So, how many of you are going to switch?

I'm pretty sure thats not implemented (yet?)

Mr LePage: Mixdowns - wow, you're way ahead of me.  Did you import a previous mix into CS5.5?

For Dobro- Yes, just for messing around and testing. For some time (per Steve's forum note) we've been saving AA3 projects as both SES and XML files, so I copied one of the XMLs whose source files were still on the system and imported.  Of course as others have noted here, it doesn't import most fx - espec. 3rd party. So, I added some on various channels using settings saved in the UA, Izotope and Waves presets that matched up (somewhat anyway) with what we used in the original AA3 project.   Then  just started playing around and trying routine things we often do when building or refining project files to see how those worked in 5.5 and get familiar with it a bit more- also trying out a few of the new built-in plugs. Will be doing some more of that when there's time.

Next did a few test mixdowns of sections of the project - both to be able to bring them into CS5.5's edit view as well as to also bring back to AA3.  That far, it all went fine, but these were just stereo mixdowns - both at 32 bit and also 16 with and without a couple flavors of dither.

It was at that point that I wanted to try exporting  to sep tracks (master and indiv tracks) as you can do in AA3 - and couldn't figure how to do that.

We have received free upgrade disks from Adobe (I don't know why, we had a "maintenance agreement" but I thought that the Audition part of it has expired; maybe it hasn't), so I'll probably give it a try. If the disks are good

Will be curious to see if your disc came through as good! 
Just got an email from Adobe that our replacement has shipped.. so we'll see on that one too.

First try at exporting to OMF: Using a project about 45 mins long in CS5.5, attempted OMF export to see if maybe THAT would render things as sep tracks the way AA3 does it. Nope.  Strange things (though I have little experience with OMF).  The original source project was another created in AA3, saved as an XML and then copied to a test folder and brought into 5.5. Like the other test I've been playing with, I inserted several typical 3rd party plugs on various channels. This project has less overall tracks/channels though... about 10 plus another 3 bus returns for typical reverb or ambience plugs which are fed by various sends of the tracks/channels.

OMF exporrt settings were 44.1 mono 24 bit media /  referenced media format: WAV /use entire file.
It posted warnings that(it lets you copy these for pasting below here):
Clip and track effects will be ignored.
Clip fades will be converted to linear fades.
Bus tracks will be ignored.
Track EQ will be ignored.
All clips and tracks will be split out to mono.
Empty tracks will be skipped.
Keyframes in a clip fade will be ignored.

It estimated the OMF file size total would be 3.60GB.  The export roughly took 28 minutes.
In the resulting folder there were numerous WAV and PKF files, and just one file with an OMF extension.  (I think PKF is the new peak file format)
Windows advises the folder this export created is 14GB, not 3.60.

So, I tried opening that OMF file in CS5.5 and didn't expect much. But it did attempt to open and did a pile of "processing" to it.  From a CS5.5 startup with no multitrack session opened, this can apparently only happen from edit view, going to multitrack view seems to offer no "import" selection.
After about 6 minutes, indeed a new project DID open in multitrack view with an OMF extension.

As advertised in the above warnings, this new one had most all of those constaints, i.e it had dumped a lot of stuff like bus tracks and so on. (but at least the export DID warn of that).

Interestingly, any on-clip volume data WAS retained and appeared on the clips in the new project, though if I'm reading the warnings right, they seemed to say that would NOT happen.  I don't think these clips had any other onclip data except volume envelopes from the get-go.

Automation envelopes (key-framing now I guess) did not, but again, it did warn (if I read it right!) of that.
Fade ramps in the clips in the "new" project were indeed all linear (ramps on the clips) which it warned would be so.
Also as advertised, track EQ was ignored, as were all bus tracks, etc. Ignored as well were all other plugs present in the session, meaning (to me) it didn't really render things, just split the files to mono and exported while retaining a couple things but dumping most others.

All told, not so useful really - at least for how we usually work. Worth more exploration though.

Maybe I am missing something ... anyone who can expand/enlighten on this please do!
Sure hope they put back the AA3 ability to export a multitrack to master and sep files though-- it is very useful for
how some clients want to send us prebuilds - and for the moment I will have to tell them they need to stick
with AA3 for that, definitely! That's all the testing time I had today so far, maybe more tomorrow.

Aaaahhh the mystery and marketing of the famous OMF strikes again LOL

OMF is one of the biggest marketing coups of Avid/Dodgy a right royal 'Empereor's new clothes' phenomenon.

Firstly let me say that Adobe's OMF implementation is nothing short of superb they can read just about every OMF you can throw at it including many that in practical terms abuse the specification (originally written on one of the Dead Sea scrolls).

OMF is really just a big file that accepts pretty much the bare minimum (in the most convoluted way) in order to transfer these basics to another daw (assuming that the other daw has implemented the same bare minimum). 

So you can expect at best in any omf tracks (and maybe track names), clips, fades, clip gain, clip envelopes (volume and sometimes pan) and not too much else.  Mono tracks are the go but Cubase/Nuendo and sonar (as I recall) abuse the spec by allowing stereo tracks.

No there is no rendering of fx on audio files

An embedded OMF is limited to 2gb in size but you can always use a reference OMF if need be.

[very]

Thx- figured you might know more about it than I do!  I was kind of amazed that it opened the OMF  at all.  Though the folder CS5.5 created for the export is quite large, the only file with an OMF extension is not big at all - it was 6094KB and thus much smaller than most of the newly split-to-mono WAVs it wrote into the same export folder. So it must just have loads of pointers in the OMF to the mono WAV files it wrote in that big folder.  Was also surprised that despite AA's warning, it did seem to handle the on-clip volume envelopes at least.  Perhaps they are written during export as metadata into the headers of the WAV files it exported using this method?

I always figured that at least some of OMF was a marketing thing.. never really got into it (nor most Digi/Avid things beyond simple basics). We have one PTLE 002R system here (on PC) which was bought under the not-brilliant idea that might need it for compatability. Turned out we never really had much use for it except for one project a long time ago now.  I also messed around with using the hardware as just an audio interface for AA a few times (using Digi drivers), was never thrilled (an understatement), and so it sits in a rack disconnected, awaiting poss. use as a spare interface or perhaps another door-stop.  (we currently have plenty of those.. old, slow, heavy boat-anchor SCSI drives being the faves..)

But OMF seems not real useful for us so far I'm afraid... putting back the "export as sep tracks and master" like AA3 has  would be very useful however. At least could take advantage of the speed and other improvements and still export out stem-type files in a sensible way that could be used with either AA3 or CS5.5 pretty well.

Good to hear OMF is well-implemented in CS5.5 though- perhaps might become more useful in future.  I guess the export I did was indeed a reference OMF given the settings I posted. When there's time perhaps I'll try the other flavor of OMF export just to educate myself a bit more on it.  More likely next focus will be getting the replacement CS5.5 disc and getting it for-real installed- but just on one system for now..

Interesting little nomenclature point: you get a folder using XP in C:\documents and settings\[username]\application data\adobe\audition\   named "4.0" when you install CS5.5, thus Steve and others here are totally right in calling it AA4!!

[totally right]

... thus Steve and others here are totally right in calling it AA4!!

It's been referred to internally as this numerically all along. What its development name is though is quite different, and not particularly helpful in the outside world, so we don't call it by that in public at all. To the extent that neither of us will tell you what it is! Sometimes, bits of clues get left in the SW builds, but I haven't seen any of these yet this time. Usually they only shows up in catastrophic crashes, and I don't think you are likely to see one of those now.

It's most helpful to call it AA4 - this distinguishes it completely, and the only other thing we'd ever need to know is whether it's running on a poxy Mac or not.

Figured you'd know!

I bought download, and the file I got is called: "audition_4_LS7.exe", which seems to me an entirely public use of the 4 designation.

The use of unrelated names, or even numbers, is also like Windows: 2000 was v5 internally, XP was 5.1, Server 2003 and 2003 R2 were 5.2, Vista and Server 2008 were 6, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 are v6.1

Paul

The LS7 bit makes reference to Audition in terms of the Creative Suite - the last version of Soundbooth had that same extension.

[invalid]

Another funny bit was when the 1st shipped DVD failed and I went on chat with support, they initially tried to tell me the serial number on the CS5.5/AA4 package sent us was invalid-- and was a "CS4" serial number.  I said... well, that's what you folks sent in a box that says CS5.5 and has a disc labeled CS5.5-shall I take you a picture??.  After a delay the rep came back and said they'd made a mistake and the number was actually valid.  It was at that point that I agreed to share my screen and they discovered that the files on the disc would not copy or install.  First though they tried to say the DVD drive was "bad"... but I noted I'd checked and used it successfully to transfer other data before contacting them.

Like Steve and others have noted, I usually don't like the audio systems being online (except maybe for authorizing or getting an update etc), but have relented on that with the newer stuff like AA4, actually had to first do that last year with Prem El 9 to get it going. Still not thrilled about it but pretty much had to. 

I bought download, and the file I got is called: "audition_4_LS7.exe", which seems to me an entirely public use of the 4 designation.

The use of unrelated names, or even numbers, is also like Windows: 2000 was v5 internally, XP was 5.1, Server 2003 and 2003 R2 were 5.2, Vista and Server 2008 were 6, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 are v6.1

Paul

Hi all,

I'm the Program Manager for Audition, regarding the versioning and naming discussion...

We're officially now called "Abode Audition CS5.5", whether it's a stand-alone or in the suite. We have other products at Adobe that are in similar to boats, for example After Effects is version 10.5 under the covers, but referred to and marketed as "After Effects CS5.5", we're the same way now. We were joking that if we can just keep versioning by whole numbers each release we'll get caught up to the suite at some point and then it'll all make sense

If you right click the .EXE on Windows, you will see we version as 4.0.xxxx . If you guys call it AA4, we on the team know what you're talking about and none of us will get offended. Just note that the main technical support folks probably won't get this if you somehow wind up talking to them, in that case it would be best to use "Audition CS5.5" for clarity (FWIW).

LS7 is simply a reference to localization, there's little (nor interesting) "magic" behind that.

Colin S.

We're officially now called "Abode Audition CS5.5", whether it's a stand-alone or in the suite. We have other products at Adobe that are in similar to boats, for example After Effects is version 10.5 under the covers, but referred to and marketed as "After Effects CS5.5", we're the same way now. We were joking that if we can just keep versioning by whole numbers each release we'll get caught up to the suite at some point and then it'll all make sense

If you right click the .EXE on Windows, you will see we version as 4.0.xxxx . If you guys call it AA4, we on the team know what you're talking about and none of us will get offended. Just note that the main technical support folks probably won't get this if you somehow wind up talking to them, in that case it would be best to use "Audition CS5.5" for clarity (FWIW).

Colin, the only thing that worries me about that very slightly is that I'm wondering what would happen to the idea of referring to Audition CS5.5 as that if, by some chance, the lads managed to get a significant upgrade out before CS6 was released? At least if you refer to it as a specific Audition number, you can differentiate easily...