What File Extensions Does Adobe Audition Use?

Adobe Audition 3 is a digital audio workstation software that allows you to record, mix, edit and master sound recordings. An upcoming rival to Avid's Pro Tools, Audition is developed for those interested in creating professional-quality sound for use in digital projects. Audition saves information about a recording session in an .SES file.

About Session Files

Adobe Audition 3 maintains information about a recording session in a session file. Session files have an .SES extension and do not contain any audio data. You can think of a session file as a recipe in a cookbook; it contains all of the instructions for creating a recipe, but the ingredients for making the dish are actually stored in your pantry and refrigerator. Likewise, the instructions for a session (e.g. panning, volume, mute/solo information, location of audio tracks, duration of audio tracks, effects applied to audio tracks) are stored in the session file while the actual audio files are stored in a specified folder on your computer or network.

Before You Create a Session

Create a folder for your session. Creating a new folder for each session is a good way to organize your data; you can save the session and audio files in the same folder. Ensure that you have enough disk space for the project.

Creating a Session

Open Adobe Audition and select "New Session" from the File menu. Set the sampling rate, import audio files and apply settings as you would normally.

Saving the Session

When you are ready to save the session, select "Save As" from the File menu.

Select the folder that you want to copy the session into.

Type the name of the session, then select "Save All Associated Files" to move those files into the session folder. Saving associated files makes copies of the files and stores them all in one place, so they are easier to find later. If you don't do this and if you end up moving the files later, you won't be able to replay the audio.

Select "Save All Copies in the Format" and select the appropriate format. One format to consider is .wav, a non-lossy format that is good for general use; .wav files are usually large, though, which means that you need a lot of disk space. You can always resave files later into another format if needed. Following this article is a list of the types of audio and video files that you can export from Audition.

Click the "OK" button when prompted to save the multitrack session.

Alternatives to Session Files

If you are going to work with other software applications to edit audio files, you can save the file in XML format. XML is a nonproprietary format that is used in a variety of applications. It is text-based and provides an easy way for databases and other applications to share information. The XML file generated by Audition has the same information as the .SES file, but it can be read by many different types of software applications.

References

• Adobe Audition Fact Sheet
• File Formats Supported by Audition
• Creating and Saving a Session File

Resources

• Adobe Audition User's Guide