Checking Syntrillium's web page, I find they have a new Pro version
of CoolEdit for Windows 95 and NT. Full retail price is $395;
registered users can get it for somewhat less. It is supposed to
support 32-bit audio, although I didn't read enough to know how it
gets it. A couple more comments below:
On Mon, 1 Dec 1997 17:40:33 -0800,
Richard Webb <elspider@interl.net> wrote:
>Hello Listers,
>Lloyd wrote:
> >I suppose some of you are way ahead of me on this, but here's what I
> >have recently learned to do with Window-Eyes and CoolEdit. It
> >isn't a method that is efficient enough to use in a recording
> >studio under tight deadlines, but it seems to work.
> >Cooledit, from Syntrilium Software, is a shareware audio editor and
>I've had decent luck with it with asaw, too. I'm pretty sure one
>could get Saw from Innovative quality software to work okay too,
>though haven't worked with it with anything but an early beta version
>of asaw.
>For casual audio editing jobs with some pretty advanced features,
>Cooledit's useful. A couple of studios I know keep a registered
>version handy for some jobs. It's a little further toward the high
>end of the market where we've got real troubles with software that
>isn't speech friendly. STill beats a razor blade at times, and if
>you've a helper around to view the waveform and operate the mouse for
>you, some decent edits can be done fairly efficiently.
>
>Here's the problem. I'm sure the engineering types
>can understandd my explanation. I'll try to point
>you toward some urls that discuss the problem from the audio side.
>
>Cooledit, saw, and I think sound forge all operate on files up to 16
>bit resolution. TWo of the three I know are somewhat accessible with
>speech, Cooledit seeming to get the vote of most speech users I've
>talked with.
>
>
>The first problem you have with a lot of material that might come to
>you for mastering is that it was maybe recorded analog, but then mixed
>or archived to dat at 44.1 kilohertz, 16 bit. A lot of the hardware
>you'll find at state of the art recording facilities works on the
>audio in the digital domain, under the theory that once you take the
>signal digital, stay in the digital domain as much as possible. This
>is because of what happens to the signal every time it passes through
>a digital to analog converter, or vice versa. AS you change overall
>level, perform equalization, compression, or any number of operations
>on the file, you change some of the bits. You start with a 16 bit
>file, but by the time you've gotten done compressing, tweaking,
>cutting, cross-fading, you've got it down to a ten bit file.
Whether these manipulations result in a "10-bit-precision" file
depends on the quality of the tools and the expectations of the
people using them. Operations that result in clipping or other kinds
of overflow cannot be undone. Dynamic range compression, except for
some floating-point representations, cannot be truly undone. I know
the standards are continuing to evolve past "CD-quality" to more
bits and perhaps a higher sampling rate, but I wonder if real
listeners and real recording artists can really derive some benefit
from this extended precision. Anyway, for better or worse, the
industry is definitely moving beyond 16-bit resolution at many
stages of the process.
-- Lloyd Rasmussen
Senior Staff Engineer, Engineering Section
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress 202-707-0535
(work) lras@loc.gov www.loc.gov/nls/
(home) lras@sprynet.com
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