dobe’s professional audio editing application, Audition, was first introduced to Mac users with Adobe Creative Suite 5.5. Prior to that, Adobe offered Soundbooth, a less powerful audio editor. Windows users, however, have long had access to Audition (and to its predecessor, Cool Edit Pro, which was acquired by Adobe in 2003).
This history is important because of how Audition is perceived by Windows users versus Mac users. For Mac users, CS6 greatly enhances what was a solid but not entirely feature-complete audio editing package. For many Windows users, however, Audition CS6 is the “thank you for restoring that feature we liked so much in Audition 3” update. That's because in order for Adobe to build the version that shipped with CS5.5—which involved rewriting the application from the ground up—important features from the previous Windows-only version went missing.
Audition CS5.5 lacked support for control surfaces, time stretching, clip grouping, and Redbook CD burning, for example. These and other features have returned with the CS6 version. And, of course, there are new features. The combination of restored and brand new features makes for an even more capable Audition—an audio editor most at home in video, radio, and podcast studios. The latest version requires a multicore Intel processor and Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later. The full version costs $349. You can upgrade from Audition 5.5 for $75 or from any version of Adobe Soundbooth for $149.
Audition’s interface and effects haven’t changed greatly in this version, so I won't repeat my description of it from my Audition CS5.5 review. Feel free to flip over to that review to get the basics. Instead, I’ll concentrate on what the latest version brings to the application.
Blast from the past
Regarding the restored missing features, among the most important for audio pros is support for control surfaces (hardware mixing boards used to control audio applications). If you have a control surface that uses the Eucon, Mackie MCU, or Logic protocols, Audition should respond to it. I don’t have a pro surface, but I was able to control Audition via Saitara Software’s $8 AC-7 Core app, which uses the Mackie protocol. I additionally connected Roland’s Sonar V-Studio 100 to my Mac Pro and it too was able to control Audition.
Working with control surfaces is enhanced by the program’s restored track parameter automation feature. With such a device you can easily record changes to volume, pan, EQ, and effects as you mix, using standard read, write, latch, and touch automation settings. (A control surface isn’t required—you can just as easily use Audition’s on-board virtual mixer—but a control surface makes it easier to record multi-track automation in real time.) This feature worked as advertised.