cool edit pro keeps distorting, help anyone know why and how to stop? Options

[dyluk1]

Hi

I am using cool edit pro 2.1 and some finished songs are fine as sessions and fine as mp3 mixdowns- then randomly they start to distort and crackle and all saved playing and wavs are lost in a total mess of distortion and crackle....anyone know why and how to stop it?

Its random...and doesnt happen every time- I have used it for years and years and its only just started doing it.

I have unistalled and re-installed in case that helped and it hasnt..

any feedback woudl be appreciated...all my back catalogue is on cool edit so yes i know i can use another daw and am slowly transferring my old tracks over to cubase but still need to solve this issue

[DVDdoug]

NOTE - I don't use CoolEdit or Audition, but I'm still NOT convinced there's a bug.

But after I do a mixdown (to create the MP3 file), SOME songs suddenly have distortion - sounds like crackling....

...If you figured out what causes this distortion (maybe something embedded in the track itself?) - because I have found that it occurs for some of the tracks when I tried to re-add/re-mix the track.

Like I said above, when you mix the files/tracks are added together. That increases the amplitude (volume). If the volume is too high and the peaks go over 0dBFS (the digital "maximum") you can get clipping (distortion) when you save in certain formats (like regular integer WAV).

The solution is simply to reduce the levels before mixing, or after mixing (i.e. normalize), and before saving, so that the peaks do not exceed 0dB. (Or, you can use dynamic compression to reduce the peaks while maintaining the overall volume-level.)

It's a good idea to normalize (or at least check your peak levels) after any processing (and always before saving).

If you are not watching your levels, you've probably got clipping in lots of your mixes, although you might not always be hearing it.

I have heard that Adobe Audition (the latest version) actually removed many of the features of the original Adobe Audition/CEPro.

I'm sure Adobe has also added quite a few features since they bought-out CoolEdit several years ago. And, you've got plenty of other choices. But, mixing is always done by summation by all analog & digital mixers so you are always in danger of clipping/distortion if you don't watch your levels!!!! (Although, analog mixers usually have more headroom, and people are more likely to take advantage of the master slider and watch the meters on an analog mixer.)

This post has been edited by DVDdoug: Dec 2 2011, 23:53