For anyone who's ever worked on cars you know that you can never have too many tools. It's true that you can probably get the job done with what you already have in your toolbox but it's also true that it would be easier and faster with the right tool. To find out if Audition CS5.5 is the right tool for audio for film, I wanted to see the program work in normal everyday use.
Could the average person use this tool without needing a four year degree in audio engineering? Could it fix poor audio? Could it eliminate unwanted noise? Does it work easily with the video editing side of things? These were the questions I had.
In working on my feature film, "Addiction-10 Seconds at a Time," a great deal of the speaking parts are mixed with loud car sounds. Really loud car sounds like open exhausts, whining turbos, screeching tires and more. A majority of the external speaking parts were captured with two shotgun microphones. The inside car audio was done with wired lavalier mics inside full face racing helmets. We pretty much counted on the fact that most of the key speaking parts would need to be re-recorded back in the studio or at least in a quiet spot. One of the locations were shooting at was an autocross track. This location presented plenty of audio nightmares. It had large open fields to the West and East that allowed the never ending wind to blow right over the mics. It had large plexiglass windows at the observation areas where we set up our cameras to bounce the race sounds all around us. We captured some nice footage but how would the audio be? To be on the safe side, we recorded additional audio takes in the press booth. I prefer the live tracks as they have more feeling of being in the moment. I also like the live tracks because the lips match. But if the live tracks were unusable, I had a backup.
Ease of Use
When we got back to the studio we captured the footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5. We then loaded a clip onto the time line. The next step was to get the audio into Audition. This part couldn't be any easier. All you do is right click the audio and scroll down to the "Open in Audition" option. It then pulls the audio right in for you. The next step I needed to do was to separate the left and right audio tracks so I could work on them separately and then position them where I wanted them to be in the surround sound room. To do this you need to go up to the edit tab and go down to the "Extract Channels to Mono Files" option. This then creates separate tracks for left and for right.
You can see the noise peaking in the track sample. We needed to clean it up a lot. This is where we opened our toolbox again to see what we had to use.
Depth of Options
The tool we need is labeled exactly as it should be, Noise Reduction/Restoration. To get to this we go to the effects rack on the left side of the screen. We then go to the first slot as we have no other effects yet. Click the right arrow and scroll down to noise reduction. Then select "Adaptive Noise Reduction". When the effects options box opens, I selected "Heavy Noise Reduction" as this was a very noisy scene. After that, I hit the x to close the box and went back to the Effects Rack and hit apply. Here's the result.
You can see that the noise has been cut down and the peaks have been lowered. Pictures are pretty, but the proof is in your ears. When the track is played back the result is astonishing. The vocal parts are clear and the race sounds get subdued but are still there. They don't dominate or overpower the key spots. It's like the adaptive part of the effect knows what to look for.
Another useful effect is the DeEsser. I found this useful for some of the wind noise that resulted from blowing over our wind screens on our shotguns. Same procedure as before. I chose the "4410-7000" preset and applied the rack effect.
The result is the wind noise that gave us the sssssssss sounds were in a specific frequency. The DeEsser clipped this frequency minimizing the wind and once again giving us very usable audio.
The effects rack has all the normal effects like reverbs, delays, and normalizers folks have come to expect from Soundbooth, but with a more polished feel that Audition has always sported. There was one option we found especially useful for this project: Speech Volume Leveler. If the person operating the boom for the shotgun mic moves around a bit or the subject moves or they have varied dynamics in their speaking, the resulting audio is like a roller coaster. Using this option is just as easy as the other elements.
The result is a very level speaking track. With all the preset options there are various levels that can be chosen from weak to strong, small to large. Play with them to see what the results are, as your results will vary, but I personally love the presets. Someone or a crew of people spent a lot of time getting them fine tuned and tweaked to a very useable state. It makes my job easier to know what effect I want by the naming and preset setups if I need to fix something or correct a problem I had in the field. If I have the time I can always experiment with all of the sliders and pick my own levels. But the fact is, I don't need to unless I want to.
Performance
Does Audition CS5.5 perform? I'd say so. With other software the audio needs to be exported to a separate program. Corrected and imported back into the video editing software. Then you have to hope it all syncs up. (The obvious exception was Soundbooth from CS3-CS5, but it was not nearly as complete a program as Audition.)
With Audition when you are done editing your audio it is already corrected and re-synched with Premiere Pro. Although it's not as polished a true Dynamic Link solution (which would work with all files dynamically), it's still kind of like a magic wand. With the ability to separate the left and right audio tracks I can fix them individually. If I have a lavalier on one person and the battery dies or I get clothing rustling across the mic or bumping sounds, it can be eliminated by using the other channel. They don't need to be tied together, even if I forgot to import the footage with the audio interpreted as mono tracks in Premiere Pro. I can also correct them individually which is another bonus. Another feature to mention is the 5.1 Surround Sound. When the audio is corrected it can then be placed in the virtual room where the sound is originating. If someone walks up from behind they get faded in from the back to the front speakers. If they move from left to right on screen I toggle the audio to match. A very useful feature as opposed to working in stereo. (Although exporting out the Dolby Surround Sound is not an included option, they do include a demo version of the exporter plug-in that you can try out on three audio clips to see if you want to buy it or not.)
Value
The standalone version costs $349, which is very reasonable, especially since this is an audio editing software that can support some of the most powerful plug-ins in the market, including .VST plug-ins like the iZotope RX plug-ins that MFM will be covering later in the year. (Folks who upgrade from previous versions of Audition or Soundbooth can do so for only $99.) Of course, the best way to get it is as part of the Production Premium (or Master Collection) from Adobe.
Final Comments Do you need another screwdriver, or another hammer? Probably not. But do you need a tool that can diagnose problems, use adaptive correction to fix them with a click of the mouse, and support even cooler abilities with industry standard plug-ins. I bet you do. With 50% of your production being what the audience hears and the other 50% being what they see, remember, if the shot is out of focus or a little crooked, you may be able to sell it as an "artistic effect." Poor audio (on the other hand) is never able to be passed off as anything other than what it is. (This is why the Blair Witch Project had an extra $100,000 dumped into it after Artisan purchased it, so that the audio would sell the "artistic" visuals of the film.)
Ease
of Use
9.0
Depth
of Options
10.0
Performance
9.0
Value
vs. Cost
10.0
Overall Score
9.5
Darren R Wiczek is a writer, director, producer, camera-man, editor with over 27 years of experience. His company Dangerous Productions in Oakfield, Wisconsin is currently working on an action picture about car racing. Our motto is " if you give it to us we'll shoot it".
For anyone who's ever worked on cars you know that you can never have too many tools. It's true that you can probably get the job done with what you already have in your toolbox but it's also true that it would be easier and faster with the right tool. To find out if Audition CS5.5 is the right tool for audio for film, I wanted to see the program work in normal everyday use. 
