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You're right Jim about getting nowhere with the 24 bit. What I have done is bring in 16 bit SF files to Adobe as RAW digital audio (per their selection) and then do whatever to them, but I then write 'em out as 16 bit WAVs so they can go back to Medit.
I seldom even do that, it's a hassle and you have to remember which "Raw" variant to use --or play around with it till it works. Instead, I usually just do a first pass edit in Medit to pull any desired "good" stuff together, and save that stuff out as a 16 bit WAV. If there are multiple takes of good stuff that I want to carry through, I just save those out separately.
Then I move it to Audition if it needs more fine tuning and/or if I'm building a multitrack with the material. Its click removal tools and the freq. and spectral editing have been very helpful at times.
It also has reasonable automation, though it does have its downsides.
I have actually run that in version 2 with one of those cheap Behringer fader controllers. (in USB mode) Though not easy to implement (partic at the Behr end), it does work OK for fader levels, mutes and a few other basic things plus transport control. I'm sure it could do more, but I ain't a MIDI programmer. It's handy once in a while, but not a setup I use regularly that way.
Beyond that there are clip envelopes you can use quite effectively, for level and panning. They stay with each clip/segment unless you clear them. So does another basic way of setting level and pan in the multitrack. ("clip properties") The other automation does not really stay-- if you insert or delete time or content from the session, it messes that flavor of automation up. But with that style, you can automate much more than level and pan. I think I did it once to do some back/forth EQ moves. But you could easily do same thing by just splitting the stuff across checkerboarded tracks probably.
That's what I usually do -- in fact, spent all day today doing that with some stuff from Japan that was all over the place.
I mostly use the clip based envelopes, which are a little like MTU amp zones, though a little harder to use. I seem to find them easiest to use with a pen tablet though. I use Audition with both a Wacom tablet for my right hand (mouse and pen come with) and a Kensington trackball for my left hand. I'm right-handed, but ages back I got comfy using Medit with left hand for pointer operations, also using a Kensington ball. I'm actually faster that way in Medit than using a right handed ball or mouse or whatever. That way, right hand is for keyboard and in Medit, often for macro commands.
Dual monitors also helps Audition somewhat, you can have the mixer and/or the plug ins on one screen and the main project view on the other. I've been running it with 2 "wide" Benq 19" monitors when doing multitrack work. The Edit View simply winds up on 1 screen usually. You can save multiple screen setups in Audition also.
On dialog, I seem to be able to get out mouth clicks and also lessen plosives like popped Ps etc easier using Audition than what I used to do in Medit. But not always so. It's a "remove single click" routine that was in earlier versions, but did not seem to work as well -- or as fast -- as in Audition 2.0. And easy enough to undo if you took out too much, one click to undo (and multiple undo levels)
But sometimes Medit using 2 segs crossfaded does it fine too. For breaths I usually reduce or cut them in Medit, using a variety of macros. But they are not hard to do in Audition at all either. Often I re-pace a lot of dialog to make it fit hit points, or a music/effects bed, or just to make it flow better. Both Medit and Audition can do this well - though I suppose I'm faster still with Medit.
Audition's time squeeze (used sparingly, and you can set up constant or varying for all or part of a file) really saved a client with a project that just would not fit to the max CD length their replicator quoted of 76 minutes without them signing waivers in case it didn't play for end users. (which they wouldn't do since it was going out all over the world) I was able to get it down to about 75.20 without any bad artifacts/burbles by messing with it and doing in multiple sections. I was fairly impressed with that.
It's de-noising (template style like what Dave was doing) also seems to work
pretty well, used sparingly. The stuff I got in from Japan had various hum and junk in some of it, and I got it down quite a bit by using that sparingly. Also was able to retrieve some dialog a client recorded on a mini-recorder that I guess was in a purse or something and everything pretty crappy sounding. But in that case, even though it had some def. artifacts, at least you could make out what was being said (though I couldn't, it was in German!!)
You can output 32 bit files from Adobe, but I just looked in their "convert sample type" screen and there's no selection for 24 bit there, just 8/16/32.
The samp rate choices do also go out to 192K, but no 24 bit in there that I could find. There's also no option for 24 bits in the record screens.
Here's something interesting (to me at least): As a result of your post, I just
went and tried typing in 24 bits into the box that offers 8/16/32. This would convert (in theory) a 44.1/16 WAV file into 192K, 24 bit per what I selected. After several minutes of number crunching, scaling, pre and post filtering etc etc-- done at 32 bits -- it now says it made a 192K 24 bit file. Hmmmm. Gotta play with that one some more! Alas however, opening the "stats" on it sez it's 32 bits, not 24.... And it really maxed out the Vista dual core machine I've been playing with in running that.... its "performance" gauge was WAY up there, though it did it. Took maybe 3 minutes.
Geez- the source file I was fooling with (44/16) was 168MB, the resulting new file is 1.27GIGS.
However, they claim version 2 (and prob ver 3) DOES handle Broadcast WAV files. I've just never done it. Apparently by that (from the help) they are talking about saving and/or preserving any metadata in the file, they also can handle XMP, which the help sez is Extensible Metadata Platform. They also say it can use the embedded BWF timestamp to insert a file into their editor.
There are some commands for it and windows for inputting metadata.
Again, my only ref is Audition 2.0 though-- maybe version 3 expands the capabilities - will find out when it shows up. You could ask the guy who you used to work with more about the 24 bit situation, too.
Great that you both posted and will look fwd to hearing more from ya.
Hope all this helps. Audition isn't used much in the circles of folks I seem to run across, but it seems pretty good for what it does. I was worried Adobe was going to drop it- because even with version 2, a lot of their "suite" stuff like Bridge and Font Capture and Gamma get installed. But now they seem to be leaning to developing it more -- as a stand-alone, non-suite product.
Some of the other stuff it installs def. slows the machine down - but I used something called Startup Commander in XP to tweak what starts with Windows and what doesn't load and that seemed to help a lot. But version 3 claims it will hog less resources too - we'll see.
Rich
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