For those of you expecting a return to form where I remark about something in every day life and then rip it apart that all those victims were on countless horror films then you’ve got another thing coming.

Instead I’ve chosen to write another technical based port designed to alienate most normal people and who those new people who are into playing with Audio. That’s right, Audio. I’m talking about the people who make all those crap techno-remake-uber-dance-till-you-die-a-thons that plague us night and day, and when we question about them we’re all told to f**k off you’re too old you don’t understand.

But not all are like that, I’ve met a couple of people in the Radio Industry that actually can channel their powers for good instead, and that dear viewer is where we come to the main reason for my post this evening: Adobe Audition 3.

Now everyone here is going to ask, what the hell is that and how can I get away from it as quickly as possible? Well don’t worry gentle campers, because I will explain all here. You have to treat the software with a bit of respect because without it’s profound abilities with doing naughty with audio bits, the podcasts I produce would not be here.

Adobe Audition will only really be known to all those that work in the likes of Radio and other audio production type things, where this uber beast of coding genius allows you to record multi track sessions and then change the pitch , fades and other big audio sounding words. Loops creation, time stretching and you can edit some of the bits and bobs in real-time as it is played back. That was handy for me for one of the adverts when I changed the voice to sound more like Barry White than me.

In case, like most people I’ve actually told about the software, you look like your brain has just farted and the after smell has just drifted down your face, here’s a picture of roughly what the interface can look like:

Now although that screen is tiny and doesn’t show a lot, it does show that this program is not the timid. Indeed all the amateur train spotters and bird molesters who think they can throw together a better song than what those time wasting ba*****ds from X factor could (and let’s face it, who couldn’t?) will not be using this to create their masterpiece. For ultra easy user interface and samples to throw in willy nilly and therefore boast to their friends that they can make music like the big boys, I should tell you now:

Go and buy an Apple Macbook with Garageband.

But regretfully there is nothing close to Garageband on the PC. And there never will be knowing all the naughty software publishers out there, the closest thing to that also comes from Adobe, called Soundbooth CS3 where you have a different interface and the way of doing audio naughty is made a lot simpler. But for professionals who demand nothing but an application that allow them to record and play with audio to their hearts content along with changing audio for videos directly from within then you could do a lot worse than this.

In fact if you fancy having a go at producing some music but you don’t have any instruments or indeed any talent, in the DVD case, Adobe, it seems provide a DVD with 10GB worth of sounds, music beds, and complete sessions known as “Loopology”, so in fact if you have real patience, because believe me I’ve tried in 3 hours this evening, and the best I’ve done is a couple of drum beats with some guitar, you could in fact make some background tracks for whatever you want. But don’t for one minute think it’s like Garageband. That is the one major thing I am aiming to get across.

One of the best things for me with this improved version of Audition, is Vista support. Audition 2 had a couple of issues within Vista for me, in that it didn’t work with the “Aero” interface which is not a major issue, but recording seemed to lag behind what I was actually saying, so this led to many retakes. Mind you, I just mess up all the time, almost making stupid noises where I cock up so this may be harder to tell that it was the software’s fault.

But having tested it out this evening, I found that these minor things have been fixed, along with proper support from the Audition driver for the devices in Vista such as the Samson Mic and the HD audio from the on-board sound. They are found straight away with no issue, except for the lack of proper ASIO drivers which I would have if I used a Sound Blaster but this works fine so no need for that. Add in the duel core support, and frankly the solution should prove to be a worth purchase for the Lord of Leisure.

I just noticed that last paragraph would frighten everyone normal.

I can only say sorry. But regretfully I have been waiting for this to come out for quite some time since Vista came out and my shiny expensive toy in the front room seems to play better with Vista than Windows XP. So it’s a fairly good thing for me.

Another thing on the wish list of the Lord actually gets ticked from this purchase, as for some reason, this package also came with another DVD entitled “Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop” which contains around 13 hours of tutorials for the rest of Adobe’s software range but oddly no mention of Audition. So you kind of wonder what the hell did they bother putting in that for? It covers everything apart the bloody software you buy!!

So aside from that rather bizzare extra, this appears to be a very good purchase, all the niggles I had from the previous version have been sorted and now I don’t have to contend with the fact that it doesn’t play well with Vista. There are other programs out there and major record companies use very complicated looking things with big lights, but for most, this seems to fill the bill quite nicely. However if you have Audition 2 and Windows XP, well gotta be honest, you are fine with what you have.

Here endeth the post and indeed my take upon Adobe Audition 3.