Audition 3.0 is released..ongoing saga!

[Wyatt]

This new version has added functionality..a midi sequencer, VSTI support, and finally ReWire actually works.

Can't say much for the sequencer or VSTi support, as I got used to doing without AA for that a long time ago..as a new Reason user, I am tickled to finally have ReWire, though.

However, Audition's strong point has always been editing/restoration, and they really went all out in that department. It now goes way beyond their spectral frequency display editing by adding  spectral pan display editing and spectral phase display editing. If you have ever edited in Audition, you know that this actually is something to get excited about.

I downloaded the demo and spent the day with it Monday. I was very pleased with the muliti-band compressor and tube compressor from Izotope as well as the mastering fx.

Things I was not as impressed by, were the adaptive noise reduction, (but I have developed some awesome techniques with the "hands-on" noise reduction), and the guitar fx suite, (can't really beat the sounds I am already getting). They do have some new restoration tools that don't require a lot of study to use..

So..about the time I am actually letting myself get excited about this, I load a difficult one hour track that I was part-way finished editing, and got the dreaded disappearing cursor. I had this in AA 2.0, and Adobe tech support could never get me past that. So I figured this was history too..sayonara..got all excited for nothing..then..

Fortunately someone came up with a fix last Saturday, and it worked on my machine. (A couple years too late for AA 2.0, but hey, who's keeping track!) 

It was looking like I would have myself a new DAW set up and running in under 24 hours..(must be a  Guiness world's record for me!)..and then the other shoe dropped..

Two days later, I am still dealing with a dying hard drive that is only a month old. I am feeling a little like the pilot of an airplane..imagine this: the airplane is in a long slow dive, (whiny airplane-about-to-crash sound effect goes here)..I'm running around, looking under all the seats, looking to see where I put the parachute..all the while muttering under my breath, "..always back everything up..always back everything up..now where is that back-up, anyway?? ).

..more news as it happens..

Wyatt

[Oren]

  save what you can, man...

[Wyatt]

save what you can, man...

Thanks Oren..gonna be a long day here..stuff moves off the drive, but at a crawl..

Wyatt

[Wyatt]

Update:

OK..saved most everything..got my drives organized..and reinstalled AA3 demo.

I don't think that very many people here use this, so I am not going into great detail, but if anyone has a question I will do my best to try to answer it.

This is actually an awesome improvement. I can say that now after spending a couple days figuring out a couple of buggy problems..Oh yeah..no actual bugs..hehe..nowadays they call them system problems. 

Tedious vertical waveform editing is speeded up a lot with more accessible tools. If it were not for the extra time I put into reviewing everything after each edit, this version would cut my edit time in half..still cutting off a third is miraculous. One hour of audio can take a looong time.

The restoration tools here are definitely more muscular, and do a great job of maintaining the recognition factor of spoken work, which can be all too easy to lose. I have not done a head to head comparison with the noise redux yet, but I am confident saying it is actually improved this time..and it was definitely not, imo, in 2.0..and I did some exhaustive testing then.

All in all, this one is a keeper for me. I don't say that lightly either. I reviewed AA2, when it was first released, and that was trash compared to this..In fact,I continued to use AA 1.5 until last week. I am definitely moving up this time. Wouldn't miss it.

Wyatt

[Oren]

Wyatt,

What did you replace the defective hard drive with?
Is Audition 3.0 on the same drive as your windows O/S?
Will you replace version 1.5, or keep them both running?

Oren.

[Wyatt]

What did you replace the defective hard drive with?

I didn't..by the time I could have swapped it out, I got it fixed. By now I think the drive is not defective after all, but I could be wrong.  I had moved files around to get 1.5 on same drive as my OS, as per your suggestion, then installed AA3 demo, then installed new dual core optimization drivers, then the drive problem showed up..suspect timing.

So I uninstalled drivers and demo..slowly got 100+ gigs off suspect drive, and re-formatted it. By all acounts it seems to be fine..time will tell. I have the rest of my serious data backed up on my 250 gig xternal drive now.

Is Audition 3.0 on the same drive as your windows O/S?

Yes, AA3 is currently on the drive with my O/S..and that drive has 90% free space now.

Will you replace version 1.5, or keep them both running?

.

I still have AA1.5 on the drive with my OS, but by now I can't imagine needing to use it. I have already deleted wavelab, cubase, reaper, and audacity. As soon as I get the upgrade on CD, I will delete 1.5 as well. For my purposes, this one is really that good.

I will use AA3, Reason4, and ReCycle2.1 as my audio suite.

Wyatt

[Wyatt]

Finally got an opportunity to test the noise-reduction routine in Au3.
It actually is improved this time.

I tested a file that I had done with the previous version, and had had
to use several unusual, time-consuming techniques to clean up the file
and still maintain a high voice recognition factor. One hour of run time
took me about 2 hours. Average.

The new version did a much better job, and I did not have to do anything
extra-ordinary at all, no layered redux, no frequency edits, no copy to new.
All I had to do was set up the parameters, select a good representative sample
to use as a noise profile, and the software did the rest. And it sounded great..no
more tweaking needed. Now there's a real switch.

The computer took nearly twice as long to run the routine, but in the end I
was the big winner, finishing the cleanup phase for 1 hour of audio in under
20 minutes.

Hard to complain about that.

Wyatt

[kara]

Good news Wyatt 

k