Adobe Announces Soundbooth
Publishing giant Adobe has announced a new audio product aimed at Flash artists and motion graphics editors who want to add a lively musical score to their presentation or movie. Adobe Soundbooth is available as a beta release from Adobe Labs right now.
Adobe seems to have recognized a hole in the typical Flash designer’s workflow when it comes to music. Soundbooth tries to plug that hole by acting as a basic audio editor that can fix speech and alter sound effects. The application also has a built-in auto composer that non-musicians can use to create original bed music. I saw a hands-on demo of Soundbooth, and I think motion designers who want to add that extra punch to their movie, but also can’t play a note, will be happy with it.
Of course, interoperability with other Adobe products is built in — Soundbooth uses a familiar timeline with cue points that also work in Flash, and all of the tools and palettes work just like you’d expect them to if you’ve spent time using After Effects or Premier. The way the application behaves is really easy to pick up even if you’ve never used a sound editor before. It reminds me of Cool Edit in its simplicity. The noise removal tool is very cool and innovative — once you identify diginoise, mic pops, background noise or other unwanted artifacts in a sound’s waveform, you can highlight it with a marquee tool and reduce it or erase it completely. There’s a simple effects rack for adding reverb and echo. There’s also a vocal polisher that makes speakers’ voices stand out a little more in a complicated mix.
Soundbooth’s glamour feature is a composer tool that you can use to create music. You build a "roadmap" for your score, identifying where you want it to fade in, build to a crescendo, maybe you want the drums to drop out here, and so on. Pick a style of music (techno, country, light rock) and pre-recorded loops are stitched together and mixed based on the emotional guidelines you’ve set. You can listen to the score play back while you watch your movie and adjust the points on the timeline as it plays. The loops sound pretty good, too. They were recorded by real musicians and they don’t sound too canned. People who know what they’re doing could get a very similar effect with Garageband, but having the movie play along while you adjust the timing of your score could end up being a lifesaver.
Final results are exported with the Adobe Media Encoder. Finished movies can be saved as Flash Video, MPEG or H.264 for the iPod. You can also export your audio only if you need to.
Check out the Soundbooth beta at Adobe Labs. The app will be released as a final product some time in early-to-mid 2007, and it will become part of the Adobe Production Studio bundle. Also, Soundbooth will only run on Windows machines and Intel-based Macs. No older Mac hardware will be supported.
