初次见面Adobe Soundbooth CS4    Picture 1.png (77.93 KB)
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Last year when Adobe jumped into the Macintosh-audio editing business with its release of the Intel-only Soundbooth CS3 (
),it did so with something less than both feet. Designed for thosewhodidn’t require (or wouldn’t comprehend) a full-blown digitalaudioworkstation (DAW) application, Soundbooth erred on the sideofease-of-use. It offered an intuitive inte**ce, solid noisefiltering,and a handy AutoCompose feature for generating customizedbackgroundmusic. But it lacked the kind of more-advancedfeatures—multitrackediting and the ability to place more than oneAutoComposed score in aproject—that audio pros or even advanceddabblers would desire.
Tuesday’srelease of the Soundbooth CS4 beta demonstrates thatAdobe has its earsopen to the needs of those who demand more from anaudio editor. Notonly does Soundbooth CS4 include multitrack editingand allow you toplace multiple AutoComposed scores into a singleproject, it alsooffers some compelling new features. Highlights includenon-destructiveediting, the ability to create snapshots (restorepoints) that you canlater return to, automatic volume matching, MP3compressions preview,and a speech-to-text feature that attempts totranscribe the contentsof an audio track (or a selection within it) andthen lets you navigatethat track by choosing words within thetranscript.
Moving to multitrack Theinclusion of multitrack editingwill make Soundbooth far moreattractive to both video- and audioeditors. And it works very muchlike multitrack editing in otherMacintosh audio editors. From the Filemenu’s New command, you now havethe option to create not only a newempty audio file (which generates amono or stereo document—you choosewhich—at the resolution of yourchoosing from 8- to 96Kbps) or a filefrom the contents of theclipboard, but also a new multitrack file. Theresulting workspacecontains a single empty stereo track with a largeexpanse of spacebelow. You can add more tracks simply by dragging theminto the mainEditor window or by choosing Add Audio Track or Add Videotrack from theTracks pop-up menu at the top of the Editor. Once in theEditor, you candrag tracks around to move them ahead or back in timein relation to theother tracks in the Editor.
Each track has its own Volume, Pan, Mute, and Solo controls, much like you find in Apple’s GarageBand.And,just like with GarageBand, you can insert volume keyframes—byinsertingthese keyframes and adjusting them up or down, you change thevolumecurve of each track individually. (Soundbooth doesn’t supportpankeyframes, as GarageBand does. Nor does it have an auto-duckingfeaturefor dropping the volume of one track when the volume ofanotherincreases.) Each track within a multitrack file can have itsownselection of up to five effects at once.
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Soundbooth CS4 beta supports multitrack editing.
Accentuating AutoCompose Aswith the originalSoundbooth, the Soundbooth CS4 beta lets you addAutoCompose scores.These are license-free, intelligently generatedmusic tracks that youcan alter by changing their volume, intensity,and some of theirinstrumental makeup (increase the presence of asynthesizer andde-emphasize a sound effect, for example). You canchange their length;as you do, their parts are arranged in a way thatmakes musicalsense—with believable beginnings and endings, forinstance.
Missing from the original Soundbooth was the abilityto includemore than one of these AutoCompose scores in a singleproject—a realhindrance if you wanted to start your project with oneflavor of musicand then, after a change in a video’s tone, end it withsomething else.Soundbooth CS4 brings that capability to theapplication. Just select ascore, click the Add Score to Multitrack,and the selected score appearswhere you’ve parked the playhead. Thebeta includes two scores—AquoVisitwhich is a new-age kind of jazzscore and CityStreet, a sound effectstrack of a rainy Seattle streetscene. If you have Soundbooth CS3, youcan use its scores with the CS4beta.
Untouchable assets With Soundbooth CS4, Adobeintroducesthe Adobe Sound Document (.asnd) format. This format placesall theproject’s audio resources within a saved file and these filescan beused by other compatible Adobe CS4 applications. With the fileformatcomes non-destructive editing, meaning that all the originalassets areleft untouched. Should you wish to revert to theoriginalasset—backtrack by issuing multiple Undo commands, for example,or goback in time after imposing snapshots on your project as you workonit—you can do so without altering your source files.
You’re notrequired to save your projects in the Adobe SoundDocument format. Youcan also choose Save As and save your mixed projectas an AIFF, WAV,MP3, or .MOV file. When you choose Save As or Export,you can choosehow you’d like to export your file. For example, saveyour project asan AIFF file and you can choose a sample rate from 8- to96Kbps andbitrate from 8- to 32 Bit Float.
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When exporting to MP3, you can audition your file (and see its size) before saving it.
Whensaving as an MP3 file, you can choose the bitrate(16- to 320Kbps) andstereo or mono. Within the MP3 Compression Optionsdialog box thatappears when you chose to save the file in this format,you can previewthe file before saving it. Just choose the bitrate you’dlike to hearfrom the Bitrate popup menu and press the Play button. Theestimatedresulting file size is displayed at the bottom of the dialogbox.Soundbooth will take a minute or so to generate a preview and thenplayit for you using the bitrate you’ve chosen. If you don’t like whatyouhear, simply choose another bitrate. While it’s not the kind ofinstantpreview you get with Ambrosia Software’s WireTap Studio, it’s a nice enhancement.
Volume equality Ifyou’ve recorded more than a couple ofpodcasts with multiple speakersyou understand that balancing volumebetween speakers can be achore—particularly when those speakers sharethe same track. SoundboothCS4 introduces a feature that will be agodsend to podcasters andothers in similar fixes—automatic volumematching.
The idea andexecution are **. Choose Match Volume from theTasks menu and dragfiles into the Files to Match pane. Click MatchVolume, and the programanalyses the files, attempting to make them playat approximately thesame volume. In the few tests I conducted in mytime with the beta, itworks remarkably well when you use separatetracks, with each speakerhaving sole possession of their track. Whenvolume is radicallydifferent within a single track—you have twospeakers sharing onemicrophone and one is loud and the other quiet—it’snot as effective.It’s better, but there’s still a perceivabledifference in volume, andthe waveform display reflects this.Fortunately, you can eyeball thewaveform, select the quiet portions,and easily increase their volumewith the track’s volume control. And,of course, this is just a beta. Ihope Adobe continues to tweak thisfeature as it will be incrediblyvaluable to a lot of people.
Print the speech, I pray you Speakingof features thathave a lot of potential but need additional attention,there’sSoundbooth’s new Speech Transcription feature. Using aspeech-to-textengine that Adobe declined to name, Soundbooth attemptsto turn spokenwords into text. You have the option to choose High(slower) or Medium(faster) transcription, and if you have multiplepeople speaking, theprogram will attempt to identify each speaker.This isn’t a speedyprocess. Transcribing a file at the Medium settingworks in just aboutreal time—if you have 15 minutes of audio totranscribe, it takes aboutthat long to create the transcript.
Theunedited results are not the kind of thing you’ll want topost as atranscript of your audio, as mistakes abound. I tested thefeature witha couple of files from a recent podcast in which allspeakersenunciated reasonably, and some of the resulting text waslaughable. Itdoes a decent job of ignoring “ums” and “ahs,” but if aperson speaksquickly and jams words too close together, thetranscription goes offthe rails. If you like, you’re welcome todouble-click on mistakes inthe transcription pane and type the correctwords.
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In its current form, Soundbooth’s transcribing feature is far from accurate.
Allthat said, much of the point of this feature is sothat you cannavigate quickly through a long spoken file by clicking onwords in thetranscript (when you do this, the word is selected in thewaveform).Even if the transcription is only 50-percent accurate (andthose arethe kind of results I saw in initial testing), it’s likelythat you’llfind enough of the text you’re after to easily navigatethrough thefile.
Lend an ear The Soundbooth beta is availablenow from Adobe Laps (www.labs.adobe.com).Like Soundbooth CS3, it worksonly with Intel-based Macs. The betarequires Mac OS X 10.4.11 orlater; it’s compatible with Leopard.
The beta expires after twodays unless you have an Adobe CS3serial number. With that serialnumber the beta will remain unlockeduntil the next version of the betabecomes available. (Adobe hasn’t saidwhen that will be.)
Thoughtwo days doesn’t give you a lot of time to work with theprogram, it’sdefinitely something those who have an interest in audioshouldexplore. The new Soundbooth beta maintains theapplication’sease-of-use, ** it appropriate for content creators whohave hadlittle experience with audio editors, while adding enoughfeatures toentice those with more-advanced audio editing needs.
[Senior Editor Christopher Breen is the author of The iPod and iTunes Pocket Guide, third edition, and The iPhone Pocket Guide (2007, Peachpit Press).]
★★★
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