Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro) is a digital audio workstation from Adobe Systems featuring both a multitrack, non-destructive mix/edit environment and a destructive-approach waveform editing view.
Syntrillium Software was founded in the early 1990s by Robert Ellison and David Johnston, both former Microsoft employees. Originally developed by Syntrillium as Cool Edit, the program was distributed as crippleware for Windows computers. The full version was useful and flexible, particularly for its time. Syntrillium later released Cool Edit Pro, which added the capability to work with multiple tracks, as well as other features. Audio processing, however, was done in a destructive manner (at the time, most computers were not powerful enough in terms of processor performance and memory capacity to perform non-destructive operations in real time). Cool Edit Pro v2 added support for real-time nondestructive processing, and v2.1 added support for surround sound mixing and unlimited simultaneous tracks (up to the limit imposed by the actual computer hardware). Cool Edit also included plugins such as noise reduction and FFT equalization.
Adobe purchased Cool Edit Pro from Syntrillium Software in May 2003 for $16.5 million as well as a large loop library called “Loopology”. Adobe then changed the name of Cool Edit Pro to “Adobe Audition”.
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