Adding Punch & Roll to Adobe Audition

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Just like my scripts that add this functionality to both TwistedWave and Audacity, it is possible to get Audition to do a basic Punch & Roll.

My script is written for Mac OSX, it should be possible to implement a similar script on Windows using a program called Auto HotKey.

1. On your Mac, please click here to download my script.

2. Once that is complete, double click to open the file. It should open on your computer using AppleScript Editor.

3. When opening, it will probably ask you to locate the Adobe Audition program. Browse through your Applications Folder and find the right executable. (NOTE: This will change “Adobe Audition” listed below to reflect the exact name of your file. example: “Adobe Audition CC 2014”)

The AppleScript Editor window should show you the following code:

tell application "Adobe Audition"
   activate
   tell application "System Events"
      keystroke "m" -- add a marker
      keystroke "m" using {option down} -- custom keystroke to toggle Mute
      keystroke "j" -- scrub backward
      delay 5 -- wait 5 seconds
      keystroke "k" -- stop scrub
      keystroke "m" using {option down} -- custom keystroke to toggle Mute
      keystroke " " -- play audio
      delay 5 -- wait 5 seconds
      keystroke " " using {shift down} -- start recording
   end tell
end tell

You can see that I added a Custom Keystroke to toggle Mute. This is to prevent you from hearing Audition scrub during its rewind. If you would like to add this custom shortcut, please follow instructions from Adobe found here. If you don’t mind hearing the scrub, leaving this code in has no negative effects.

4. At this point, open Adobe Audition and create a new session.

5. Record about 30 seconds of audio into your new session.

6. Place the cursor at the point that you’d like to do a pickup.

7. Press the Run button on the AppleScript Editor window.

Audition will now rewind 5 seconds, playback the 5 seconds of Pre-Roll audio, then start recording from where you placed the cursor.

To modify the length of the Pre-Roll feel free to change “delay 5” to your desired value. Remember to make both values identical, or the script will no longer work as designed.

Congratulations! You’ve just done Punch & Roll in Adobe Audition! 😉

If you would like to assign a Keyboard Shortcut to the script, use this same script and follow the directions given here for TwistedWave.

Please note that this script is leveraging functions that are already built into Audition. I am not adding any new functionality. And, be aware that scripts like these will never be as smooth as native functionality within an application.

Feel free to post your questions or improvements below.

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