durin: could you confirm if Rewire host support will still be in Au4?

Rewire slave/host support will not be available with this release. It remains in our feature backlog, although I can't comment on its priority at this time (mostly because it hasn't been prioritized.) I would absolutely be interested in knowing how useful you found it and what problems you experienced that might have limited its usefulness to you.

[rcat]

Durin, I don't know whether I'm kidding myself that in days gone by I had some influence in getting a basic midi sequencer added to Audition, but I certainly was a prominent supporter of the idea in the face of some quite vociferous opposition.

I still think that in a program that still has some claim to be suitable for ground-up music production, provision for recording virtual instruments has a place. And that doesn't mean that a midi sequencer is implied.

Think of it this way. You want to include a piano (say) on a track. If you are lucky you might have a real one available, which you mic up and record in the usual way. But I'd hazard a guess that more people involved in music production these days have non-real pianos available than real. You could of course go through some hoops to get the sound of a virtual piano into a midi-less Audition, but why not make it possible to do it in the one program? Maybe don't even provide for midi data recording, but just provide for the recording of the output of a VSTi on the track. So that way there would be a close parallel between having the sound of a piano captured by a mic and fed down a mic cable and that signal recorded as audio, or, the sound of a VSTi triggered by a midi keyboard connected by a midi cable.

Of course with no midi sequencer you can't then start fiddling with the midi data to alter the original performance, but you can't do that with recorded sound of the real piano either, so logically it's not a problem if you are considering Audition as a sound recording and editing program. It's just a matter of how the sound is created in the first place.

Obviously it won't be there at the outset but I'd still argue for owners of virtual instruments not to be totally excluded from the Audition party.

Durin, this is exactly what I've been trying to say (in a less eloquent way than Ozpeter) from the outset of the inception of this program. Why in the name of God are you all so opposed to implementation of full VSTi support? It seems that this would be a relatively simple matter to implement and would, im my opinion, make Audition a complete audio recording app. I truely believe this would make so many people like me happy (I, myself, would actually cry tears of joy!) and would increase your sales substantially. Excuse me while I thank you in advance.....and pray.

[headquest]

@ Durin: could you confirm if Rewire host support will still be in Au4?

Rewire slave/host support will not be available with this release. It remains in our feature backlog, although I can't comment on its priority at this time (mostly because it hasn't been prioritized.) I would absolutely be interested in knowing how useful you found it and what problems you experienced that might have limited its usefulness to you.

Thanks

As Record/Reason is my main composition and recording platform, I have tested this and found it reliable. It would be better however if ASIO support/latency was not an issue without engaging the transport. e.g. for testing patches.

It is useful to me because it enables me to process Reason/Record tracks using VST effects. Having said that, I find mixing in Record suits me better, so rewire support is not a deal breaker as it were. For me the primary use of Audition is for sample editing, and for mastering. That's why for me personally I would request that CD burning - together with DVD burning, MP3 coding, etc - are a much higher priority than rewire.