Cool Edit Pro

Next, we will take the editing of a piece of guitar audio as an example to introduce the editing function of Cool Edit Pro. As for other bass and vocal sounds, the editing method is basically the same.

It is a piece of unedited wood guitar rhythm waveform. The red line refers to the blank noise reserved before you start playing. The reserved noise is used to prepare for sampling and noise reduction.

First, let's talk about the process of noise reduction:

The waveforms we recorded in the computer are certainly noisy. There are various solutions to various noises.

DC offset is caused by some microphones or sound cards. The phenomenon is that the waveform is not in the center of the horizontal line, and there is a certain offset in the longitudinal direction.

The processing method is the simplest. Generally, audio software can be easily removed. For example, in Sound Forge, you only need to select "DC offset" in the "process" menu.

In Cool Edit Pro, select amplify from the "convert" menu, as shown in:

Click the red line to display the following dialog box

Select the check box before "enable DC bias adjust", enter "0" in the red line, and select "OK.

Background noise is the biggest problem in the recording of personal computers. The room sound insulation is poor, and the environment is not quiet, resulting in a variety of background noise. such as sound card noise, speaker noise, home appliance sound, computer fan, hard disk ...,

Sampling and noise reduction is a more scientific method to eliminate noise. It first obtains the frequency characteristics of pure noise, and then in the music waveform of mixed noise, remove noise that meets this frequency feature from the sound.

Cool Edit Pro and sampl are both masters of sampling and noise reduction.

The principle is clear, and the implementation is very convenient.

1. you can record a piece of ambient noise before recording, which must be exactly the same as the environment when you officially recording the video. or, before you sing and play the guitar, you can leave it empty for dozens of seconds for pure ambient noise. then record your voice or guitar. At this time, the environmental noise should always be in your recording.

2. after the recording is complete, select the just-recorded section of pure noise, and then "sample" the section of the noise ". the noise during sampling is generally longer, otherwise it cannot contain enough noise samples. however, it must be "clean", that is, it should be pure environmental noise.

3. Select the waveform range for noise reduction and enter the noise reduction setting window (Noise Reduction command in Cool Edit). Adjust the parameters and press "OK.

It should be noted that the elimination of noise will cause different degrees of loss to the original sound. Therefore, you need to listen more and try again to select an appropriate compromise. apart from the unbearable background noise, the sound is not distorted too much.

The following describes in detail in our example:

First, the waveform is scaled horizontally to make the waveform details clearer. Then, use the mouse to select a piece of "pure" noise, a portion of the white.

Select "noise ction" in the menu. The following dialog box is displayed.

This dialog box is the sample setting window.

I pointed out the following important points with the Red Arrow:

1. the degree of noise reduction, from 0---100, the greater the number, the greater the noise reduction degree, the cleaner the sound, but the more serious the loss of the original waveform. so we need to adjust it slowly and find the most appropriate value.

Generally, we recommend that you do not set the guitar rhythm to more than 50; otherwise, many guitar characteristics will be lost.

2. Sampling Accuracy, that is, the number of sampling points. Generally, 8192 or 4096 is selected.

Sometimes the noise waveform is too short, you can choose 512.

3. the greater the value, the smaller the loss to the original waveform, but the reduced noise will be slightly reduced. generally, it is about 6-10, but if the background noise is high, you can also select a number below 2.

4. Click this button to obtain the sample information.

After the sample information is obtained, click the close button next to it to close the window. Remember that it is "close" instead of "OK" or "cancel "!

Select the waveform that you want to reduce noise (generally the whole waveform), and then select "noise ction" again. In the noise reduction dialog box, click "OK !! For example:

When noise is reduced, especially for wooden guitar and vocal sounds, it is best not to set too much noise reduction value, otherwise it will produce serious distortion.

A better method is to set a relatively small noise reduction value, such as 10--20, and then reduce the noise several times.

But remember to re-sample every time. This is a good understanding :)

Now the noise is eliminated. After listening carefully, do you feel that the music is clean enough to meet your requirements? If you think you can, proceed to the next step !!

Supplement: There are several items in the Cool Edit Pro noise reduction menu. Here we will introduce them:

, 4th sampling and noise reduction items we have introduced before. Next, let's look at several other items.

1. This is to eliminate the brute force and split sound during the recording process. In our recording, it may be caused by poor contact at the guitar or speaker plug-in, or when the microphone is used to record the voice, it can be used to eliminate this. However, I personally do not recommend this de-noise because the computing speed is very slow and the results are not very satisfactory. There is a software popfix dedicated to brute-force cracking. It is easy to use.

2. This can remove the noise caused by the blank part of the waveform. For example, if you connect two waveforms into one, this noise may occur. It can automatically fill in the blank part to remove the noise. But it is generally not used.

3. Remove the "beep" sound. In some audio recordings of inferior microphones, there are often continuous "beep" sounds, especially when recording human voices. This can be used to eliminate. However, it damages the original audio, unless necessary, try not to use it.

In short, noise reduction mainly uses the principle of sampling noise reduction, and others are used as an aid.

 

After noise is removed, you need to use the effect device to polish the audio.

Cool Edit Pro comes with a wide variety of effective devices, such as balanced, reverb, latency, dynamic, Echo, edge insertion, distortion, and chorus. There are also some special processing methods such as reverse waveform and adjustment, variable Speed.

Cool Edit Pro provides fast effect editing speed. The best thing is that it supports unlimited length of effect preparation, which is better than cakewalk, it is much easier for soundforge and other software that can only be tried for a few seconds !!

Below I will focus on several of the most common effects: Image balancing, reverb, and dynamic processing. Others can be compared and mastered. In addition, effects such as chorus and latency are generally implemented with hard effect generators. Therefore, if you have a good guitar effect, you can skip this.

Graph balancing:

Select the option indicated by the arrow to enter the graphic balancer interface dialog box. Some other filters, such as FFT filter and notch filter, can also be used to adjust the balance, but the graphic balancer is most convenient and intuitive to use. Click it to see the following interface:

Please refer to this figure for instructions in order:

1. Select the number of frequency bands. There are three options: 10, 20, and 30. You can click to switch. The more frequency bands, the more detailed the adjustment.

Of course, the 30-segment balancing is enough. I usually adjust the status of 20 segments.

2. Frequency display chart. You can intuitively see the adjusted frequency status. The increase or attenuation of a certain frequency band can be clearly viewed.

3. Adjust the slider group. A frequency band corresponding to each slide bar control. You can freely increase or decrease a frequency band by dragging the cursor vertically. The results are displayed on the spectrum.

4. Digital adjustment. You can select any band, and then enter the number (DB value) to be increased or decreased in gain ). In fact, this is the same as adjusting with a slide, but it can be adjusted in more detail. The results will also be displayed in the spectrum chart and slip group.

5. Preset effect. Some parameters have been preset in Cool Edit Pro for convenient calling. Including "low-frequency (low-frequency) lifting, low-frequency attenuation, high-frequency (high-frequency) lifting, high-frequency attenuation, and medium-frequency (medium-frequency) Lifting", as well as voice-specific options.

6. This part is the overall settings.
Accuracy is the number of points included in the selection accuracy. Higher values bring more processing time, but the effect will be more accurate. Generally, select.

Range determines the control range of the slider. The standard hardware balancer generally has a value between 30db and 48db.

Master gain adjusts the overall volume after balanced processing. Sometimes, the overall volume will be too large after balancing, so you need to enter a negative value in master gain for a slight attenuation. If the overall volume is too small, you can enter a positive value to increase the overall volume.

7. Pre-listen. You can try the effect before selecting "OK". If you are satisfied, click "OK.

Because the single-track editing of Cool Edit Pro is destructive, it is recommended that you have a preview before any processing to avoid irreparable losses.

Now let's assume that the voice of the recorded guitar is not clear enough. In this case, we first select the simple high lift option in the preset options to increase the high-frequency part, and then adjust the slide bar while listening, until the effect is satisfactory.