Audio Recording

This is an important tutorial regarding the management of DirectX plug-in in Adobe audition or Cool Edit Pro. This tutorial is tested to work on earlier versions of Adobe audition such as version 1.5. As an overview, a DirectX plug-in is an add-in for the software that will let you add new sound, mixing and mastering effects to Adobe audition which are not included as built-in tools bundled with the recording software.

Take note that this tutorial for DirectX plug-in users’ only and not applicable to VST plug-in. Managing the Directx plug-in can take the following steps:

1.) Adding the plug-in.
2.) Activating the plug-in.
3.) Removing the plug-in.

Before you can use any plug-in using Adobe audition, whether it is free or commercial plug-in; you need to add and activate the plug-in. For details, you can read this tutorial on how to install, load and add a DirectX plug-in in Adobe Audition.

The difficulty starts when you decide to remove the plug-in. At times, it is necessary to remove the plug-in because of the following reasons:

1.) The plug-in is found out to be incompatible with Adobe audition.
2.) The plug-in contains a lot of features which you do not exactly need.
3.) It is found out to be not useful in your daily recording, mixing and mastering activities.
4.) It causes some technical issues with Adobe audition.
5.) It causes Adobe audition to crash every time you are using the plug-in.

Bear in mind that there are a lot of open source/free DirectX plug-ins out there in the Internet, you can search it easily in Google. The problem with this too many plug-ins, there are a lot of them that are badly written that cause some operational issues with its usage. Make sure to check out for some reviews from the users before proceeding to install the plug-in.

In Adobe audition 1.5 (I do not know with the latest version), it is not simple to remove the DirectX. I read the documentation and they recommend using third party tools to manage and remove the Directx plug-in such as DXMan. Below are the complete steps on how to remove a Directx plugin:

1.) Download AnalogX: www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/dxman.htm
2.) Install the software into your computer.
3.) To launch the software, go to Start – All programs – AnalogX – DXMan – DXMan.
4.) What you will see next is the list of active DirectX programs in your system found by DXMan. Take note that these DirectX programs may NOT be used by Adobe audition but are used by other programs/software in Windows. See screenshot below:

5.) Before you can remove any plug-in, you need to “exactly” know its name. If you are not sure, launch Adobe Audition or Cool edit pro. For the sake of illustration, supposing I will remove “Antares Tube” DirectX plug-in, see below:

6.) You need to find a Directx plug-in with name “Antares Tube” under DXMan menu. Select on it and then click “Remove” button. See below:

7.) Once removed, click done. DX Man will automatically remove all its information on the Windows registry making the removal of DirectX plug-in very easy and quick. You can as well find more information about any specific DirectX plug-in by clicking “Info” or “Properties”.

WARNING: Double check before you will remove any DirectX programs using DX Man and do not remove any DirectX application you do not surely know. It is because you might accidentally remove some critical DirectX programs used by your Windows system and if removed, you Windows OS may get corrupted. This program does not have any undo feature, you need to manually re-install the removed DirectX application or use your Windows system restore function.