I wish Audition had...

No mention at all of AA.  The punchline, this story was part of a larger feature on "Audio for Broadcasting".

Yes, but it was written by a curiously ill-informed non-broadcaster - what do you expect? 

It's not perfect, but if you want some evidence about what's really popular, certainly in terms of internet searches, then look at this site - and follow the link to the next page about software that's changed its name, as well. This is no flash in the pan - AA/CEP has been at the position it's at consistently for well over a year now. Which really shows you how much research Mr Rivers has done, doesn't it?

But indeed, Audition is all too often looked upon as the lesser alternative by many. Even people who use competitive programs see it as the non-professional alternative.

I think it's more subtle than that. A lot of companies that produce sample libraries, for instance, use Audition to sample-rate convert them into their distribution formats, because they know there's nothing better to do it with. But it's a piece of relatively cheap software that started out as a shareware program, and they've never forgotten that, so they don't like to admit to using it.

And as for ProTool users - well, they have a real problem. Most of them have had to justify their purchases to an accountant, and they are forced to defend this bad wallet decision to the hilt, one way or another. So it is inevitable that these people, who are unfortunately listened to within the industry, are going to bad-mouth a really cheap alternative that in pure audio terms significantly out-performs ProTools at every opportunity.

When looked at from that point of view, Adobe know full well that they are never going to win any arguments, however much effort they put into them. They also know that within the specific niche where Audition is accepted as the de facto tool, they don't have to convince people to buy anywhere near as much - so there's another reason for not bothering too much to sell it elsewhere.

So, Adobe put a lot of effort into direct marketing of Audition. That's how they managed to sell about 6000 seats of it to the BBC. In terms of cost per sale, that's effective. Doubly so, because most of the world's other broadcasters take notice of what the Beeb does. To increase the sales across retail outlets would be nowhere near as cost-effective. And, like it or not, Audition is still primarily an editing package, not a music production one, so it's never going to be that attractive to most of the music retail stores anyway.

So don't make the mistake of thinking that Audition isn't important to Adobe. Adobe is a successful company, and they got that way by understanding how to target products to markets and sell them effectively. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean that it isn't happening. All it means is that as an individual, you aren't a part of the market they perceive.

I kind of meant what you mentioned in your post. The fact that Audition is a bit more than only editing nowadays but somehow this never gets mentioned when people discuss Audition at other forums. Most of them compare it to Soundforge for example.

I wonder which direction Adobe will take now with the program. Especially with the multitrack not being as reliable as what many others offer. Will they improve what they have there or concentrate more on editing which has been the strongest point for a long time?

I wonder which direction Adobe will take now with the program. Especially with the multitrack not being as reliable as what many others offer. Will they improve what they have there or concentrate more on editing which has been the strongest point for a long time?

Well, you will have to wait and see, won't you? 

Hehehe, yes. It seems like it 

Maybe as Audition is partly a multitrack app, it was excluded from the article on that basis.  Those mentioned do not have, I think, "proper" multitrack functions, only multichannel, which is different.

Maybe as Audition is partly a multitrack app, it was excluded from the article on that basis.  Those mentioned do not have, I think, "proper" multitrack functions, only multichannel, which is different.

The WaveLab montage is a multitrack editor.  Like most editors, it has virtually no multichannel options, except for importing a 6-channel 5.1 file and writing up to 8 channels from the montage to a bunch of mono or stereo, not multichannel, files (or burning a DVD-A).

Paul

Just found the article.  It was in Pro Audio Review, April 15, 2007.  It was in the broadcast section of the magazine.
Two-Track Editors for the Windows PC by MIKE RIVERS

I'm sure that Mike is aware of Audition so it must have been a Pro Audio Review thing.

Up unitl recently Mike's favourite 2 track editor was Fast Eddie which can trace its roots back long before Cool Edit came on the scene (it started out on DOS as Fast Edit if I remember right) so it would be interesting to see if any of the software reviewed was good enough to move Mike onto a new editing program.

Cheers

James.