Adobe released a new sound application today for Macs called Soundbooth. The application sounds pretty sweet, "...in the spirit of Sound Edit 16 and Cool Edit 2000, Adobe Soundbooth gives creative professionals the tools they need to quickly clean up, customize, or create new sounds and to create customized music soundtracks for their projects." The download is free and will continue to be free till 02/28/07 when the current build will expire. Royalty free music is available on the Soundbooth Technology page. I was hoping to play with it a little but it is only compatible on Intel-based Macs. Seriously, how is this possible? Aargh. Maybe one of you with Intel Macs can report on this.UPDATE by Randall: Sounds like Soundbooth is meant to replace Audition, and is squarely targeted at video editors. Comparable to Soundtrack, Soundbooth isn't for people in bands or otherwise doing a large amount of live recording. Soundbooth feels a lot like Audition, but Adobe wants to standardize the interface so it feels more like other Adobe Production Studio apps. Windows and Mac versions are available for download starting today.
1. Your comments re Soundbooth and Audition are incorrect. Soundbooth is not in any way meant to replace Audition. Its designed to be simple and effective two-track stereo editing and mastering tool much like SoundForge (although it will take a while for it to develop the power of SF). Audition already has this functionality but is a much bigger tool being also a complete multi-track and mixing environment. What Adobe have realised is that there is maarket for people who need to perform sound edits and tweaks but not multi-track/midi/rewire/etc and so Audition would be overkill.
There is a complete lack of good Two-track stereo mastering editing tools on the Mac. PC land has the intensly powerful Sound Forge as well as Wavelab and about a dozen others. But Mac land is starved of good options - Audacity and Peak DV (which is totally lame) are about the extent of it. Adobe are smart to slot an inexpensive simple but effective audio editing tool in here to attract a user-base who dont need the full power of a multi-tracker like Audition and to simultanously fill a gap on the mac platform that is very under serviced.
This is the reason why Adobe are changing tack by making new tools for the Mac again, something they havnt done in a while (witness Audition and Encore). They are a company smart enough to realise there is a market and a user need on the Mac that no one else is filling. Its not a replacement for audition and I certainly dont believe it signals a return to large scale new app development for the Mac from Adobe. Its just typical opportunistic corporate manuevering; seeign a gap and fillign it. The people who will buy Soundbooth (podcasters, radio, those who just need an audio cleaning tool but who otherwise mix audio in their NLE) are not the same who'll use the pwoer of Audition or other true multi-tracker. The example is on the Sony software model that Adobe have taken a number of leaves from, where SoundForge and Acid Pro are not interchanagble or in a position where it's either or. One is focused and specific, one is broder and more well rounded.
Mikej
Posted at 9:28PM on Oct 26th 2006 by Mike Jones