How to get the Adobe Audition cursor to stay still?

April 30, 2008 4:52 PM

How can I make the cursor stay in the right place to mark something in Adobe Audition?

I have been searching for this answer on the internet for a while, and within Adobe Audition manuals, but so far no luck.

When playing a wave in Audition, I usually use the space bar to stop/start. I want to be able to press stop and make the cursor stay exactly at that moment in time. This never happens though -- the cursor always returns to the beginning of the file.

Has anyone else had this problem? In order to drop markers, do splits, and other editing the file has to be STOPPED rather than PAUSED. However, I find the only way to get the cursor to stay in the same place is to pause it. Whenever I press stop it seems to send the cursor back to the beginning of the file.

If anyone knows what I'm talking about or knows a solution I would greatly appreciate it!

posted by Flying Squirrel to computers & internet (7 comments total)

If it still works like cooledit hitting f8 drops a marker while its playing.
posted by thylacine at 5:37 PM on April 30 [1 favorite]

I've been wondering the same damn thing and thylacine is right on! I just tried it and f8 will drop as many markers as you want.
posted by snsranch at 6:12 PM on April 30

Did you mean "The cursor always returns to where it started?" That's what happens in Audition for me, and is what I'd consider to be "proper" editor behavior. If you start playback at 1:32.483 and run until 1:55.293, when you hit stop, it'll return to 1:32.483. What you want, though is for the cursor to stay at 1:55.293?

In Pro Tools, it's called "Timeline insertion after playback." That might help you google what you're looking for, but frankly, I don't think Audition can do this. I just went through every setting in my version (1.5), and didn't see anything that would do that.

Vegas does this, but as someone who edits audio all day, I find it to be an extremely annoying "feature," and turn it off whenever possible.

My first thought is that you're editing in some non-standard way - I, for the life of me, cannot think of a good reason for that option to be on. If you want, I can walk you through some basic edits, and maybe help you not to need that option. That might be too much for askme, though.
posted by god hates math at 6:21 PM on April 30

Also, are you talking single-track, or multi-track? I don't think it matters, but it'd be nice to know, either way.
posted by god hates math at 7:09 PM on April 30

Thanks for the quick answers! I'm talking single-track, although it's the same as in multitrack. I have been using Audition for a few years now and figured there must be a setting to change somewhere but have never found it.

I train new volunteers at a campus radio station and I've just found it comes up a lot -- the student gets frustrated and I've been trying to find a solution. Dropping markers helps, but it would be really helpful to just make the cursor stop where you've paused it -- just as god hates math is saying.

I find that I'm usually able to just eyeball it and am better at recognizing the patterns in the waves, but for someone just learning it would end a lot of frustration...
posted by Flying Squirrel at 7:15 PM on April 30

flying squirrel, it might be easier to train them on how to use the zoom to be able to see what they are looking for in the graphical wave. They'll get better results.

Also try this workflow, might be easier for the new people to grasp. I'm assuming they are cutting out actualities from a source? Have them view the entire clip and listen to it. Have them remember the rough beginning and end of the wanted material. Then select that rough area, always going a little bigger than that they want. Then copy to new. Now they've got less to work with, and can zoom into the beginning to trial-and-error where the right cut point should be. When I was getting started with it, I would just sort of nibble off chunks until I got the right spot. Click a spot, hit play. If that's almost right, I'd click in a spot that's close and "swipe" the mouse to the left and cut off the part I don't need. Zoom in and try again.
posted by gjc at 7:57 PM on April 30

Yeah, I get what you're saying - it's been a while since I couldn't tell by the waveform, but I can see how it would be frustrating. Personally, I use a similar method to gjc - basically, I always have my left pinky above shift, to extend/shrink the selected region, and I've found that using the scroll wheel for zoom is key. Basically -

1. Find the inpoint. Place the cursor. Zoom out.
2. Play the clip until the outpoint. Stop playback, hold shift, and make a rough cursor placement. Zoom in, hold shift, and make a fine cursor placement.

Those 2 workflows will pretty much give you the clip you're looking for.

Alternatively, for those who are really bad at recognizing waveforms, you can reverse it, so you can audition your outpoint first, then place the cursor, and then roll back to the inpoint, which allows you to repeatedly audition/adjust the inpoint.
posted by god hates math at 8:16 PM on April 30 [1 favorite]