Adobe Audition 1.5

With Audition, Adobe is clearly making a serious commitment to audio. But just how good is version 1.5 compared to the market-leading Windows audio editors?While Adobe has been among the market leaders in both video and photo editing software for many years, it was only with the initial release of Audition just over a year ago that it took a serious dip into the audio arena. While Audition is available as a standalone application, it is also intended to add some serious audio clout to Adobe's Video Collection. To be an attractive part of the Video Collection bundle, Audition needs to meet two important targets. First, it must compete in terms of features with other professional audio editing programs. Second, it needs to be tightly integrated with the other components in the Collection. Some CVE readers might find the various screenshots of Audition somewhat familiar. This is perhaps not surprising as Adobe kick-started its foray into the world of audio editing by acquiring Syntrillium Software's Cool Edit Pro - on which Audition is based. We looked at Cool Edit in the past. After the buyout, V1 of Audition was essentially a re-branding of Cool Edit Pro. Version 1.5 of Audition is the first proper release under the Adobe name.

Adobe has made some progress with Audition in this release and, for almost any routine editing or processing of a mono/stereo file, Audition is more than capable of holding its own against other PC audio editors. The Multitrack View provides a perfectly serviceable environment for soundtrack construction, but it does have its quirks - in terms of functionality and ease of use, the likes of Wavelab, Cubase SX, Pro Tools or Vegas Video are still ahead of the game.
On the other hand, Adobe has improved the integration of Audition with Premiere Pro and After Effects. For existing Premiere Pro users looking for a first professional audio editor, this integration may give Audition a significant edge. Even for those using other video editing applications, Audition is still worth considering, as it offers a good feature set and is cheaper than either of the other obvious choices - Sound Forge or Wavelab. However, Audition is unlikely to tempt many who are already familiar with one of the other mainstream audio editing applications, whether they are Premiere users or not. If Adobe wishes to appeal to these users, then there are further functional and cosmetic changes needed by the time Audition reaches version 2.