Blair Trosper is a long-time Audition user and radio station imaging director in North Carolina. He's decided to share what he's learned in a career of radio production (and Audition usage) with the world at his new blog, Generate Noise. It's brand new but his first posts are already packed with great information so I have high hopes this will be a great resource for the community. Drop by to check it out and encourage Blair to keep it up!
Cynthia Wisehart has posted a new article on Digital Content Producer Online about NAB and Adobe. It's a great read, and it's always interesting to see an outside take on what has become a hot-button issue.
We're psyched for NAB this year. Unlike most attendees, have customers at every stage of the video production line: from planning and shooting, through post-production, all the way out to playback--and those workflows keep multiplying as quality expectations rise and the number of relevant screens grows. There's no better way for us to engage with and get feedback from all those different customers than at NAB. Broadcast is simply in our blood. We'll see you there.
I've been living, breathing, thinking, and dreaming audio software for just over 10 years. Starting with Syntrillium in 1997, to Adobe with the team in 2003, and through the release of Audition 3 last November, it's been my pleasure to work with some of the most brilliant minds I know to bring what (I hope) are some of the best audio tools in the world to you all. It's been a ton of fun, and while audio (and music in particular) will continue to be my first love and passion, it's time for me to move on and try something new. Ten years is a long time for anything, even the best job in the world.
So what now? Well, I'm not going too far--I've been asked to take on the enviable role of product manager for Production Premium. Now my mission is to broaden my view of the world and try to keep an eye on the whole video and interactive workflow--from planning to playback, from the web to HD, from mobile to movies. I'm thrilled by the chance to stretch into something new but still stay close (and in touch) with the audio team and products I love.
And the audio team couldn't be in better hands. I'm thrilled to say we found someone who's a perfect fit for the audio product management position: Lawson Hancock. Not only does Lawson have lots of software product management experience, but he's also a musician who left Macromedia several years ago to finish his album. But I'll let him introduce himself--Lawson has just started up a new audio team blog where he and the rest of the team will keep you all up to date on the world of audio at Adobe. Make sure to stop by and bookmark or subscribe to the new blog! And this blog? Well, I intend to keep it going with a spread focus on all sorts of Dynamic Media topics.
Finally, I just want to thank all of you, our users. The last ten years have been a thrill and it's entirely because of your enthusiasm and passion for our tools and how it they fit into your own work. The shouts of joy when I show a new version--and the honest calling out when we fall short--have kept me engaged and excited like nothing else, and I look forward to seeing what you, and the audio team, create next.
Software Editorial has posted another review and overview of Soundbooth. The reviewer concludes with:
SoundBooth CS3 provides all the necessary tools without confusing the user, and enables good quality audio to be a part of a professional video presentation.
Cool!
Today I saw that Matt Armstrong over at Studio Daily has posted a short video tutorial on using Soundbooth's Noise Reduction. It looks like the video is taken from a longer training series from classondemand.com. I'm not familiar with their training series, but it looks like they cover a bunch of titles.
Yesterday we rolled out an update to Resource Central, the live Internet-connected panel inside of Soundbooth. The update refreshed the interface, making it much easier to search and browse through available sound effects, Soundbooth Scores, and news items. Some people don't realize that Soundbooth comes with access to more than 3,000 sound effects--just search for and download them from Resource Central!
Resource Central is a new idea for a lot of users (and Adobe!) and I think it's an exciting glimpse into the future. A lot of people talk about the future of software services and how they're taking over, but we know that it'll be a long time before a browser-based application can handle everything an application like Soundbooth is capable of. But I think we'll see the hybrid approach that Resource Central points to in more and more applications--you can already the trend at its extreme with apps like Google Earth. All the heavy lifting on the graphics happens on your local machine, but all the data comes down from servers. It's no surprise that Adobe's betting big on this trend with AIR, which is specifically for building connected applications that run on your desktop.
In any case, Resource Central is a toe in the water for the audio team and we're excited to refresh it in the middle of the product cycle like this. If you have Soundbooth make sure to give it a try and download a few effects.
It looks like the fine folks over at Total Training have released their "essentials" training for Soundbooth CS3. I haven't seen this one, but based on their previous releases I'm sure it's a great training series. It clocks in at 2.5 hours and is available online as standalone training or on DVD as part of the Production Premium training set.
Happy New Year to everyone! I know it's been pretty quiet on the blog front lately. Who knew that things would stay so busy after we shipped Audition?
In any case, as with most everyone the New Year is a time for me to reflect on the previous twelve months and look forward to the next twelve. For the audio team 2007 was definitely a great, if exhausting, year. It was a real thrill to bring a brand new product to market with Soundbooth, and equally fun to ship what we think is a killer new version of Audition just a few months later. One of my personal measures of job satisfaction comes from seeing an ever-increasing number of people use and enjoy products I worked to create. Having two audio products in the stable for different kinds of folks means that we're touching more people than ever before, and the strong uptake of Audition 3 by old and new customers alike has been a real thrill.
Looking forward, I always try to predict what the year will bring and I'm almost always wrong on more than half of it! We've got some cool things planned and I'll look forward to sharing more when I can... In the meantime, I've been remiss in linking to some of the articles that you might find interesting. Today, I've got three reviews of Audition 3:
I think Bob's review is particularly interesting because he sees Audition through new eyes as a general designer. Also, Gary's review comes from the perspective of a video pro and so he talks more about the relationship between Soundbooth and Audition and why Adobe "bothers" to have two audio products.
I hope you all have a wonderful, prosperous, and great sounding New Year!
We're pleased to announce that Adobe Audition 3 is now shipping. We really think this is a killer release with something (or many somethings) for everyone, from old hands to newcomers alike. The information about the release is up at the main Audition page or you can go directly to the “what's new” page. We also have the trial version posted. It's fully functional for 30 days so you can dig into the product and really see for yourself whether it's what you need.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's a party this afternoon I need to get ready for! :)
Yesterday Apple released OS X 10.5, better known as Leopard. There's a lot of great stuff in there for the Mac-toting crowd (personally, I'm most looking forward to one of the small things: "stacks" in the dock) but unfortunately late builds of Leopard also introduced an incompatibility with some of our applications, including Soundbooth.
For the most part, Soundbooth seems to work fine in Leopard but there are two things that might get you into trouble.
First, Soundbooth will likely crash if you select "System Default Input/Output" in either the Soundbooth preferences dialog or in the recording dialog. This is not selected by default, and if you select any other choice for your audio hardware Soundbooth still works fine.
Second, Soundbooth may crash when you quit the application if the video window open and undocked. This crash doesn't appear to hurt Soundbooth or your system (since it only happens when you're quitting the app) but it can be annoying.
Our team is working on a patch right now and we expect to have it out and available in December. Until then, if you avoid the two scenarios above you shouldn't have any problem with Soundbooth in Leopard. You can check out the Adobe Leopard FAQ for more information about all of our products.