Cool Edit Pro: Hissy record or playback in Multitrack View.

If your recordings sound unusually noisy when you record in the Multitrack view of Cool Edit Pro or Cool Edit 2000 (Studio Plugin), you are most likely using a sound card (like the Sound Blaster AWE64) that cannot simultaneously play and record at 16 bits (known as "full duplex recording").. Such sound cards can only play 8-bit and record 16-bit or record 16-bit and play 8-bit at the same time.

The Multitrack view of Cool Edit Pro and Cool Edit 2000 (Studio Plugin) always operate in full-duplex mode, whereas the Edit View always operates in half-duplex mode. So if your recordings sound fine when you record in Edit view, but noisy when you record in Multitrack view, then you probably have a card with this full-duplex limitation.

The extra hiss, noise, or static you hear occurs because 8-bit recordings are inherently more moisy than 16-bit recordings. Usually, Cool Edit will automatically detect your sound card type and set up Multitrack view recording to record in 16-bit and playback in 8-bit (since they can't run in 16-bit/16-bit in full duplex mode). This is desirable, because as long as the recordings are always made at 16 bits, the audio quality remains high, even though the playback monitoring sounds noisy. If you suspect Cool Edit is still recording at 8 bits, try this:

• Select Options > Settings > Multitrack.
• Set both "Open Order" and "Start Order" to "Rec, Play". This will cause CEP multitrack to record 16-bit and playback 8-bit for optimum recording quality.
• If instead you want optimum playback quality in Multitrack view, then:
• Set both "Open Order" and "Start Order" to "Play, Rec". This will cause the multitrack view to record 8-bit and playback 16-bit.
• At any time you can switch this order and you don't even have to restart the program or your machine.
• Note that you can instead simply do all of your recording in Edit view. Because Cool Edit operates in half-duplex mode when in Edit view, all recording and playback occurs at 16bits.
• If you require full-duplex 16-bit functionality, you should buy a new sound card. Any full duplex sound card will do. One inexpensive solution is the Montego A3DXStream PCI Sound Card. You can find this card for about £39.95.
• If you require professional audio recording quality, consider a high-end card like the Marc 2, Marc 4 MIDI, DSP Factory etc... These cards offer a range of capabilities like multitrack recording and digital I/O, and they typically cost between about £200 and £500

Back to Cool Edit Pro FAQs