Here’s a great tip for any podcasters using Adobe Audition. Since I started using Garageband on my Macbook a few weeks ago, I have come to enjoy the wonderful “ducking” tool that is built into GB. Ducking automatically dips the volume of your backing music when someone starts talking in another track, and then lifts the volume again when the vocal track stops or there is some silence. It’s very cool. And it made we wonder why I had never seen that tool before in Audition which costs about $1600. Sure enough, there doesn’t seem to be a ducking effect in Audition. There is, however, a free plug-in that will do the trick for you. I’m using it now while I edit a particularly troublesome show and it’s saved me hours. Literally.

Fortunately, someone has already written step-by-step instructions on how to download, install and configure the plug-in. The guide is written for Audition 1.5 but worked fine for me in 2.0. Check out the ducking in Adobe Audition guide here.