Real-time effects in Audition/CEP2.0

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Moonlapse

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hey people - new member on here,

I have always wondered whether Cool Edit/Audition is capable of processing effects in real time and playing the processed sound to you back through the speakers in real-time. Say if I were playing guitar into the computer clean and having a piece of software modifying that tone for me. So far I've only been able to find that their definition of 'real-time effects' is playing the damned track back to you with the effects over the top after you've actually penned the track down. Hardly real-time.

If anyone could help out with my understanding of the limitations/potential of these programs, I'd be appreciative.

Cheers.
 
Thing you want is called input monitoring and it has yet to appear in the program. To be useful, it would also have to work with low-latency soundcard drivers (like ASIO)and that has yet to happen either.
To be usable as a real time FX unit, a PC needs audio drivers that'll go down to at least 3ms and because the audio has to go in, get processed and sent back out it's going to sound back over 6ms (impossible to say how much time lag the FX will introduce) later than your playing. This doesn't seem like much, but the human brain is very sensitive to delays and each 1ms is the same time it takes the sound from your amp to travel one foot. You know how odd it is to play from the opposite side of the stage to your amp? Hard to play "tight" isn't it?
 
"So far I've only been able to find that their definition of 'real-time effects' is playing the damned track back to you with the effects over the top after you've actually penned the track down. Hardly real-time."

Yeah, but that's what 'real-time' means in the world of software audio recording - the effect is applied to an already-recorded track as you play it back, without altering the actual track itself. At this point (2004), the software doesn't do what you want it do - apply and play back effects as you're recording it. You need external hardware for that.
 
There are ways to do this with other software in conjunction with Audition - workarounds really - for instance you can record tracks with effects in Synthedit, while existing tracks play in Audition, then insert the new material in Audition, and repeat as necessary. But generally, applying effects destructively as you record is not a good idea - you can't change them afterwards.
 
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