Hart's Dynamic Media Blog

I mentioned a few posts ago that we could have a Sydney get-together for Audition folks after the seminar on Tuesday and got a few posts and emails, so we’re on! The seminar runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday so I figure I’ll be ready to head out about 4:30 after I allow for time to tie up the loose ends. We’ll have scouted out a place we can go hang out and get some drinks, and during the seminar I’ll mention where we should all congregate after the seminar (probably in the back of the room somewhere). See you tomorrow!

P.S. The posting is still on west-coast US time, even though it's Monday for me here near Brisbane. Just to make sure it's clear, the seminar is on Tuesday Sydney-time

Posted by Hart Shafer at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The whirlwind Production Studio seminar tour continued after we left Seoul on Tuesday, bound for Hong Kong. We were only in Hong Kong for somewhere around 16 hours from the time our plane touched down until the time it took off on Wednesday night. As we were joking the next morning, we were in the "nicest hotel room we barely saw." My only sightseeing in Hong Kong was this snap in the morning from the hotel window. We had about 400 people in Hong Kong, which was a great turnout, especially considering we started the event at 9 a.m. (and we all know how creative folks hate to get up early). Unfortunately I didn't get a good crowd shot.

(My total sightseeing in Hong Kong)

On Wednesday we flew down to Singapore, were we had a day of meetings before the seminar day. On Friday we set up and presented a marathon seminar to a full house. After we finished we all hopped on a plane again for a red-eye flight to Brisbane, and then a car out to Coolum, where there's a conference of IT and tech press going on right now. A day off on Saturday did us all a world of good, and tomorrow (Monday) we're off to Sydney for the last event of the tour on Tuesday. I hope to see a bunch of folks there!

(Bob puts the finishing touches on the presentation machine)


(The crowd in Singapore)

Posted by Hart Shafer at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're currently looking for two experienced software engineers who are interested in working with a tight-knit team to deliver great software. At this point we're particularly interested in individuals who have deep experience and passion for UI/front-end development, and previous media development experience is a huge plus. One position is open in Seattle, Washington, USA (job ID PE120502) and the other is in Hamburg, Germany (job ID LM010606). For more details, or to submit your resume' or CV, visit Adobe's career opportunities page and search for the job IDs listed above. And please forward this information to anyone you know who might be interested!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a outstanding turnout in Seoul, with over 1200 people attending. The crowd was great, and I'd like to thank everyone in Seoul for their amazing hospitality.

I snapped a picture from on stage before my presentation. You can't see it in the picture, but there are dozens of people sitting and standing in the aisles and there was another room that was packed with folks watching the seminar on projection screens.

(View large image)

Posted by Hart Shafer at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm off today for the seminar series so it'll be quiet around here for a couple weeks, but I'll try to at least post a few pictures from the road. Don't let it get out of hand around here while I'm gone, and if you're last one out in the evening, make sure to turn off the lights.

:)

Posted by Hart Shafer at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I was coming through a bunch of cities. It turns out I have the most time in Sydney, where I've never been. I know that there are more than a few Audition users there I was thinking that it would be fun for some of us to get together after the seminar on Feb 28th for some food or drinks and chat about Audition, audio, and just generally put faces with names. That way I can meet some of you all even if you can't make it to the main seminar. Interested? Leave a comment and make sure to put your email address in the email field and we'll plan something! If anyone is game I'd also be interested in seeing some studios where Audition is in use while I'm down there. I'll be in town for a couple days past the seminar.

Finally, any suggestions for what I should do with my little bit of free time while I'm in town?

Posted by Hart Shafer at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Matt, one of our testers, sent me a cool link to a video that the tech guys over at Systm have put together on podcasting. The whole video (which you can download here) is a little under 40 minutes and they go through a lot of details on how to put together a podcast using all sorts of tools.

The coolest part is that the in the middle section they go into Leo Laporte's studio to see how he puts together his podcast, This Week in Tech. TWiT is consistently among the most downloaded podcasts and almost always the top podcast on computers and technology, and Leo uses Audition for all of his recording and editing! Leo's setup is really advanced, with a lot of gear that he has from doing radio work, but the basic principles are the same and it's cool to see how he does everything. Plus, TWiT is just a great show.

Are you doing something cool with Audition that you'd like to share? Music for a cool band? Podcasting something interesting? Doing great radio? Working in sound for picture? Recording bats in the Amazon? Let us know! Email coolaud{at}adobe{dot}com with how you're using Audition.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Adobe Audition 2 requires a processor that supports the SSE instructions set, and there are some questions on exactly what chips support it. On the Intel side it's easy: any Pentium III or later and you're ok, including the Pentium M, Xeon, and Itanium. On the AMD side it's a little trickier. AMD first introduced support for the SSE set part way through the Athlon line, which means that Athlon processors at the produced early in the cycle don't support it but later ones do. If you have an Athlon XP or later you're set.

If you have any questions about whether your processor supports SSE, there's an adobe techdoc available that includes a link to a utility that can tell you for sure. (The doc references Premiere Pro but applies equally to Audition.)

Now, some folks may wonder why we decided to require SSE. Really, it just boils down to the fact that we were able to get some pretty significant speed increases in many parts of the program by using it and it would have been very expensive engineering-wise to provide a complete set of code that didn't require SSE for folks who had older chips.

There's also a question floating around regarding AMD support in general. Audition 2 works well on AMD processors, and we have a bunch of AMD-based machines here in the office that we test on regularly. We did use some Intel-optimized code for our FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) calculations which helps accelerate parts of the program (the spectral views, other analysis tools, and many effects) even further when running on Intel chips. And why did we use this Intel-optimized code? Intel provided us highly optimized libraries that have a bunch of developer-years of work in them, as well as the assistance of several engineers to help us integrate the work, so we were able to get a performance increase for many of our users without impacting the number of features our core developers were able to develop. We didn't find any disadvantage of using this code on AMD chips, but there was a good boost for folks with Intel chips, so the choice was easy.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Adobe Production Studio roadshow has just kicked off--folks from Adobe will be spreading out to cities in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Japan over the next couple of months to present seminars that give you an in-depth look at the whole post-production solution. You can see a list of the seminar cities on the Production Studio site. If you don't live near one of the cities currently on the list, you can sign up to be notified if we add a location near you for a future tour. Unfortunately, the list is out of date but if you sign upfor Premiere Pro you'll know about Audition tours--we always travel together.

I'll be on the Asia-Pacific tour, so if you're in Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Sydney please sign up and then come out to say hi!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The reviews are starting to come in more rapidly now. The latest is from Byte.com by reviewer David Em -- it's a good overview review of the whole Adobe Productio Studio, but which is a great read but you'll need to register to get the whole article. The Audition section is about 2/3 of the way through, and I quote:

"This version will give any audio app on the market a run for its money."

Posted by Hart Shafer at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DigitalProSound.com has published a tutorial on using the Edit in Adobe Audition functionality in Premiere Pro. As the reviewer says, it practically takes longer to describe the function that to use it, but the basic idea is that you can select any audio clip in the Premiere Pro or After Effects Timeline, right click, and select Edit in Adobe Audition. The clip is automatically sent to Audition where any edits can be made, and when you save the file from Audition it's automatically updated in the Premiere Pro or After Effects timeline. The cool bit is that the audio clip doesn't need to exist as its own file--it works even if the audio is part of a video stream captured from tape, which means you can save about 6 steps in getting the file edited. It's perfect for using Audition to clean up production audio.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An independent group has put together a comparison of current sample rate converters, and I'm happy to say that Audition's SRC algorithm is among the best available, and clearly the best one that comes included with a host application! (And that's before you even consider price.) Our sample rate conversion has always been considered one of the best, but it's great to have independent, empirical confirmation.

Incidentally, our SRC process goes back to the Cool Edit 96 days at Syntrillium and was written by David, the original Cool Edit author. It's been sped up between then and now but the quality has been the same for almost 8 years.

[edit 5:11PM] What are the odds that this page would be updated today? Well, it has been and there are some new algorithms included. Audition is still among the best, but there are a few more posted now that compete (and even beat) us. Still, I'm proud of where we sit! :)

Posted by Hart Shafer at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Speaking of reviews, I never linked to a long Audition review that came out on digitalproducer.com (part of Digital Media Net). Frank Moldstad, the reviewer, doesn't give a numeric rating, but I really enjoyed reading how he summed up his review:

Audition 2.0 is a hot program for a wide variety of audio tasks, from seamless integration into a large-scale production workflow to a complete DAW for home studio use. And it's all wrapped and ready in a beautiful new modular interface that just begs you to dive in and start working. It's good to see that as Adobe continues to add interoperability between its appplications, this does not come at the expense of any functionality in Audition for standalone use. This is by far the best version of Adobe Audition , not to mention Cool Edit Pro, and I'd highly recommend it as either a dedicated audio DAW application or as the audio component in a multimedia production line.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe Audition 2 was featured in a short PC World review that went live last night. I'm excited to say that Audition recieved a 92/100 for a total rating of "Superior!" The other Adobe Production Studio applications were also reviewed: Premiere Pro 2 recieved 92/100, After Effects 7 recieved 90/100, and Encore DVD 2 recieved 88/100. Excellent!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Edirol R-09 is one of those devices that I wish I had seen in person at NAMM. (warning: the link plays music) It looks like the built-in microphone makes it just about perfect for interviews in the field for radio or podcasting, and with full 48V phantom power on its microphone inputs it might be usable for some high-quality stereo recording as well. Plus, like some other recent recorders, it's all solid-state so hopefully it's a lot more durable than a portable DAT. If anyone has one of these, let me know. I'd be curious to hear how it works in the field.

[edit: I just saw that these are available coming soon, so it's unlikely anyone has one yet!]

(Found via createdigitalmusic.com)

Posted by Hart Shafer at 09:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)