I'm having trouble selecting audio in Audition. Why?

Report · Oct 16, 2017

Hi all.

Before I file bug reports, I thought I'd ask if some basic functionality has perhaps been buried in obscure UI.

In what I would think is a fairly common scenario, I've selected a problematic section of an audio file and pressed the M key to create a region (or range as Audition calls it). What I want to do is overwrite an accidentally-spoken syllable with room tone from a nearby portion of the file. The length of the file can't change at all.

These are the problems I encountered:

1. Double-clicking within the region doesn't select the audio between the markers. This is unexpected and inconvenient. Isn't that one of the major purposes of setting up a range, to make it readily selectable?

2. Although there are hotkeys to move the playhead to the previous or next marker, holding the Shift key while doing so doesn't extend the selection (as a workaround for problem #1).

3. Related to #2, using Shift to extend the selection seems to be broken for all keyboard navigation. For example, if you press and hold Shift while pressing the right arrow, the selection isn't extended as the playhead moves. This seems like a pretty glaring bug, doesn't it? I hope it's a bug, because otherwise this would defy decades of GUI convention and pointlessly hobble users.

4. I can't find any way to move the selection. I'm talking about the selection highlight itself, not the audio within it. In this example, I want to drag the selection to the right, in order to copy exactly enough room tone to overwrite the unwanted syllable.

5. I can't find any way to paste-overwrite the selection; pasted material isn't confined to the current selection. This prevents me from simply copying an ample (but inexact) amount of room tone and pasting it into the selected range (as a workaround for #4), because any paste operation changes the file length.

Report · Oct 17, 2017

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Mobius+Strip wrote
Hi all.
Before I file bug reports, I thought I'd ask if some basic functionality has perhaps been buried in obscure UI.
These are the problems I encountered:
1. Double-clicking within the region doesn't select the audio between the markers. This is unexpected and inconvenient. Isn't that one of the major purposes of setting up a range, to make it readily selectable?

It isn't easy to find the information about this, I grant you, but everything is working correctly in Audition - if you use it the way it's intended to be used! I do have a short video clip showing how to make selections, extend them, etc but the damn forum software won't let me post it. Suffice it to say that everything to do with manipulation is above the waveform display, and not on it:

If you click on either of the grey handles on the marked selection (or in the item in the Markers window) it will select the range. You can extend it in either direction by pulling the handles below (surrounding the green selected area), and if you position the cursor in there so a hand is showing, you can drag the whole selection in either direction.

The cut and paste options are comprehensive, and if you use the spectral display, you can restrict your cutting and pasting to selected spectral areas as well.

The whole thing works pretty well, but don't expect it to follow the conventions that some other software you might be familiar uses - it's never been like that.

Report · Oct 17, 2017

I was a bit puzzled by your comments as I have been doing what you want to do to replace unwanted audio with roomtone for many years when restoring film soundtracks where it is vital to keep the audio in sync with picture. Then I realised that I always work in the Spectral Frequency Display when undertaking such operations.

So if you work in the Spectral Frequency view then you can have direct on display grab and move the selected area using your mouse which, as you have discovered, doesn't work directly on the Waveform view. Also it is not necessary to use markers for selecting the audio, unless you wish to come back to that exact selection in the future. You should also find it is a lot easier to distinguish between the wanted and unwanted audio for this type of editing. Hopefully you will find it much quicker editing your audio in this way.

Report · Oct 17, 2017

Thanks a lot for the replies, guys.

But I disagree that everything is working "correctly." The primary display is the audio waveform; it gets the vast majority of screen real estate, and you can move about and perform editing operations there. If that's not "intended," then this is a grossly misguided UI design that Adobe itself has presented by default.

None of the above comments addresses the failure of the selection extension to work. If you can select a range of something in a GUI and move the selection point, the Shift key extends that selection. This isn't an application-specific or even an OS-specific convention; it is and has been a universal standard of every major GUI I'm aware of since the '80s. There is absolutely no benefit to defying it, and doing so is a profound hindrance.

I've never heard of anyone editing in a spectral display, but hey, if that works for you, great. But it makes no sense at all to expect users to guess that certain basic selection mechanisms are only available within it. I would bet that a solid majority of users have never even pulled up that display; I've never felt the need to do so. It totally lacks the precision required for the majority of editing I do.

One thing I asked about that you can do in the spectrum pane is move the selection region. But again, why on earth would someone guess that he has to pull up the spectral display just to do that? Why not just let us do that in the timebar or the main editing pane, even if it requires a modifier key?

The spectral display does offer some very interesting cutting and pasting options for band limiting, but I don't see how working in this pane exclusively could ever be considered faster than working in the waveform display. In addition to the profound lack of precision in identifying where specific sounds begin and end, drawing a selection rectangle and making sure it goes all the way from top to bottom of the pane is far, far fussier than clicking and dragging in the waveform editor (as just one example). Therefore I submit that using the spectral display as your main editing window is not intended.

Also it is not necessary to use markers for selecting the audio, unless you wish to come back to that exact selection in the future.

Which is exactly what I want to do, and which I do a lot. As I asked above, isn't this a major reason for setting up ranges in the first place?

If you click on either of the grey handles on the marked selection (or in the item in the Markers window) it will select the range.

Thanks for that info. That is just terrible UI, and inexplicable.

And finally: I discovered that Mix Paste will indeed allow one to limit the pasting to the selection. Just set the existing-audio level to zero, and select "overwrite" under Paste Type. So all good on that one.

I also notice that Audition offers a "paste to new" option in the Edit menu, which Adobe has huffily refused to add to Photoshop despite years of complaints. Go figure.

Report · Oct 17, 2017

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Mobius+Strip wrote
None of the above comments addresses the failure of the selection extension to work. If you can select a range of something in a GUI and move the selection point, the Shift key extends that selection. This isn't an application-specific or even an OS-specific convention; it is and has been a universal standard of every major GUI I'm aware of since the '80s. There is absolutely no benefit to defying it, and doing so is a profound hindrance.

You might think that, but there's no evidence to support it; rather the contrary. In Microsoft's guidelines for keyboard use it says:

"However, this does not mean that all shortcut keys need to be standardized or that applications must always be forced to support the same shortcut keys. For example, not all applications need to support CTRL+P for printing."

And further on, it says: "Use the SHIFT+ key combination for actions that extend or complement the actions of the standard shortcut key." There is no shortcut key to establish the range in the first place, so you can't legitimately use it to extend anything.

Now you might not like that too much, but it's a legitimate interpretation of the guidelines, and it ain't gonna change. If you don't like the way that the waveform view is designed to operate, then that's fine - just use some other software.

Report · Oct 18, 2017

No evidence other than decades of GUI implementations. And you claim to be citing Microsoft guidelines, but the ones you're citing are irrelevant here because they refer to specific functions like printing, which not every application supports. That's what Microsoft is attempting to explain to you.

Here's what Microsoft says about extending selections (source: Guidelines for Keyboard User Interface Design (Windows) )

The initiation point for an extended selection is called the anchor. The final point for the input focus is called the destination. When a user makes an extended selection, such as when highlighting a paragraph of text by holding the SHIFT key and moving the cursor, all of the items between the anchor and the destination will be in the selected state.

So Audition is violating guidelines from your own source. Like it or not, those guidelines haven't changed since the '80s and there's absolutely no reason for them to.

Report · Oct 18, 2017

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Mobius+Strip wrote
So Audition is violating guidelines from your own source. Like it or not, those guidelines haven't changed since the '80s and there's absolutely no reason for them to.

You seem to have overlooked the words 'such as'. Nowhere does that statement say that you are required to be able to extend a selection using the shift key - it merely suggests the possibility. When read in conjunction with the rest of the document, it becomes clear that this is not de rigueur. Adobe, as you've already discovered, has a bit of form when it comes to this, and it would appear from comments made in the past that one of the driving forces behind this is that they actively don't want to do what others do. One of the side-effects of this (and I believe that they regard this as a benefit) is that it makes the ergonomics of using other software seem strange after using theirs.

Incidentally, I'm not condoning this in any way; I'm merely trying to explain why it is, and in fact why Adobe think that there's a good reason for it, although only from their POV, admittedly.

Report · Oct 18, 2017

but I don't see how working in this pane exclusively could ever be considered faster than working in the waveform display. In addition to the profound lack of precision in identifying where specific sounds begin and end, drawing a selection rectangle and making sure it goes all the way from top to bottom of the pane is far, far fussier than clicking and dragging in the waveform editor (as just one example).

In fact I find that it is a lot quicker and far more accurate when you get used to it since you can not only identify where sounds start and end but also what they are and what frequencies they contain. OK it may take a while to get used to working in this way but having spent many years doing it it allows you a lot more scope in how you do your audio editing.

You don't have to select audio using the Marquee tool or any of the other speciality Brushes. You can use the normal Play cursor to make a full top to bottom selection in exactly the same way as in the Waveform view.

Report · Oct 18, 2017

Going right back to your OP. Using the Shift key with the Left or Right arrow keys moves the In point of the selection to the left or right whilst Shift+Ctrl moves the Out point of the selection on the Waveform view. Thus extending the selection certainly is possible on my PC. However it doesn't move the Marker in and out points. That can only be done using the mouse cursor on the actual Marker part of the display at the top. Also note that a selected area of audio can have it's In/Out points moved by the mouse cursor which changes to a double arrow icon when hovered over the beginning or end of a selected portion of audio.

Report · Oct 18, 2017

Thanks for the replies, everybody.

SteveG(AudioMasters) wrote
You seem to have overlooked the words 'such as'. Nowhere does that statement say that you are required to be able to extend a selection using the shift key - it merely suggests the possibility.

First, how did I "seem to overlook" "such as?" That means "for example," so what? The sentence could very well say, "All Microsoft-approved applications must allow keyboard users to make extended selections such as selecting two or more items in a list or highlighting several paragraphs of text." So there we have the phrase "such as" in a statement of requirement. One has nothing to do with the other.

Second, you can cite guidelines, but when I do so they're just vague "possibilities?" That's not the tenor of the documentation at all. They are guidelines, and explicitly state

A well-designed keyboard UI allows keyboard users to make extended selections such as selecting two or more items in a list or highlighting several paragraphs of text

They go on to provide guidance on a comprehensive set of selection situations. Not exactly "behold the wonderland of possibilities!"

And finally: There's absolutely no benefit to defying this convention. It's not as if Adobe has re-used these hotkeys for some innovative new approach; they currently do nothing. Not to mention that this convention is observed elsewhere in Adobe's own applications, so not only is Audition inconsistent with the vast majority of GUI applications on every platform, but with Adobe's own.

Incidentally, I'm not condoning this in any way; I'm merely trying to explain why it is, and in fact why Adobe think that there's a good reason for it, although only from their POV, admittedly.

Understood, except for the last part: I've yet to see any justification for this missing functionality, let alone a good one.

ryclark
Using the Shift key with the Left or Right arrow keys moves the In point of the selection to the left or right whilst Shift+Ctrl moves the Out point of the selection on the Waveform view.

Thanks, ryclark. But that's still a problem, regardless of whether there is a Mac-specific bug here or not.

1. If your playhead is just sitting there in the waveform with no selection, and you press Shift + right arrow, does it extend a selection to the right?

2. If you set a couple of markers and use Alt-arrow to navigate to one and then Shift-Alt-arrow to navigate to the next, is the range between then selected?

3. If you click and drag from left to right in the waveform to make a selection, and then use Shift-arrow to adjust that selection, does the right end of the selection move? Because that's what you should be adjusting if you dragged from left to right; the right edge is the active end of the selection. If you dragged from right to left, the left edge (In point) should be the active one. Otherwise, how are you supposed to adjust the Out point? You should see similar behavior if you select part of a line of text in your favorite text editor and adjust the selection with the arrow keys. I just tried Word, and it worked as I described.

Thanks for the further info about the spectral view. Audition switches to the marquee tool by default when you enable it for some reason, even though only the standard insertion-point tool is shown in the waveform pane. I'll experiment with your method and see how I like it. Unfortunately, the spectrum pane still suffers from the same selection problems as the waveform pane, except for being able to move the selection. Looking at it again, this brings up an obvious question: Why can't you drag the selection in the waveform pane in exactly the same way you can in the spectral one?

Report · Oct 19, 2017

1. No because by default Shift+ Right Arrow is used to move the In point of a selection to the right.. But it does if you use Ctrl+Shift right arrow. However there is nothing stopping you from editing the custom keyboard shortcuts so that Shift+Right Arrow does as you wish.

2. Yes that works on a PC. But you need to use Ctrl+Arrow to navigate between Markers and then Shift+Control Right Arrow to extend the selection.

3. As described above you use Shift+Arrow to move the In point and Shift+Ctrl+Arrow to move the Out point. But all configurable in the Keyboard Shortcut page. A text file is somewhat different from an audio file and just because Microsoft do it in Word doesn't mean that an audio editing app has to do exactly the same. But as before it is all customisable in Audition if you want it different from the default.

However I do agree that being able to click within a selection in the Waveform view to be able to pick it up and move it would be desirable. So why not make a feature request. But, somehow, I do seem to have managed without that facility for over 20 years.

Report · Oct 20, 2017

Thanks Ry!

I did submit requests to address all of this.

Selection extension could work as is standard on the platform (Shift + arrow, honoring the correct "end" of the selection) while maintaining current functionality. The only change necessary would be to use a different modifier key instead of Shift to manipulate the In and Out points separately. So on the Mac, Ctrl-arrow would move the In point, and Command-Ctrl-arrow to move the Out point. Not sure what the appropriate key would be on Windows (since Ctrl jumps between markers there), but you get the point.

I don't think it's possible to address the Shift-based selection extension with keyboard mapping, because of the aforementioned ignorance of the correct "end" of the selection.

Also, extending the selection between markers doesn't work on the Mac, so that seems to be a platform-specific problem.

Adobe has been great about responding to my feature request, which is refreshing. To me the biggest deal is being able to select a region between markers by double-clicking in the waveform. That is, for me, the single biggest impediment to working in Audition; and could be easily fixed.