Freda D. CuevasWhether you’re producing a podcast or mixing a film soundtrack, you need the right software for the job. Adobe Audition is one of the best audio editors available. Part of the Creative Cloud suite of software, it’s favored by many professionals and amateur enthusiasts.
Adobe offers many ways to access and pay for its apps, so it’s not always easy to determine the most cost-effective option. In this article, we look at how to download Adobe Audition on a trial basis, the various subscriptions and discounts available, how to get started, and what alternatives you could consider.
Can I download Audition for free?
A seven-day free trial of Audition is available. To access this, go to the main Audition page on Adobe’s website—it’s usually the top search result when you google “Adobe Audition”—and click on Free Trial in the top menu. You can then download the app or choose to trial the entire Creative Cloud suite.
When you sign up for the trial, Adobe will ask for your payment details. You can’t access the trial without giving these, and at the end of it, a paid subscription will automatically begin. You can cancel the subscription at any point during the trial, but make sure to do this if you don’t want to commit to a subscription, or you might end up with a substantial cancellation fee to pay.
Use the trial period to try out all of Audition’s features and decide whether it’s the right audio-editing software for you. Once the seven days are over, you can no longer use Audition for free, and you’ll need a paid subscription to continue with it.
How do I buy Audition?
Clicking Buy Now on the Audition webpage takes you to the pricing options. There are many options available, and all are subscription-based—there is no way to buy the software outright with a one-off fee.
You can choose to subscribe to Audition on its own or as part of the Creative Cloud All Apps package. This includes more than 20 creative apps, including video-editing app Premiere Pro, image-editing app Photoshop, and motion-graphics/VFX app After Effects. The full Creative Cloud subscription will most likely work out cheaper if you’ll use three or more of the included apps.
What’s the price of Audition?
With the standard Audition subscription, you pay a monthly fee of $20.99 / £19.97 / AU$29.99, though you have to commit to paying this for one year at a time. Canceling before the year is complete lands you with a cancellation fee of 50% of your remaining subscription. A monthly subscription without the annual commitment is available for $31.49 / £30.34 / AU$45.99 per month. Or, you can prepay for a year’s subscription for $239.88 / £238.42 / AU$343.07.
Regular users will find the annual subscription to be the most cost-effective. But if you’re likely to only use Audition for occasional projects, it may work out better to sign up for the monthly subscription as and when needed.
With the full Creative Cloud subscription, a similar pricing structure applies: $52.99 / £49.94 / AU$76.99 per month with an annual commitment, $79.49 / £75.85 / AU$114.99 per month with no annual commitment, or $599.88 / £596.33 / AU$871.07 for an entire year.
Note that while these prices were correct at the time of writing, prices outside the US fluctuate regularly with the exchange rates. Also, all subscriptions can be canceled with a full refund within the first 14 days.
Audition discounts for teachers and students
Adobe offers a discount scheme for students and teachers, allowing you to access the whole Creative Cloud suite—Audition, all the other desktop and mobile apps, and 100GB cloud storage—for the price of one app. It costs $19.99 / £16.24 / AU$21.99 per month for the first year, then $29.99 / £25.28 / AU$43.99 per month afterward. As with the usual plans, you’ll need to commit to one year at a time. You can pay for a whole year in advance, but this doesn’t work out any cheaper. Adobe asks for proof of eligibility; using a school-issued email address with your account is the easiest method.
How can I get started with Audition?
As Adobe Audition is an in-depth application packed with many features, it can seem complicated to newcomers. Thankfully, Adobe’s website has a useful selection of tutorials in both written guide and video format. They’re divided into Beginner and Experienced sections, so you can learn the ropes first and then move on to the more complicated stuff.
Audition: Key info you need to know
Adobe Audition is described by its developers as a comprehensive audio workstation. It enables you to edit, mix, record, and restore audio. It integrates with Premiere Pro to simplify the process of mixing audio tracks to go with a video editing project, and it can also be used to clean up audio files, mix music, record podcasts, and more. It’s industry-standard software, used by many professionals, but it’s also a helpful tool for non-professionals looking to learn audio editing or work on amateur projects.
Adobe Audition: Android and iOS apps
Audition is a desktop-only application, and there is no equivalent Adobe software for mobile devices. However, there are alternatives out there if you’re looking for motion-graphics software that works on tablets and phones, such as Hokusai Audio Editor, WavePad, and Lexis Audio Editor. These allow you to edit audio files on the go. That said, if you want precise control over your projects, you’ll be better off with a desktop application, like Audition or its alternatives.
Audition alternatives
If Audition isn’t the right desktop audio editor for you, then plenty of alternatives are available. A popular choice among professionals is Pro Tools, which is an industry-standard suite used for music creation and sound design for TV and film, among other uses. A basic version is available for free, though the standard version costs $29.99 per month, and the ultimate version costs $79.99 per month. Another alternative is Audacity, which is a popular open-source audio-editing platform that’s available to download for free.
