I wish Audition had...

...better marketing.

The Spring 2007 Sweetwater catalog just came in. Everybody is there. From ProTools (from hardware/software Dream package for <$99,999 to PT M-Powered for $250) to WaveLab for $550, to Sound Forge for $250, to cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro for $100. Everybody is there, except Audition.

Is Samplitude / Sequoia there?

Magix Samplitude V9 Professional is there. No Sequoia in the printed catalog, as far as I can see, but you can find it in the online catalog as a special order http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Sequoia/

The online catalog has also Samplitude V8 master, also missing from the printed one, again a special order.

Of course, Audition is not in the online catalog as well.

I'm not sure this is an Adobe thing...If you search "Adobe Audition", you get this:

At this time, we have chosen not to carry Adobe Audition.
If you're looking for high-quality DAW software we stand behind many manufacturers including Digidesign, MOTU, Steinberg, Mackie, and others. Give us a call at 1-800-222-4700 and one of our Sales Engineers will help you find exactly the right software to meet your needs.

Emmett

I see. I searched for "Adobe" and "Audition" but not "Adobe Audition".

Well, it is anyway interesting why they don't want to "stand behind" AA. Do they stand behind everything they carry? When I asked about cables, they said Hosa was kind of OK, but ProCo was more reliable and durable. It did not look like standing behind Hosa.

At this time, we have chosen not to carry Adobe Audition.

That's a pretty damning position for a major retailer to take.  By implication, it would lead the less knowledgable to think there was something seriously wrong with AA!!

Adobe really do need to sort this sort of thing out, as it will do them no good whatsoever.

I don't believe they carry Echo products either (Echo and CE have been mainstays of the home project studio since '96)

I don't have anything 'against' Sweetwater, buy from them at times and in many ways they are a step above average internet big box retailers  but its sales engineers have always had strong individual biases, some of which might be based on company policy, some are simply idiosyncratic . . . and based on little more then personal fashion sense

but my guess is that it isn't adobe 'marketing' (except in the universal sense) that has kept Sweetwater from marketing AA.  In my experience these things are usually based on either conflict between sales policies of supplier with purchasing policies of retailer; or a specific personality conflict which is typically lost in the mists of time.  Sweetwater is now big enough that once a policy is entrenched inertia makes change difficult (there is a slight possibility that their initial relationship with PT/avid kept them from supplying CE/AA but it is unlikely that specific information will ever be forthcoming)

(and i doubt Audition will ever be more then a minor blip on Adobe's radar . . . the fact that you can buy it direct from adobe for same price as retail is probably a factor in this)

That's a pretty damning position for a major retailer to take.  By implication, it would lead the less knowledgable to think there was something seriously wrong with AA!!

Adobe really do need to sort this sort of thing out, as it will do them no good whatsoever.

Exactly. By the way, neither Fullcompass nor ZZSounds carry AA. Fullcompass has Sequoia, ZZSound not. But both carry Echo products, and of course a number of other recording/editing/mixing programs.

It can't help that Audition doesn't even appear in the products listing on the main Adobe web page.  I went looking there the other day for the Audition SDK.  I had to drill way down into the Video / Audio products section before it was even mentioned.

I think the Sweetwater sales people know a great deal about what they sell...It may be as simple as none of them have learned Audition well enough to speak of its high and low points.  It's hard to fairly compare a product to others, if you don't understand the product.

As for the ProCo vs. Hosa issue, I would have to agree with Sweetwater, from my experience.  And I think that if they did not tell you that, in general, ProCo was better, then they would have been doing you a disservice.  Just as it would be a disservice for someone to tell you that Behringer is as good as Mackie.

Emmett

You know, it's funny how pro users (radio engineers, ProTools sellers/users) look at me when I tell them I use Audition. It's like they feel sorry for me. But then they hear the result, and it almost makes it worth it.
And how many times have I heard a sales person say "Oh, you don't want to sample at 192k/32bit, it's just a waste of time, use 96k/24bit instead, that way you can use ProTools", or "Playback in hardware at 192k? What's the point?" ...or something along those lines. I don't argue any more, I just say, "You know, you're right. How could I be so silly? I'll get back to you on the purchase order..." 
I find that the nice thing about Audition is the flexibility it gives me (and therefore my customers) - file format, display format, keyboard controls, filesize (try getting a ProTools DAW to load up a 6.8Gb PCM file and edit out a 3-second section and save it again in under 5 minutes!), and I get to control what it does and when it does it.
For a big business like the one mentioned (and I'm in Australia, where we think Starbucks is a franchise of Battlestar Galactica) to make a deliberate decision to not only not stock such a useful and powerful tool, but to offer a generic justification to rationalise their decision not to stock it, seems to me like it's a business based on personal liking (unlikely), or they really got their fingers burned with Audition.
Did this store also sell Premiere Pro and other Adobe tools? Or was it just Audition they didn't like/sell?

and i doubt Audition will ever be more then a minor blip on Adobe's radar . . . the fact that you can buy it direct from adobe for same price as retail is probably a factor in this

This bothers me a bit. It would feel better somehow if Audition was a bit more important compared to how it is now. The fact that it is an audio program doesn't help too much I guess. Now that it's owned by a company which predominantly focused on photo editing, video etc.

And how many times have I heard a sales person say "Oh, you don't want to sample at 192k/32bit, it's just a waste of time, use 96k/24bit instead, that way you can use ProTools", or "Playback in hardware at 192k? What's the point?" ...or something along those lines.

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.
What do you record if I may ask?

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.

A minor aside: ever heard of B&H Photo Video in New York City?  While they're not known in musicians' circles like Sweetwater, they do prominently feature Adobe products (their latest photography catalog features Adobe Photoshop CS3, as yet not released, on the cover). 

So, B&H carries Audition.  So does the Guitar Center chain (they didn't just a few years ago) and their online service, www.musiciansfriend.com.

So PQ, take heart.  I wish Audition's visibility and reputation were at the top of the heap too, but we're really not in a bad place with this.

I can't locate it right now but there was recently a feature on two track editors in one of the major audio magazines (I think it was Mix, but don't hold me to that).  The article mentioned a whole bunch of editing packages, including both expensive packages and I think even Audacity.  No mention at all of AA.  The punchline, this story was part of a larger feature on "Audio for Broadcasting".
JTC

PS-
If anybody saw this article and can help me identify it I'd be grateful.

edit:
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