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Run Adobe Audition in the Background to Reduce your Microphone’s Background Noise


08 Apr 2017

Recently I have been looking for a way to reduce the background noise my microphone produces. I own a Blue Yeti Microphone mounted on a RODE Arm Stand and I like to keep my microphone fairly far away so its not in my face and doesn’t distract me while I record audio or play video games.

However, at this distance, the microphone unfortunately picks up a lot of background noise including computer fans, outside noises and even small things like picking up/putting down a cup of water.

Part of the Solution

To solve this I found a wonderful video by SaaiTV linked below. I have built onto this solution to make it better but the first thing you should do is follow the Youtube video tutorial and come back here to continue. Keep in mind I am using Adobe Audition CS6 and would recommend you use the same version (it will help later on in this tutorial).

The Problem

If you followed the instructions in the video and are happy with the result, you may want to keep the noise reduction effect so its always on. For recording audio and small tasks, you can simply run Adobe Audition and open your saved session and then close it when you are done. If this is all you want to do then this post won’t help you.

However, if you want to keep the noise reduction effect 24/7 so you can take advantage of it all the time, I will tell you how to run Adobe Audition when your computers boots up in the background so its out of the way.

Rest of the Solution

When you run Adobe Audition in the background keep in mind it will always be running. On my machine (which is quite good), it used 150MB of RAM and 1-3% CPU constantly.

Task Manager Adobe Audition CPU/Memory Usage

This is no issue for me at all but might reduce performance significantly on other machines.

Now, the first thing you want to do is download a program called AutoHotKey from https://autohotkey.com/

Once installed, remember the full path to the  AutoHotkey.exe executable. We will need it later.

In my case, the full path is:

Now, pick a folder on your computer to store a new AutoHotKey script file ( .ahk  file).
In this example I’ll pick:

We are going to put a new file here called  adobe_audition_microphone.ahk. Download the file I have prepared and copy and paste it in this folder: Download Link

Now, open this file using Notepad (or your favourite text editor). You should see this text:

There are a few adjustments you need to make.
Firstly, replace ADOBE_AUDITION_PATH with the path to your Adobe Audition executable. Make sure to keep the quotes around the path intact.
Mine was located at:

Next, replace SESX_PROFILE_FILE with the path to your Adobe Audition session file. This is the session file you should have saved when following the video tutorial. You can copy this file to the same folder as the .ahk  file we are modifying right now.

I called my file Microphone_Noise_Reduction.sesx and moved it to:

Finally, you will need to change  #32770 and  audition5  if you are NOT using Adobe Audition CS6. You can find the correct values to use using AutoHotKeys Window Spy tool. I will not cover that in this post but leave a comment below if you have trouble with this.

Your adobe_audition_microphone.ahk  file should now be complete.
This is what mine looks like when completed:

Make sure to save your changes before exiting your text editor.
Now, perform a little test by double clicking your  adobe_audition_microphone.ahk  file.
If everything is working, it should open up Adobe Audition, and then hide the window once its open.
It should not appear in your taskbar as a minimised window.
Make sure you see Adobe Audition running in Task Manager.

Now go to Windows Sound options, go to the Recording tab, right click on your Virtual Audio Cable Line, click properties, go to the Listen tab and press Listen to this device. You should now hear your microphone output as processed by Adobe Audition. If you do not, then you have done something wrong.

Windows Sounds Listen to this Device

The last step is to make our AutoHotKey script ( C:\MyAhkFolder\adobe_audition_microphone.ahk ) start with Windows so your microphone’s input is always being processed and output to your virtual audio cable.
There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this on the internet.

Here is an easy one to follow:
https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/FAQ.htm#Startup

Good luck!

 
13 Comments

Posted in Programming

 

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  1. Lazar

    June 2, 2017 at 9:59 PM

    Can’t find the # for adobe audition cc 2017. Windows spy only shows the ahk_class as “audition10”

     
    • Mo Beigi

      June 2, 2017 at 10:26 PM

      Okay so what you need to do is first remove lines 5-6 in the script. Run the ahk script which will run audition and make sure its running in the background. Then restart your machine. Open audition manually (or just use your ahk script) again. It should popup with a window which says ‘adobe audition’ didn’t close properly. You can then keep that dialog open and use Window Spy on that to find the proper # for Adobe Audition CC 2017. If the dialog does not popup, there is a chance that the newer audition doesn’t have that popup in which case you can simply remove lines 5-6 altogether.

       
      • Lazar

        June 2, 2017 at 11:14 PM

        Did as you said the number turned out as #32770, same as yours. Thanks!

         
  2. Ahmed

    June 21, 2017 at 6:02 PM

    When my computer is running with this on, it is using roughly 20% of the CPU. This guide is supposed to minimize this, correct? It will start up the program and run the noise reduction in the background without hindering my computer’s performance too much, right?

     
    • Mo Beigi

      June 21, 2017 at 9:35 PM

      No it will likely use the same amount of CPU constantly. I don’t recommend using this on weak PC’s or laptops. Only high end PC’s.

       
      • Ahmed

        July 8, 2017 at 4:43 AM

        OK thank you. I don’t know why I had 20% CPU usage before, but right now its being used stably at around 2-3% of the CPU.

        I have one last question. Whenever I start up my computer and the AutoHotkey program automatically executes, I get a message that says: “A previous session of Audition quit unexpectedly. You may continue the session now, delete it, or cancel to continue the session at another time.” and then obviously it prompts me to Continue, Delete, or Cancel – and I Continue.

        Is there a way to not have to do this every time by maybe editing the hotkey program or something?

        Thanks.

         
        • Mo Beigi

          July 8, 2017 at 9:24 AM

          The guide here covers this, make sure you follow it!

           
  3. Nikolai

    August 23, 2017 at 9:25 AM

    What is the # for Adobe Audition CC and audition(number) ? Pls help 🙁

     
    • Mo Beigi

      August 28, 2017 at 12:26 PM

      See a comment above above steps on finding the number. Lazar mentioned the number for Adobe Audition CC 2017 was #32770.

       
  4. Gabriel

    October 14, 2017 at 11:43 PM

    I do everything as you did but it doesn’t hide audition. Help

     
    • Mo Beigi

      October 21, 2017 at 4:23 PM

      Hmm what step do you have an issue with? What version of Audacity are you using?

       
  5. CozMyN

    November 15, 2017 at 7:53 PM

    How I find the code? I’m using Adobe Audition CC 2018

     
    • Mo Beigi

      November 15, 2017 at 7:59 PM

      Look at one my comments at the top. I explain how to use windows spy to find out the dialog number.