How to Easily Record Sounds in Adobe Audition CS5.5

Ever needed a quick audio file for a movie but didn't know how to work your program?! With this Instructable, I will teach you how to make a quick audio file in Adobe Audition CS5.5 in under 5 minutes! All you need is 

• A USB Microphone
• Adobe Audition CS5.5
• Your voice

It's that simple! Are you ready? Let's begin! 

First things first is we need to start up a new audio file. Audition will start you up on a blank, empty screen, so you can't record just yet.  It should look like the picture below. What you need to do here is click "File", hover over "New" then click "Multitrack Session" or hit the key combo Ctrl + M. You will then get a balloon asking what you want to name your file and where to save it's contents. Do these accordingly to your preferences and move onto the next step.

Now that we have our session started up, let's begin the quick prep work. Click on the small letter box "R" in any of the tracks to prep that track for recording. (The button is highlighted in the yellow circle below, in case you cannot find it). Your USB mic should be plugged in by this point to have something to record with. Below all of the tracks are a basic set up of buttons with "Play", "Loop", "Fast Forward" and more, like any old tapedeck. Hit the round, Red, record button to start recording. Record what you will then hit the stop button. Easy as that. 

Here is the part that a lot of people, (myself once included) have problems with. How to save your sounds you just made as an MP3 file. What you need to do is hit "File", hover over "Export" then hover over "Multitrack Mixdown" then hit the last button, "Entire Session". This will open up one last balloon asking you what you want to name it, where you want to save it, and select what file format to save it as.  Complete the following items then save. And your done! Congrats, you just made your own sound file, ready to use for a movie or any other project you may have!