Cool Edit Pro 2.0 vs Adobe Audition 1.5

Cool Edit Pro 2.0 vs Adobe Audition1.5

  • Adobe Audition 1.5 - In with the new.

    Votes: 77 60.6%

  • Cool Edit Pro 2.0 - I fear change.

    Votes: 33 26.0%

  • It doesn't really matter, it's all the same.

    Votes: 17 13.4%
  • Total voters
    127
Hey lp, folks...

I would like to get into the M/S thing, as soon's I can get back into more regular recording myself. I've been banging nails and dealing with a high-maintenance household, and gigging pretty regularly (bass also).

I've been using another app, (R... something) and have found it great for my fairly narrow purposes... still using CEP 2.0 for editing mixed-down tracks, etc. But it's pretty quiet at the music machine of late.

lp, so you're pretty happy with the Korg? I have a Tascam 788, and wouldn't mind trading for something with USB and a not-so-menu-driven control surface.

Anyhoo, just looking in- hope all is well,

Rog.
 
Hey, Rog., glad you're still doing it...

For M/S all you need is a figure-8 and a cardioid, or a figure-8 and an omni. It's straightforward once you have the mics. It's also (unlike XY stereo or others) pretty forgiving as to mic placement. For XY, for example, it's way too easy to get phasing cancellation if the mic diaphragms are lined up perfectly. For M/S, you set the vocal mic where you want it, then put figure-8 on axis (I use a boom stand, and depending on room, put the figure-8 just above or below the other mic; I try to line 'em up, but it's not as critical as other methods, as I said).

I got the Korg D888 to record gigs with: you plug in up to 8 sources, and run cables from the back end into your PA head or mixer, and it's invisible. Very easy to use, but with ease of use comes some limitations. No compression/effects, very slow mixdowns, limited options....but most of us recording with the triple 8 dump the tracks into CEP (or whatever) and treat it like a regular computer recording, and mix it down and burn to CD from the computer.

They run around $700, but I traded some stuff and got it for much less cash. My computer's still in the shop, so the Korg's a life saver when some unexpected recording project comes up (a friend wanted a CD for copyright purposes, the musical director at the church needed some songs on CD so the kids could learn 'em for Children's Sabbath upcoming).
 
Yeah, I'm still alive!

lpdeluxe said:
For M/S all you need is a figure-8 and a cardioid, or a figure-8 and an omni. It's straightforward once you have the mics...
Click to expand...

Do yo have a Y-cable jigged from the figure-8 mic, going to two channels on the Korg? This is the part I don't get- once it's in the tracks, I understand the concept, and adjustment of the width of the stereo field. I do have to try this!

lpdeluxe said:
I got the Korg D888 to record gigs with: ...but most of us recording with the triple 8 dump the tracks into CEP (or whatever) and treat it like a regular computer recording, and mix it down and burn to CD from the computer.
Click to expand...

I do that with my Tascam 788, sort of: I mix drums, guitar, and maybe vox together to stereo on the 788 (it's handy- it has faders which I like more than the mouse), and send that mix and the bass track (separately) to the software in the PC. I send the bass on it's own- I've maybe put reverb onto the vox, drums and guitar, and some bass will have bled into the vox mic during recording since we record live. That lower-level bled-in bass now has some of the vox' reverb on it, see, so I then mix in the dry, DI'd bass file to keep the track a little punchier on the bottom. I try to end up with less reverb on the bass, generally.

An interesting note- the drums are Yamaha electrics (which should have gone out with Spandau Ballet...) and they're DI'd to the recorder, so there's no bleeding into the drum track!

I mixed our cover of a Maroon 5 tune this way, and the bass was phat and kept the bottom well-defined.

Anyway USB would be a lot handier. I have to do the Stereo Out or S/PDIF from the 788, and run the tune a couple times to get the tracks all out. The 788 can do 6-out at a time, but I find this is the simplest, most brain-pain-less way to do it. Little menu-driven details in that small window are murder...
 
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Yeah, I don't know why companies try to make us blind. I keep a sheet of white stick-on plastic letters with my gear: there's nothing like trying to read a black-on-black label on a dark stage after a beer or two....

As for the "two-track" problem: I don't have an XLR splitter, so I record one mid track and one side track. Then, when I dump the song into CEP, I import both the mid mic track and the figure-8 track in one pass, then go back and import the figure-8 track again, which gives me the necessary three. Then, like I said, I invert one of the figure-8 tracks, and I've got what I need.

With Cool Edit Pro, another possibility is to highlight the single figure-8 track in Multitrack View, go to Edit/Mix Down to Empty Track X (bounce) and that will give you the duplicate track. It would make sense to process the track before you bounce it; ribbon mics, especially, put out very low signal levels, so you'd want to do the noise reduction and possibly normalize the track, and then bounce it without having to do those operations twice. Anyhow, you would then go to Edit View to Effects/Invert to put the second track in opposite polarity.

One little thing that bugs me, but I understand it's a Windows quirk: when you dump the tracks from the D888 into CEP, it will load the last track first, then the first, second etc, so with 8 tracks the order they appear in Multitrack View is Track 8, Track 1, Track 2, Track 3, Track 4, Track 5, Track 6 and Track 7. Of course, you can move the tracks around in CEP, but (like a lot of the decision Bill Gates has made for us poor sods) it doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
Hey, I was just stumbling around here, and ran across this again!

I still need to try M/S- life has just been amazingly busy- and not in a musical way! Anyway, I just want to address the figure-8 thing you're doing: You record one "side"-track with the figure-8, and then (after processing) you bounce it to another track and flip it around? So you have a mirror-image track on the new side, and a mid track between them?
 
Does anyone know if the noise reduction/click pop eliminator has been improved since cool edit 2.0? I would be grateful for any feedback
 
Yeah, the Audition apps have a "Marquee" thing, wherein you can go to a spectral view, find the noise you want to remove, draw a shape around it with the mouse, remove it, and fill in the hole you made with a patch from the surrounding frequency area.

Bad explanation, but I think the answer is "yes". I have CEP 2.1, and for my money it still has a great NR feature.
 
Cool Edit was great for noise reduction, and from all reports I'm hearing, Audition 3 is even better.
 
Rog.: M/S uses phase information for its stereo image, instead of separate sources.

The figure 8 mic (as I think I said, in my case a beyerdynamic M130) outputs a monophonic signal, but that signal is picked up equally from each lobe of the "8". You can either record that into a single track, or split it, and record it onto two tracks.

You are using a directional mic aimed at the source: the figure 8 is at right angles to it, to pick up the room, which includes some of the source, naturally. The technique uses three tracks: the directional mic, centered, and the figure 8 tracks, which are identical except for being in opposed polarity with each other, panned L and R. The panning will determine the "size" of the stereo image.

AA 2.0 will allow recording the second one in reverse polarity; there is a "reverse polarity" button on its mixer. Earlier versions don't allow that, so you have to use the software to do it after the fact.

I've done it three ways: first, using 2.0, I have recorded the figure 8 mic onto two tracks, one reversed in polarity. Second, by recording the figure 8 mic onto a single track on the Korg D888, importing both the directional track and the figure 8 into CEP, then duplicating the figure 8 track and going to "Effects/Invert" in Edit View to reverse the second tracks' polarity.

Finally, I've recorded into 1.5 with three tracks (one directional, two figure 8), then flipped the polarity of one of the figure tracks in the same way.

It works best, for me, with solo acts. I still multi-track bands when I can.
 
That's interesting, that you really have a single "room" track, inverted so it covers both sides of a 'stereo image'. It sounds like an effect more than an actual stereo recording, on paper anyway... so I'm going to try it next chance I get. I wonder if you can do the same thing with an omni mic, if you're going to flip it for the other side it after the fact? Is the polar pattern that significant?

I'm still using CEP , and Samplitude SE now. Maybe this summer I'll move up to an Audition app. We'll see if I need to- so far I'm all set with software. I can do a ton of stuff now, since my approach is very straight-ahead, as if it were a tape recorder with editing... and all those nice plug-ins!

I think a control surface is next though. I'm sort of in no hurry, as technology seems to be bringing things back to a simpler form- like that Korg D888 you're using: Hardware functionality! :cool: So I'm mousing my mix until the right, affordable, un-crippled device comes along- like a bigger version of a Presonus Faderport for under $300 (No motorized faders. Fine, you automate envelopes anyway!)! Why has this taken so long!?

But I digress.
 
You need a figure 8 pattern mic. The beyerdynamic set me back about $650 (but it's a ribbon, and I bought it for that reason -- just happened to work for M/S) but there are less expensive variable-pattern condensers that also have the figure 8 pattern.

The source mic (the one aimed at the singer or player) can be either directional or omni. I haven't tried it with omni, since I have an Audio-Technica and a RODE that sound pretty good.

It works like the old "Hafler Effect" to get surround sound for two-track stereo: you wire up two speakers in front, just like always, and then wire a third speaker behind the listening position that's hooked up to hot leads from L and R. The third speaker extracts phase information that is lost with ordinary two speaker reproduction, and gives you surround sound -- the only expense being the third speaker and its wires. I have an ancient Dynaco Stereo integrated hi-fi amp (designed by David Hafler) that has built-in speaker connections for the third speaker.

By reversing the polarity of one track, you're canceling out the "shared" portions of the tracks, so you then hear the differences (L-R and R-L) in the sound field.

It sounds like voodoo, but that's all there is to it.

I think I said that I've been through a Red Rover (Syntrillium's own device); when that died, I got a Tascam US428. When THAT died, I splurged on the Mackie Universal Control, which worked fine until I dropped it on its head and broke a motorized fader. It's repaired now, so it's back in the studio. There's a lot to be said for being able to push hardware faders and turn knobs, but the mouse click process can give you really precise editing.

There are several devices that are less costly than the Mackie that work more like the Red Rover (Tascam makes one) which is fine if you're doing one track at a time. The Mackie is actually overkill for what I doing now, but I like having it anyway.

I'm really glad I got the D888. At first, it seemed TOO simple -- not much editing capability, not many dedicated knobs, so you end up scrolling through menus some -- but on the other hand, once you learn how to run it, it's extremely easy to set up and record stuff off the cuff. I recorded about 5 hours of my late CW band and got around 35 usable songs to burn to CD. The only flaw (other than the usual missed notes, lyrics, and downright mistakes) is that the singer insisted on using his new Beta 58 mic, and it didn't have much top end, so the vocals sound muffled.

It only records at 44.1/16, which is fine for what I'm doing with it. I'll take it tonight to a lecture at the local Unitarian Church -- I'm recording and burning CDs for them -- and it'll do everything I need it to. Two tracks for the lecture: a lavalier wireless for the lecturer and a room mic to pick up questions from the audience, which have proven to be unintelligible against the room noise.

Plus, since I got the D888 at the local store, I was able to trade in a bunch of stuff I wasn't using, so I wasn't out that much cash. There's a D888 discussion group:
http://www.korgstudios.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=160
You might check it out before you commit.
 
Thanks for all the info lp. I now get the M/S with the figure-8, makes more sense. And the mouse for editing is right on. In CEP the mouse is king! And that's where the finish happens at my house.

I'm staying with my Tascam 788 for now, as it records nicely, and I'm just used to it. Also I can get 24-bit recording, 6 simultaneous. Better than good for what I may do- I only use it live, like at gigs, or on location for someone else. But I like where the D888 is pointing to, and I'll be standing by when I see the device I want surface!

Same for the control surface. Though I might go in for a US-428 for now. I used to have one, and I think it's fine for straight-up mixing. I'll have to see what Samplitude SE will support.

Talk to you man, thanks again lp!
 
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