Adobe® Audition® 3Built for speed and quality, Adobe Audition has the tools that broadcast audio engineers need

For broadcast professionals, the world of TV and audio broadcast is often unpredictable and chaotic. The one thing broadcast professionals can count on is having almost no time to produce the top-quality work demanded of them. When that red light goes on, an audio engineer must be ready for anything, and the entire production hinges on the engineer’s ability to deliver audio at just the right time and in just the right way.

That’s why you usually don’t find a lot of music software on the computers in broadcast facilities. Complex programs that emulate entire recording studios and do a million things are simply not the right tools for the job. And frankly, no one in the facility would ever have time to learn how to use such a program, even if it was just the ticket.

Advantages of using Adobe Audition

Since the mid-1990s, however, one audio program is almost ubiquitous in broadcast and post facilities around the world. Adobe Audition, originally known as Cool Edit Pro, has always appealed to engineers for a number of reasons, including:•Abilitytoreadandwriteawidevarietyofaudiofileformats

•Worksefficientlyandquickly

•Convertssampleratesquicklywithguaranteedgoodresults

•Usefuleffectsforbroadcastapplications

•Allaudioeditingandeffectsparametersaredisplayedinwaysthatengineersunderstandinstantly

With Adobe Audition, an engineer can take any submitted audio and quickly edit it, mix it, and deliver a final product.

New features in Adobe Audition 3

Adobe Audition is built for speed, and it’s perfect for the broadcast engineer with no extra time—whichistosay,Audition3offerseveryengineermanynewfeaturesthatfittheneedsofabroadcast or post facility:

•Abilitytotakeadvantageofcutting-edgecomputers,withsupportforWindowsVista®andmulticore processors

•Widerangeofeffectsandanalysistools,takingsounddesigntonewlevels

• Improvedwaveformediting,withtopandtailviewsthathelpyouzeroinoncriticalelementsof a file

• Enhancedmultitrackeditingandmixing,withtheabilitytoapplyandeditquickfadesacross

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Table of contents

1 Advantages of using Adobe Audition

2 Audio broadcast production

4 TV broadcast preproduction

5 Video post-production

7 Summary

multiple tracks simultaneously

•Audioexportingoptimizedforwebdestinations

• Loopologymusictracksthatletengineerseasilycreatesoundtracksandmusicbeds

Withtherevolutionthat’shitthebroadcastindustrysincetheadventofInternetbroadcasting—giving engineers additional delivery formats to take into account—Audition more than ever is thebestaudioprogramforbroadcastandpostengineerstohaveintheirtoolkit.Let’stakealookat some specific ways Audition can make your work go smoother.

Audio broadcast production What must a broadcast audio engineer cope with besides working the board and keeping the talent from violating FCC guidelines? The widest variety of source audio imaginable, that’s what. Phone interviews, live studio music performances, historical material on vinyl and cassette, MP3s from voice recorders, and many other formats might be integrated into a single segment. Audition makes the job easier with a host of broadcast-ready tools.

For starters, recording new audio into Audition from turntables, cassette players, and voice transcribers is straightforward. Audition works with a variety of audio interfaces, giving you lots of options for pro or budget gear. You can even select the input source from within the individ-ual track, so you don’t have to reconfigure your patch bay for every source.

To match the file format of your newly recorded audio with that taken from field recorders and CD audio files, simply import other audio into your Audition session from the Open dialog box when you’re in Edit view. When the files are all in your session, use the Batch Processing tool to quickly process all the audio files at once.

With other audio editing programs, when your source audio is less than perfect, you still have your work cut out for you after you get all your files in the same format. Fortunately for broad-casters, the Adobe Audition restoration and noise reduction tools are the best in its class, and as with all of the features in Audition, they’re easy to use. You can use the Spectral Display to searchforandremoveunwantednoise.Thenyoucansimplyrubouttheoffendingsoundwith

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The Batch Processing tool speeds up the conversion process, turning a pile of audio in different file formats into a format that matches your needs. You can also normalize or apply compression and other effects to a number of files simultaneously

theHealingBrush.TheLassotoolmakesiteasytoselectonlytheparticularharmonicsofanartifact,deletethem,andleavetheoriginalsoundalmostuntouched.Iftheunwantedsoundisofftoonesideofthestereofield,theSpectralPanDisplaygivesyouthebestshotatisolatinganddeleting it. Similarly, rumble and hum are clearly visible when present in the lower part of the display, and when hiss is present, it appears as almost a fog in the upper part of the display. You can select any problem you see in Spectral view, and—if you’ve activated the feature to “play selectedfrequenciesonly”—listentoonlywhatyou’veselected.Ifwhatyouhearencompassestheoffendingnoisebutleavesyoursignalalone,deleteit.

Orusewhicheverrestorationeffectmostcloselytargetsyourproblem.Someofthesetoolsareavailable in real time, such as the Automatic Click Remover and Adaptive Noise Reduction VST effects.Totargetaparticulartrack,justactivateoneoftheseeffectsintheEffectsRack.Toaffectthe entire mix, tweak the simple controls in the Mastering Rack. You can also apply these same effects,aswellasHissReduction,tofilesofflineusingtheEditview.

ForprojectssuchasstationIDsandadvertisingspots,audioengineersarecalledupontocreatenewaudioratherthanfixit.Auditionincludespreconfiguredeffectswithpresetsthatareperfectforsounddesign.TheGenerateToneseffectisbasicallyasynthesizeroscillatorthatyoucanconfigureformodulationeffectsthatsoundlikethey’rerightoutofLost in Space. Other time-saving presets can be found in the Distortion, Echo, Doppler Shifter, and Pitch Bender effects—thelatterofferingaveryconvincingpower-downeffect.

When all your audio file edits are complete, add the fully programmable and superb-sounding EQ and Reverb to the Mastering Rack to give all your audio files the same professional polish. Then it’s a simple matter of exporting your clips in the format that your playout system requires, where you’ll trigger them as needed, on time. While the segment is airing, capture all of the audio in Audition—from on-air interviews and live multitrack studio performances to music bedsandsoundFX—addIDsegments,mixitdown,andsaveitasanMP3file,andthenuploadthe file to your station’s website podcast directory before your shift ends.

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In the Spectral Display, you can view the problems in your audio file and remove them. Here we’re editing out a piano stool squeak in an otherwise perfect piano track. The squeak has three partials visible in the Spectral Frequency Display that are rising in pitch. On the left, the middle partial is selected with the Lasso tool. You can remove this part of the squeak just by pressing the Delete key or by trimming the onscreen Gain Control. On the right, the Spectral Pan Display shows that the squeak is way off to one side of the stereo field (the red lines at the top), making it easier to select and delete it without affecting the piano sound.

Got some anxiety about mixing? The final phase of a multitrack job—the mix—has a reputation forbeingtime-intensiveanddifficult,especiallyonprojectswithdialogue,music,andFX.Withall those tracks needing individual level and stereo position adjustments relative to every other track, it’s easy to see why. Audition has several ways to simplfy the process with automated controlofvolume,panposition,muting,effectsmixes,andotherelements.Justbyclickingonanindividual clip, you add edit points to a volume or pan envelope, which you can then easily adjust by dragging up or down to change the setting, or back and forward in time to match a precise point in the waveform display. Track automation works similarly: Open an automation lane below the target track, set the parameter that you want to control, and then add edit points and adjust them until the track is sitting just the way you want it.

Ifyoumixfasterbymovingfadersandtwistingknobsasthemusicplays,Auditioncanrecordfader and pan knob moves from its onscreen mixer or from a controller. The onscreen mixer offersothertoolstospeedupyourmix.MakeparametricEQadjustmentsinstantlybydraggingon the frequency and level values in a channel, or click through to open the visual editor and adjusttheQshapeaswell.Clickonaneffectsslotinthechannel,andselectthekindofeffecttoapply to the corresponding track from a number of top-quality reverbs, delays, and other dynamicandmodulationeffects.

Envelope automation gives you quick and precise control of volume, pan, and other mix parameters. You can create envelopes directly on individual clips by clicking and dragging edit points. Make an envelope for an entire track by opening up automation lanes and clicking to create edit points.

TV broadcast preproductionIfaudiobroadcastseemslikeastressfulprofession,tryliveTV.Whetherashowisasitcomoratalk show, if there’s a live audience and a broadcast deadline, the audio engineer is not the one whowantstoforcethecrewtoretakeasceneorsegmentbyblowingasoundeffect.Speedypreparation is key—and that’s where Audition shines.

Inpreproduction,theideasflowfastandfuriousbetweenwriters,producers,andtalent.Last-minutechangesarethenorm.Musicalnumbersandbackgroundbedsmightbeincludedin

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(1) Create curved clip envelopes for volume or pan directly on the waveform display by using splines. Right-click the clip and then select Clip Envelopes > Volume (or Pan) > Use Splines. (2) The volume data in this automation lane was recorded in real time by moving the mixer fader. You can also use a fader or knob on a MIDI controller. (3) With a normal clip envelope, you create linear automation, as in this fade-out. You can easily add more edit points, move them, and delete them. (4) Drag on the fade boxes in the upper corners of a clip to create fade-ins and fade-outs. (5) Open up additional lanes to automate more parameters.

one revision of the script and then replaced by the next. On top late-night talk shows, live musicians often handle a great deal of the musical preparation by making arrangements for guestartistsandperformingsoundeffects—andevenimprovisingtomatchanyon-camerachanges by the host and guests. But on most shows, it’s the audio engineer who has to trigger the voice-overs, music, transitions, and any other audio.

Adobe Audition Edit view is particularly useful for creating an edit of a music file to match a particular arrangement for an on-camera guest, for example. With its rapidly scalable view magnifications,Auditionletsyouzoominandlocateprecisepoints—downtotheindividualsample — in a long audio file. With this level of control, you can easily select sections to copy andpasteintoanewarrangement.ButAdobeAuditionoffersaneveneasierandfasterwaybyusing Markers. Each Marker can encompass a location and a range of time, including start and endpoints that you specify or that Audition determines automatically with the Auto-Mark feature, based on its analysis of the song’s phrase structure or beat patterns. After marking your song section, you can set up a playlist to play back the sections in any order and for any number of times, without ever having to slice and dice the waveform.

Assembling voice-overs are often the audio engineer’s task. With Adobe Audition, it’s easy to comp together a finished voice-over track in a short time because you can insert audio files at particularpointsinamultitracksessionandthenapplyfadestomultipleclipssimultaneously.Ifthe voice-over is over a music bed that’s a bit too loud you can use the onscreen Gain Control in Edit view to bring down a selected section of the music bed and see the result immediately in the waveform display.

Video post-productionA video post suite might be quieter than a TV soundstage, but it’s no less challenging for the audio engineer working with video footage. Audition is tailor-made to work seamlessly with

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When you need to adjust the volume of a soundtrack beneath a voice-over track, select the segment of the soundtrack that matches the duration of the voice-over phrase and adjust the onscreen Gain Control while you keep your eye on the waveform.

You can easily add hits that are synced with individual frames by selecting Thumbnail Options > Display All, which which then dis-plays a thumbnail for every frame in the video when the session’s horizontal zoom setting is maximized.

commontoolsinthevideoworld,suchasAdobePremiere®ProCS4.Ifyouhaveavideocliprunning in Adobe Premiere Pro, you can open the audio track in Audition from within Premiere Pro.ThenyoucanapplytheAdobeAuditionrestorationandmasteringeffectstoenhancetheaudio quality. When you save your changes, they are applied automatically to the video soundtrack that is open in Adobe Premiere Pro, saving you lots of time otherwise spent importing and exporting the audio.

Audition has several useful tools for adding new audio to an existing video track, starting with theabilitytoopenvideoinAVI,QuickTime,andWMVformats.Syncingthenewaudiotothevideo is easy with the time display set to SMPTE, corresponding to the frame rate of the clip and the Snap to Frames option selected in the Snapping dialog box.

Create a soundtrack with the Loopology library Often a composer is responsible for all the music in a video. But there are many times when a last-minutetransition,IDspot,orpromoneedsappropriatemusic,andyou,theaudioengineer,aretheonlyonearoundwhocanhelp.AuditionisreadyforthetaskwithitsLoopologylibaryofthemed, professional-sounding music loops. You can configure the sound of any loop by changingitskey,tempo,length,andnumberofrepetitions.TheLoopologylibraryincludesintros,endings,aswellasdifferentmultitracksections,soyoucancreateanappropriatesoundtrackinminutesinsteadofhours.Youcanevensynchronizealooptoendataprecisehitpoint in the video and stretch or shrink your music bed to fit the exact length of your video segment without reediting.

When your soundtrack is complete and mastered, you can preview the video and soundtrack together in the Video panel. Then export the video in the same format in which you imported it, or use the bounce function to create an audio mix, and your clip is ready for delivery.

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Sometimes you’re the only one in the room who can create a music bed. With the Loopology library you can create a soundtrack that matches the mood, tempo, and timing of a scene. Preview Loopology tracks to find what you need, and then import it into the track, and drag its endpoint to make it fill the time required. The loop automatically keeps in sync with your video track.

Summary

Ifyourchallengestendtobeattheprepphaseofyourprojects,theAdobeAuditioneditingandcleanup features, such as spectral editing, analysis tools, waveform top and tail view, restoration effects,andtheonscreenGainControl,canhelpyougetthejobdonesooner.Evenwhenthetaskinvolves multiple tracks, music beds, and video, Adobe Audition playlist markers, frame-accu-rateaudiosync,Loopologymusicclips,andclipandtrackautomationletyoumeetyourdeadlines with finished mixes that sound great.

AdobeAuditionisreadyforanythingandisoptimizedtoworkfast,withoutsacrificingqualityfor speed. At all phases of your audio project, Audition delivers top-quality audio at any sample rate. Music, voice-overs, and soundtracks created in Audition are broadcast-ready in multiple formats and for any market.

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Preview your soundtrack with video playback right in the main Multitrack Display. When you’ve got it the way you want it, select from a variety of audio export formats and then save your video and soundtack as a QuickTime file