Where do you turn for Adobe training and reading?

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I am an audio "nut" and that goes way back.  When I was in grade school my classmates "rolled their eyes" over my ability to recite from memory every radio station in listening distance, including dial location, and t some extent program schedule.

Adobe brings us some really great product and I am currently playing with a trial version of Audition CS6.  BUT,  Adobe tends to provide us with help files that really.... well, they...  O.K.  go ahead and say it:  Help Files that really suck!!!!

I have finally accepted the fact that whatever I pay for a computer program these days,  plan on immediately spending at least 150% of that price tag in purchasing books to substitute for what we got a generation ago from the help files.

Adobe produces a lot of software that will never sell in the quantities of say a WORD or EXCEL so they need some revenue from books and traveling seminars to keep their revenue sources balanced...  I assume.

Here is the problem as I see it.  Audio is a niche market.  I go into Barnes and Noble and I find rows of books on cameras.  Rows of books on computer programming.  Magazines on all-of-the-above!  But audio?  The available on-the-shelf books on how to do audio is somewhere down in the noise level between slim and none.  And I am very reluctant to mail-order technical books because too many times I have found that I just paid 59.95 to get a bound copy of the useless help files of a program.

//*****RANT MODE OFF  *****//

I don't do this for a living, and don't have an employer who is going to foot the bill:  I can't plan on traveling to Orlando or Las Vegas to take a $595 3-day seminar on "how to". 

What do the rest of you turn to in order to conquer and discover all the features in a program like Audition.  Do you talk to each other on the phone? 

There must be something I am overlooking.  Surely there are some affordable resources that are low hanging fruit in the tree of knowledge.  I have worked with this concept since the days of Cool Edit 96 and I can clean up lectures, seminars and sermons with the best of them.  But the CS5.5 and CS6 version have me treading water and gasping for air!

Point me to some of your favorite "learning holes" before I am driven to drink at some favorite "watering holes".   

[yugoidar]

GRC. there's a FREE 364 page User Guide (PDF) available on the Adobe site that should be very helpful.  Here's the link:

http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/audition/win/2.02/audition_user_guide.pdf

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

GRC. there's a FREE 364 page User Guide (PDF) available on the Adobe site that should be very helpful.  Here's the link:

http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/audition/win/2.02/audition_user_guide.pdf

Do I gather this is the uers guide for Audition 2.0?  I couldn't find in the document where it specified date or version number, but the download link contained 2.02 in the URL.

That is the version of Audition that I have used for some time now and I have learned my way around it well enough to find most of what I am looking for.  Going through this document may reveal some new things to me.

What I am looking for right now is a comparable document for Audition CS5.5 and Audition CS6.  I will dig through the Adobe site some to see what I can find.  If you have found it...  please share the link.

Thanks.

[bobbybooey]

Check YouTube for user-made tutorials... when I was learning the video-editing side of Vegas I'd go to YouTube and search "Sony Vegas (whatever I was trying to find out about)" and there were usually a handful of decent options to choose from.  I would imagine Audition would have similar user video tutorials.

[robnokshus06]

bobbybooey is right on target. Youtube has become the library of the 21st century. I got tossed into a situation last year where I had to run Pro Tools after not having touched the program in 8-years. I could never find the other Pro Tools producer in the building when I would get stuck, so I turned to the source I've come to rely on when I need to fix my car or computer or whatever... Youtube. Saved my ass on several occassions!

[CasualMat]

Play.  I just play.  I listen to other people's imaging and try and replicate what I hear.

Or I just blatantly ask them, but where's the fun in that (unless of course you're under a deadline and really, really want a certain technique in the piece).

Find geeky groups on Facebook to join, read blogs like RyanOnTheRadio and the Benztown blog.  They show a lot of screenshots and talk at great length about plugins, settings, etc.

[rockradio1017]

CasualMat... I'm right up 76.  should send you some audio.. We can swap techniques.

[VODood]

There's also a Radio & Imaging Production forum on Facebook with many of today's hottest imaging producers who are more than willing to share tips n tricks, studio setups, etc.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/radio.production/?ref=ts