LAB FIVE AUDITION IN DEPTH

MORE AUDITION REFERENCE

Here are some more useful features in Audition. Use this section (and
sections like it) as references for further rumination. Dont feel that
you need to understand these concepts completely and use them.

AUDITION AS A MULTITRACK PROGRAM

Audition is a rather unique program, in that it works as an audio
editor in Edit View (and thus operates directly upon the data in an
audio file, and is therefore destructive), but it works as a multitrack
program in Multitrack View (and operates on references to audio
files rather than the files themselves, and is therefore nondestructive).
Non-destructive editing
What this means is that when you create clips in Audition
(discussed more fully later), you are not actually creating new
audio files. Instead, Audition recognizes that the clip is only a
portion of another file, and reads that portion from the hard drive
when it is required to do so. The benefit of such a program is that
you can have many copies of a file (Audition calls them clips,
while ProTools calls them regions) without adding to the size of the
session.
This should become clear when you load audio files into
Audition and save the session. The session itself is only a few
kilobytes in size, even if you have loaded 10 minutes of stereo
audio files (which should total about 100 MB). What Audition has
done is not load the actual audio data into the session, but, instead,
load the location of the file on your hard drive. When it needs to
play the file, it goes to the hard drive to get it.
The byproduct of this is that what you hear in a session is not
actually anywhere on disk Audition is mixing the files (which
could include changes to volume, panning, and even processing) as
it plays.

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To create the audio file that you are actually hearing, Audition
needs to go through a process called bouncing (or simply mixing).
This will be more fully discussed later.

CLIPS
You will already have loaded audio files into Audition when you
worked on the first assignment, and you should therefore be
familiar with the organizer window and Edit View. When you
switch to Multitrack View, the organizer window remains; what
appears is a new tracks pane. Dragging an audio file from the
organizer window into a track turns it into a clip, which is simply a
piece of audio that exists within a track (ProTools refers to these as
regions).
Clips are, as already mentioned, simply references to audio
files that exist on your hard drive, but they dont have to reference
the entire file. For example, you could have completed the first
editing assignment in Multitrack View; each edit (i.e., the first s
in sometimes) would have been a clip, which could be moved
around independently of the clip from which it originated.

Two clips in a track

WORKING WITH CLIPS

Clips are the building blocks of compositions in Audition. You
will need to become familiar with the following methods of clip
manipulation.

CREATING A CLIP
Clips are created when they are moved into tracks from the
Organizer window. This can be done in two different ways.
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One can drag the clip directly into a track. When you do this, a
ghost clip appears, giving you an indication of where the clip
will be in the track:

Moving a clip directly into a track by dragging it from the

Organizer window.
The other way is to use the Insert Into Multitrack icon in the
Organizer window:

The Insert Into Multitrack command icon

Clicking on this icon will place the currently selected file in
the Organizer window into the currently selected track, at the
current cursor position.
To set the cursor position, select the Time Selection Tool via
the toolbar

The Time Selection Tool icon in the toolbar

or press S.
Then, click inside a track at the location in which you want to
insert the clip:
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Selecting a location in a track for clip insertion

The clip will be placed at this location when you click on the
Insert Into Multitrack icon in the Organizer window.

MOVING CLIPS
To move a clip, select the Move Tool:

The Move Tool in the toolbar

Click and drag the clip to the desired location.

SELECTING A CLIP
When you click on a clip using the Move Tool, the clip becomes
selected.

Two clips, one of which has become selected by clicking on it

with the Move Tool.
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Once a clip is selected, not only can it can be moved, but it can
be aligned with other clips, or processed.
Other methods of selection will be discussed shortly.

ALIGNING CLIPS
If you want two (or more) clips to begin (or end) at exactly the
same time, you can either line them up by hand or use the Align
command found in the Edit menu.
In the former case, use the Status Bars Data Under Cursor
display to find out the location of the selected clip. Make sure that
both Show and Data Under Cursor are selected in the Status Bar
submenu, found in the View menu:

The View menus Status Bar submenu. This determines what, if

anything, is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of
Auditions window.
Once these are set, selecting a clip using the Move Tool will
display the clips start time (which is its location):

The location of the currently selected clip is shown in the status bar
To align two clips, note the location of the first clip, then move
the second clip to this location, again watching the location in the
status bar.

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The second method of aligning clips is to select two or more

clips (hold the shift key down and select them using the Move
Tool) and select Align Left.

The Edit menus Align Left and Align Right commands

The clip selected last will be the clip that the other(s) will align
with.

Three selected clips. The middle clip was selected last, so the
others should align with it.

The clips line up as expected

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Align Right will align the clips based upon the end point of
the last clip selected. In this example above, the three clips were the
same length, so it didnt matter whether Align Left or Align Right
was selected.

REMOVING CLIPS FROM A TRACK

To remove a clip from a track, select it, and press Delete. This
removes the clip from the track, but not the session. In other words,
it can still exist within other tracks, and it still exists within the
organizer window for future use.

REMOVING A CLIP FROM A SESSION

Because a clip is only a reference to an audio file, technically, you
cannot remove a clip from a session: you can only remove an audio
file from a session.
When you remove a file from a session, Audition considers this
closing the file. This is done in the Organizer window. Select the
file, then click on the second icon to the left, the Close Files icon:

Removing a file from a session is done in the Organizer

Window
If the file you are removing from the session is currently a clip
within a track (in other words, it is in use), you will be presented
with the following warning, which is self-explanatory:

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Audition warns you if you are about to remove a file that is in

use in a track
Finally, if you have made any changes to the file (i.e.
processing), Audition will warn you of this:

Do you really want to discard the change you made?

CREATING A SHORTER CLIP FROM A LONGER ONE

When you are beginning to compose using Audition, one concept
that you will use over and over is making smaller clips from longer
ones possibly references to entire audio files. A single file may
produce dozens of smaller clips.
Making smaller clips from existing clips is done using the Split
Clip command found in the toolbar.

The Split Clip icon in the toolbar

To split a clip into two, select a split point by using the Time
Selection Tool to click on a location inside the clip:

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The split point (yellow) selected using the Time Selection Tool
Clicking on the Split Clip icon in the toolbar will divide the
clip at the selection point:

Two new clips, created by splitting one at the selection point

Either clip can now be freely moved.
To create a new clip from within an existing clip, you will need
to split a clip into three parts. To do this, use the Time Selection
Tool to select a portion of the clip:

Selecting a portion of a clip in order to create a new clip from

within an existing clip
Clicking on the Split Clip icon in the toolbar will create three
clips:

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A new clip created by selecting a portion of an existing clip

Rejoining Split Clips / Changing clip lengths
Clips that are portions of audio files (for example, the clip created
above by selecting a portion of an existing clip) are only references
to the actual audio file. Therefore, their reference points (their start
and end locations) can always be changed. This is a process known
as trimming regions in ProTools. Audition doesnt have a name for
this process.
When the Move Tool is selected, and you move the cursor
over the beginning or end of a clip, a triangular move point appears
at the lower corner of the clip:

The trim move selector

If the clip is only a portion of a longer clip/file, it is possible to
drag this move selector to change its beginning and/or end points.
However, if the clip is the complete file, or the start point of the clip
is already at the start point of the file, you obviously cannot change
its length.
This process also allows you to rejoin split clips. In the
example below, a clip was split at a selection point. By dragging the
move selector (shown) all the way to the beginning of the original
clip, the split will be rejoined, and only one clip will be in the track.

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Dragging the move selector to the left to rejoin a split clip. It

will have to be moved all the way to the beginning of the left
clip.

COPYING CLIPS
You will often want to have direct copies of clips, rather than
creating new clips from existing one. This is done, logically enough,
by copying a clip.
Copying a Clip
To create a copy of a selected clip, control-click drag the clip. This
brings up the following pop-up menu:

Control dragging a clip gives you options on what should be

done with the clip.
Copy Reference Here will make a copy of the current clip, and
place it at your cursors location. This is simply another
reference to the original audio file.
Copy Unique Here - will make a new file a copy of the selected
clip - and place it in the Organizer Window. Because this is a
new reference to a new audio file, it is completely independent

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of the original. Use this option when you want to process a

clip, but retain the original.
Move Clip Here will simply move the clip from its current
location.
Duplicate Clips
Another way to copy clips is to use the Clip Duplicate command,
found in the Edit menu about halfway down:

Clip Duplicate, found in the Edit menu

Selecting this menu item will bring up the Clip Duplicate
dialog box:

Options for duplicating a clip, found in the Clip Duplicate

dialog box

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You can choose to duplicate (copy) the clip more than once
(useful for creating loop-type gestures, discussed in later labs). The
spacing between each new clip can be set to something other than
0; this allows for the creation of rhythmic, evenly spaced beats, for
example, from short clips.

PROCESSING CLIPS
When you are working in Multitrack View, you will often
want to process clips. This seems straightforward, but when you
consider what a clip represents, it becomes somewhat more
complex.
Consider the following example. Begin with two clips, both of
which reference the same audio file (the lower was copied from the
upper clip using control-dragging):

Two clips referencing the same audio file

If you were to process one of the clips, where is the data
coming from? (Answer: the original audio file). But if the original
audio file is altered, what happens to the other clip?
Lets find out. To process a clip in Multitrack View, double
click on it. This brings the clip into Edit View. Remember that
processing a file in Edit View is destructive the actual contents of
the file will change.
Normalize the file (Effects > Amplitude > Normalize) to
10%. This effectively reduces the amplitude by 20 dB, and makes it
one tenth as loud (and one tenth as big in the waveform display).

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Normalize is a quick way to change the overall amplitude of a

file
Return to Multitrack View, and what do you notice? Even
though you only processed one clip, both clips have been changed!

The result? Both clips have been changed!

The reason for this is that both files refer to the same audio
file. When you processed the file in Edit View, you processed the
data inside that file, and both clips where affected.
How can you avoid this?
The trick is to anticipate this, and copy a unique clip to the
second location. When you copy the second clip using controldragging, select Copy Unique Here.

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Creating an actual file copy of the clip

This will create a copy of the actual audio file for the new clip
to reference, which is displayed in the clips name and the
Organizer window

The copied clip vox.aiff(2) - in the track (left), and the new
file in the Organizer window (right)

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When you save the session

Saving a session after such a process will bring up a dialog
box:

Files have been altered within the session, and Audition asks
what should be done with them
The reason for this is that when Audition created the copied
file, it did so temporarily (more on this in a later lab). In order to
make the change permanent - in this case, the creation of a new file
Audition is asking for your permission.
Clicking on Yes brings up a Save As dialog box, allowing you
to change the location and name of the file:

The Save As dialog box allows you to choose the actual

filename and location of the new file
The changed name will now be reflected in the Organizer
Window:

The new file in the Organizer window

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WHAT IS SAVED WITH A SESSION?

We noted that the session itself (.ses files) was a very small file, its
size independent of the size of the audio files contained within it.
To reiterate, the session is only saving references (pathnames) to
the files used in the session, as well as their positions in tracks, and
some other information that will be covered in later labs.
In the above example, there were two files within the session:
vox, and a processed version of vox, named vox2 during the Save
As procedure. When I want to reopen the session later, Audition can
display, within the Open Session window, the files used in the
session if Show File Information is checked.

The files used in a session, shown in the Open Session window

Note that if files were loaded into the Organizer Window, but
not used within a track, Audition discards these files, and the
references are not saved with the session.

TOOLS IN AUDITION
How you interact with clips is defined by the tool you currently
have selected. The three different tools Time Selection,
Move/Copy, and Hybrid - can be selected from the Edit menus
Tools submenu, below:

Selecting a tool using the Edit menus Tools submenu

Or, they can be selected using the Toolbar:

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Selecting a tool using the Toolbar

HYBRID TOOL
The Hybrid Tool combines the Time Selection and Move Tools.
Essentially, it is the Selection Tool with a fast method of accessing
the Move Tool.
In regular use, it operates as the Time Selection Tool.
Holding the control key down temporarily turns it into the Move
Tool.

MOVE/COPY TOOL
The Move/Copy Tool has been discussed already.

SELECTION TOOL
The Time Selection Tool has also been discussed, but a few further
points need to be made about it.
When a selection is made using this tool, the exact start, end,
and length of the selection appear in the Selection Display window.

The time of the current selection, as well as the current view

This window can be turned on or off via the Window menu:

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The Window menu allows you to control the windows

displayed in Audition
What is somewhat confusing is the relationship between the
current selection (as created by the Time Selection Tool) and the
currently selected clip (as determined by the Move Tool).
When you select a portion of a clip (below), this selection can
become a new clip. But if you double click on the selection, the
entire clip will be processed. Similarly, you cannot move the
selection without first creating a new clip.

Part of a clip selected using the Selection Tool

The differentiation becomes more important when you realize
the Audition selects time in all tracks. Thus, if two clips occur at the
same time, using the Time Selection Tool will select a portion of
both clips (below).

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Two clips, both of which are time selected. But only the lower
clip is active.
The current active selection, or what can be moved and
processed, is determined by the Move Tool selection. In this case, it
is the lower clip.

TRACK CONTROLS
Each audio track has certain controls available that determine
whether the track will play or not, and whether it can record.

1.

Record buttonSets the track to record enable.

2.

Solo buttonIf it is selected, the track is sent directly to the

output.
Any non-soloed tracks are not heard.

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Several tracks can be combined through individual solo

button selections.
3.

Mute buttonIf this button is selected, the track is muted and

will not be heard.
If a track is muted, pressing the solo button will override the
mute.

More information on the other icons in the Track Control

pane will be given later.

TRACK DISPLAY
Displaying Waveforms, Volume, Panning
This is the default display, showing the names of the clips (flute.aiff
in this case), with a graphic representation of their contents. Also
displayed is a potential volume envelope and panning envelope.
The default setting (when you first bring a clip into a track) is full
volume, and panning in the middle.

A clip displaying the name, waveform, volume envelope, and

panning envelope.
Volume editing will be discussed in Lab Seven; pan editing
will be discussed in Lab Ten.
Changing the Display to only show the waveform.
If you are not using volume or panning, it might seem confusing to
always see this data. It can be even more confusing if you
accidentally change the volume or pan data for a clip.
For this reason, it is possible to not display volume and/or
pan data.
From the View menu, select Toolbars, and make sure
Multitrack View is selected.

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Making sure the Multitrack View icons appear.

This will display the icons for controlling what is displayed in
tracks in Multitrack View.
Then, on the toolbar (about 2/3 way to the right), you can find
the icons for Multitrack View:

The Multitrack View icons in the Toolbar.

Selecting either the Volume Envelope icon (1.) or the Pan

Envelope icon (2.) will force every track to display volume and/or
panning data. Data can also be displayed, but not edited (for
example, after you have edited all volume and panning envelopes,
and dont want to change anything, but you still want to see them)
by selecting the Edit Envelopes icon (3.).
Note that if you place the mouse over the icons (or any icon in
Audition), a help bubble will pop up.
The same clip, without volume and panning envelopes, looks
like this:

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Name and waveform, but no envelopes

THE TIMELINE
The timeline, found at the bottom of the Tracks window in
Multitrack View, indicates the time scale currently in use.

Changing the view via the Zoom controls will change how
much of the file is visible and thus change the timeline.

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