September 26, 2012

4 Websites That Will Help You Connect With Songwriting




songwriting websitesWe all know about those songwriters, right? Yeah, they are those people who stand barefoot in coffee shops, playing out-of-tune guitars and singing  songs about wheat in the fields and how life is a simple butterfly. Well, actually, this is definitely not the case. As a matter of fact, this is a stereotype, my friend. We shouldn’t take kindly to that, for songwriters are actually known to come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes.
No, the typical songwriter could be anyone, and sometimes, it’s hard for them to showcase their talent. With that said, I believe that one of the strongest ways to increase the quality one’s talent is to let everyone know about it. Unfortunately, not many people can do that for one reason or another. However, I’ve found a few sites to aid you in your songwriting (until you’re ready to share your talent with the world).

The Muse’s Muse

songwriting websites
First off, I’ve linked you to the forum section of this website. I just wanted to get this out of the way, for I believe this is the most important section of this songwriting website. The Muse’s Muse message boards are a great way to connect with fellow songwriters when your community of friends and family has already exhausted what natural talent that they have. Here, you’ll find fresh, new people who are just like you, and additionally, you’ll find a few features that are designed to teach you the basics of songwriting.

Songwriter Universe

songwriting websites free
Are you simply not hip with the songwriting world of today? Perhaps, you are curious how mainstream music is derived from relatively unknown songwriters. Maybe you are just wondering what makes a great hit. Songwriting Universe is a good publication that shows the business of songwriting in action, and it’s a decent site for those just wanting to scratch the surface to see what it mostly entails.

American Songwriter

songwriting websites free
American Songwriter is a beautiful blog that simply covers all that entails songwriting. Provided are intriguing articles that even folks such as myself (non-songwriters) can understand. The website is designed to provide tips and opportunities for those members of society that decide to put finger to fret and pen to paper, and it’s a well-visited site to boot. I’d recommend reading American Songwriter to anyone – not just songwriters, to be honest. It’s quite interesting.

r/Songwriting

songwriting websites
No matter what I do, Reddit seems to always pop up in my life. This subreddit is a community of songwriters who are willing to critique, joke around with, and even share techniques. Furthermore, it’s all within the convenience of the typical Reddit viewing-space! (Now you’ll never have to leave.) This a relatively simple songwriting website, but it has quite a bit of content. Additionally, there are a few fair guidelines in place for critique and song submission, and this helps keep everything fair.

Conclusion

Like I said, I myself am not a songwriter, but I’m around them quite a bit. I’d love to relate to them, and for me, these sites may give us something to talk about. For them, these are sites with just good reading material.
Do you know of any other similar sites about songwriting? Have you written any songs on your own?

Source:  http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-websites-connect-songwriting/ce:

July 15, 2012

Yamaha releases new A Series Acoustic Electrics


I just became aware of these new products from Yamaha. They were designed based on feedback from their American designers and customers to be rugged, easy to play, and with built-in electronics. Below is info on the most affordable of the series and a demo video. A link to the website is at the bottom. 

For generations, Yamaha has been known for quality and value of our entire range of acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars. Many factors contribute to our success: from our experience and knowledge of selecting and utilizing premium materials, to owning and operating our own factories. For the first time, Yamaha has taken this expertise and collaborated very closely with the experience and knowledge of our American guitar team to create the first US-designed Yamaha acoustic-electric guitars: the A Series.



Acoustic-Electric Dreadnaught, Rosewood Back & Sides with SRT Pickup

The A1R is part of the entirely new A-series line of Yamaha acoustic-electric guitars featuring a stunning fresh look, amazing playability and the cutting edge S.R.T. (Studio Response Technology) piezo/pickup. The A1R dreadnought cutaway is designed for today’s player who requires a reliable workhorse that looks feels and sounds amazing in all applications. A performance level ‘bang-for-your-buck’ guitar offering quality build & materials such as; Solid Sitka Spruce Top, Mahogany Neck, Rosewood Back/Sides, Ebony Bridge and a neck profile that is a thrill to play for hours on end.



Yamaha website: http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instruments/guitars-basses/el-ac-guitars/a-series/?mode=series

July 14, 2012

IK Multimedia VST Effects Demos

IK Multimedia VST effects plugins are easy to use and sound great. They allow different type of amplifiers, effects pedals, and cabinet configurations.  Below are demos of the Ampitube 3 and Fender Amplitube plugins. With these plugins, there is less reason to choose a guitar based on sound, because sounds along with the amplifiers are infinitely programmable.

Amplitube 3





Amplitube Fender-



July 10, 2012

Myna Audio Editor - Free

For musicians just looking to experiment and create new multi-track recordings anywhere you have an Internet connection, now you do not even need a separate program. A Chrome browser extension is now available. Aviary's Myna Audio Editor can do the job. There is a demo on their home page. Below is more info, screen shots, and a link. The program is available for free download in the Chrome Web Store. Amazing...








Remix music tracks and audio clips. Apply sound effects and record your own voice and instruments.

Aviary’s Audio Editor is a powerful audio editing tool used to remix your
favorite songs or record your own. From trimming and looping your audio to
reversing it altogether, Aviary's Audio Editor allows for powerful clip editing.
Creating a custom fade-out and adding pitch bends and reverb to your tunes
couldn't be easier. For even more possibilities, create beats in Aviary's Music
Creator and send them over to our Audio Editor to perfect them. This one-two punch
can't be beat!

*Note: This application is not an extension, so it will not appear on your
browser's toolbar after installation. Shortcuts to all Chrome web apps can be
found by opening a new tab - you'll see thumbnails for all your installed apps there!*

Example Uses:
---------------------

* Editing your band's new songs
* Remixing your favorite hits for a party
* Manipulating sound effects for tv shows, video clips, and home videos

Features:
------------

* Powerful Clip Editing
* Easily toggled automation
* Tons of non-destructive effects
* Easy importing and exporting options
* Perfect compatibility with Aviary's Music Creator

Home page link: http://advanced.aviary.com/tools/audio-editor

July 4, 2012

Squire adds Jaguar, Jazzmaster, and Mustang guitars


Jaguar - An authentically styled Jaguar now joins the Vintage Modified family, with present-day touches including sharp, clear Duncan Designed™ pickups and a modern fingerboard radius. Squier’s new Vintage Modified Jaguar rocks the model’s distinctive hallmarks, too - such as the 24” scale, dual-circuit switching and controls, floating-vibrato bridge and classically colorful Surf Green, Candy Apple Red, Olympic White and Three-color Sunburst finishes.



Features include a maple neck with vintage-tint gloss finish, 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets and parchment dot inlays, tortoiseshell (Three-Color Sunburst and Olympic White models) and white-black-white pickguards (Candy Apple Red and Surf Green models), Jaguar single-coil pickups, circuit selector and tone circuit switches, pickup on/off switches, skirted black control knobs (lead circuit) and black disc knobs (rhythm circuit), vintage-style bridge and non-locking floating vibrato with vintage-style tremolo arm, vintage-style chrome tuners and chrome hardware.

Jazzmaster - An authentically styled Jazzmaster now joins the Vintage Modified family, with present-day touches including full, clear Duncan Designed™ pickups and a modern fingerboard radius. Squier’s new Vintage Modified Jazzmaster has the model’s most distinctive hallmarks, too - such as the dual-circuit switching and controls, floating-vibrato bridge and classically colorful Sonic Blue, Candy Apple Red, Olympic White and Three-color Sunburst finishes.




Features include a maple neck with vintage-tint gloss finish, 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard with 21 medium jumbo frets and parchment dot inlays, tortoiseshell (Three-Color Sunburst and Olympic White models) and white-black-white pickguards (Candy Apple Red and Sonic Blue models), Jazzmaster single-coil pickups, circuit selector switch and pickup selector toggle switch, white Stratocaster®-style control knobs (lead circuit) and black disc knobs (rhythm circuit), vintage-style bridge and non-locking floating vibrato with vintage-style tremolo arm, vintage-style chrome tuners and chrome hardware.

Squier's Vintage Modified guitar and bass range is designed to take old school designs and make them work for contemporary players on a budget. And that's exactly what the new Jaguar HH we have here is all about.
You get the classic offset body, gloss finish bolt-on maple neck, a big CBS-era headstock and, well, that's pretty much all the vintage stuff covered.
To bring the guitar's performance up to date, Fender has fitted it with beefier pickups, dropped the old school vibrato that made the original guitar an acquired taste and worked in a 241mm (9.5-inch) fingerboard radius (in place of the original 184mm/7.25-inch) for improved string-bending and general playability.
"Kurt Cobain played a '65 sunburst Jag with DiMarzios, and that sums up the player Fender is trying to hook here."
The recessed Stratocaster-style jackplates and stacked concentric '62 Jazz Bass controls are also obvious departures from Leo Fender's original blueprints. The chrome knob on each control handles volume duties, while the bottom ring part is a tone.
Click here to find out more!
Then there's the isosceles trapezium-shaped hardtail bridge. It looks very similar to a Danelectro unit and is mounted like one too - the front of the bridgeplate rests on two screws that raise or lower the action.
You can also tweak the action and intonation with the six individual saddles. The rear of the bridge is secured with a single large screw that can alter the angle of the whole unit.

Build

Our Jaguar has a four-piece basswood body. Basswood is known for providing good sustain and has become the go-to timber for many modern rock guitars.
The bolt-on maple neck has a shallow 'C' profile and a rosewood fingerboard studded with 22 medium jumbo frets. Incidentally, there's no maple board option on this Jag.
The guitar's 610mm (24-inches) scale length is shorter than the 648mm (25.5-inches) of the Jazzmaster and other classic Fender models, the Stratocaster and Telecaster. This makes it considerably easier to bend the guitar's supplied 0.010 to 0.046 Fender USA NPS (nickel-plated steel) strings.
The HH part of the VM Jaguar model name signifies two humbuckers in the engine bay - specifically Duncan Designed HB-102 bridge and neck humbuckers with zebra bobbins. Packing Alnico 5 magnets, this set is based on the popular Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB Jazz Blues bridge and the SH-2n Jazz Model pickups.
As mentioned earlier, the Jaguar HH comes with a Strat- style jackplate and '62 Jazz Bass controls. These are the guitar's Marmite bits - the jackplate looks odd to us; a bit out of place. The controls have an annoying habit of snagging on each other, meaning both move when you're trying to adjust only one.

Sounds

Kurt Cobain played a '65 sunburst Jaguar fitted with DiMarzio humbuckers, and that sums up the type of player Fender is hoping to hook with this Squier version. It's basically a rock beast with retro charm and a bridge humbucker with enough wallop to satisfy most fuzz fiends.
It cleans up well but then again, that's not really a surprise. If you've played any twin-humbucker guitar, you'll know what to expect.
If you're a bit cheesed off with pointy headstock guitars with lollipop stick necks, the Jaguar offers a very cool alternative.
As mentioned, we're not keen on the jackplates and super- sized controls, but in every other regard our time with the Vintage Modified Jaguar HH has been great.
It's vibrant, easy to play and comes loaded with great sounding pickups. Yes, Fender has squeezed an incredible amount of juice out of its old classics, but when the result is an instrument that playa and sounds a step above its price bracket as this does, few will be complaining - big knobs or not.

Verdict

It's not the prettiest Jag of all time, but its beefy tones are perfect for hard rockers and Kurt Cobain devotees.
Source: http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/guitars/electric/6-string-solid-body/vintage-modified-jaguar-hh-422337/review


June 10, 2012

Adobe Audition CS6 Review


Unify Sound and Picture with Adobe Audition CS6

By Sam Mallery
Published Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - 11:04am


The worlds of audio and video remain separate entities in most stages of production, even though they eventually become one, and can only be judged as a whole in the final steps before completion. Post sound mixing is often handled by separate people, in separate facilities, sometimes in separate time zones. However, changing demands require new tools, and the old model of having multiple studios handle the cut and the mix isn’t always necessary, nor is it the best option.






A cross-platform suite of media-production applications for seamlessly dealing with picture and sound has long been desired, and this link is exactly what Adobe has delivered withAudition CS6.
Designed for deep compatibility with Adobe Premier Pro, the company’s fully featured non-linear video editing software, Audition CS6 allows you to pass either individual clips or entire projects quickly between the two applications. There’s a dedicated option for exporting to Premiere Pro, and you can choose to send a mix down or individual tracks, or even export 5.1 surround mixes. This seamless integration greatly benefits both the individual who cuts video and mixes sound all by themselves, as well as larger studios and operations that need to trade projects back and forth with as few interruptions as possible.
Audition CS6 (separate versions are available for Windowsand Mac) features a high-performance audio engine and includes many hotly requested features, such as control-surface support (Mackie Control, Mackie Logic and EUCON), Real-Time Clip Stretching and a preview feature for external media. Some old favorites have been reintroduced as well, such as CD burning and a metronome. Plus there are many features that will enhance the speed and quality of your work, such as the new Automatic Speech Alignment tool.
There are many factors that make ADR (Additional Dialog Recording) really tricky, but one of the most difficult aspects is lining up the dialog that you recorded in the studio with the location audio that’s tied to the video clip. Audiences are very sensitive to poorly synced sound. When the re-recorded dialog isn’t lined up perfectly with the on-screen subject’s lip movement, even the most well executed high-definition video will look like a sloppy Kung Fu flick. The new Automatic Speech Alignment tool in Audition CS6 makes it really easy to quickly align and replace dialog audio.
When you’re experimenting with the speed of a video clip in an edit (such as creating a slow-mo sequence), it’s nice to have the audio creatively support the speed alterations taking place on screen. The Real-Time Clip Stretching feature in Audition CS6 allows you to non-destructively adjust the duration of your audio clips. Audition will render a better-sounding version of the adjusted clip and replace the inferior sounding version seamlessly with it as you work.
There are also powerful pitch-correction tools in Audition CS6 that can fix pitch issues either automatically or manually (with a dedicated display view). You can make an audio clip longer or shorter without changing the pitch (this way a sped-up clip will still sound like a human—not a chipmunk). Clip stretching and pitch correction can also be used together in a “Varispeed” mode, so that changes in time in the moving image will be reflected in the pitch of the audio.
While Audition CS6 is right at home in the editing suite, it’s equally useful for radio production, podcasting, video game creation and editing audio for music production. It features a “Radio Industry” view, which displays RIFF metadata and AES Cart Chunk information, and it supports MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio. A nice selection of audio sweetening, restoration and effects are all included in Audition CS6, which benefit any kind of sound work.
The big story here is the tight integration that Audition CS6 offers visual media production software. Its close relationship with Premier Pro is a huge benefit for Adobe users. However, Audition CS6 also features strong OMF import and export capabilities, and the ability to import and play back HD video without transcoding. This makes it a formidable partner for any professional non-linear video editing application and digital audio workstation software as well. You can share files just as easily with Apple’s Final Cut Pro (via XML) and Avid’s Pro Tools (via OMF). 
Audition CS6 has been designed to allow you to work quickly, and has a range of features that can help speed things up. You can preview samples and audio clips before dropping them into your project (this way you don’t have to load them into a track just to hear them). You can choose to save a project so that the audio and video clips that you have pulled up in the “files panel” upon saving will be recalled upon opening. A Clip Spotting tool enables you to locate a clip by entering its start or end values. A Clip Grouping tool enables you to edit multiple groups of clips simultaneously. You can also utilize multiple clipboards for fast access to audio clips that you use frequently, and it’s easy to configure keyboard shortcuts to keep things zipping along.
When a project is finished, Audition CS6 gives you many options for exporting and sharing your work with the world. You can change the bit-depth and resolution of the files upon export, as well as choosing the file type of your liking (a range of different file types are supported). You can also export as stereo, mono or individual stems of a multi-track session.
Audition CS6 is a powerful post production sound editing application that’s available individually for Mac orWindows computers, or as a part of the Adobe Production Premium and Master Collection. There’s an undeniable value in separate tools that are designed to interface well with one another, and when it comes to multimedia production, you couldn’t ask for a better partner than Adobe to be at your side, whether you’re creating graphics, manipulating still images, or keeping sound and picture united as one. 
Number of Audio TracksUnlimited (as many as your CPU can handle)
Audio Resolution24- or 32-bit, sample rates up to 192 kHz
Sound Design EffectsGenerate Tones, Graphic Phase Shifter, Doppler Shifter, Notch Filter
Native Audio EffectsDeHummer, DeEsser, Speech Volume Leveler, Surround Reverb 
Plug-In SupportAudio Units and VST3 with extensive routing
Audio Sweetening ToolsYes
Plug-In Delay CompensationYes
MetronomeYes
Real-time Clip StretchingYes, nondestructively
Quick PunchOn the fly, unlimited
OMF Import/ExportYes
MIDINo MIDI support
Multicore SupportOptimized to work with current multicore CPUs
Frame Rate SupportBroad support for video formats and frame rates, such as 23.976 and 59.94 fps
Surround SupportYes, edit and mix 5.1 surround projects
Dockable Video DisplayYes
MeteringCustomize I/O, LED segments or continuous output, stereo and multichannel tracks
History PanelYes, revert to previous states
Audio and Video Format SupportFLAC, OGG, HE-AAC, WMA, MPEG-1 Layer 2 , RAW and more
Session Format SupportSESX XML (.ses not supported)
System RequirementsWindows: Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Phenom II, Microsoft Windows XP with SP3 or Windows 7 with SP1 (32 bit or 64 bit), 1GB of RAM; 2GB for HDV and HD playback, 2GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash storage devices), 1280 x 800 display, OpenGL 2.0-capable graphics card, sound card compatible with ASIO protocol or Microsoft WDM/MME, DVD-ROM drive for installation from DVD media, QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for QuickTime features, USB interface and/or MIDI interface may be required for external control surface support (see manfacturer's specifications for your device), optional optical drive for CD burning

Mac: Multicore Intel processor, Mac OS X 10.6.8 or 10.7, 1 GB of RAM; 2 GB for HDV and HD playback, 2 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices), 1280 x 800 display, OpenGL 2.0-capable system; optional GPU for optimal video playback performance, DVD-ROM drive for installation from DVD media, QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for QuickTime features, USB interface and/or MIDI interface may be required for external control surface support (see manfacturer's specifications for your device), optional optical drive for CD burning (SuperDrive recommended)
Thanks for checking out this B&H InDepth article. If you have any questions or comments about Adobe Audition CS6, we encourage you to submit a Comment below.

Adobe Audition CS6 Review-Macworld


Adobe Audition CS6's new features harmonize with video, radio, and podcast production

Adobe’s professional audio editing application, Audition, was first introduced to Mac users with Adobe Creative Suite 5.5. Prior to that, Adobe offered Soundbooth, a less powerful audio editor. Windows users, however, have long had access to Audition (and to its predecessor, Cool Edit Pro, which was acquired by Adobe in 2003).
This history is important because of how Audition is perceived by Windows users versus Mac users. For Mac users, CS6 greatly enhances what was a solid but not entirely feature-complete audio editing package. For many Windows users, however, Audition CS6 is the “thank you for restoring that feature we liked so much in Audition 3” update. That's because in order for Adobe to build the version that shipped with CS5.5—which involved rewriting the application from the ground up—important features from the previous Windows-only version went missing.
Audition CS5.5 lacked support for control surfaces, time stretching, clip grouping, and Redbook CD burning, for example. These and other features have returned with the CS6 version. And, of course, there are new features. The combination of restored and brand new features makes for an even more capable Audition—an audio editor most at home in video, radio, and podcast studios. The latest version requires a multicore Intel processor and Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later. The full version costs $349. You can upgrade from Audition 5.5 for $75 or from any version of Adobe Soundbooth for $149.
Audition’s interface and effects haven’t changed greatly in this version, so I won't repeat my description of it from my Audition CS5.5 review. Feel free to flip over to that review to get the basics. Instead, I’ll concentrate on what the latest version brings to the application.

Blast from the past

Regarding the restored missing features, among the most important for audio pros is support for control surfaces (hardware mixing boards used to control audio applications). If you have a control surface that uses the Eucon, Mackie MCU, or Logic protocols, Audition should respond to it. I don’t have a pro surface, but I was able to control Audition via Saitara Software’s $8 AC-7 Core app, which uses the Mackie protocol. I additionally connected Roland’s Sonar V-Studio 100 to my Mac Pro and it too was able to control Audition.
Working with control surfaces is enhanced by the program’s restored track parameter automation feature. With such a device you can easily record changes to volume, pan, EQ, and effects as you mix, using standard read, write, latch, and touch automation settings. (A control surface isn’t required—you can just as easily use Audition’s on-board virtual mixer—but a control surface makes it easier to record multi-track automation in real time.) This feature worked as advertised.

Audition CS6 interface
Clip time-stretching has also returned. To use this feature, simply enable it, click on the Stretch triangle in the top right corner of the clip, and drag to the left to compress it in time, or drag to the right to stretch it. There are three stretching modes: Monophonic is for a single sound (an instrument or spoken word track); Polyphonic is for multiple instruments; and Varispeed is for when you want to change not only the clip’s length but also its speed. Varispeed stretching also affects pitch—if you compress the clip, its pitch rises, if you lengthen it, the pitch falls—much as if you changed the speed on a tape recorder. Monophonic and Polyphonic settings don’t change the pitch, they simply compress or expand time.
As with other time-stretching technologies I’ve used, if you take this to an extreme—compress or stretch too much—the results won’t be pleasant unless you want the speaker to sound dangerously over-caffeinated or as if it's attempting to shake off the effects of a rapidly consumed bottle of bourbon. However, for its intended purpose—to strip or add a few seconds to fit a commercial radio spot or video clip—Audition's time-stretching technology works quite well. Even at extreme settings I didn’t hear a lot of artifacts.
Like Audition 3 before it, you can group clips and burn CDs. I often use Audition to edit the Macworldpodcasts and often I need to shift clips on separate tracks to the same amount of time. In these cases, the ability to group clips and move them as a single unit is welcome. I also appreciate the ability to mute and unmute grouped clips. As for CD burning, there are audio editors who need to burn their projects in Redbook-compatible format. While you can do this with a separate application, it’s more convenient to do so directly within Audition.

New features

While many of Audition’s improvements harken back to Audition 3, the CS6 version isn’t simply an updated retread. There are new features as well.
Audition now includes a media browser—a pane used to navigate to the audio and video assets on your drive. I found it helpful for locating assets I use from one project to another—audio bumpers and music, for instance. And it provides a lot of useful information about those assets—the media type, duration, sample rate, number of channels, and bit depth, for example. Its most helpful feature is the ability to save assets as shortcuts. For example, save a folder full of bumpers as a shortcut and easily call it up when working on another project that requires them. My one beef with the media browser is that you must navigate through a folder hierarchy to locate your files. More convenient would be if you could additionally drag folders and files into the media browser pane as you can with iLife’s media browser. A Search field that helps you locate files on your hard drive wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

You can easily group non-continguous clips in multiple tracks.
I’m fond of the new Skip Selection feature. Using it you can select audio that you intend to cut. But before actually making that cut, you can ask Audition to skip over the selection on playback. This lets you preview your edit. If you’re unhappy with it, make a more careful selection, give it another listen, and when you’re satisfied, commit to the cut.
Another interesting new feature is Automatic Speech Alignment. The idea is that you have some existing dialog in a video clip that you’d like to replace with a different recording of the same dialog—a take recorded in the studio rather than outdoors, for example. Using this feature you select the original and replacement clips, choose the original as the reference clip, and align the clips. According to Adobe, in addition to aligning each clip’s transients and matching waveforms, it performs finer frequency analysis to make a better match. The feature can’t work miracles—it can get you close, but additional tweaking is necessary to perfectly align dialog. Such tweaking is less necessary when overdubbing a foreign language track. As mouth movements won’t match anyway, starting and stopping the dialog as the actor moves his or her mouth may be close enough.
And there’s more. Audition now offers five separate clipboards, making it easier to manage copied content. A Trim to Time Selection feature lets you make a selection across multiple clips and trim off the “fat” from each. Audition CS6 supports OMF (Open Media Framework) import and export, making it compatible with a variety of digital audio workstation (DAW) applications and it includes XMP metadata support, allowing it to work with radio automation systems. This version of Audition continues to support roundtrip editing with Adobe Premiere Pro. Thanks to automatic and manual pitch correction you can tweak inaccurate notes in a musical performance. And the Markers panel is more useful in that it now shows all the markers in all the files in your project in a single window. In the previous version, if you added a marker to the waveform view, it wouldn’t appear in the Markers pane when you switched to Multitrack view. I’d still like to have the option to see waveform markers displayed in the Multitrack view’s timeline, however.
Speaking of such interface changes, I wish I could do more work in Multitrack view. For example, if you want to silence a bit of extraneous audio in a single track, you have to switch to the Waveform view, select the audio, and then impose the Silence command. I’d prefer to save the trip and select that same audio in Multitrack view and silence it. And this isn’t unusual. Audition requires that you jump between views from time to time and I find it distracting. I additionally find Audition a little cramped on a laptop—with tiny text and small tabs. The program is powerful and has a lot of options, so there will be times you require its many panes and tabs (you can hide those you don’t need). But the modern Adobe Look that features small screen elements can mean resizing panes and hunting around for features.
Those with a more harmonious bent hoping that this version of Audition would bring back Audition 3’s musical capabilities may have to wait for Audition CS7. While this version of Audition restores the metronome feature, MIDI support is still missing in action.

Macworld’s buying advice

As someone who uses Audition for podcasts and general audio dabbling I liked and used Audition CS5.5. But lack of support for control surfaces, clip grouping, and the like, made this application an unlikely candidate for audio professionals. With the return of these and other important Audition 3 features in Audition CS6, as well as the introduction of useful features such as skip selection and automatic speech alignment, pros not looking for advanced music features now have reason to give Audition a second look—particularly if they’re working with Premiere files.

June 8, 2012

Adobe Audition CS6 Announced

Adobe to unveil Production Premium CS6 at broadcasters confab



National Association of Broadcasters convention will host debut of Premiere Pro CS6 and related video software

The National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas will host the first public preview of brand new versions of Adobe's Production Premium video editing and motion graphics suite of programs, destined for Creative Suite 6 and its new Creative Cloud subscription service.
These pre-release demos are sneak peeks at what will soon be in store for cinematographers, videographers, color technicians, motion graphics specialists, and a huge number of creative professionals connected to the movie-making industry in the upcoming Creative Suite releases.
Among the programs planned for showcase to convention attendees are Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Story, Media Encoder, Encore, and newcomers SpeedGrade, a film finishing and color grading app, and Prelude, for ingest, logging, and transcoding. The impending release of Production Premium CS6 will provide a multitude of improvements to Adobe's video applications. Here are some of the highlights.
Demos will take place at Adobe's booth #SL2624 in the Las Vegas Convention Center from April 16 through 19. Demos will also take place in more than 60 partner booths throughout the exhibition.

Premiere Pro CS6

Premiere Pro, Adobe’s flagship video editing software package, is targeted to a wide range of users, such as editors and post-production pros, motion graphics designers, visual artists, and photographers shooting video.
Updates include both new features and improvements in interface, workflow, image stabilization, enhanced multicam editing, and a newly enhanced Mercury Playback Engine. The program provides native support for more pro level cameras and more powerful color workflows.
Interface enhancements The new version of Premiere Pro starts off with a new default two-up workspace, which positions the Source Monitor and the Program Monitor side by side to allow more room for the video display. The monitor panels have been redesigned to be less cluttered and more customizable. The Project panel, Media Browser, Info panel, and Effects panel are set at the lower left while the Timeline panel and Audio Meters panel are at the lower right.
The original default workspace is still available from the Workspaces menu, and you can save customized workspace layouts with each project file.
Taking a page from its sister app, the audio oriented Audition, Premiere Pro CS6 offers a redesigned and more functional audio mixer. Double-clicking a fader returns it to 0dB, and the mixer includes separate decibel-level scales for meters and faders. The mixer panel provides fast, accurate visual feedback about audio signal levels. Faders automatically scale when you resize the panel.
New Project Panel views let you view, sort, and arrange your media more easily by viewing resizable 16:9 thumbnails of your clips directly in the Project panel. Also included are a resizable thumbnail view in the Media Browser panel and a new time ruler bar in the Source Monitor, Program Monitor, and Timeline panels. New markers are now displayed in color. Thumbnails are live-scrubbable for preview inside the Project Panel.
Workflow improvements This version of Premiere Pro offers multiple improvements to trimming features. The new Trim Mode in the Program Monitor provides a two-up display showing the outgoing and incoming frames. Buttons for performing some trim functions and applying default transitions, as well as counters that can track the number of frames trimmed, are located beneath the two-up display.
Additional workflow improvements include keyboard shortcuts for trimming, more customizeable keyboard shortcut sets, and gestural control. The program now updates sequence settings to match clips, lets you apply effects and adjustment layers quickly and easily, and offers enhanced flexible audio effects.
Image stabilization Premiere Pro CS6 includes and improves upon a much-anticipated feature introduced in After Effects CS5.5—Warp Stabilizer. When you apply the Warp Stabilizer effect to a clip, the program takes care of the analysis and stabilization without further input. Warp Stabilizer processes individual areas of the frame separately to compensate for parallax.



The same power Warp Stabilization controls previously only available in After Effects CS5.5 are now available in Premiere Pro CS6.



Warp Stabilizer works in the background to analyze and stabilize a shot while allowing you to continue editing. Because Warp Stabilizer is optimized to take advantage of GPU acceleration, users with supported Nvidia GPUs or some MacBook Pros running OS X 10.7 with a supported AMD RadeonTM GPU and a minimum of 1GB of VRAM, will see even better performance.
The new Rolling Shutter Repair effect allows you to correct distortion artifacts that result from scanning a CMOS imaging sensor, typically presented in DSLR footage, vertically or horizontally.
during recording to correct problems like wobble, skew, and smear.
Expanded multicam editing The new version of Adobe Premiere Pro offers expanded multicam support, allowing you to work with as many cameras as you want. Previously, you could work with multicam footage from four cameras. Now, you’re limited only by the formats you’re working with and the power of your editing computer.



Premiere Pro CS6 has better Multi-Camera support, with many more simultaneous cameras selectable in the monitor.

The Multi-Camera Monitor plays the footage from each camera in a grid that automatically adjusts to accomodate the number of cameras in your shoot and a preview of the recorded sequence. After you’ve created a multicam edit, you can refine it either by re-performing sections of your edit from within the Multi-Camera Monitor or by using traditional editing tools, applying effects, or correcting color.



Live video scrubbing in the scaleable thumbnails inside the new Clip Bin.

Mercury Playback Engine If you're familiar with Premiere Pro CS5 or CS5.5, you already know the Mercury Playback Engine, technology that uses the graphics processor rather than CPU to boost video editing performance. GPU acceleration via supported Nvidia graphics cards and new support for OpenCL-based AMD Radeon HD 6750M and AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics cards—coupled with at least 1GB VRAM on certain MacBook Pros running OS X 10.7—offer improved mobile workflows to Mac users, according to Adobe.

You can send your entire Premiere Pro CS6 sequence to SpeedGrade for professional color grading in the raw, native formats without having to render first.

With these cards, you will see results instantly when vector keying with the Ultra keyer, applying blend modes, correcting color with PremierePro's new Three-Way Color Corrector, and with many other effects. The new version also features expanded third-party I/O support for vendors like Aja, Black Magic Design, Matrox, and others.
Native footage support With this release, Premiere Pro gets native support for ARRIRAW footage shot with ARRI Alexa cameras as well as support for HD (1920-by-1080) and 2K (2880-by-1680) ARRIRAW files at a variety of frame rates. Building on its support for RED digital cinema workflows, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 includes native support for RED R3D and RMD files—including 5K resolution footage—shot with RED SCARLET-X and RED EPIC cameras. There's also native support for Canon XF MPEG-2 50mbps format footage shot with Canon Cinema EOS C300 cameras.
Suite interaction The new version of Premiere Pro CS6 offers a more intuitive three-way color corrector, integrated color grading workflows with the new Adobe SpeedGrade, efficient ingest and logging with Adobe Prelude, improved, workflows with Apple's Final Cut Pro and Avid software, and the ability to author and publish DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and Web DVDs faster with 64-bit Adobe Encore CS6.

After Effects CS6

After Effects CS6 is a new version of Adobe’s motion graphics software targeted to visual effects artists, video editors, post production professionals, and interactive designers. New features include global performance cache, 3D Camera Tracker, a revamped Ray Trace 3D rendering engine, variable mask feathering, Pro Import After Effects, and more.
Global performance cache This feature is an under-the-hood improvement that lets After Effects take full advantage of computer hardware. Its technologies include global RAM cache, persistent disk cache, and a new graphics pipeline.
The program's improved frame caching system allows you to reuse elements and experiment with ideas without having to wait for a previously created frame to re-render.
With persistent disk cache, After Effects CS6 lets you reopen an earlier project with your previously rendered cache still intact, and ready for immediate preview, playback, and rendering. You can also render and cache a composition’s work area to disk in the background while you continue to work.
With the new graphics pipeline, After Effects CS6 makes better use of OpenGL and your computer's video card when drawing images to the screen. You get faster interactivity, a more responsive work environment, and a smoother, more immediate experience, Adobe says.
3D Camera Tracker The new 3D Camera Tracker effect automatically analyzes the motion in 2D footage and computes the position, orientation, and field of view of the actual camera that shot the scene and creates a new 3D camera in After Effects to match it. It also overlays 3D track points onto the 2D footage, making it easy and intuitive for you to attach new 3D After Effects layers onto the original footage.



3D Camera Tracker analyses and creates track points in depth within footage.

Ray Trace 3D engine After Effects CS6 introduces a new Ray-Traced 3D rendering engine, allowing you to quickly design fully ray-traced, geometric text and shape layers in 3D. Enhanced 3D capabilities include beveled and extruded text and shape layers, the ability to bend footage and composition layers, adding dimension for more interesting lighting effects; and environment map support for photorealistic reflections of virtual imagery. Additional material options include reflection, transparency, and index of refraction to mimic light traveling through glass and other translucent materials.



3D Text and shape extrusions can also be applied to converted Illustrator layers.

Variable Mask Feathering With the new Variable Mask Feathering, you can work precisely and create the exact shape you want with the proper degree of softness at the edges, yielding more realistic composites. After Effects has long had the ability to add a feathered soft edge to masked shapes, but in previous versions the width of the feather was the same around the entire mask. After Effects CS6 contains a new Mask Feather tool that lets you define almost an infinite number of points along a closed mask, and define the width of the feather at each of these points.



Variable edge feathering along mask paths.

An advanced Rolling Shutter Repair effect contains two different selectable algorithms to help fix problematic footage. After Effects CS6 also makes it easier to enhance the production value of your projects, with more than 80 new and updated built-in effects.



Rolling Shutter repair for DSLR footage.

Pro Import After Effects Previously available as a separate product from Automatic Duck, Pro Import After Effects is now included with After Effects CS6.
In addition to the integration with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 software inside the Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium and Master Collection, this utility plugs After Effects into any professional production workflow. It lets you import and work with Avid Media Composer and Symphony files, as well as XML files from Apple Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier versions. It translates many effects and parameters from supported Avid and Apple files into After Effects, including position, scale, rotation, keyframes, composite modes, titles, speed changes, and more.



3D comp and footage layers can now be bent.

Improved mocha workflow After Effects CS6 now includes a Track In mocha AE menu command that lets you launch mocha AE directly from within the program. That lets you immediately begin working with the per-vertex feathering and other masking tools available in mocha AE, as well as in mocha shape.

Prelude CS6

Adobe Prelude CS6 provides a unified interface for ingest and logging workflows, allowing you to work faster, stay organized, and streamline your production process. This software lets you copy and transcode to your storage infrastructure and begin logging immediately, adding searchable markers and other metadata. It also creates rough cuts with post-production notes that flow into Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, to communicate the vision for the project through final editing.
Full or partial ingest Prelude CS6 lets you ingest all your footage at once, or select and ingest just a portion of it. You also have the option to transcode the files to your preferred format.
Performing a full ingest means transferring your entire video file to your hard drive and preparing it for logging and handoff. Open the Ingest workspace, navigate to your files, select the files to ingest, and then click the Ingest button. A partial ingest is also easy. Open the Ingest panel, navigate to your files, and click on the video’s thumbnail. While watching the video, drag the playhead and press the I key to set the In point. Drag the playhead to the desired Out point and press the O key. Click the Transcode option, and then click the Ingest button. Your partially ingested video clip—the file you will send for editing—is now listed in the Project panel.



dobe Prelude CS6 allows you to ingest footage to your hard drive and and transcode on the fly.

Transcoding during ingest Prelude CS6 gives you the option of transcoding footage to your preferred editing format, thus optimizing storage. You select the Transcode option in the Transfer Options panel and are given the option to select the format and presets for the file.
The program also offers keyboard driven logging, searchable time-based markers and metadata, rough cuts that open in Premiere Pro, write confirmation, speech transcription, and customizable markers and metadata import.
Prelude replaces OnLocation, which shipped in early versions of the Production Premium, though not all OnLocation features are available in Prelude CS6, such as live monitoring with Waveform or Vectorscope feedback.

Audition CS6

Adobe Audition CS6 provides a unified audio editing and mixing environment for video and broadcast workflows. Targeted to audio engineers and broadcast editors as well as video professionals, Audition CS6 features roundtrip editing in conjunction with Adobe Premiere Pro and smooth project exchange with third-party nonlinear editors and digital audio workstations.
This version offers new features for editing and sound design, such as real-time clip stretching, automatic speech alignment and pitch correction, expanded production capacity with control surface support, recordable track automation, multiple clipboards, HD video playback, native 5.1 surround editing, and audio sweetening and restoration tools.
Building on past releases, Adobe Audition CS6 offers broader support for audio and video formats and increased output options including Redbook CD burning and compliance with the latest ITU loudness standards. New features for industry-standard metadata include AES-46 Cart Chunk, integration with radio automation systems, and other broadcast workflows.
Audio editing enhancements include clip grouping with Group Suspend, preview of edits with Skip Selection playback mode, new precise entry of envelope keyframe values, and fast clip spotting with start- or end-time entry.
Faster and more precise audio editing features include clip grouping, trim to time election, edit preview with skip selection, envelope keyframe editing, direct clip editing in the Properties panel, multiple clipboards, real-time clip stretching, auto speech alignment, control surface and app support, and pitch controls.
Audition CS6 improves on asset management to let you find the files you need more quickly. Panels such as Media Browser, Files, Markers, and Session let you view your files on local and networked drives, find files by typing in just a part of the name, view all markers in your section in one window, and create session templates that speed up recording files.
Audition CS3 also offers expanded audio and video formats, New effects, VST3 support, and flexible effects routing, enhanced support for radio automation, improved batch processing, and a new metronome.

SpeedGrade CS6

SpeedGrade CS6, a full color grading and finishing tool, is targeted to editors, motion graphics and vidual effects artists, and professional colorists, is a new addition to the Adobe lineup. The technology for the program, formerly from a company called Iridas, was acquired last September.
The program now offers a sleek new interface and and is engineered for modern file-based workflows. It is a native 64-bit application with GPU-accelerated performance and support for raw, HDR, and stereoscopic content. It's compatible with footage from digital cinema cameras such as ARRI ALEXA and RED and with popular post-production interchange formats such as QuickTime, DPX, and OpenEXR. The program ensures that all your shots are accurately matched and every project is styled using layer-based tools for color correction and look design. Resize and reframe your final masters for virtually any display format.



SpeedGrade is a powerful color grading tool with advanced controls and features previously only found on high-end editing systems.

Lumetri Deep Color Engine The non-destructive Lumetri Deep Color Engine is a 32-bit floating-point image-processing technology at the heart of SpeedGrade CS6. It offers maximum scope for working with High Dynamic Range content, allowing you to pull details from blacks and highlights that might otherwise be lost. It also allows you to work directly with raw files, the digital negative from your camera sensor. You can combine and refine looks, effects, and new grading layers without having to commit to any color decisions until final rendering.
Color corrections, masks, and filters are applied as layers, making it easy to use simple elements to build up and make adjustments to complex grades. You can add, remove, combine, and rearrange grades and effects, and adjust the influence of each layer with its own opacity slider. You apply primary color corrections to the whole image and secondary color corrections to specific color ranges. SpeedGrade CS6 allows you to define a very narrow color range for a secondary to, say, emphasize a specific element in the image, like skin tones. You can also use broader secondary color ranges when you want to showcase rich greens in a forest or red shades of a sunset.
Masks are part of the layer structure and can be positioned as easily as any other layer, so that color corrections are applied to the areas inside, or outside, your mask.
SpeedGrade CS6 includes a selection of professionally designed Looks, film-style filters, and effects, in addition to the application’s color adjustment tools.


There are many great Look presets that you can apply and modify to best suit your needs, including classic film stocks.

For stereoscopic projects, SpeedGrade CS6 loads stereo 3D frame sequences, offers multiple viewing options, features automatic geometric and colorimetric correction, and display support.
Automatic scene detection and Pan and Scan features automatically identify edits from archived projects and allow you to reframe content for virtually any deliverable format.

System requirements

Adobe Production Premium CS6 runs of both Mac and Windows operating systems. Mac requirements include a multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support, Mac OS X 10.6.8 or 10.7, at least 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended), 4GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space during installation (software cannot install on volumes that use a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices), additional disk space for disk cache (10GB recommended), a 1280x900-pixel display, and an OpenGL 2.0–capable system.
For Windows, requirements include an Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Phenom II processor with 64-bit support, Microsoft Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (64 bit), at least 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended), 3GB of available hard-disk space; additional free space during installation (software cannot install on removable flash storage devices), additional disk space for disk cache (10GB recommended), a 1280x900-pixel display, and an OpenGL 2.0–capable system.
Adobe has not revealed the actual date when CS6 and Creative Cloud will launch, but has indicated it will be within the first half of 2012. The prices of the new versions also have not been announced.
In related news, on Sunday, April 15 at 10:30 a.m. in room N249, Adobe will participate in the Post|Production World keynote, “How Creativity and Technology Merge to Influence Storytelling and Film.” Participants will include Steve Wozniak, Fusion-io Chief Scientist; Vincent Brisebois, visual computing industry manager at Fusion-io; Rob Legato, Academy Award winning visual effects supervisor, and Steve Forde, Adobe After Effects product manager. They will discuss how creativity and advances in digital technology can work together to develop engaging stories.
[Jackie Dove is a Macworld senior editor. All screenshots were produced by Jeff Foster, a Macworld contributor.]

Source: http://www.macworld.com/article/1166299/adobe_to_unveil_production_premium_cs6_at_broadcasters_confab.html

And highlights form gearslutz.com

Audition CS6: what's new and changed

Preview Video

Audition CS6 Highlights:
  • Real-time and rendered clip stretching in multi-track - including new “varispeed” mode
  • Clip Grouping – Including suspend, trimming, & stretching of groups
  • VST3 support (Mac and Win) and more effects
  • New pitch correction/manipulation tools
  • Automatic speech alignment tool
  • Red Book Audio CD burning
  • Hardware controllers support - Including native Avid EUCON and Mackie MCU support
  • Write/Touch/Latch automation modes
  • Media browser with file preview
  • Session Templates and Enhancements
  • Expanded file format support (Native, libsndfile, DLMS)

Audition CS6 (nearly) Complete List of New Features:

Multitrack
  • Session templates
  • Automatic speech alignment
  • Clip grouping
  • * Suspend mode
  • * Focus clip actions
  • * Trim/fade grouped clips
  • * Time aligned stretching of groups
  • Clip spotting – Manual entry of clip start or end time
  • Clip stretching - Real-time and rendered mode using iZotope Radius
  • Vari-speed clip stretching
  • Skip selection play mode
  • Metronome
  • Save all open files with session preference
  • Select all clips from playhead to end of track
  • Sum to mono per track
  • Bounce selected track
  • Reveal clip in files panel
  • Trim to selection
  • Send clip to back
  • Preference to play/hide overlapped clips
  • Mixer enhancements
  • Snap volume and pan envelopes at 0dB
  • Drag and drop file marker range to multitrack (as clip)

Waveform (Editor)
  • Multiple clipboards
  • Skip selection play mode
  • Open append
  • Subclip marker support (Premiere and Prelude)
  • Improvements to spectral spot Healing
  • Pitch display

Effects
  • VST3
  • Side Chain support
  • Improved plug-in scanning engine
  • New channel map per effect – Control over effect input and output channel routing
  • Save and apply Effect Racks as a favorite
  • New/Added effects:
  • * Automatic Pitch Correction
  • * Manual Pitch Correction with new spectral pitch view mode
  • * Generate Tones
  • * Doppler Shifter
  • * Notch Filter
  • * Graphic Phase Shifter
  • * Gain / Fade Envelopes

General
  • Media Browser
  • Preview in Media Browser and files panel
  • Search/filter in Media Browser and files panel
  • Display markers for all files in markers panel
  • Access and open order fields in files panel (sorting)
  • Keyboard shortcuts (shortcut editor enhancements, copy to clipboard)
  • Adobe Graphics Manager Implementation to improve UI drawing
  • DLMS Integration to support additional video and audio file format import/open
  • OpenGL display for video including improved video display for improved performance
  • New spectral display preferences
  • Support for additional framerates (23.976, 59.94 ndf/df)
  • Machine-specific device preferences (optional common audio hardware settings for all users)
  • Import most preferences from CS5.5
  • Pinch-to-zoom, rotate to scrub Mac touchpad support (Mac only)
  • Improved properties panel UI layout

Broadcast Specific
  • ITU Loudness – Normalize files (batch) to ITU-BS.1770-2 (R128), view loudness level diagnostics
  • Native MPEG1-Layer 2 audio (MP2) import and export
  • Enhanced CART timer and metadata support

Control Surface/Automation
  • Mackie MCU, native Avid EUCON, other controller support
  • Recordable track automation (Full Write, Touch, Latch support with undo)

Format support
  • MPEG4, HD Video, and additional audio import (via DLMS)
  • Native MPEG1-Layer2 (MP2) audio import and export
  • Native APE, FLAC, OGG export and import
  • libsndfile export – export most formats supported by libsndfile
  • CD Import metadata support (via FreeDB)
  • Enhanced RAW format support

Output
  • Red Book CD Burning (via CD layout)
  • Quick burn single-file, CD-TEXT)
  • Advanced mixdown – Mixdown tracks, busses and/or master as seperate files
  • Save All Audio As batch process
  • Save Copies of Associated Files – Collect/archive all files in a session
  • Save open file references in session (“remember” all open files with the session)
  • Advanced session export – Including ability to convert sample rate of session and associated files
  • Preferred asset importer saved with session files

    Source: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-product-alert/718908-adobe-audition-cs6.html
Adobe Audition Home Page: http://www.adobe.com/products/audition.html