Adobe Audition 3

Customer Rating:
Summary: Doesn't even start up
Comment: Adobe Audition was a great program before it was owned by Adobe, when it was called Cooledit. If it works, it has a great and useful set of features. Helas, depending on how your computer is configured, you won't be able to even launch Adobe Audition 3: It will just crash. This problem is known to Adobe for several years, but they didn't bother to correct this bug, or even to answer your emails if you write to them. You can find work-arounds on the Adobe Audition Forums, but don't expect this program to work out of the box. Also, in addition to many other bugs, note that Adobe installs a spyware service (Adobe LM Service) that you can't disable.

Unless you look for a specific feature that only Adobe Audition has, I would recommend that you try to get hold of an old version of CoolEdit, or to try out Audacity, which is free, works, and has no spyware.

Customer Rating:
Summary: New Radio Network Standard
Comment: I am the Dir. of Eng. for a broadcast radio network. When I took over this position in the last year, the "standard" DAW program was quite antiquated, as was the entire computer network. Some of the employees had used Audition and it's predecessor Cool Edit in the past and were very constrained by the current standard. We will be converting every DAW program to Audition as we upgrade the computers. It has become our new standard DAW program, and is also the suggested DAW for our upcoming automation upgrade. Some who had not ever seen it before had no problems at all making it work for them with little or no coaching.

Customer Rating:
Summary: The Healing Brush alone makes it worth the purchase price
Comment: I bought this software to help me with my job recording and editing sermons for my church's radio business. Until a few days ago, I had been using Cool Edit 2.0 (and before that, Cool Edit 1.0!) for years. The quick-loading software and no-nonsense interface kept me using it long after more advanced programs had been released. With our recent upgrade in recording hardware, I decided to upgrade my recording software as well. Adobe Audition 3 was the obvious choice, as it is the successor to Cool Edit.

I am happy to say that it retains all of the things that made Cool Edit awesome, while adding a host of excellent new features. The best feature being the Healing Brush. The usefulness of this tool cannot be stressed enough! Being able to literally paint over pops clicks, and other errors, and have the program automatically perform the correction has saved me many hours of frustration. Not only that, but you can also paint over (highlight) specific frequencies apply effects to only those frequencies. This makes removing things like coughing or other background noises a cinch.

These two features alone are worth the cost of upgrading. Even if they were the only new features in the entire program, I would still say: "BUY IT NOW!"

Customer Rating:
Summary: ADOBE PASSES AUDITION
Comment: I upgraded from Cool Edit Pro 2. The reviews I read about the difference were pretty tepid, but I took the plunge anyway and am SO VERY GLAD I did. First of all, the interface is better. Secondly, work flow is easier. Thirdly, the effects rack is MUCH MUCH better than before. the convolution reverb is amazing, as are the tube compressor and multi-band compressor. I use it for voice work and I am now able to sound so much better even on computer speakers. Highly recommended. I am so happy I didn't 'start over' with pro-tools.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Audition passes the test
Comment: Our church group purchased this software for making Biblical teachings ready for radio and the web. Although we aren't exactly high tech, we needed something easy to learn and provided professional results.

Audition has lived up to that expectation. And we have had only one minor problem. When we mixdown our tracks to a finished track, and when we try to burn the track with Nero, Nero says the track is corrupt. We have found that the track is a Windows .WAV file with IEEE Float. We are trying to find the right file format for Nero.

Other than that we are happy with Audition.