1. Home
  2. Audio Editing Software
  3. Audition Reviews
  4. User Review of Audition
Great for Ad Hoc Recording Sessions, Podcasting, Broadcast and Video
June 03, 2020

Great for Ad Hoc Recording Sessions, Podcasting, Broadcast and Video

Jonah Dempcy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Audition

I primarily use Adobe Audition for recording rather than audio editing. I find the user interface suitable for easily recording on-site on my MacBook Pro laptop. I can do rudimentary audio editing as I go, and set up audio buses for basic effects like noise gates and compression. It additionally has nice integration with Adobe Premiere for when you are doing audio recording or editing for use in video and motion graphics. I've used Audition for recording interviews, voice-overs, software, and other product demos, and for customer development purposes to get a record of customer feedback.
  • Recording on-site: Audition does not use a lot of computer resources so you can run it on a laptop and be up and running recording in minutes.
  • On-the-fly audio bus setup.
  • Integration with Adobe Premiere.
  • Numerous features for podcasts and radio such as auto-ducking music when voice tracks are active.
  • Audio editing: I still prefer competitors like Magix Sound Forge Pro and Steinberg WaveLab Pro when it comes to extensive audio editing, simply because of their superior keyboard navigation and shortcuts, in my opinion.
  • Multitrack recording: While this is not Audition's primary purpose, and it does feature multitrack support, it is not my preferred audio editor for multitrack editing. I prefer a more full-featured Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for those purposes.
  • Some UI choices fit more with the Adobe ecosystem of Photoshop, Premiere, etc. and are unusual for a more audio-focused ecosystem. Audition feels like it belongs to a different "world" of software than many of my other audio applications, which all seem to coexist within the same conceptual world. This is not a problem if you are familiar with Adobe apps, and may even be a feature, as it reduces the learning curve for people who are already familiar with the internal logic of Adobe user interface design.
  • Positive: Easy to use, low learning curve, no wasted time figuring out how to record and export.
  • Positive: Integration with other Adobe products like Premiere.
  • Negative: Still prefer using other audio editors for extensive audio editing applications and things like batch processing (Sound Forge) or realtime nondestructive effects chains (WaveLab).
Audition works great for recording and doing moderate audio production work as for a podcast or an advertisement. I use it whenever I need to set up a quick recording session and throw a few basic effects, or do some rudimentary audio editing and splicing for a small task like a voice over for a software demo. Sound Forge, WaveLab, and Audacity all have their own strengths. Sound Forge is great for its batch processor with automated file conversion and export. WaveLab is great for its realtime effects chains. And, Audacity is great for its accessibility, and the fact that it is free and open source. Each has its place, and I prefer Adobe Audition for smaller tasks and ad-hoc recording sessions.
I have not contacted support but given the large amount of users, I have no doubt that most problems can be solved fairly easily. A cursory search for known issues in Adobe Audition yields a support website with many workarounds posted by the official Audition team. They seem responsive and eager to continue fixing bugs and improving the application, which I take as a sign that their support is top notch, as I would expect from my experience using other Adobe products.

Do you think Adobe Audition delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Adobe Audition's feature set?

Yes

Did Adobe Audition live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Adobe Audition go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Adobe Audition again?

Yes

Adobe Audition is great for on-location recording, or just recording in general, but especially when you want to be up and running with little fuss. It is also great for audio for film and motion graphics, within the Adobe ecosystem, because of its tight integration with Adobe Premiere. Furthermore, it is well-suited for podcasting and broadcast audio because of its features aimed specifically at podcasters, like auto-ducking of music tracks with voiceover. Audition also has very nice features like Diagnostics, Delete Silence, and Trim Long Silent Pauses, which automatically removes silence in spoken word audio tracks.

Audition is less suited for extensive audio editing where you want to, for instance, listen to a 2-hour interview at double speed and add markers in at all the gaps which need to be edited more precisely than the automated silence trimming can handle. In that case, I prefer an application like Sound Forge which allows me to rapidly mark and navigate through the markers, all using the keyboard. Audition does have marker support (also called cues) and perhaps if I were more familiar with the hotkeys, I would find it just as easy to use. However, given the choice, I prefer editing in Sound Forge or WaveLab.