Syntrillium Cool Edit Pro
Reviewed by Tony Thomas
Several years ago, after building my first DAW, I heard about a program called Cool Edit. It was a shareware program that offered considerable editing power at a very low price. I was intrigued by the program (then version 1.53) and ended up becoming a registered user. In fact, I have used it as one of my primary editors for several years and have been completely satisfied with it.
Right after Windows '95 came out, Cool Edit '96 arrived sporting 32-bit code and some new features. (Incidentally, the shareware version of Cool Edit and Cool Edit '96 are still available on Syntrillium's web site.) Even when the shareware versions were catching on with the DAW crowd, rumors abounded about Cool Edit Pro, a multi-track version of the popular editor. Everyone wondered if it would be as good as the original.
I wondered the same thing as I loaded up the CD-ROM and installed it on my hard drive. Since I was already quite familiar with Cool Edit's interface, I decided to try to perform some productive tasks with the program without even looking at the manual (which is on the CD-ROM to save a forest or two). I had some syndicated radio programs to produce and Cool Edit Pro seemed like the perfect tool for the task.
My first impression of the program is that, like its predecessor, it is very logically laid out and was very intuitive to use. All the functions that you need are accessible from pull down menus and there are a lot of functions to choose from. There isn't very much you can't do with Cool Edit Pro because of its rich feature set and support for Direct X plug-ins. I had a chance to use many if not most of its functions and audio processing and was extremely impressed with results. The parametric EQ and dynamics processing tools are especially impressive. They give you the ability to "dial in" any sound that you need. I feel that they are as good as many dedicated hardware devices-a rare attribute for software-based processing. Although
many of the effects are destructive, you can preview most of them and an multi-level undo function is available.Also, even Cool Edit Pro lacks the flashy console-like interface that comes standard on many integrated MIDI/audio packages, you can mix with a tremendous amount of precision by drawing amplitude and pan envelopes non-destructively. While this may sound tedious and complicated, I found it to be a pretty straightforward and powerful procedure. It is far easier to perform a exact ten second fade by drawing an envelope that pulling down a virtual fader with a mouse. And using a mouse, those console interfaces are quite impractical anyway.
Producing the programs was a delight with Cool Edit Pro. It supports the multiple sound cards in my system and the multiple inputs and outputs on my Yamaha SW1000XG audio card. I could route individual tracks to different cards or outputs and even record from multiple sources at the same time. The program stores all the original source files in their native file formats and uses a separate file for the multitrack mix (which basically consists of "pointers" for true non-destructive editing). It also supports 64-tracks of digital audio on even a minimal machine thanks to its pre-mix buffering scheme.
Cool Edit Pro is a professional audio editing application - professional in every sense of the word. I found it to be a rock-solid production tool for mission-critical production tasks.
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- Copyright 1999 by Tony Thomas
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- Techtrends 7/16/99
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