Does Audition MIDI actually work for anyone?

[knolan012]

Hi -

This is a serious post and not an ad-hoc gripe.

I have just started to use Audition MID and it simply does not work! I have today read many of the posts of this forum and can identify other similar problems - for example - MIDI note off messages not being recorded re-transmitted to synths.

I would suggest that those with continuing problems post here in summary to give a community 'feel' for Audition with regard to MIDI for the benefit of users and developers alike.

As a former Sun Microsystems Test-lead engineer, here is imy appraisal of Adobe Audition MIDI capabilities:

1. It simply does not work. It appears that the Audition Design/Development team designed from a too simplistic stand point. It appears that the functionality was not thought through; and it most certainly looks like the MIDI features were NOT adequately tested in real-world scenarios; especially regarding connectivity with MIDI hardware.

2. The documentation is too sparse and does not sufficiently explain the features and their usage.

Audition as an audio editor is simply Awesome - there's almost nothing else like it IMO; but the MIDI design and testing team(s) have let this application down dreadfully. Senior designer /managers in Adobe - if you read this - you need to talk to your Adobe MIDI Developer and Test Leads and let them know they are destroying the reputation of Adobe and Audition.

Again I ask - does Audition MIDI Tracks work; and are people successfully integrating standard plugins into MIDI in Adobe multitrack sessions with acceptable realtime usage? I suggest we compile our expericen here to give a clear picture to Adobe - they clearly have not tested this functionality.

My experiences have been:

- It takes forever to initiate MIDI tracks

- Scaning for VSTi's crashes Audition - every time

- MIDI note-off messages regurlarly not sent to external hardware synths

- Minimal documentation on how to record from and play back external hardware synthesizers; on monitoring them when playing and on recording multiple MIDI tracks at once or on setting up connectivity to severla external hardware synths (among many other documentation short comings).

These are all issues that were sorted even by the likes of Atari 20 years ago. All of this functionaloty should completely work - it is bread and butter functionality.

Kevin Nolan.

[Paul_Ferguson]

I was going to start my own thread, but this one will do.

I recently launched myself into MIDI, and here are my results with Audition 3:

* It works so far.

* I've got a MIDI keyboard controller (M-Audio Axiom Pro 49) and I can record stuff in Audition so far.

* I've loaded various VSTi plugs into Audition via the VSTi Plugin Manager, and they work.  (One's a Native Instruments demo called Absynth, and I've got about five FL Studio softsynth plugins working.)

I'm running Audition 3.01 on a Win 7/64-bit dual core system, and I've got the MIDI keyboard connected via USB 2.

All that's good (and completely different from your experience, I'm afraid).  However, I'm going to try out out using the Axiom controller as a controller soon, and I'll report back here.  One person has suggested to me that using USB with a keyboard and Audition yields poor results for anything other than recording.  I'd be interested to know if anybody here has had different results using either a USB connection or a standard MIDI cable connection.

[markb13041642]

How about telling us how you got it to work? Im very frustrated, my weekend was supposed to be about playing music, so far its about configuring my computer,  looking for tutorials and trying different programs that never work.

If you'd like to offer some advise ive got iRig , audtion and a line 6 tone port interface.

[ryclark]

This is a five year old thread so things may have changed rather a lot since the last post. What version of Audition are you trying to use and on what platform and which operating system?

[markb13041642]

Im using CC, so the newest version. Im using a Toneport ux2 as an interface, and Ive just purchased a IRig Key Pro 37 controller. I cant seem to get any sound out of the MIDI in any program exceprt for Fruity Loops. Audition wont even find any of my vst's.

What I'd like to do is program some drum tracks and some synth track, and play my guitar and create some songs. This has become a very hard task for me. Any advise? Thanks for helping out.

[markb13041642]

Sorry, Im also using Win 10

[ryclark]

The latest versions of Audition don't support MIDI or any VSTi's (VST Instruments). It was dropped in the cross platform rewrite of the software when it became part of the CS series. The only VSTs that Audition supports now are VST2 and VST3 effects and only if they are 64 bit.

[radione]

I realize this is an old thread, but I want to revisit this for an issue that is becoming more and more prevalent.

As Premiere Pro becomes more widely adopted by the industry and competes with the likes of Avid Media composer, the need for a full-featured audio application a la Pro Tools becomes more and more apparent.  MIDI functionality is a critical component of a modern DAW and as has been mentioned in this thread, free/low cost alternatives are still outdoing Audition.  It looks bad for Adobe as a professional suite of tools, and it's frustrating as a creator who can't take advantage of the Adobe integrations because the audio tools don't include critical features.

[ryclark]

But at the moment Audition isn't billed as a DAW. It is a feature rich audio editor and Multitrack track laying and mixing tool.

[radione]

That is true, but even so it's competing with full DAWs.  An application that billes itself as an audio editor and multitrack mixing tool harkens back to the days of Cool Edit Pro and that is simply no longer the landscape.

[Paul_Ferguson]

If all you do is record analog, then you can use Audition for recording, mixing and mastering, even though that's not primarily what it's designed for.  I think the people who can use Audition that way are really lucky, because it's a lovely program and does what it does very well.  It has elegance, precision and power.  But if you need MIDI, you're going to have to find it elsewhere.  Check my previous post in this thread; it was in 2010, six years ago.  I was holding out hope that Audition would develop MIDI at that point, but I've given up that hope, because Audition is mining a different seam.  It's an editing program.  Not only that, but the fact that it's becoming increasingly wedded to Premiere Pro means that it's becoming stronger in its role as an editor, and much less inclined to be a full-on DAW.  Me, I agree with you - I think Audition should develop MIDI, for two simple reasons: MIDI is such an important part of modern audio that I don't see how a program can call itself an audio editor if it doesn't handle MIDI.  And second, I would l-o-v-e to be able to do MIDI inside Audition.  In the meantime, I'm not holding my breath.  Me and my MIDI avail ourselves of other programs.  There are good ones out there.

[Mark_-_Audition_User]

I've gotten the midi to work - and have a similar set up to the previous poster.

However, I've noticed that the midi bars do go out of sync after around 4 minutes of midi and it does take forever to load up the sequencer in a track - maybe this is due to the # of VSTI's that I use, I'm not sure....

Also - dropping multiple midi files into a session is impossible (one 1 is possible - from my experience) and even then, I can't just drop and drag it into the midi roll....

Aside from that though, I think Audition 3.0 is a good program - the next update (whenever that is), should be great !

[Paul_Ferguson]

Audition is a great program, but not for MIDI, apparently - not with Version 3, anyway.  I'm using Reaper for MIDI - it's good, it's cheap, and it works.  But if Audition 4 turns out to be MIDI-friendly, I'll be using it and Reaper will be my backup application.

[knolan012]

I agree that for Audio, Adobe Audition is absolutely fantastic. I cannot speak about it highly enough. It is simply indispensible, incredibly powerful and a pure joy to use - I love it.

But - for MIDI - it is so incredibly bad that I cannot believe it. I mean, it's worse in this regard than Atari computers of 20 years ago. Just how did Adobe get it SO wrong. I come back to the point that whoever is project managing this aspect of Audition is just incredibly poor at their job. They clearly have absolutely zero experience of using MIDI in the real world, and the clearly do precisely zero testing on this feature.

So I cannot accept that the answer is to use Reaper. Nobody asked Adobe to add these MIDI features, but they decided to do so, and in so doing they have absolutely destroyed their otherwise formidable reputation as a Rolls-Royce type product. I'd sack that project leader to be honest. Audition MIDI is worse - far worse - than if implemented by even one coder in a bedroom, it's THAT bad. If you're going to release MIDI features, you had better get it right. Even Digidesign were slaughtered for their original Protools MIDI implementation, though it worked fine and put Audition to shame by comparison.

This is particularly important to Adobe right at this juncture. If they are going to put Audition out on Mac then they are drawing more attention to themselves than at any other time in their product history. And I can tell you that if the MIDI implementation is the same then Audition will be ripped apart limb-for-limb by the professional Mac music industry. It could ruin Audition's reputation even on PC for all prospective new customers. So if there are any Audition project leaders or developers reading this - you were warned - either remove the MIDI capability altogether or else fix it and get it right. If you leave it the way it is now you could do irrespirable damage to the entire product, and I'd expect the Mac community to rip it apart on this basis.

The worst thing of all for me has been the huge waste of time. I really don’t mind too much whether Audition has MIDI or not. It would have been wonderful to have a complete solution within Audition but there are other MIDI solutions. What bugs me the most is having put hours and hours into this trying to get it to work, only to eventually realise, with feedback from this forum, than Audition MIDI is a complete dud. I can’t get that time back and time is precious.

Kevin.

[Paul_Ferguson]

I never suggested the 'answer' for you or anybody else was to use Reaper for MIDI.  But that's how I dealt with it.  You, by contrast, seem to have got a bit bitter.

But that's one of the reasons I'm watching for Au 4, for sure.  The MIDI thing, I mean - not how you feel about it.

[Guest]

It's amazong, you can find FREE software around that has better and more MIDI features, stability and not least act more predictable, than Audition's MIDI slab-on implEmentation. Free - but that does not mean un-copyrighted, but heck: I'm sure many of these developers would be happy to receive any check from Adobe for their efforts. And everyone would be happier: developer, users, Adobe accountants. But perhaps not the project manager who somehow had the idea that he wanted to code this himself?!?!?

I, for one, actually welcomed the new feature set, since a simple (but well functioning!) MIDI tool-set would fit my workflow well. DISAPPOINTED!

[jarrmann]

i too agree that adobe is tops with audio  but it's midi functionality is rigid.. it does crash and or take too long...rewire is not half as smooth as it is with Acid and others  i have it on xp and on vista and xp is stronger but midi and adobe are not a perfect pair yet.

i have many years of trouble shooting and production experience ( not bragging) i have 10 hard drives over a million sounds and 22 programs all working very smoothly together even when i midi the two computers together ( each one has a full studio ...1 laptop and one desktop ) the only time i run into midi problems is with audition....sooo yeah they might need to step up their game a bit