I often get asked the question “why did Adobe release Soundbooth when we already had Audition?” The other question I get a lot is “will Soundbooth replace Audition?” The answers to both of these questions are related.
First off, Soundbooth is not a replacement for Audition. While Audition and Soundbooth share some audio editing capabilities, they were built for different users. Audition is an all-in-one solution for recording, editing, mixing and mastering designed for audio engineers and musicians. It’s a tool that enables you to perform a wide range of audio tasks from producing an entire album to restoring audio recordings that have been sitting in a basement for many years. Soundbooth is designed for creative pros that aren’t experts in audio, but do periodically need to work with the audio associated with a visual project (e.g. a video in Premiere or a Flash project for the web).
To meet the needs of the user who doesn’t work with audio everyday, Soundbooth has as user experience designed for a non-audio pro. For example, Soundbooth has a task panel that includes a list of common tasks for doing things like cleaning up audio (e.g., removing background noises and pops) or removing a specific sound. While Audition also has these same audio editing capabilities (and more), it has a user experience tailored to the needs of audio professionals who live in audio tools all day and sometimes all night.
Another way to think about Soundbooth is as the next generation of Cool Edit and SoundEdit 16. Cool Edit was a shareware audio editor developed by Syntrillium that ran on Windows and SoundEdit 16 was a Mac-based audio editing tool from Macromedia. Like Soundbooth, these tools were for users who needed to occasionally work with audio. Both Cool Edit and SoundEdit 16 were very popular because of their ease of use and low cost. Macromedia discontinued SoundEdit 16 in 2004 and Cool Edit was discontinued after Syntrillium was acquired by Adobe in 2003. The pro version of Cool Edit, aptly named Cool Edit Pro, is what became Adobe Audition. Soundbooth is continuing the audio editing tradition of Cool Edit and SoundEdit 16 and it runs on both OSX and Windows.
So for those of you who are still using Cool Edit or SoundEdit 16, now is a good time to consider getting an audio tool that’s a bit more up to date. You can download the trial and give it a spin here. https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=soundbooth
For further reading, I’ve also posted some recent reviews of Soundbooth below:
http://www.softwareeditorial.com/VideoPresentationMac/adobesoundbooth.html
http://www.gamedev.net/features/reviews/productreview.asp?productid=682
I also want to hear from you on how Soundbooth measures up to its heritage, so if you have any specific comments or general feedback please post it here.
Lawson