Pro Tools For Radio Production, Adobe Audition And Google Radio Automation...

[The Weed]

Coming to a radio station near you soon: Google Radio Automation.

Adobe Audition 3.0 is able to create, edit and save Metadata about a file so that it can be dropped directly into some radio automation systems, including Google Radio Automation, which is a "merging" of DCS, Maestro, and Scott Systems. Apparently users can import Adobe Audition WAVE files, including the information found in the Wave Properties - Cart tab. No more playing the file into the Automation System and then filling in the fields with the relevant data. Just put all the information in the file and drop it into the Automation System.

I can see where this would be very appealing to radio stations in terms of speeding up the process of creating commercials and getting them into the Automation System, especially as Adobe Audition allows faster-than-real-time bounce with all effects and automation.

I wonder if Digidesign is watching this closely and at least considering implementing the ability to store the Cart data with the Wave file? Or is Pro Tools use in radio not significant enough that they would care? Of course, the option for faster-than-real-time bounce with all effects and automation is something that's been asked for for a long time. Hopefully, like PDC, it's on their radar.

I have Adobe Audition 3.0, I've taken it for a spin, it's a fine program with a couple of plug-ins that are useful, especially the Tape Stop type one. (That will be taken care of in PT 8.0 with the inclusion in the Digirack plug-ins of the D-Fi bundle.) However, from the little I've used Audition, there are few dealbreakers for me:

1. You can only have 1 plug-in Window open at a time, making it very hard to gain stage and follow the signal through multiple plug-ins;

2. There is no way to group the Automation on tracks. To lower the volume on the mix, you have to lower each track individually. (Please don't suggest I just lower the Master Fader, that's not how I want to lower the volume on a mix.)

3. No Nudge

4. No Pencil Tool, although there is something like it - a Healing Brush.

I'd be interested to know what anyone using Pro Tools for radio production thinks of Google Radio Automation and the ability to drop Wave files with Cart data directly into an Automation System.

Cheers,

[The Weed]

Bump

[The Weed]

Bump to the top.

[The Weed]

Another Bump...

[tonepad]

Hi, I'm just posting to make sure you don't feel completely ignored. Unfortunately I don't work in radio so I can't comment on your otherwise interesting question. I have Audition (I was a Cool Edit Pro beta guy way back in the day)... while I think it is a decent Ap esp. for the money, it ultimately makes me return to PT which is what I use daily anyway (TV/Film Sound Supervisor/Editor). I think you might need to visit some radio-centric Forums (if you haven't already) for real world use of PT for this kind of radio/audio work. It certainly seems that radio types are not here in great numbers, which is curious since PT is ultimately the most universal audio tool in the world. I say this because I've checked just about everything else and it always leads me back to PT.
If you'd care to elaborate on what the needs of the Google spec are maybe someone will be able to chime in here. Certainly I use metadata every week in the form of the OMF files along with the use of Digitranslator, but I have no idea if this is analogous to your specific needs.

Wilson Dyer mpse

[The Weed]

Wilson,

Thanks for the bump. The metadata I was referring to is the Cart data for the automated playout system a radio station would use, be it DCS, Maestro or Scott, but that will be Google Radio Automation in the future. I too think Audition is a nice program and reasonably priced, but I much prefer Pro Tools as well.

Cheers,

[G-Dub]

I am a radio producer using PT. I was a long time Audition user and made the switch a couple years ago. We did use the metadata tool for saving audio to our automation system and I did find it to be a nice time-saver (although at the time there were a few bugs with the two systems communicating).
I personally find PT to be a better editor the Audition and would love it if Didgidesign would create a "Metadata" tool to work with automated systems. Countless hours could be saved from dubbing audio and writing out metadata.

[The Weed]

G-Dub,

Make a feature request.



Cheers,

[Dean Smith]

Hi,

I produce radio stuff in New Zealand and the problem I think you'd have with automatic meta data entry is the number of broadcast systems in use. Throughout our 50+ stations we use Nexgen, Wizard, and Master Control and whilst these products are now all owned by the same company (RCS) I think the play and instruction data of each is layed out a little differently. Adobe audition is an ok thing (a jack of all trades but master of not many ) but all of our engineers here are Pro Tools users and auto meta data or not, I'm quite sure that we wouldn't be that interested in changing.
BTW, our copy depts generally input this data, it's not something that most of us engineers do anyway.

[The Weed]

Dean,

The main three systems here in North America, as far as I know, are DCS, Maestro and Scott and they are all owned by Google and will be merged into one program: Google Radio Automation. A lot of radio stations I'm familiar with have Audition as their main DAW or as a secondary DAW. And any station I've ever been in, the producers play in the dubs and station created spots and enter the meta data provided by traffic, continuity or the copy department manually.

I mentioned in my initial post that I could see a lot of resistance if management wanted to move to Audition because of the Cart Data if Audition wasn't already the DAW in production and especially if the computers in production were Macs. I am interested in people's opinions about the usefulness of being able to enter meta data in the wave file and just drop the file in the playout system and if that would make them consider the switch to AA. I'm also curious if Digidesign feels adding the meta data capability to Pro Tools would be something they would do if enough people asked for it. Then again, to make it truly useful, Pro Tools would need to be capable of faster-than-real-time mix down with all effects and automation. That apparently is on their radar, but will take a complete rewrite of the DAE. Not holding my breatah and neither is anyone else whose been here a while.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

Cheers,