Native Instruments with Audition?

[zenpicker2]

Bearing in mind that AA does not directly support MIDI recording, is there a way to access and record Native Instruments sound sources via VST plugins or clever channel routing? 

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

Not only does Audition not support MIDI, but it cannot use VSTi's either - they simply won't run. Somewhere (I can't currently locate it) is a thread where somebody has described some arcane way of getting instruments to work with later vesions of Audition - supposedly but I've not seen any independent verification that it works. The best method I'm aware of isn't to use a current version at all,  but to locate the unlocked version of Audition 3 and use that - it's not brilliant, but it should work (and it won't cost you anything to try).

Potentially, as the API is exposed, somebody could create an external app that would allow at least a MIDI input into Audition, but I suspect that the reason that nobody has done it (apart from it being not easy at all) is that even if you do this, you still have to deal with the non-loading of VSTi plugins - which sort-of renders the whole thing useless. One thing that might help would be to re-implement Rewire, but there doesn't seem to be much prospect of that at present.

There's another thread with a few links and ideas here although it's more useful as a list of what to search for, I think.

[zenpicker2]

Indeed, as I feared and expected. Thank you. Since my needs are as basic as they get, I think the best workaround is to pull an AA mixdown WAV into Garage Band, record the secondary MIDI tracks there, then export them as WAVs and pull them back into AA. Works. Not as elegant, but not as complicated, either....

Again, thanks for the quick reply. E.

[acxpenn]

Absurd that a workaround is even needed. Adobe needs to incorporate MIDI support already.

[Deborah330819613bo2]

Definetly. Don't understand why one would pick up audition instead of any other DAW having this big part missing.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

The reason is that people make assumptions that aren't justified. So fundamentally, a lack of research. I would respectfully disagree that it's a 'big' part missing - it's only as big as you wish it to be. For me it's no loss at all because I primarily use Audition for editing live music, and MIDI doesn't come into it.

You have to look at where Audition's real strengths lie. A lot of users of other music production systems (like ProTools, for instance) use Audition as a mastering tool, although they are often reluctant to admit it. Also, of course, it has links directly into Premiere, so it can be used for audio sweetening of video sound. In that context, it's important to recognise that this is why Adobe purchased Syntrillium in the first place - they wanted audio expertise, not music production. At its heart, Adobe has been very much a visual-based company and in many ways it's amazing that Audition still remains a standalone product, quite frankly. What they develop depends upon what their big-ticket users want, and if the don't want MIDI, then all the asking in the world from a few thousand individuals is going to get nowhere.

And it really is like this. There are - well there certainly were - quite a few of the developers who would happily have another go at MIDI, but their path is effectively blocked by the metrics they get in from the big (think of a number with six '0's on the end of it) users. These are the ones that support the salary bills...