Adobe Audition is a powerful audio editing software that allows you to record, edit, and mix audio files. With Audition, you can edit audio in a non-destructive manner, meaning you can go back and adjust edits without permanently altering the original file. This makes it easy to experiment with different effects and tweaks until you get the sound just right.
Some key features of Adobe Audition include:
- Multi-track editing – Mix together multiple audio tracks and apply effects to each one independently.
- Audio restoration tools – Remove noise, hum, clicks/pops, and clipping to clean up recordings.
- Effects – Tons of effects like reverb, delay, distortion, pitch shift and more to enhance your audio.
- Spectral frequency editing – Visualize and edit specific frequencies using the Spectral Frequency display.
- Amplitude envelope editing – Adjust volume over time by altering the amplitude envelope.
Whether you are editing a music track, podcast episode, audio book or sound effect, Audition provides all the tools you need to get professional results.
Opening and Importing Audio Files
The first step in editing an audio file in Audition is to open the file and import it into your project. Here are the basic steps:
- Launch Adobe Audition on your computer.
- Click “File” then “Open”. Navigate to the audio file you want to edit and open it.
- Alternatively, you can drag and drop the audio file directly into an Audition project tab.
- The audio file will appear as a waveform in the Edit view. You can now start editing it.
Audition supports all common audio formats like WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC and more. It even allows you to open video files and extract the audio track.
Once your file is imported, you can start applying edits and effects using Audition’s powerful tools. Let’s go over some of the main audio editing features step-by-step.
Trimming Audio Clips
One of the most basic and common audio edits is trimming. This allows you to remove unwanted sections from the start or end of an audio clip. Here is how trimming works in Audition:
- Click on the “Selection” tool in the toolbar. It looks like a sideways I-beam cursor.
- Click and drag across the section of the audio waveform you want to keep to select it.
- Go to Edit > Cut or press Ctrl/Cmd + X to cut the selected audio.
- Position the playhead where you want the trimmed audio to start.
- Go to Edit > Paste or press Ctrl/Cmd + V to paste the selection back in.
This will delete everything outside of your selection and leave just the trimmed clip behind. You can undo trims at any time.
Splitting Audio Clips
Splitting allows you to divide a single audio clip into multiple clips. This is useful when you want to delete a section in the middle or treat part of the clip differently. To split a clip:
- Click on the “Razor” tool in the toolbar. It looks like a vertical line with a dot in the middle.
- Click at the position in the waveform where you want to split the clip. This will divide it into two separate clips.
You can now delete or edit each clip independently. Split clips can be merged back together later on.
Copying and Pasting Audio
You can copy and paste sections of audio using the standard copy/paste shortcuts:
- Select audio you want to copy with the Selection tool.
- Press Ctrl/Cmd + C to copy.
- Position playhead where you want audio to be pasted.
- Press Ctrl/Cmd + V to paste.
This quickly duplicates audio clips and allows you to rearrange sections easily.
Audio Effects
One of Audition’s most powerful features is its wide range of audio effects. These can be used to enhance, distort, and completely transform the sound. Let’s look at a few of the most popular effects:
Noise Reduction
The Noise Reduction effect is great for cleaning up recordings. To use it:
- Select a region of just noise you want to remove.
- Go to Effects > Noise Reduction / Restoration > Capture Noise Print.
- Select entire clip and go to Effects > Noise Reduction / Restoration > Noise Reduction (process).
- Adjust settings like Reduce By and Noise Floor to fine-tune.
This removes constant background noise like hiss or hum. More aggressive settings can also be used for creative sound design.
Reverb
Adding reverb creates a rich, spacious sound. To apply:
- Select clip to apply reverb to.
- Go to Effects > Reverb > Reverb.
- Choose a Room Size and mix the Wet and Dry signals.
- Adjust other settings like Decay Time to taste.
Use reverb subtly to give sounds more depth or heavily as an overt special effect.
Chorus
The Chorus effect thickens up audio by doubling it with delayed versions of itself. To use:
- Select clip.
- Go to Effects > Modulation > Chorus.
- Set Depth and Rate settings.
- Mix Wet and Dry signal balance.
Chorus works great on instruments, vocals and synth sounds. Experiment with the Parameters to get different flavours.
There are tons more effects available like delay, distortion and more. Applying these opens up endless creative possibilities.
Multitrack Editing
One of Audition’s most powerful features is the ability to edit multiple audio tracks simultaneously. This allows you to mix together and apply effects to separate tracks independently.
To work with multitrack editing:
- Click “+” in the Tracks panel to add a new empty track.
- Import or record audio clips to populate each track.
- Use the Selection and Razor tools to edit clips on each track.
- Click on a clip and use the Effect rack to apply effects to just that clip.
- Adjust the overall Volume and Panning of each track.
- Click the Mixdown button to render the final mix with all tracks combined.
Multitrack editing unlocks the full power of Audition and is essential for complex audio work like mixing music.
Audio Restoration
Audition includes a suite of powerful tools for audio restoration and repair:
- DeClipper – Repairs clipping distortion
- DeEsser – Removes harsh sibilance
- DeHummer – Eliminates 50/60Hz hum
- DePlosive – Fixes pops on plosive sounds
To use these tools:
- Select clip to repair.
- Go to Effects > Audio Restoration and pick effect.
- Preview and adjust settings to get best repair results.
- Render effect when happy with preview.
Audition’s restoration effects can often salvage problematic audio recordings. They are especially useful when working with vocal recordings.
Spectral Frequency Editing
For surgical audio edits, you can use Audition’s Spectral Frequency view. This displays sound as color-coded frequencies along a time axis.
To perform spectral frequency editing:
- Click Spectral Frequency tab above the waveform.
- Specific frequencies will be displayed as color-coded “blobs”.
- Select the Spectral Selection tool to isolate frequencies.
- Cut or reduce selected frequencies to precisely alter timbre and tone.
This almost microscopic approach allows you to finely tune the tonal quality of any sound. It does require some learning to interpret the spectral display.
Amplitude Envelope Editing
You can edit the volume changes over time, known as the amplitude envelope, using Audition’s Envelope view.
To adjust the envelope:
- Click Envelope tab above the waveform.
- The amplitude envelope line appears with control points.
- Raise points to increase volume and lower to attenuate.
- Adjust envelope slope by dragging points left or right.
Envelope editing allows precise volume shaping over time. Use it to create fades, adjust dynamics or fix level inconsistencies.
Conclusion
As you can see, Adobe Audition provides a very deep toolkit for audio editing and enhancement. The non-destructive workflow makes it easy to experiment without damaging source files.
The key things to remember are:
- Use the Selection and Razor tools to trim, split and cut audio clips.
- Apply effects like Reverb and Chorus to enhance sound.
- Clean up noise and audio issues with the Restoration tools.
- Edit specific frequencies in the Spectral view.
- Adjust volume over time with the Amplitude Envelope.
- Mix multiple tracks together using the multitrack editor.
With all these tools at your disposal, you can edit and polish your audio to perfection in Audition. So grab an audio file and start enhancing!