Basic Interface of Adobe Audtion

What is Adobe Audition?

Adobe Audition is a sound editing software, which can be used to edit and produce Audio for Games, film and music. It can also be used to create audio for a variety of other media outputs such as web.

Interface

The above screenshot is a quick look at the main interface in Adobe Audition. Taking a closer look we can see the top left hand side of the window is a file section.

Files Section

The files section is one of the most important part of Audition. This is because it contains all files that are currently open, allowing you to close, start-up new projects, or convert a project to be used within the multi-track editor. 

The next most important part of Audition is the main Editor interface which can be seen below. 

Empty Editor

The main interface is where the audio wave is shown once loaded up. This is the main place where you edit Audio. You can cut, copy, paste and delete here. I feel that when trying to create a decent audio file, it's good start here and setting up how the audio will generally sound. 

Editor with sound

It is also important to note, that whilst editing a sound, you can use fade controls. These are represented by two boxes in the top of the editor window, at each end of the track. To make a track fade, simply click the box and and drag. As you do this a visible curve will appear and you'll notice that the audio gets smaller.

Top of Editor

At the top of the Editor window is the timeline. This allows you to scroll through an audio file and find a specific place within the audio that you want. 

At the bottom of the editor is the levels bar. When an Audio file is played, you can see how many decibels it is using this bar. 

Now, when editing in Audition, you want to add different effects to the audio file. This can be done via the effects rack. 

The effects rack is located just underneath the files section in Audition. This is a really handy feature enabling you to quickly select from pre-set effects and apply them to your audio. To do this, you simply use the drop-down pre-sets menu and select which pre-set you wish to apply. However, some may want to manually add effects too. This can be done easily using the effects rack too. If you select the arrow on the end of the number 1 box, you'll be presented with a list of the various effects that you can apply to the track. To apply them, you simply click the desired effect, and it'll appear in the box. 

To add multiple effects to a audio clip, you simply just select the arrows at the end of the numbered boxes. (Each number correlates to a separate effect. This can be seen below)

If you wish to modify an effect and tweak it to how you want, you can double click the effect on the effects rack, and a window will pop up listing all the editable attributes. This way you can tweak the effect to exactly how you want it to sound.  

Now whilst working in Audition, like any software you can make mistakes. To undo these mistakes, you can use the CTR-Z button to undo. Alternatively, and if you're looking for a specific point to undo, you can use the undo History window.

History Window

The history window is located in the bottom left hand corner of the scene. This window lists, in order, everything that has transpired whilst you have been working on the clip. To undo an action, you simply click on an earlier segment and everything will undo up until that point. Now if that's not enough, when you've located the offending segment and highlighted it, you can delete using the delete key. You will then be prompted by a message that you cannot undo this option. Deleting a segment will always delete any other segments/effects you have applied after that particular segment.   

Lastly, but by no means the least important part, is the multi-track editor. The multi-track editor is a handy and powerful tool that enable you to quickly create a more complex sound than you initially started with. To access the multi-track editor, right click on the audio file in the files section of Audition. Then select 'Insert to Multi-track editor'

The screenshot above shows a simple audio track imported into the multi-track editor. Even with one simple audio track, the multi-track editor is a handy tool. When your project changes to a multi-track session, you will see that the tools at the top that were greyed out beforehand are now no longer greyed out. (The screenshot below shows the tools)

The tools available to us now are; Move Tool, Razor Tool, Slip Tool and Time Selection Tool. 

The move tool is a fairly self explanatory tool. When this tool is selected, it allows you to move around the audio and position it where you want. This tool is handy when you have cut audio up, and you need to move the segments around and position them.  

The next tool is the Razor Tool. This is one of the most useful tools within the multi-track editor. It allows you to slice up any section of the audio file. For example;

Cut-up Audio Track

When using the Razor Tool, simply select the tool and hover your mouse over the audio track. You'll notice when this happens, a line appears over the audio track. This line indicates where you will cut the audio. To cut the audio, you simply click on the desired part and it'll cut. It is good to note, that once you have finished cutting up the audio, click back onto the move tool, otherwise you'll end up cutting up more audio. If you wish to cut multiple audio files up, you will  need to do this one by one.