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.

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.

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!

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.

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:

• George Peterson from Mix Magazine
  
• Bob Nicholl from Designer Today
  
• Gary Eskow from Digital Content Producer
  

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!

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a party this afternoon I need to get ready for! :)

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.

Some of the highlights include:

• MIDI recording and editing in a piano roll sequencer
  
• VSTi support
  
• Spectral frequency selection paintbrush
  
• Spectral frequency healing brush
  
• Marque editing in the spectral pan and phase displays
  
• Multitrack auto-crossfades and fade handles on every clip
  
• Grouped-clip editing in the multitrack view
  
• New effects including Convolution Reverb, Analog Delay, a new Mastering tool, and a Guitar Suite
  
• Time stretching using the Radius engine from iZotope
  
• A dedicated top/tail view in the edit view for tuning the start and end of a file
  
• On-clip controls for volume and fades in the edit view
  
• New Adaptive Noise Reduction and Phase Correction tools
  
• Improved performance with N-core support in the mixing engine

More personally, this rounds out quite a year for me and for the whole audio team. It's been an exhausting, challenging, exhilarating ride trying to bring a new take on audio to the world at the same time we were advancing a well-loved product to the next level. I couldn't be more proud of the team and, while there are always things we wished we could have done better, and others we wish we had done more or less of, on the whole I hope you'll agree that this is a bang-up release for our audio workhorse and a huge step forward for Adobe in audio. Now I'm going to take my fatigue, my wife, and myself on a vacation so don't be surprised if this spot is dark for a little while. :) More news when I return!

For those of you who haven't played with the AutoCompser yet, it allows non-musicians to load a fully composed piece of music (a Soundbooth Score) and then adjust how it sounds to match the mood and feel of your project. If you want to see more there's a section of the product tour that shows how it works.

If you do go and produce a Soundbooth Score you'd like to share, let me know here at the blog or link to it over on our Adobe Soundbooth User-to-User forums.