Best Audio Enhancer: Audacity vs. Adobe Audition

How do you feel when the audio you are hearing sounds noisy and hazy? Sickening, right? When you produce audio, maybe a recording, music, or any other kind of sound, it’s likely for the audio to contain ambient noise. But you won’t feel good hearing the audio with noise.

Neither would you like to circulate the audio among your known ones, let alone commercialize it. What’s the way out then? Well, you have to edit and enhance your audio. If you hunt for audio editors or audio enhancers online, you will find a bunch of them.

But they don’t have what it takes to be premium audio editors.  Some of them don’t offer the quality that they promise. But two of the audio enhancers that deserve to be highlighted are Audacity and Adobe Audition.

But the question is- which is the best between the two? Well, that’s what we will decipher in this comparison write-up. We will take a look at the features & benefits, pros & cons, price, and other key factors to determine which one between Adobe Audition and Audacity wins the race!

Let’s kick off the battle between the champions. Audacity vs. Adobe Audition, head-to-head comparison-

A Quick Overview of Audacity and Adobe Audition

Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio and music recording as well as editing software. The software lets users edit and process different types of recorded audio files. Audio noise removal, sound adjustment, and effects addition, all of these can be executed by Audacity.

Effects include audio trimming, mixing, normalization, fading in or out, and so forth. If you are hunting for a free audio recorder and editor, Audacity undoubtedly is a cracking choice.

When it comes to Adobe audition, it’s a premium audio recorder and editor, unlike Audacity. Adobe Audition is a digital audio workstation that can do some magnificent audio and music editing and enhancement works. It has an exhaustive toolset including waveform, multitrack, and spectral display.

Adobe Audition is robust and comprehensive letting users carry out video post-production, audio restoration, sound removal, noise reduction, and so on. Audition is a cracker of a tool for professionals like podcasters and bloggers. If you are looking for studio-quality audio sound, Adobe Audition can be an excellent choice.

Interface Comparison:

Interface-wise, both Audacity and Adobe Audition are different. While Adobe Audition offers a sleek intuitive and catchy design interface, Audacity’s interface looks a bit old-fashioned.

Adobe Audition boasts some distinctive options like radio production mode, waveform editor, file properties, help section, and so forth.

On the other hand, Audacity also has quite a few options like microphone & speaker, playback loop, volume bars, project rate, etc.

Core Features:

Both Adobe Audition and Audacity have a bunch of common features. But they have some differences too in terms of features. Let’s take a look at the noteworthy features of both the audio applications-

Adobe Audition:

Interface with High Customizability: Apart from having a striking interface, Audition’s interface is highly customizable, letting you add, remove, and modify sections to suit your style and choice.

Compatible with other Adobe Products: Adobe Audition is compatible with other Adobe apps. For instance, you can transmit Premiere Pro sequences to Audition. Aside from that, you can also export audio from Audition to Premiere Pro and Media Encoder.

Radio Show Production: Adobe Audition has a distinct editing mode for radio programs.

Single Window for all projects: The audio editing program supports handling multiple recordings in one window.

Higher Number of Removing Options:  The audio cleaning and precision tool come with a whole lot of quick background noise remover options.

Audacity:

Last Edit Repeatability: Audacity has a fantastic option to repeat the last process. The option shows up at the top of the effect menu once an effect has been employed.

Meta Tags Insertion: Prior to exporting the file, you will get an option to insert the file details, like artist name, album title, track title, and year.

Identical Features between Audacity and Adobe Audition:

Edit History: Both Audacity and Adobe Audition offer the option to view as well as restore the edit history.

Availability of Audio Effects: Effects are essential for audio enhancement and both these top-grade audio enhancement tools feature effects.

Markers & Shortcuts Alteration: Both these audio software let you inject markers along with tweaking shortcuts.

Usability:

Audacity is super intuitive to open and commence recording. You can view drop-down menus on the main window. From there, you can select the microphone, headphone, and speaker that you wish to record and listen audio.

On top of that, you can also take advantage of sliders letting you set your recording and playback volumes. Besides, you can leverage level meters to monitor your signals.

When it comes to Audition, selecting a mic and setting your levels before hitting record isn’t as simple as Audacity. To carry out this, you have to move ahead to your Audio Hardware settings inside the Preferences menu.

This shows ease-of-use with Audition isn’t like Audacity. It has a bit of complexity that you have to encounter while leveraging the tool.

Effects Comparison:

Both Audacity and Adobe Audition offer tons of effects that would blow you away. Some of the effects are common while others are different. Between the two, Audition offers more features as compared to Audacity.

In Adobe Audition, you will find the effects classified in a navigation menu. However, Audacity showcases effects alphabetically.

Some of the remarkable effects of Audacity include Amplify, Change Pitch, Distortion, Echo, Fade In, Fade Out, Invert, Noise Reduction, Loudness Normalization, High Pass Filter, and Low Pass Filter. Barring these, Audacity features plenty of other effects totaling 50+ effects.

When it comes to Adobe Audition, it has 70+ effects, yeah, way more than Audacity. But it’s also a point that Adobe Audition is a premium audio tool. Some of the breathtaking effects of Audition include Generate Noise, Generate Speech, Match Loudness, Amplify, Dynamics Processing, Channel Mixer, DeClipper, Graphics Equalizer, Hiss Reduction, and Doppler Shift.

Multitracking Feature:

It happens regularly that you stop recording and start recording again, right? What Audacity does is it automatically creates a new track below your original track. When you work with multiple tracks, it’s simply known as a multitrack mode.

Audacity has few compatible devices and is unable to record multiple microphones onto separate tracks at once. You will require extra driver or soundcard support.

Audition, unlike Audacity, functions on one single audio track at once until you select the Multitrack option below the main toolbar. On top of that, other audio files that you import into Audition won’t automatically get added to the session. Rather, these will be cataloged in the File window.

Audition’s multitrack function is robust and easy to use. If you use the right preamp or mixer, you can record multiple microphones onto individual tracks at the same time.

What about Editing & Mixing?

When it comes to editing and mixing, which one wins the battle, Audition or Audacity? Well, if your aim is to build an episode, Audition outperforms Audacity easily. If you are working with a lot of files, Audacity can come nowhere close to Audition.

The editing tools you get within Audition’s multitrack provide you the capacity to split and stretch in a snap. They also let you overlap and shuffle clips around in the best possible way.

What about “destructive” and “non-destructive” editing? You must have about these terms.  These identify whether edits are being made by modifying the source material or not.

Destructive modifications are irreversible whereas non-destructive edits don’t tweak the source material whatsoever. So, if you goof up with any part of your audio edit, it won’t cause you massive damage as you can always go back to your source file.

Even though Audacity comes with an option to create copies of files prior to kicking off an editing project, it’s no doubt tough to work in a non-destructive manner when compared to editing and touching up in Audition.

Do Limiting & Normalization Work Well:

Both Audacity and Audition have limiting and normalization functions. These functions you can leverage to modify and regulate your audio’s volume level.

Limiting refers to setting an upper limit on how high the loudest parts of your waveform can peak. Normalization, however, lets you put up or put down the overall level of your waveform without altering its shape.

When it comes to Audition and Audacity’s Normalization functions, they are somewhat similar and also super simple to use.

But when it comes to limiting, Audition’s Hard Limiter clips off or flattens peaks to 1/10^th of a decibel. An identical tool is available in Audacity but it’s a bit old-fashioned. Besides, it’s difficult to use owing to the lack of detail on the audio track’s dB scale.

Noise Removal Capacity:

Noise reduction and removal functions by minimizing and eliminating unnecessary sound or buzz in audio. Noise removal feature is able to identify any background noise and tries to iron out the noise without affecting the audio parts that you want to keep.

The noise removal processes are somewhat identical in both Audition and Audacity. In Audition, you simply right click on your highlighted area and select “Capture Noise Print”. However, Audacity asks you to go through the Noise Removal effect option and click “Get Noise Profile”.

Always remember that audio production doesn’t follow any one-size-fits-all answer. Still, it’s way easier to notch up better outcomes with Audacity’s default noise reduction settings.

But that doesn’t mean that Audition lags behind rather, it has another trick up its sleeve. And that’s Adaptive Noise Reduction feature which you can apply when you have files in your multitrack. The specialty of this noise reduction feature is it eliminates noise as your audio plays.

Saving Projects and Sessions:

When it comes to saving works, both Audacity and Audition have different attributes for it. In Audacity, you will save your work as a “project” whereas, in Audition, you will save it as a “session”.

But “Save” and “Save As” rules apply here for both these incredible audio editors and recorders. When you save an Audacity project for the first time, it will create an Audacity Project File (.aup), and a separate folder containing the project’s data.

However, if you save an Audition session, it will create a folder for the session and its materials altogether. The actual Adobe Audition Session File (.sesx) you will find inside that folder where you can open up your save.

Another interesting fact about both Audition sessions and Audacity projects is Audition sessions tend to take up way lesser space than their Audacity project counterparts. This is because of the methods and locations either of them stores their data.

What about Exporting an MP3 File?

Once you are done putting your episode together, you would naturally wish to export it as an MP3 before uploading it for your target audience to hear.

As far as Audition is concerned, this can be done rapidly and easily. All you have to do is just select a bitrate, add a name for your file, and mix it down.

However, Audacity is bit tricky as there are a couple of one-off barriers you have to encounter. You have to download and install an additional program called the LAME encoder.

Can you guess why exporting is a walk in the park in Audition but not in Audacity? Well, it’s due to licensing as we have already mentioned that Audition is premium audio software while Audacity is an open-source one.

Performance Comparison:

Based on the above description, we can easily conclude that Adobe audition is miles ahead as compared its counterpart Audacity. Especially, with the wide range of effects and features it offers, they are just mind-blowing.

Whether it’s multitracking, noise reduction, editing & mixing, limiting & normalization, or other aspects, Audition entirely edges out Audacity. No doubt, Audacity has some majestic features that give a good fight too. But eventually, Adobe Audition comes out victorious between the two.

Price:

Adobe Audition: Monthly cost-$31.99. An Annual Plan paid on a monthly basis drops to $20.99. The prepaid annual cost or annual cost if billed upfront is $239.88.

Audacity: Completely free-of-charge. It’s available to download on demand.

Final Winner: Adobe Audition

Make your Choice…

This write-up has declared Adobe Audition as the winner of the battle of two champions- Adobe Audition and Audacity. We have worked with different features and effects of this splendid audio recorder and editor.

Based on our assessment, Audition outpaces Audacity by miles in terms of editing, cleaning, and recording quality. But at the same time, we also pointed out some standout features of Audition too. Now, it’s time for you to make your choice!

If you are a newbie, you may get satisfied with the free software Audacity as you don’t require a whole lot of advanced features. However, if you are a pro, you would definitely need Adobe Audition to nail your audio recording or editing projects.