Streaming Learning Center

I’m a big Adobe Audition fan, and when I heard that the powerful multitrack audio editing program found in Adobe Production Studio would be replaced in the upcoming CS3 bundle by a more feature-limited version, I was less than pleased. That said, calling Soundbooth, the program that replaced Audition, "video-centric" rather than "feature-limited" is not smooth marketing talk. Soundbooth includes most features that video editors will need and is easier to learn than Audition. It also boasts a new background music creation feature that has promise, if not polish.

In this tutorial, I’ll provide an overview of Soundbooth’s interface and then focus on how to accomplish common tasks like normalization, noise removal, and audio compression. For the record, I created this tutorial on a quad-core Mac Pro with two dual-core Intel Xeon Woodcrest processors running at 3.0GHz and 8GB RAM. Not that it matters, of course, because Soundbooth looks and feels identical on both platforms, but it’s hard not to feel a small thrill running Production Studio on a Mac for the first time.

When you're doing professional shoots, you've got two alternatives for capturing higher-quality audio: get really, really close to your subject, or get an external microphone. Assuming that close proximity is not always an option, with all the mics, connections, and strategies available, what do you need to know to do on-site sound right?

All of us have had audio rise up and bite us in the rear on a project or two, usually when we were focused elsewhere and not paying attention to levels, connections, and the like. Fortunately, with the right set of software tools and a bit of background information, you can eliminate many errors with little audible residue. The final product is never as good (or as fast) as it would be if you had gotten it right the first time, but all's well that ends well, especially when you have a DVD to deliver.