The new feature that was added for Flash Player 10 (aka Astro) is called “Dynamic Sound Generation.” Dynamic Sound Generation is an extension to the Sound class that plays back dynamically created audio content through the use of an event listener on the Sound object. This enables audio data generated by Actionscript to be passed to the sound card.

Tinic Uro, one of the engineers on the Flash Player team, has posted details on this new function on his blog linked below. Part 1 is some background info on audio support in the Flash Player, part 2 documents the new API and part 3 documents an additional Sound object method.
http://www.kaourantin.net/2008/05/adobe-is-making-some-noise-part-1.html
http://www.kaourantin.net/2008/05/adobe-is-making-some-noise-part-2.html
http://www.kaourantin.net/2008/05/adobe-is-making-some-noise-part-3.html

And to our friends at the Adobe Make Some Noise Campaign, we heard you. ☺

Lawson

“Theres a heck of a lot to Audition 3, and as a sample editor in particular, it’s most impressive and comprehensive, with some unique features. As a multitrack audio application, it’s good too, but not as slick and feature-rich as the established DAWs. Then again, those apps can’t hold a candle to Audition when it comes to sample editing.”
-Computer Music (UK)

And so the story continues…

Lawson

The report in InformationWeek gave the impression that anyone trying to run Audition 3 on Vista SP1 would run into this issue. It appears from our tests to date that this is an isolated issue that is happening to a minority of users. As with any major operating system update, our engineering team did extensive testing prior to the launch of Vista SP1 to ensure Audition was compatible with this update. At this point it’s too soon to know what is causing the issue being reported, but rest assured we are working on it and will post an update once we know more.

Lawson

UPDATE: We have posted a workaround on our support forum here:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b509c9/21

However, you will still experience the issue if you have a trial version of Audition running on Vista SP1 64-bit. We are working with Microsoft to come up with a resolution and will continue to post updates here and on our support forum.

"You probably have scissors, a knife, nail file, and corkscrew sitting around…yet you still have a Swiss Army knife because it puts all those things in one convenient place. Audition is like that. It’s a surprisingly versatile piece of software with a toolkit that’s unlike anything else.”
- Craig Anderton, Keyboard Magazine

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

Check out more details on the offer at: http://www.adobe.com/special/offers.html

One voiceover pro they profiled in the article was Ray Holbrook who does terminal announcements for Lexington, Kentucky’s Blue Grass Airport. Ray is a long time media personality in Kentucky and his familiar voice provides a level of comfort to air travelers in Lexington. Ray uses Audition for his voiceover work and was pictured recording with Audition in the print version of this article. The article didn’t mention Audition specifically, but it clearly was Audition in the photo. I suspect that like many broadcast professionals, voiceover pros like Ray are using Audition because it has all the tools you need to create great voice spots using a single software application.

Audition 3 also adds some new tools to make the voiceover creation workflow even easier. With the Top/Tail view you can simultaneously work on the end and beginning of your voiceover such as making sure things like the intro and outro sections work well together (fades, trims, etc.). Also, the auto crossfade feature saves lots of time when putting different audio clips together. This can also be combined with the group editing functions when you are working with multiple tracks. And of course you have all the power of spectral editing to cleanup any unwanted noises, pops, etc. This is really nice to have if you don’t want to have to redo a perfect take that has a sonic defect.

So the next time you hear a recognizable voice on a terminal announcement, there’s a good chance that voice spot was created and edited using Audition.

Lawson

When I want to record multiple tracks of audio with full effects and monitoring, I run Audition using Boot Camp. Audition works smoothly on an Intel Mac because Boot Camp runs Windows natively, just as any PC would. However, when all I want is to make some minor edits, restore some noisy files or perform some batch conversions, I run Audition from OS X using virtualization software from VMWare or Parallels. Virtualization has opened the door to all sorts of new possibilities for our application library making the OS less important as systems get more powerful, CPUs get more cores and memory gets cheaper. Both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion allow you to run Windows sessions without logging out of OS X (you can even use them with a Boot Camp installed partition). And since the VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop hardware configuration is customizable, you can adjust the amount of RAM available, which USB or Firewire devices it has access to or several other parameters.

So basically, if you plan to use Audition on an Intel-based Mac for one-track recording, light multitrack mixing, or editing and restoration, both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion will do the job. If you want to record and mix multiple audio tracks, you should run Audition using Boot Camp.

Durin Gleaves

Craig Anderton from EQ (not on-line yet)
Robin Smith from Remix

I particularly liked Robin's summary in the contents section of Remix: "Audition 3 gives you recording, mixing, mastering and video integration all in one. What will Adobe make next? Software that makes you waffles in the morning?"

Excellent idea! I love Belgian waffles on the weekends.

Lawson

And while I recently joined the audio team, I’m not exactly new to Adobe. I was the Product Manager for Contribute during the 2.0 and 3.0 releases at Macromedia in San Francisco. I left Macromedia just prior to the merger to work on a new album with my band Blue Tree in Seattle. I completed the album titled ‘Fault Lines’ this past summer and if you are curious you can check it out on my website (http://www.bluetreemusic.com) or on myspace (http://www.myspace.com/bluetreeband). As you might imagine I was excited to have the opportunity to come back to Adobe here in Seattle and combine my passion for music and software.

I’m taking the reins from Hart Shafer who has done an amazing job as Product Manager for Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro) for the past 10 years - 5 years at Adobe and 5 years with Syntrillium which was acquired by Adobe in 2003. He was also the man behind the Soundbooth launch this past year. Hart is now the Product Manager for the Product Premium suite, which is the version of Create Suite that combines Adobe’s video and audio tools. Hart has also has been the main person to blog about audio at Adobe for the past several years and I will be continuing that conversation here with help from other members of the audio team.

Since Audition 3 launched we’ve received a number of questions about supporting Mac OSX. Now while there isn’t a native Mac version of Audition, our test team and evangelist Jason Levine have been running it under Leopard’s Boot Camp with great results. We have a blog post on that coming up in the next few days.

So what other audio topics would you like to hear about? We welcome suggestions for topics on Audition, Soundbooth or on any other Adobe products or technologies. Since this is a team blog, other members of the audio team will be contributing to Inside Sound in order to give you a broad perspective on the variety of things Adobe is doing with audio. More importantly, we want to continue to gather your feedback in order to help you create great audio and visual experiences.

Welcome to Inside Sound!
Lawson Hancock