So, many of you have already seen the news online, in blogs, or on twitter, but I wanted to make sure our forums got a little love, too. The Video and Audio group at Adobe have been granted permission to reveal what's coming in the next release, as we prepare to show and share these features at the upcoming NAB (National Assoc. of Broadcasters) exhibition in Las Vegas, NV.
I've written an overview on the Audition blog, and I'll be happy to extend the discussion here as well. Briefly, here's a quick glance at what we've been working on:
Sound Remover
Our research team has been exploring a recent technology called Source Separation, and our first implementation offers an improved restoration and sound removal tool. Whereas our Noise Reduction tool is excellent at cleaning up static background noise, and the Adaptive Noise Reduction excels at identifying and removing changing background sounds, the Sound Remover excels at plucking out foreground sounds while minimizing harm to overlapping content.
Preview Editor
You may have noticed the split-screen view in the above screenshot. Audition's Waveform editor now supports a dual-view that can be used for many purposes. Originally designed to provide a visual confirmation for effects which change the duration or timing of a file (including the Pitch Bender effect, which will be discussed below) we found it provides excellent visual feedback for almost all effect operations, allowing you to see and hear your changes before you commit. In addition, it can be used to edit or compare arbitrary regions of a single file, or the lower view can always zoom to a selection so you can better maintain your place in the upper view. Very powerful, though I suspect everyone may find their own way to use it.
64-bit Performance
Audition is now a fully 64-bit application on both OS X and Windows providing improved memory handling, performance, and support for the latest generation of OS, hardware, and plug-ins. The use of jBridge, a 32-64 bit bridge for VST effects, enables you to continue using your favorite legacy effects while taking advantage of new technology and plug-ins.
Editable Favorites / Favorites Panel
Access your recorded favorites from a dockable or floating panel now, and modify them as needed.
New and updated Sound Design effects and tools
Among the returning and updated effects are Pitch Bender, Scientific Filter, Pitch Shifter (real-time, automatable pitch correction and adjustment) and the Stereo Expander. Generate Noise is back with additional noise profiles, and both Noise and Tones can now be generated directly in Multitrack view.
Enhanced Spectral Frequency Selections
Multiple spectral selections can now be made with the Lasso and Paintbrush tools, adding to or removing from the selection mask, and enabling complex, detailed selections.
Multitrack Enhancements
Look for a lot of visual and navigation improvements, most based directly on user requests. Track Colors with Smart Clip Colors make it easy to visually group and identify your content or quickly assess where you are in the Mixer from across the room. Quickly silence umms, ahhs, or offensive words without splitting clips or manually creating and adjusting keyframes. When dragging multiple clips into a session, easily switch between placing the clips consecutively on a single track, or stacked on multiple tracks, and see more intelligent use of existing, empty tracks. Also, the full clip duration and content is displayed when dragging into a session, and crossfades are automatically created when dropped on top of another clip. Easily select all clips on a track with a double-click, or select all clips forward or backward from the playhead. New commands for jumping between markers while ignoring other elements, adjusting the view without moving the playhead or selections, and quick keyboard overrides to zoom into the playhead or the cursor at your command.
Frequency Band Splitter
This useful tool, popular among remixers, was always hidden within Multitrack in older versions of Audition, and was rather confusing for many users. We've redesigned this tool to be more intuitive and visual. Easily split a file into new files by frequency range.
All sorts of other features!
Export directly to your SoundCloud account, match device sample rate to your documents, set default names for new markers, see detailed data about the audio under your cursor, improved sync and silence recognition with the Automatic Speech Alignment tool. WMA and WASAPI driver support on Windows. iTunes metadata support. AAC and the complete Apple AudioToolbox support on Mac OS X.
The hard sell!
Our marketing and sales teams would be disappointed if I didn't include a brief sales pitch at the end. Fortunately, it's a great deal and a big discount if you're someone who likes saving a bit of money.
The release date has not been announced, but there is a great way to get yourself to the front of the line. If you join Adobe Creative Cloud now, you will immediately receive the entire stable of currently shipping Adobe CS6 applications AND you will automatically receive the new versions of Audition and all your other favorite Adobe applications as soon as they are available. From April 4 through 19, 2013, we’re offering our NAB Show Special giving you 40% off Creative Cloud for your first year – that’s only $29.99/month It’s an amazing way to keep your production costs really low and your tools up-to-date all the time.
Learn More
Discover more about what’s coming to the next versions of the Adobe pro video tools at: adobe.com/go/nab_reveal.