Cool Edit (highly recommended! Professional audio production software, if you have any questions about its use, you can ask me, I am QQ: 195279185, always invisible)

Cool Edit, it is also It is a recording software with a wide user base and high popularity in China. Its advantage is that it combines both single-track recording and multi-track recording modes (although some multi-track recording software can also perform single-track audio editing, but it is not as convenient as Cool Edit), which means that single-track can be edited with a simple button. and multi-track mode switching, and does a great job at both. Many users who use Flash to design animations and use Authorware to create multimedia CDs like to use Cool Edit for sound effects processing and vocal recording. This seems to have become a habit. They affectionately call it "Cool Edit", which you can see. Cool Edit is a multi-faceted and all-round "star". Later, we will use Cool Edit Pro 1.2 (hereinafter referred to as Cool Edit) as an example to give you a more detailed introduction. Figure 9: Cool Edit Pro with both single-track/multi-track recording functions. Well, after the stars appear on stage, what is waiting for is an exciting competition. It should be pointed out in advance that the following comparison is not a software evaluation, because in terms of performance, Sound Forge is definitely far better than GoldWave and Cool Edit, and Vegas and Sonar are definitely not rivals of Sam2496 and Nuendo, and what we have here is This is not the purpose of competition, our starting point is practicality! Since different users have different requirements for recording, we provide them with a reference plan for choosing these software for these different levels of users. At the same time, when comparing different aspects of these software, you can also learn the most basic methods of using them. It really kills two birds with one stone, why not? Come with me!

2. Single-track recording, who can compete? In the competition of single-track recording software, several of our players - Sound Forge, WaveCN, GoldWave, WaveLab - have already appeared. They will compete in the following rounds, and we will also give Come up with the "referee's opinion" that best suits your needs (this is the author's summary recommendation for vomiting blood). Round 1. Recording quality Since we are going to use them to record, the first and most important thing is the recording quality. If the recording is terrible, it means nothing no matter how good it is in other aspects. After all, sound quality comes first. When recording the same sound clip with a microphone, we basically can't feel the difference between the four of them. When playing back, the real effect of the sound can be reproduced more faithfully. If we use a spectrum software (that is, software that can graphically represent various characteristic parameters of sound, so that our judgment has a more scientific basis), such as Pinguin Audio Meter (PG-AM), we can still observe the difference in their sound quality. of. The sound recorded with Sound Forge is moist, full and yet clear. It performed well in various index tests of PG-AM (as shown in Figure 10). It is undoubtedly the best choice to ensure sound quality. In fact, the author's long-term research and comparison found that the internal audio algorithm used by Sound Forge is indeed the best. For the same operation, Sound Forge has a better direct impact on the sound than other similar software. This is something Sonic Foundry is proud of. It is indeed invincible and unrivaled! Figure 10: After testing with PG-AM, it was found that Sound Forge has the best recording sound quality. As for the recording sound quality of the other three software, WaveLab is also very professional. The quality of all Steinberg recording software products is still very guaranteed. WaveLab is no exception; WaveCN and GoldWave follow. After all, the internal audio algorithm is a very complex process. Judge's opinion: Round 1 - In the battle of recording quality, Sound Forge won.

Although ordinary users may not be able to hear the difference between them, for professional-level users who seek quality, Sound Forge is the first choice! Round 2. Running environment: An excellent software can be used in various environments and works stably. Compared with these four softwares, WaveCN 1.4 is the smallest in size, with only one installation file. 1.1M, can be installed on a floppy disk, easy to carry. GoldWave 4.16 is also very small, its main file is only 1.4M, and it is the only green software among these four software that does not require installation. In comparison, the installation capacity of Sound Forge and WaveLab of more than 10M is slightly bloated, and it is not convenient for dissemination on the network. On the other hand, from the hardware requirements of each software, Sound Forge is undoubtedly the highest. Running Sound Forge for recording operations while opening multiple other software can easily cause a crash. The reason is also that its calculation will Consumes a lot of CPU resources. And WaveLab is not a fuel-efficient lamp. Computers below Celeron 300 are basically unable to play, so WaveCN and GoldWave are much better, especially GoldWave. The characteristics of green software determine that illegal operations will not occur at any time. Mistakes are indeed valuable! Judge's opinion: Round 2 - In the running environment competition, GoldWave won with 4.16. Its magic weapon to win lies in its compact software capacity and zero-time installation, and it can run freely on low-configuration computers. It has special practical value for friends who don’t have much money in their pockets! Round 3. Difficulty of operation. The more powerful the function, the more complicated the operation is! This principle is also common in recording software, which can be seen from the menu commands of each software. Sound Forge undoubtedly daunts all beginners. Its complicated and lengthy menu commands give people a dazzling feeling. Often a simple operation will be searched repeatedly in various main menus and submenus, which is time-consuming and laborious. Similar to Sound Forge, there is WaveLab. Although the menu commands are slightly streamlined, for friends who are not familiar with the operation of audio software, it is still not so smooth to operate when facing a full screen of E-texts. For ordinary users, it is best to choose GoldWave and WaveCN with the operation interfaces in this article. The former is, after all, the Chinese version of the English software. During the Chineseization process, the Chinese translations of many grammars and entries are not accurate. Although it can help us understand the usage of the software, But for users with higher requirements, it feels a bit inferior. The latter, WaveCN, is completely different. It is a Chinese recording software written by Chinese people. Various professional music terms and vocabulary are explained quite well. The menu commands and mouse operations are also very simple, allowing beginners to learn in a very short time. Learn how to use it. Figure 11: WaveCN's all-Chinese operation mode. Referee's opinion: Round 3 - In the battle of difficulty and ease of operation, WaveCN 1.4 won. If beginners want to quickly master basic recording methods and skills, they can’t go wrong choosing WaveCN. Of course, it is a pity that the right-click shortcut menu is not supported in the operation of GoldWave and WaveCN :o( Round 4. Appearance interface Nowadays, any software attaches great importance to the aesthetics of the operation interface. No one wants to face a picture all day long. "Ugly face" work, so a beautiful interface has become an important goal pursued by various software developers in software design, and the recording software WaveLab adheres to the consistent interface style of Steinberg products and is meticulous in detail. The shape of each button and fader is meticulously "carved" without losing the unity and neatness of the overall layout. WaveLab undoubtedly conquered the hearts of the "judges" by adhering to Steinberg's refined interface design style in comparison with WaveLab. Below, the other three software seem a bit eclipsed. For software like GoldWave, whose capacity is so small that it cannot care about too much interface, it is really different from WaveLab.

Friends who enjoy the stable operation of GoldWave on low-end computers have to endure its "dinosaur" image again :o) Referee's opinion: Round 4 - In the competition of appearance and interface, WaveLab 3.0 won with an absolute advantage! There isn't much explanation, just run them all once and it will be clear. Using WaveLab for recording operations is like appreciating a piece of visual art (a bit exaggerated). It is definitely a pleasure! Round 5. Special effects production. Often the recording operation is not only to record the sound, but also to perform various processing on the sound in the later stage to produce the various sound effects we want. This depends on the recording software provided. editing methods and special effects production methods. Although WaveCN, GoldWave, and WaveLab are all capable of producing commonly used effects, there is still a big gap compared to Sound Forge's detailed adjustments and rich presets. Effects such as fade in and out, volume maximization, time stretching, and equalization adjustment are simply a small case for Sound Forge. Even advanced techniques such as sound field simulation, noise reduction, waveform generation, and synchronization settings are not a problem. It is indeed like the previous ones. As mentioned, using Sound Forge for audio processing is beyond your imagination and there is nothing it can’t do! Judge's opinion: Round 5 - In the special effects production competition, Sound Forge won! If you don’t need to create so many complex sound effects, then you can choose WaveCN and GoldWave. If you want to go all the way to DIY recording, Sound Forge is inescapable. Comprehensive opinion It can be said that "a ruler is short but an inch is long". From the above comparison, we can see that no matter how powerful a single-track recording software is, it cannot completely replace other similar software. In fact, the most important thing is to choose your ideal software according to different recording requirements and different levels of professionalism. For professional and semi-professional multimedia producers and recorders, Sound Forge is the first choice, and WaveLab can also be considered to form an integrated whole with the subsequent Nuendo multi-track recording software. For ordinary beginners, WaveCN and GoldWave are the most ideal choices. The Chinese-language operation interface is their biggest selling point!

3. Multi-track recording, competing among the best. If single-track recording focuses on the detailed processing of sound, multi-track recording focuses on the overall synthesis of sound. It plays a huge role in the post-production of music and vocal recording of songs. Every advanced user who aspires to become a professional recording engineer must be proficient in it, and every ordinary music lover who makes karaoke songs in his spare time must also be familiar with the basics. After the contestants - Sonar, Vegas, Sam2496, Nuendo, and Cool Edit are ready, let's kick off the multi-track recording software competition! Round 1: Running speed Frequent dealing with audio data will consume a lot of CPU. This is mainly due to the huge data volume of Wav. Therefore, after recording a certain number of vocals or music parts, the system performance will increase significantly. decline. Multi-track recording software with strong "tolerance" capability will have no problem running 30 audio tracks at the same time, while software with low "throughput" will show a fatigued posture after a few audio tracks. Think about limiting your singing ability to only a few tracks. I'm afraid no one wants to see this situation. Therefore, running speed has become a crucial link in measuring the quality of multi-track recording software. In recording the same parts, we found that Vegas from Sonic Foundry achieved the best performance with its unique algorithm. Its operation stability, computing efficiency and speed are the best among several similar software. The most outstanding. Indeed, after further use of Vegas, you will find that operations that often require a lot of CPU consumption in other software can always be easily solved in Vegas. Vegas is implemented using different audio algorithms from software such as Sam24962496 and Nuendo. If you want to record a multi-part chorus, a band, or even a symphony, just look for Vegas.

I have no problem running 40 tracks on my PIII-600. Isn’t that enough for you? Figure 13: No matter how many tracks there are, Vegas can always cope with it. Referee’s opinion: Round 1 - In the running speed contest, Vegas wins! If we use the above-mentioned multi-track recording software to record the same 10-track music, and then edit and play it, we will obviously feel that the speed of Vegas is superior, Cool Edit and Sonar are slightly inferior, and the operating efficiency of Sam2496 is compared with the first three. The drop is huge. The slowest one is Nuendo, which is difficult to play without a PIII level computer. Round 2: Mixer Control During the multi-track recording process, the observation and control device we use most is probably the mixer. Since the reference of each track needs to be compared during the recording process, the ease of operation of the mixer directly affects work efficiency and is the most important link in the design of multi-track recording software! It is difficult to judge the quality of a mixer based on the different operating habits of different users. Here we compare the mixers of various software based on intuition and convenience. This should first exclude Cool Edit and Vegas, because neither of them has the mixer panel that we are used to operating. Although Vegas has a console called Mixer, it is much different from the traditional split-track mixer. The difference is that it does not have much practicality, which has to be said to be a pity for the two softwares! Friends who are familiar with Cakewalk will definitely choose Sonar. Its mixer interface is relatively simple, but it can also meet our operating requirements. You can add audio effects, adjust volume and panning, and it also comes with two auxiliary effects and a bus output, but the monotonous interface is a problem. :Sonar's mixer panel Nuendo has a noble and gorgeous mixer, which can be called up by using the F3 key in the main interface operation. However, the corresponding cumbersome operation will bring a lot of trouble to friends who have not used Nuendo. Figure 15: Nuendo’s luxury mixer. The most ideal and most convenient mixer is the Sam2496. It can not only conveniently adjust basic track attributes such as volume and panning, but also comes with equalization, delay, stereo expansion, etc. Commonly used effectors, including plug-in effects, are the most convenient of all mixers! The most distinctive feature is that it supports the Skin shell program of the mixer. You can design your own personalized mixer. Figure 16 is the "metal" mixer designed by Hu Ge, a friend of the author. Figure 16: The mixer panel designed by Hu Ge. Referee’s opinion: Round 2 - In the mixer control contest, Sam2496 won. The reason for winning is that the operation is simple and practical, the functions are powerful and rich, and the interface is beautiful and generous. Round 3: Integration with MIDI The so-called integration with MIDI means converting pre-produced MIDI music into audio files, and then doing post-synthesis in multi-track recording software! This process is what every MIDI song must go through to achieve the best results. Since Cakewalk is used by many people in China and it also has audio processing functions, it is the most ideal way to produce MIDI in Sonar and then directly convert MIDI to Wav in Sonar for post-processing. It eliminates the need to convert between various software, which is very convenient. Although Nuendo also has MIDI production capabilities, it is not as convenient as Sonar. If you use Cubase (a professional-level music synthesis system from Steinberg) to produce MIDI, then Nuendo is most suitable for post-production synthesis. Cool Edit, Vegas, and Sam2496 do not support MIDI production at all, so there is no need to talk about integration with MIDI. Referee’s opinion: Round 3 – In the battle of integration with MIDI, Sonar wins! With Sonar’s huge number of users in China, more and more users will realize its powerful audio functions, making it the best choice for MIDI → recording → post-synthesis.

Round 4: Support for plug-in effects. Various special processing of the sound after recording often takes more time than the recording, because it can make up for the shortcomings caused by the recording and allow the most beautiful side of the sound to appear, and this This kind of special processing is accomplished by relying on plug-in effects, which brings us to the dispute between DX and VST effects mentioned earlier. A few years ago, the PC audio field was still dominated by DX. There were endless DX effectors, and the quality seemed to be very good at the time. However, with the rapid rise of the German company Steinberg in the past two years, it has brought a new concept of VST effects, and has seized the large DX market with lightning speed. Currently, many top plug-in effects are based on VST. formal. What’s even more confusing is that software that supports VST (such as Nuendo) can still use DX plug-ins with ease, but software that supports DX (such as Sonar, Sam2496, Vegas, Cool Edit) cannot use VST plug-ins at all. Even after using third-party VST to DX software to convert, there are still many problems. Figure 17: Various dazzling VST plug-in effects in Nuendo. Referee’s opinion: Round 4 - Nuendo won in the competition for support of plug-in effects. Currently, there are more and more plug-in effects based on VST, and the sound effects have also been greatly improved. However, DX's flag is shaky and is likely to be replaced by VST. For long-term plans, it’s better to rely on Nuendo. Round 5: Difficulty of operation Anyone who has used Vegas will be deeply impressed by its easy operation. Comparing the menu commands between Vegas and other software, it can be clearly seen that almost all operations in Vegas are concentrated on the left and right mouse shortcut keys. There is no need to worry about not understanding English commands. The recording process is just a simple movement of the mouse. It can be completed in just a few seconds, which is indeed good news for beginners. Figure 18: Vegas’ super streamlined main interface. At the same time, the Vegas Video 3.0 we introduced also has video processing functions. Video FX provides a variety of video special effects to choose from, which is most suitable for simultaneous audio and video processing. For synthetic users, all operations are very simple and you can get started in 3 minutes! Referee's opinion: Round 5 - In the battle of difficulty of operation, Vegas won with an absolute advantage. Friends who have no experience in using similar software may wish to install Vegas and try it out, and learn computer recording in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. Round 6: Comprehensive use In the previous rounds, I didn’t see any charming performance from Cool Edit, so why does it still have so many loyal users? The reason is simple, it is the comprehensiveness of use. Although the function of Cool Edit is not the most powerful and the operation is not the simplest, it has better recording sound quality than Vegas, higher computing speed than Sam2496 and Nuendo, and stronger than Sonar's command system, and it can do single-track recording. The software can also be used as multi-track post-synthesis software. Its comprehensive strength is the strongest and can provide help for the recording of various music and vocals. The latest album "Mars Ski Resort" by a friend of the author and famous Chinese guitarist Li Yanliang was recorded using Cool Edit! : Single-track and multi-track switching only requires one button. It should be noted that there is a big difference between the recently launched Cool Edit 2000 and Cool Edit Pro 1.2. The former is a very amateur streamlined, civilian-level software, and the latter It is the professional recording software that can definitely reach the professional level. You must distinguish them when choosing. Referee's opinion: Round 6 - In a comprehensive contest of uses, Cool Edit won. On the one hand, it is because it has a large number of users and many people have become accustomed to its operation. On the other hand, it is because it can be used in various music environments such as multimedia production, vocal recording, video soundtrack, and post-production synthesis. Those who perform well will deserve the favor of users. Comprehensive opinions The multi-track recording software mentioned above is just the tip of the iceberg in the entire field of similar software. There are too many other multi-track recording software that cannot be reviewed one by one. However, these five software are the most well-known in China and are used by users at different levels. has become completely popular in China.

For multimedia players who often create sound effects and edit sound materials, Cool Edit and Sonar are good choices. Cool Edit's built-in noise reduction, reverberation and other effects will bring more novelty to your sound clips; Sonar's powerful MIDI editing function can help you edit ready-made MIDI downloaded online according to your own requirements. For further synthesis, the integrated operation is more convenient. For ordinary music lovers who like to DIY songs and albums by themselves, Vegas can help you realize your dreams faster. Its simple operation makes it more approachable, and you will fall in love with it as soon as you use it. For home recording studios (Record Studio) and professional recording studios, it is right to choose Sam2496 and Nuendo. The quality of their software can fully reach the publishing level. Nowadays, many famous musicians and recording engineers have abandoned the "old?" of ProTools (an Apple computer-based recording system that is very expensive) and embraced PCs. They came for Sam2496 and Nuendo.