Inside Sound

The team is making their way back from the NAB show in Las Vegas, so our posts might be a bit brief over the next few days while we unpack and recover.  We wanted to touch on some new functionality in Audition CS6 that isn’t glamorous nor based on patented DSP algorithms, but has the potential to reduce setup time and minimize user confusion on shared workstations.

LEGACY PREFERENCE IMPORT
Audition CS6 supports importing preferences, keyboard shortcuts, favorites, effect presets, and metadata display settings from an existing installation of Audition CS5.5.  Some of you may remember a function in Cool Edit Pro and early versions of Audition whereby you would drag-and-drop an old settings file onto Audition and it would import the preferences.  This “secret” feature remained but went largely unsupported in later releases of Audition, and was not re-implemented for CS5.5.

CS6 removes the need to discover arcane secrets and hidden files, and simply asks permission to import legacy prefs on first launch if it detects and existing installation of Audition CS5.5.

(Note: The dire warning about never having another opportunity to import is a bit of bluster.  If you hit cancel or decide later that you’d like to import the legacy preferences, you can delete your existing CS6 preference directory and launch Audition to be prompted once again.)

MACHINE-SPECIFIC PREFERENCES
A brand new feature for CS6, and one that came directly from user requests, enables IT admins to configure shared systems on managed networks to override roaming user hardware settings with appropriate settings for each machine.  Historically, Audition saves the last used hardware device in the user preferences.  Typically, these will be local and only used by the machine in question, but for users in some larger environments, their Windows user profiles are roaming which means they can logon to any computer on the network and their application settings data will follow them.  This works great when a user wants their preferred desktop layout or effect presets wherever they work, but starts to introduce problems when the last system they used had an RME audio interface, but the workstation they just logged into has an M-Audio FastTrack, for example.  Audition can’t find the RME device and prompts the user to reconfigure which for many users might as well be a pop quiz on quantum mechanics.

Now, administrators setting up a shared machine may install a pre-defined hardware configuration on a per-machine basis and override any existing user preferences.  Savvy users may ignore the pre-defined configuration or change their device as before, if necessary.  This bit of trickery is accomplished in a very simple manner: The Audio Hardware, Audio Channel Mapping, and Control Surface preferences have been broken out into a separate file, MachineSpecificSettings.xml.  When an admin has properly configured an installation of Audition on a new workstation, they can locate this file in the default user preferences folder and copy it to a shared location:

Mac OS X: /Library/Preferences/Adobe/Audition/5.0/
       Windows 7/XP (32-bit): /Program Files/Common Files/Adobe/Audition/5.0/
       Windows 7/XP (64-bit):  /Program Files (x86)/Common Files/Adobe/Audition/5.0/

This feature is enabled by default, but if Audition does not find the global preference file, it falls back to the user preference.

 Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, or visit our User Forum discussion at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/991843

Audition CS6 Preview – Effects: VST3, side-chains and much more

Audition CS6 brings significant improvements and new features to effects hosting and routing.

VST3

New to Audition CS6 – and, well. any Adobe product – is support for VST3 audio plug-ins. Steinberg has been at work updating the VST specification, and VST3 represents a stronger and more stable model for building and hosting plug-ins. For the user, this means both the application and the plug-in can be more stable and reliable because we’re able to communicate in a more consistent manner. VST2.4, while still dominant and pervasive for many audio plug-ins has certain limitations for developers. We believe the move to VST3 has started and expect to see many more plug-ins head this direction.  VST3 will be available on both Mac and Windows versions of Audition CS6.

Side-Chaining

Audition CS6 offers the ability to run a side-chain input to some of your plug-ins when used in a track effect. The routing engine in and out of the effects host [see below] has been dramatically improved from CS5.5 and previous versions, and this brings with it side-chaining: the ability to feed the signal from one audio source into the input of an effect on a different source.

Choose a specific channelization for your side-chain input, or determine it dynamically based on the source stream

Simply insert a plug-in that supports side-chain input to the desired track.  On the track that will act as your input signal, select the appropriate side-chain destination from your Sends view as you might any Bus.  The routing engine will take care of the rest, adjusting the effect dynamics on one track based on the signal from the other.

Use a Send to route your desired signal into the appropriate effect side-chain input.

In Audition CS6, we enabled the Dynamics Processing effect to support side chaining, which will allow basic ducking and input driven compression. There are many 3^rd party effects and plug-ins that also support side chains for other interesting creative uses.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of side chains in general, take a look here for some more info.

Effects Channel Routing – No More Restrictions!

Audition CS6 introduces an entirely new way to manage effect channel routing. The challenge we were faced with was how to manage the large variety of 3^rd party plug-ins that all present their audio channels differently, and often for very legitimate reasons. Some say they’re mono and stereo in and out. Some present themselves as 3 channels (the assumption being mono and stereo) in and mono/stereo out and it gets even more complicated for up-mix and down-mix effects (2 channels-in to 6-out, for example).  The effects host in Audition CS5.5 was a good start, but this host required a matching presentation of channels by the plug-in.  By changing our method of handling plug-ins, we saw immediate gains in compatibility and stability.

What does this mean to you? Well, for most, you won’t ever need to touch this part of the application nor will you likely notice much change if you don’t use 3^rd party plug-ins (and this is a good thing!).

This new approach introduces a new channel router to each effect, is configurable per-effect, and is accessible in the upper-right corner of the effect window:

This button toggles between the effect UI and channel mapping

Here’s an example of what a stereo effect looks like in the effect channel router in the Multiband Compressor when they exist on a 5.1 track:

Easily route any incoming signal to the desired effect output path

Quickly, you’ll notice that the “input” and “output” line up 1:1 (Left In goes to Left Out, etc). If I wanted the “left” to go out the “center”, I would simply select that in the “effect output” column. It should be noted this is a router/mapper only and does not allow creation of new channels unless the effect being used does this (e.g. up-mix). We also provided a “Reset Routing” button to get you back…just in case.

It cannot be understated how powerful this is, and even if you never use it, it represents a huge shift in how effects are handled and work in the application.

Improved Effects Scanner

Audition CS6 now includes an improved effects scanner that will scan VST and AudioUnits effects “out of process”. What does this mean to you? More stable scanning and fewer crashes during scanning of 3^rd party plug-ins.

Our goal here was simple: reduce crashes caused by incompatible, buggy, or poorly coded plug-ins. We separated the scan from the main application and saw our crashes caused by 3^rd party plugs drop dramatically. Now, if the scanner crashes, it simply reports back that it crashed, blacklists the plug-in, and continues scanning without needing to restart the application.

New Effects Menu Sorting: VST and AU Plug-in Menu Changes

In Audition CS5.5 the only view order of your plug-ins  was “channel” type (e.g. mono, stereo, etc). Admittedly, this didn’t work as well as we’d hoped, so we changed it. If you just read above regarding channelization changes – you should if you haven’t – then you might have an idea of why we changed this behavior. Well to follow suit, we now allow you to sort effects by “vendor”, “category”, “vendor/category”, “category/vendor” or one giant list (no grouping at all). By default they will be organized by “category/vendor” as advertised by the plug-in developer.

In preferences you can select whichever grouping/sorting you like:

Save an Effects Rack as a Favorite

Audition CS6 introduces the ability to save any effects rack as a Favorite. This means you will now be able to recall that favorite and apply it immediately to a single file or use it in batch processing to change many files at once.

While the list of new features and changes to Audition CS6 is extensive, I wanted to take the time to focus a bit on the additions to the Audition Multitrack environment. As you will notice, even though many of these features existed in the Windows-only versions of Audition 3 and earlier – each one has been improved and extended in Audition CS6.

Here are the highlights:

Clip Grouping: The ability to group clips has returned to Audition. Not only did we add the abilities from Audition 3, but Audition CS6 extends that to allow users to make changes to individual clips within a group (with our suspend feature) and make group time-alignment adjustments to real-time stretch settings. Of course you can once again perform other group actions like fade, lock, mute, colorize and trimming of all clips in the group as well. Check out a walk-through of grouping in Colin’s sneak peak video here.

Metronome: Audition CS6 introduces a new Metronome track that acts as a full featured part of the Audition CS6 Multitrack. While it was nice to have an on/off switch for this in Audition 3 and earlier, the new track metronome allows for much more flexibility (similar to a normal audio track) which includes routing the output and muting. We also added the option to change the accent pattern and sound set directly within the Properties panel.

Clip Stretching: The return of clip stretching also brings new options and the ability to perform real-time or rendered stretches using iZotope Radius. We have also implemented a varispeed clip stretching option to allow independent adjustments of time vs pitch. We plan to have a more in-depth post about this feature later, but I suggest taking a peek at the reveal video posted on the Production Premium Reveal page for more details.

Session Templates: This feature has been requested since back in the days of Cool Edit Pro and we have now introduced it in Audition CS6. We allow users to create templates from common Multitrack session layouts and load them when creating a new session. We also have a set of defaults that we ship with to help get you started. Check out Durin’s short demonstration on how to use Session Templates in the video posted here. After watching the video you’ll notice that we didn’t load this up with complicated choices or steps. Templates are easy to create and very simple to use.

Session Export Enhancements: This includes the ability to perform a “save copies of associated files” export to package all files included in the session to a new location. Users can also choose to convert file formats and change sample rate and other file properties before exporting their session and assets. Another great addition is the ability to perform a mixdown of your session with advanced options such as exporting multiple versions in mono, stereo and 5.1. We also allow for the choice to export each track (including buses) as individual files.

Preference to save all files with Sessions: This preference (when enabled) will ensure that when a session file is saved, the session will reference all files within the session AND all files open in the Files panel. This allows users to start working on the construction of a session, save the .sesx file, and come back later to continue adding files from the Files panel directly to the timeline. This will be a huge timesaver for many.

Automatic Speech Alignment: Some of you may remember this from the 2011 Adobe Max Sneak Peak when Brian King demonstrated this as a new research feature called “RubbaDub”. Well, we were able to implement the first version of this technology into Audition CS6 as “Automatic Speech Alignment”. The concept is as follows:  Choose two clips that are at relatively the same point in time with relative alignment but which are also out of sync with each other. With the clips selected, choose to perform an Automatic Speech Alignment and choose the reference and unaligned targets. Audition will analyze the files and do it’s best to align the waveforms to sync the two sources. This is another feature we plan to give more in-depth coverage later, but Colin also covers it in his sneak peak video to get you started.

Workflow Enhancements: There are many other new features, changes and improvements that have been made to the Multitrack environment of Audition CS6. Below is a list of other features that were high priority and most requested for this release.

• Clip spotting: Use the properties panel to manually enter clip start and end times for precise placement.
• Control Surface Support: Mackie MCU, native Avid EUCON, other controller support.
• Recordable track automation: Full Write, Touch, Latch support with undo.
• Skip Selection: A new play mode found in the transport that allows users to define an area and preview the pre and post roll before making an edit.
• Select all clips from playhead to end of track: Shortcut to quickly select all clips in a track starting from the playhead position.
• Sum to Mono: Button option for each track to control the output to mono.
• Bounce selected track: Bounce an entire track as a new clip.
• Reveal clip in files panel: Instantly reveal the source of any clip in your timeline.
• Trim to selection: Make a time selection and quickly trim your clips to the selection region.
• Send clip to back: Arrange clips on the same track by sending the top clip to the back of the stack.
• Preference to play or mute overlapped clips: Choose to either play or mute clips (or sections of a clip) that may be hiding beneath others with this new preference.
• Snap volume and pan envelopes at 0dB: New snapping control for volume and pan envelopes to ensure 0dB positional placement.
• Drag and drop file marker range to multitrack (as clip): With the new “show markers for all files” button in the Markers panel, drag and drop marker ranges directly into a session as a new clip.

If you have questions about these new features or anything else Audition related, please visit our user forums: http://forums.adobe.com/community/audition/audition_general

For a larger list of new and changed features in Audition CS6 please visit http://blogs.adobe.com/insidesound/2012/04/whats-new-in-adobe-audition-cs6.html

Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage of the new features in Audition CS6…

Back by popular demand, CD Burning has been re-introduced in Adobe Audition CS6.  As many of you know, CD Burning workflows found in Audition 3 and earlier were not implemented in the first cross-platform version of Audition and we heard your reaction to that loud and clear.  Because of the continued popularity of this feature and the extremely large number of customer requests, the team worked hard to re-implement CD Burning for this release.

Users familiar with the CD list view in earlier (Windows-only) versions of Audition will find the new implementation very familiar.  Audition CS6 allows for the creation of CD layouts for organization of audio tracks with the ability to save these layouts into our .cdlx file type.  Just like Multitrack Session files, Audition CS6 also allows users to open and work with more than one CD Layout at a time if desired.

Other components of the new CD Burning feature include the ability to treat CD Track marker ranges as CD tracks in the layout, deep support for the creation of CD-Text, ability to create more than one copy at a time and the NEW ability to burn audio directly from the Waveform Editor. This enables users to create quick edits and burn a waveform direct to CD in those cases where a full CD layout would not be required.

Here’s a deeper list of what you can expect from the CD Burning workflows added to Adobe Audition CS6:

1. CD Layout support which includes a way to organize CD tracks and save them to our .cdlx format.  CD Layouts can include any audio format Audition can import including selections of audio within a CD Track marker range.
2. New “CD Track” marker type to automatically snap selections of audio to 75fps for CD.
3. Preference to change the default pause between CD tracks.
4. Enhanced Properties Panel layout which includes a CD Text section for easy insertion of metadata for the CD.
5. Additional export command for “Burn Audio to CD” which allows for direct burning of a single audio file from the Waveform Editor. If the audio file contains CD Track marker ranges we will also automatically burn each marker range as a different track on the CD.
6. The Burn Audio dialog includes the ability to test or burn, set speed options, choose the number of copies to create and an optional steps of final verification or ejection when complete.

So for those who pushed hard for the team to bring back CD Burning and make it available for Windows and Mac, Audition CS6 has what you need. For those who have asked for even more improvements to the feature over the years, we think you’ll find that the workflows have improved to allow more flexibility and control as well.

Adobe Audition CS6 is on its way, and we are now revealing all of the new and changed features in Audition CS6 and other professional video and audio applications in Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, including Adobe Prelude and SpeedGrade. Go here for details. Information on pricing and availability is not yet available, but stay tuned here for updates.

Note that Audition CS6 and all of the other applications in CS6 Production Premium will also be available as part of Adobe Creative Cloud. Stay tuned here for additional details about Creative Cloud as they become available.

If you’re at the NAB tradeshow, come see us in the Adobe booth (SL2624) 16-19April2012. We’ll have live demonstrations and presentations by customers and Adobe personnel. We’ll also be participating in the keynote address along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Academy Award winner Rob Legato. Trainers will also be teaching CS6 versions of our professional video and audio applications at the Post|Production World Conference 14-18April2012.

Here’s a link to the summary of what’s new in CS6 professional video and audio applications, with short overview movies about some of the top features. These PDF documents are a much deeper look at what’s new, so be sure to check them out, too:

• Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Media Encoder, Encore CS6 (PDF)
• Adobe Prelude CS6 (PDF)
• Adobe SpeedGrade CS6 (PDF)
• Adobe Story (PDF)

If you want to ask questions about these new and changed features, come on over to the Audition user-to-user forum. That’s the best place for questions. Questions left in comments on a blog post are much harder to work with; the blog comment system just isn’t set up for conversations.

Keep an eye on our Twitter feed (@audition) or this blog for regular updates. We will also be posting more in depth on some of the features below to help provide insight and details.

Audition CS6 Highlights:

• Real-time and rendered clip stretching in multi-track - including new “varispeed” mode
• Clip Grouping – Including suspend, trimming, & stretching of groups
• VST3 support (Mac and Win) and more effects
• New pitch correction/manipulation tools
• Automatic speech alignment tool
• Audio CD burning
• Hardware controllers support - Including native Avid EUCON and Mackie MCU support
• Write/Touch/Latch automation modes
• Media browser with file preview
• Session Templates and Enhancements
• Expanded file format support (Native, libsndfile, DLMS)

Audition CS6 (nearly) Complete List of New Features:

Multitrack

• Session templates
• Automatic speech alignment
• Clip grouping
• Suspend mode
• Focus clip actions
• Trim/fade grouped clips
• Time aligned stretching of groups
• Clip spotting – Manual entry of clip start or end time
• Clip stretching - Real-time and rendered mode using iZotope Radius
• Vari-speed clip stretching
• Skip selection play mode
• Metronome
• Save all open files with session preference
• Select all clips from playhead to end of track
• Sum to mono per track
• Bounce selected track
• Reveal clip in files panel
• Trim to selection
• Send clip to back
• Preference to play/hide overlapped clips
• Mixer enhancements
• Snap volume and pan envelopes at 0dB
• Drag and drop file marker range to multitrack (as clip)

Waveform (Editor)

• Multiple clipboards
• Skip selection play mode
• Open append
• Subclip marker support (Premiere and Prelude)
• Improvements to spectral spot Healing
• Pitch display

Effects

• VST3
• Side Chain support
• Improved plug-in scanning engine
• New channel map per effect – Control over effect input and output channel routing
• Save and apply Effect Racks as a favorite
• New/Added effects:
  • Automatic Pitch Correction
  • Manual Pitch Correction with new spectral pitch view mode
  • Generate Tones
  • Doppler Shifter
  • Notch Filter
  • Graphic Phase Shifter
  • Gain / Fade Envelopes

General

• Media Browser
• Preview in Media Browser and files panel
• Search/filter in Media Browser and files panel
• Display markers for all files in markers panel
• Access and open order fields in files panel (sorting)
• Keyboard shortcuts (shortcut editor enhancements, copy to clipboard)
• Adobe Graphics Manager Implementation to improve UI drawing
• DLMS Integration to support additional video and audio file format import/open
• OpenGL display for video including improved video display for improved performance
• New spectral display preferences
• Support for additional frame rates (23.976, 59.94 ndf/df)
• Machine-specific device preferences (optional common audio hardware settings for all users)
• Import most preferences from CS5.5
• Pinch-to-zoom, rotate to scrub Mac touchpad support (Mac only)
• Improved properties panel UI layout

Format support

• MPEG4, HD Video, and additional audio import (via DLMS)
• Native MPEG1-Layer2 (MP2) audio import and export
• Native APE, FLAC, OGG export and import
• libsndfile export – export most formats supported by libsndfile
• CD Import metadata support (via FreeDB)
• Enhanced RAW format support

Output

• CD Burning (via CD layout)
• Quick burn audio CD from single-file in editor
• Advanced mixdown – Mixdown tracks, busses and/or master as individual files
• Save All Audio As batch process
• Save Copies of Associated Files – Collect/archive all files in a session
• Save open file references in session (“remember” all open files with the session)
• Advanced session export – Including ability to convert sample rate of session and associated files
• Preferred asset importer saved with session files

Custom keyboard shortcuts are a powerful way to improve your workflow, put commands easily at your fingertips and avoid lots of point and click mousing/track-padding (I don’t know if that’s an actual word, but we’ll go with it here…). But once you go to the trouble of creating that custom keyboard layout, how do you move it to a new machine? or share it with someone else? Well this is easier than it may seem…

Adobe Audition CS5.5 will create an XML file of your custom keyboard layout when you save in the Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. You can then copy this file and take it with you to another workstation, give it to others or just save it for safe keeping.

Here’s how…

Step 1: Open the keyboard shortcuts dialog window (under the menu item “Edit” > “Keyboard Shorts…”)

Step 2: Customize (if you haven’t already) your keyboard commands and shortcuts

Step 3: Click the “Save As…” and name your newly minted custom keyboard set

Step 4: On your system, open up your explorer/finder window (depending on your OS) and navigate to the Audition preferences folder:

• On Mac OSX:

  /Users/<your user name>/Library/Preferences/Adobe/Audition/4.0/

• On Windows Vista/7:

  C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Audition\4.0\

• On Windows XP:

  C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\Audition\4.0\

NOTE: On OSX 10.7 (Lion) and Windows you may need to show hidden folders to see these locations above. Consult your OS help docs for directions on how to do this.

Step 5: Navigate inside the “4.0″ folder and look for a folder named “Shortcuts” (if this doesn’t exist, then you may need to go through steps 1 through 3 again). In this folder will be your custom keyboard shortcut XML settings file(s) with the same name you used in the “Save As…” dialog. Copy the file(s) you wish to take with you to the new system.

Step 6: On the new system, copy the XML file(s) to the same “Shortcuts” folder you find under the paths in Step #4. If this folder doesn’t exist, just simply create it and copy the XML files in. When you start Audition CS5.5, the sets of shortcuts will be listed in the keyboard shortcuts dialog for you to select.

Because these are plain text XML files, you can move them cross platform between Mac OSX and Windows systems. Also note, in this same preferences folder  you will find workspace settings, effect presets and other settings you may have customized and you will find they are all XML files as well and portable between systems just like these keyboard shortcuts. If you like to customize your setup, then the folders listed in Step #4 can be copied and moved around or just backed up.

Happy Customizing!

Colin

Many people overlook one of the most powerful tools that Adobe Audition CS5.5 offers: The ability to configure the interface so you can focus on the tasks you need to perform most, and switch quickly between the tools most important to you.

If you’ve spent time with any of the CS products, you are probably familiar with how easy it is to customize panels in the application window by dragging, resizing, grouping, docking, and floating them.

If you haven’t yet tapped in to this extremely useful technique, you can quickly learn how to do it by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post, “Customizing Workspaces.”

Audition goes one step farther by letting you configure multiple arrangements of panels, called workspaces. Here are examples of two of the default workspaces, one designed for mastering a video session, the other aimed at configuring an interview for radio broadcast.

This workspace has analysis tools such as the Frequency Analysis and Phase Meter panels ready to go.

This workspace has the Markers and Playlist panels open, so the editor can mark sections and rearrange them easily.

As different as these two workspaces are, you can quickly switch between them by selecting Window > Workspace, then choosing the workspace you want.

If you have your own configuration of panels that suits your workflow, you can save it as a custom workspace by selecting Window > Workspace > New Workspace. . . . Workspaces appear in numerical and alphabetical order in the Workspace menu.

For the ultimate in flexibility, configure a custom workspace for each of your most common tasks. Then assign a Keyboard Shortcut to each one, so you can switch between them instantly. You can assign Keyboard Shortcuts to as many as nine different workspaces. Just select Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, then open up the Workspace category at the bottom of the Edit Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.

You'll find the Keyboard Shortcuts menu item near the bottom of the Edit menu.

Workspaces are located at the end of the list in the Edit Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. You can see key commands that have already been assigned to workspaces, and you can edit or remove commands easily.

You can assign keyboard shortcuts to the first nine workspaces in the Workspace menu, so consider numbering your workspaces so they appear at the top of the list.

Taking advantage of the flexibility of workspaces in Audition CS5.5 can make a significant improvement to your audio workflow.

For details on resizing, grouping, docking, and floating panels, read this help document, “Customizing Workspaces.”

Thousands of SFX are yours license-free with Audition CS5.5.

An install of Audition CS5.5 on your Mac or PC takes up a mere 300MB or so. Yet Audition comes with literally thousands of sound effect files that you can use license-free to create or polish soundtracks. Ambient sound beds, environmental backgrounds, Foley FX, explosions, automobiles, and dozens of other useful categories contain around 10,000 files in stereo 48k WAV format. That’s enough to let you create quite a number of soundtracks without ever repeating your SFX files.

All these SFX files are available for download through Adobe Resource Central within Audition CS5.5. All the SFX files are high-quality, 48k WAV files, so you can use them for the foundation of your sound design work, too. Using the amazing sound-bending DSP effects in Audition CS5.5 such as Stretch and Pitch, Distortion, Echo, and many more, you can transform a simple footstep into a menacing underscore or a sci-fi science experiment. Audition CS5.5 gives you the fuel for your soundtrack imagination!

Click on the image at left to read the entire list of SFX categories available. Each category can contain many hundreds of useful sound effects, from environmental ambiance tracks and background sound beds to Foley effects and sci-fi effects.

Worried about session files created with previous versions of Audition or Cool Edit Pro? Think those timeless tracks have been relegated to the digital dustbin of software history?

Relax! You’ll be able to open all those files within Audition CS5.5 by using a fantastic third-party utility called Ses2Sesx. Created by the awesome folks at AATranslator, Ses2Sesx will take any binary format session file from Cool Edit Pro 1.2 all the way up to Audition 3 and save it in .SESX format for Audition CS5.5.

Learn more about the Ses2Sesx converter utility here.

If you have Audition 3 and want your sessions to come across to Audition CS5.5, there is basic session export using XML session format in Audition 3, which Audition CS5.5 can open and convert to the new .SESX XML format. But for more comprehensive file conversion, check out Ses2Sesx.

Anxious whether your favorite AU3 features will be available in AUCS5.5 on Windows? Don’t worry! You can find a feature comparison here. You can (and should!) keep Audition 3 installed and running even after you install Audition CS5.5, so you can ensure you’ll have the features you’re used to as well as the increased power of Audition CS5.5.