As an audio engineer, I get to play with all sorts of software aimed specifically at high-end audio and music production. But until relatively recently, audio support within video editing software has been pretty weak. One of the reasons for this, in my opinion, is that the way in which information is displayed and/or programmed in video editing software just isn't as conducive to efficient audio production. On the other hand, I've seen a few video editors go nuts trying to navigate an audio editing application. So, how does a software company make an audio program that is efficient yet doesn't freak out its targeted users? I certainly don't have a definitive answer to that question, but I think you'll see that Adobe has made great strides in "bridging the gap" as we take a look at Soundbooth CS4 this month.
Unlike it's more in-depth sibling Audition, Soundbooth (Sb CS4) is written specifically to make it easy for video producers to perform everyday audio tasks, with a focus on intelligent library-based music/sound effects production, dialog editing, and voice-over recording/editing. I use the word intelligent because Sb CS4 does a lot of the work for you in terms of layering sounds or parts. Rather than throwing a large number of individual audio files at you to wade through on your own, Adobe has grouped beds of sound effects (SFX) for you into "scores" that allow you to create an aural setting very quickly and edit the intensity of the SFX bed quickly and intuitively with a minimal amount of manual editing involved. (You can also add individual sound effects within the package that are not part of these scores.) Similarly, with music, the instruments' parts are altered based on how the intensity parameters are set, plus Sb CS4 has automatic beat detection to aid in loop creation. In terms of editing the spoken word, Sb CS4 makes the basics easy. Even the not-so-basic jobs of cleaning up background noise and making various clips at the same volume (which is sometimes easier said than done due to the way human ears perceive "volume" - the numbers on the meters tell only part of the story) are expedited by putting powerful algorithms to work behind a friendly GUI.
My overall impression is that Sb CS4 is very easy to use for video editors and novice audio editors. Coming at the GUI from an in-depth audio application perspective, I found the layout and toolset of Sb CS4 slightly confusing at first. But I quickly adapted, as I have to video editing applications, once I realized the program wasn't really written for me specifically. (Gee, I thought all programs were supposed to be written just for me. Humility is such a bitter pill to swallow.) The toolset in Sb CS4 is task oriented, rather than presenting the user with a ton of tools that they may not know how to use if they aren't really familiar with audio editing. This should make it a breeze for the video editor to perform common audio editing tasks. Adobe's great options for custom workspaces also makes it easy to suit Sb CS4 to the way you like to work.
