AudioMasters

I'd like to create a collection of undocumented or underdocumented features.  As starters, here are two (related) links about an undocumented feature.

http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/viewtopic.php?t=2012
http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/viewtopic.php?t=869

If you know of other such links, or as you may run across them, please post them here.  Or - if you know of any undocumented or underdocumented features, please post a description (along with keystrokes used) here.  I'm assuming any such tips that one might get from the Adobe Audition forum would be fair game to include here, but perhaps the Moderators should give a final word on that (probably should provide a link to the Adobe forum post rather than quoting verbatim from it).  I would also think that any info posted here should be sharable with the Adobe Audition forum.

At some point, we can edit the info contained in this topic (like we would need to edit the info in the two links I provided) so that we are left with a concise and to-the-point Tips-and-Tricks-style document.

If I'm the only one interested in this topic, then it will surely die a deserved natural death.  But I will bump it for a while if necessary.

There was that neat method for recording something and at the same time playing it back with a large delay.  I used the word "elegant" in the thread somewhere.  Actually, that's a word worth searching for as I do tend to trot it out when someone posts a particularly neat solution to a problem.  The other one is "forum wall".

[The post I have in mind had a title of "Here's a good challenge"].

[See http://audiomastersforum.net/synforum/viewtopic.php?t=11539&highlight=howard+stern  ]

When I started this topic, I was thinking mainly of listing here those functions one can perform within CEP/AA that a user wouldn't necessarily discover by reading the Help file or the Manual (the "Indent" feature, for example).  However, Ozpeter's post demonstrates that we should probably broaden the subject matter to include "neat things that you can do with CEP/AA that are maybe not immediately obvious".

Thanks for the link Peter.  It's an interesting read.  I did a quick search on "forum wall" as you suggested (don't have a lot of time for looking at the moment).  Didn't find the phrase "forum wall" - but I did find this:

http://audiomastersforum.net/synforum/images/extern/steveandcompton.gif

(Something about Lilly Tomlin and big chairs comes to mind.)

For the curious types, the gif came from here - which is also an interesting read, but completely off the topic of this thread:

http://audiomastersforum.net/synforum/viewtopic.php?t=9026

Because of the way I generally have my MT view sized, I never had any idea there was an EQ "A/B" button until Karl mentioned discovering it awhile back.

That might qualify as one that's not immediately obvious.

Chris

That one came to mind for me as well, but it is pretty clearly documented in the AA 1.5 manual.

Two words:

Easter Eggs!

 :wink:

Which are undocumented by design  8) .

MC, I assume you were joking, but...  It might be useful to pull into one topic/thread all of the relevant comments that have been made about the Easter Egg process.  Question do arise from time to time, and it would be useful to have one location to refer the questioner to.  Thanks for including that idea here.  And when are we going to be able to drive on your parking lot again??? :(  Maybe by Easter?

Trouble is, this is honour-bound to be a rather cryptic process, implying that too much detail shouldn't be given - so crossing the eyes and dotting the teas really isn't on...  :lol:

Understood.  But if one does a search, one can find multiple threads where vague comments are made.  I was only referring to pulling those vague comments together into one spot.

Yes, I was joking.  But this is a good idea, so long as I don't give any more away than is already blown.  Therefore, I'd rather leave the clues in their original context, and post some links here.  It's fair to say that the fun begins in the context of the Help/About screen, where the eggs are in the eye of the beholder.  Then, credit is given where credit is due, which can lead to  Red Rover fun,  (http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/viewtopic.php?t=1068&start=0) which now I know doesn't necessarily require Red Rover.  For another discussion which hints at further eggs,  here's a link. (http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/viewtopic.php?t=2819)  And the most subtle of eggs, so subtle that I can't remember the last time I've encountered it,  is discussed here. (http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php/topic,1903.0.html)

Our parking lot?  Well, part of it is gone forever, and all the construction was supposed to be finished in time for the Christmas Concert.  You're right, Bonnder, that Easter is more like it!  And the rain's not helping!

So - concerning parking lots and updates to Audition and Easter Eggs:  all good things come to those who wait?? :wink:

LOL!  (Besides, if waiting were the only thing necessary to receive all good things...)

Another recent thread raises an EQ question, to which  Steve dragged up David Johnston's helpful explanation  (http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/viewtopic.php?t=2949)of the various kinds of EQ available in CEP/AA.  While some of David's information can be found in the help files, I don't find anyplace where it is presented so succinctly and clearly as this.  How about adding David's paragraphs into an EQ introduction page ?

Ok, here's another obscure feature, I believe this is now documented, but it's tucked away so one could be forgiven for never noticing it.

If you open the freq. analysis window in edit view, then dock it (it has to be docked), then right click the docking bar, you will have the option to toggle display of the note corresponding to the current frequency. You may have to then undock or stretch the window to actually be able to see the "big note" display.

The same method (ie. dock then right click) also brings up 3 extra options in the phase analysis window, but I think this is Audition-specific.  You can turn on pencil mode, for manual drawing(!) of phase information and activate and adjust the other phase view mode "Spin".

You can alt-click or ctrl-click envelope points in multitrack view:

Alt-click = adjust all envelope points by same absolute amount.
Ctrl-click = adjust all envelope points by same percentage.

Yes this one IS documented, but for me this was such a case of "I can't believe I never noticed this before" that I had to mention it.  Not sure whether to feel pleased for having noticed this at last, or stupid for having missed it for so long :oops: I'm guessing this nifty little tool was added when they added the "Rescale Volume Envelopes" feature.

A small thing which may be obvious for many, but I disovered it just today. And I am not sure if it is undocumented, I can't look into the manual right now, but I could not find the feature in the help file.

In EV, click-and-drag on the time axis turns the cursor into a small hand and the waveform moves left or right. Today I found that when I drag the hand beyond the waveform window, then the waveform starts scrolling and the further I drag away from the window, the faster it scrolls. It works also on the vertical (amplitude) axis, and in spectral view on time axis and on frequency axis (if zoomed in).

I found it useful for reviewing a long file for something that was clearly visible in the spectral view.

Buses and submixes:

From here:  http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/viewtopic.php?t=2894

Q:  DJ_Finsletown

Is there a way of sending channels to more than one bus?

For instance if I set up a bus channel for vocal processing e.g. compression and delay, and a bus channel for vocal effects e.g. vocoder and reverb, is there a way to send certain channels to both busses?

A:  alanofoz

If you make "virtual copies" of tracks, you can send each copy to a different bus. You can make virtual copies using Shift/r-click/drag, as opposed to "unique copies" with Ctrl/r-click/drag.

Scrolling a one-bar measure through waveform:

From Here:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@94.FkxYeUSPUzu.4@.3bbc0be5/0

Q:  Chris Ford

I've selected a one bar length of audio within a larger waveform and I'd like to be able to scroll that selection through the waveform looking for the perfect loop.

A:  Ozpeter

 Atl-rightclick-drag.

Yup, it's pretty obscure, if not undocumented.

Edit view? Ah, no, you can't do it there. But you should be able to undertake that kind of thing in multitrack view anyway, where that function does work.

Editing Radio Industry text field names:

From Here:
http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/viewtopic.php?t=5122

Q:  Andrew Rose

... I discovered that the program had inserted two markers I'd never seen before.   They look like white cue points - the first is entitled "Intro" and the second "Sec Tone". Neither shows up in the cue list and I've no idea how to get rid of them or use them.  Anyone seen these before and able to enlighten me?

A:  SteveG

To get rid of them, go to Wave Properties>Text Fields and select Radio Industry text field names, and they will appear as times in the relevant sections. If you delete the times, the markers will disappear. Or, you can get rid of them in the standard RIFF header where they appear somewhat confusingly as Digitisation Source and Original Medium - and I gather you aren't supposed to put numbers in those! ... [this info] isn't in the help files or manual.

Insert Silence entry on the Favorites menu in AA 2.0:

From Here:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@916.HsL4gvbvknP.38@.3bbf469d

Q:  Rando

I have tried to set up a favourite to insert silence but can only see generate tones, noise, or DTMF. Short of creating a script for adding 1 sec of silence, does anyone have another solution?

A:  MusicConductor

In Edit View, go to "Favorites" and drop down to "Edit Favorites". Click on "New," then name it "Insert 1 sec silence" or whatever you like. Assign it a shortcut key. On the "Function" tab, select "Generate\Tones" from the dropdown list. Hit the "Edit Settings" tab, and put all the "Frequency Components" sliders to "0." Just for safety, put the dB volume sliders to minimum also (-80). Delete whatever is in the duration box and replace it with 1. Close out all dialogs (of course, when the "Favorite Changes Not Saved" box comes up, click "yes"), and you're good to go. That's it.

If you have Edit/Preferences (F4) /Data/Smooth Edit Boundaries enabled, your 1 second of silence will be diminished by twice the amount of that setting due to the crossfades. So disable it if you want a hard edit. Or, edit the Generate/Tones duration to take the crossfades into consideration... the possibilities seem vast!

From the Adobeforum:

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bbfd6e4/15

This one's rather neat, and appears to be missing completely from the AA2.0  manual. If you click on Ctrl+Alt+a solo button in MV, you can exclude that channel from the solo operation - the S in the button gets square brackets around it. You can do this to as many channels as you like. The effect is that if you want to try the effect of soloing different tracks with a small selection of other ones, it's relatively easy to do so. Ozpeter says that it's an 'undocumented feature' (AKA bug), but I have suggested that since this is clearly intentional behaviour (because of the brackets appearing), it's simply missing from the documentation.

Now I'm beginning to wonder just how many more of these there are that the developers never let on about...  :roll: