NEWS
A Sound Investment for Picture Editors
Adobe's New Task-Based Audio Tool Available for Testing
by Debra Kaufman
 Adobe's Hart Shafer. |
On October 26, Adobe Systems Inc. introduced the public beta of its Adobe Soundbooth software, an audio software product for the Intel-based Macintosh and Windows platforms aimed specifically at creative professionals who need a user-friendly audio tool. Tightly integrated with both Adobe Premiere Pro and Macromedia Flash, Soundbooth offers an intuitive interface for integrating sound into the video and Flash workflow. Up until this time, editors and other creative professionals have relied on Adobe Audition, a software tool designed with the audio professional in mind.
“Picture editors are being asked to do more audio, as part of the roughing out process,” says Hart Shafer, senior product manager for Adobe audio projects. “Adobe Audition was for the audio pro who lives and breathes audio, and we saw the pain that creative pros without an audio background were going through. They need to be able to run high-quality filters and audio tools but don’t have the background to know some of the audio terminology.”
Hence, Adobe Soundbooth: an audio software tool with the power of Adobe Audition, but in a package more suited to creative professionals who don’t have a professional music or audio background. The impetus for creating Adobe Soundbooth came shortly after Adobe acquired Macro-media, says Shafer.
 Detail of clip editing in Adobe's Soundbooth |
“We talked to dozens of Flash users and they gave us this feedback,
which prompted us to go back to our video base and talk to them as
well,” he says. “We told them that we’ve gotten
rave reviews for Audition and asked them what they thought of it.
We found out that it was popular among those with an audio background,
but others only used narrow chunks of it. These users didn’t
feel they had the time to dig into the application. Audition wasn’t
close to what they were doing with the rest of their jobs.”
After looking at the number of users who could benefit from a more
user-friendly audio software tool, Adobe Systems executives made the
choice to develop a tool for this market. “It was the right
thing to do,” says Shafer. “This is a new kind of niche
for Adobe. This isn’t a product designed for the consumer. It’s
aimed at professionals, but it isn’t the tool that an audio
professional will choose, by and large.”
The key difference between Audition and Soundbooth is that the former is tool-based and Soundbooth is task-based. What that means is that whereas Audition provides the audio professional a set of tools that can be applied as needed, Soundbooth is built around the concept of an audio asset editor.
 Screengrab from Adobe's Soundbooth application. |
Audition is a multi-track mixing environment, and Adobe research quickly determined that picture editors doing audio work were arranging assets relative to each other in the nonlinear editing system. For those requiring a dedicated mixing tool, Audition is the right choice, but Soundbooth focuses on editing and manipulating one audio asset at a time. “We think there will be quite a few audio pros who will find that Soundbooth is a good secondary tool,” says Shafer. “But an audio pro will look at Audition before they look at Soundbooth.”
“Tool-based allows you to accomplish anything as long as you use the right tools in the right order,” explains Shafer. “What we’ve done with a task-based interface is address the problem of the editor who doesn’t know which tool to use in what order.” Instead, Soundbooth groups tools under the name of a task. For example, Audition introduces frequency-spaced editing, to edit or move sounds in a frequency range. Similar tools are offered in Soundbooth, but grouped together under the name “remove a sound.”
“I don’t need to know what tools to use in what order,” says Shafer. “Our research showed that people using Audition would open up the application and forget how they did it or not know how to use it. The whole idea is that picture editors are experts at what they do—but not at using an audio tool. We positioned this so that these editors can use these audio tools quickly, without waiting for an audio expert to help.”
 Soundbooth AutoComposer. |
In addition to removing noise from recordings, Soundbooth offers tools for polishing voiceovers and customizing music. An auto-composer feature allows the editor to make a semi-customized temp soundtrack. “If the editor needs something upbeat and rocking, he or she can create a track with the right tempo and timing,” says Shafer. “Needle-drop music has lots of restrictions, not only rights, but timing and so on. A loop-based application was too time-consuming or intimidating. Soundbooth is looking very specifically at the needs of dynamic media professionals cutting video and doing Flash work.”
Further making Soundbooth a picture editor-friendly tool is the fact that the software can easily be integrated with Adobe Premiere Pro or any other nonlinear editing system, to easily import audio assets for editing and adding music (the next version of Premiere Pro will have a Soundbooth function, and Soundbooth will be the audio component of Adobe Production Studio). Soundbooth also offers the ability to lay down markers that can be exported as XML and then used with Actionscript in Flash. The final version of Soundbooth will also support a wide range of video file formats, including AVI, QuickTime, and MPEG.
Soundbooth is not yet a complete tool, and the downloadable public beta is intended to solicit feedback and advice from the creative professionals who would use it. “We’re engaging with customers,” offers Shafer. “We have an online beta forum to report bugs and post requests. We can’t do everything that everyone wants, but we can more easily aggregate the most requested items so we can get the most needed features. The largest number of requests will be heard. The best way to get the features you want is to get involved!”
Shafer reports that so far, over 10,000 beta users have downloaded Sound-booth. Pricing is to be determined, and the official launch of Soundbooth will take place in 2007. “It’s great for our team to have direct contact from those who will be our customers,” he says. “I encourage Editors Guild Magazine readers to check it out and leave us feedback.”
To download Adobe Soundbooth beta, go to: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/soundbooth/.
Debra Kaufman is a freelance writer who is also West Coast Editor of Film & Video and editor of DI Studio, an online newsletter on digital intermediates. She can be reached at dkla@comcast.net.
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