open public Beta of Adobe Audition for Mac. While Audition for Mac remains in Beta, anyone can download it for free to take it for a spin. It's worth a look if you're interested in advanced audio editing.
I'm planning to use it to produce the next episode of my podcast to see how it stacks up to Apple's Soundtrack Pro. In preliminary tests editing some audio files and piecing together a multitrack project, it seems to offer all of the tools and capabilities of the Apple audio editing program (at least for my needs).
I'm interested in Audition as an eventual replacement for Soundtrack Pro. As much as I like Soundtrack Pro, I don't like the fact that I can only get it as part of the Final Cut Studio suite. I don't really use the other Final Cut tools*, so I'm loathe to upgrade to the most-recent version of the Apple suite just to use the audio editing application. A bit of backstory: I own the first version of Final Cut Studio, which I purchased at a steep discount thanks to an Apple promotion for people who previously owned one of the stand-alone apps that make up the Suite.
This is not to say that I want to purchase the stand-alone version of Adobe Audition. That would likely cost more than the upgrade price for Final Cut Studio. Rather, I'm anticipating that I might pick it up as part of a suite when Adobe comes out with CS6, as I'm still using CS3.
Here's the thing, though. Both Audition and Soundtrack Pro offer much more power than I really need.
However, these pro-level tools allow me to do things with audio that I just can't do with other tools. I've tried to make GarageBand work, but it's just too limited. I've tried Audacity, too, but it's just too hard to use when juggling six or seven tracks and scores of clips. I keep going back to Soundtrack Pro.
What I'd really love to see is an audio application from Apple that's akin to Final Cut Express. I want Soundtrack Express. It would offer less than Soundtrack Pro, but more than GarageBand. What do you say, Apple?
* I would gladly upgrade my copy of Final Cut Studio if the next version rolls in new capabilities to publish content for iOS devices.
