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Topic: Cool Edit question (Read 5525 times) previous topic - next topic
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Cool Edit question

I'm using Coole Edit for most audio work, and I have noticed one thing:

Whatever codec and setting I use to make mp3s, it will always end up as joint stereo, not normal (according to file info in winampat least)

Is there any way to force normal stereo?

Cool Edit question

Reply #1 –
Perhaps, but even if there is, you shouldn't do that. Joint stereo is the most efficient mode, so if you force simple stereo, you'll either end up with reduced quality (CBR mode) or the encoder will have to increase the bitrate to compensate for the inefficiency of simple stereo (VBR mode).

Cool Edit question

Reply #2 –
Quote from: amerelium on
I'm using Cool Edit for most audio work, and I have noticed one thing:

Whatever codec and setting I use to make mp3s, it will always end up as joint stereo, not normal (according to file info in winampat least)

Is there any way to force normal stereo?


There is no reason to worry about joint stereo. Analog FM stereo is transmitted as joint stereo and color TV has been transmitted matrixed similarly since its inception both in the analog and digital systems. As amerelium pointed out, it's more efficient to do it that way.

G²

Cool Edit question

Reply #4 –
As I understand it, normal and simple stereo is not the same?

about the dropouts; I never do anything below 256 kb/s, and have never seen any errors of that sort so far

Cool Edit question

Reply #5 –
There is no such thing as "normal" stereo, so I assumed you meant simple stereo. There are only two kinds of stereo configurations:

  • L/R (left/right) stereo, i.e. "simple" stereo, where an equal number of bits are split between the left and right channels, usually because the signal has a high degree of stereo separation
  • M/S stereo, where the L/R channels are transformed into a middle channel and a side channel, so that more bits can devoted to the middle channel to improve its quality, while fewer bits are devoted to the side channel, usually because the signal has a small degree of stereo separation


Joint stereo simply means that both modes are used in the same file, and the encoder gets to choose when to use L/R and when to use M/S, based on its analysis of when each mode is the most efficient choice. There is no reason to ever force either L/R or M/S for a whole file, because the encoder will know what to do. If it doesn't, that means it's such an old encoder that you probably shouldn't be using it at all, because a competently designed modern encoder (e.g. LAME) will be more efficient in joint stereo mode.

Cool Edit question

Reply #6 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
I'd be more worried about using the Cool Edit mp3 encoder at all. Various versions + settings introduce easily audible dropouts. In all versions, fast CBR 128kbps is pretty good for what it is, but most people here use Lame VBR.

Cheers,
David.

On that note, I don't like the decoding part either, at least not the version I used to have and seemed it appeared to be the same in early Audition versions. When I'm forced to convert MP3 to WAV the native decoder in Cool Edit adds several seemingly random samples at the beginning of the file. Using FB2K to decode MP3 to WAV does not have junk at the beginning.
"Something bothering you, Mister Spock?"

Cool Edit question

Reply #7 –
It doesn't / didn't understand various headers (vbr, id3v2, ?) and decodes them as audio or silence.

Cheers,
David.

Cool Edit question

Reply #8 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
It doesn't / didn't understand various headers (vbr, id3v2, ?) and decodes them as audio or silence.

Especialy the gapless header info in recent lame versions will work in fb2k but not in CE.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Cool Edit question

Reply #10 –
I don't know if it's worth mentioning, but in my typical work flow, having an mp3 decoder built into the audio editor is of limited use, and having an mp3 encoder built into it is of no use at all. I found it useful way back when Cool Edit was new, but not now...

Using an mp3 decoder:
If I had a lossless source, I'd use that, so no mp3 decoder needed.
If I only had an mp3, I'd use mp3directcut, mp3gain, etc - things like that, to perform the edit if I could. So no Cool Edit needed.
If I have to edit an mp3 source in Cool Edit, I would usually decode to .wav first (e.g. in foobar2k) because it's more convenient to work with. It stops me doing something stupid like Control+S and destroying the original. It loads more quickly. I can save the result half way through if I need to without worrying about losing quality.

Using an mp3 encoder:
If I have edited something (whatever the source), then I'll usually save a lossless version of it (.wav), compress it to .flac, add (or copy over) the right tags, file it away in my regular audio collection (because otherwise I'll lose it) and then encode it to mp3 from that flac. I don't have a use for creating only an mp3 version, and I don't create flacs and mp3s in parallel: the mp3s are always created from the flacs. There are several tools to batch create mp3s from a collection of flacs, and if I don't feel like running one of those, or want different mp3 encoding settings from the ones I normally use, I can just right click the flacs in foobar2k and convert them immediately. (there are also tools for creatings flacs and mp3s in parallel, if you want.)

YMMV of course. If I was creating something that has absolutely no future value or interest, I might not bother about saving a lossless version or filing it away properly, so saving it straight to mp3 would be OK - even then, foobar2k or something else would encode it better and tag it better than Cool Edit.

Over a decode ago I would have been happy to just keep an mp3 of something, but not now. I've found myself wanting/needing to re-encode for devices that weren't even invented back then, and starting from an mp3 isn't ideal. It's also surprised me what hastily edited bits of rubbish I've wanted to go back to later, and annoying to only have them as mp3s.

Cheers,
David.

Cool Edit question

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Destroid on
When I'm forced to convert MP3 to WAV the native decoder in Cool Edit adds several seemingly random samples at the beginning of the file.

I remember that its native decoder used to drop up to 30 seconds off the end of the file for some files, based on their length or bitrate I think. (More for shorter files(?))

Cool Edit question

Reply #12 –
@Hex144  That's no good either. Fortunately I noticed the oddity with Cool Edit that (being the OCD exact-sample-accuracy person I am) I just decoded MP3 manually, which was not often.

As already mentioned, a lossless source is preferred. The next best option being MP3 DirectCut unless I need an excerpt for a multitrack project or the snippet is going into a program that requires WAV (or certain MP3 edits/splits cause playback errors). I also choose to leave lossy encode/decode outside of CoolEdit and stick to using WAV internally (WV/APE/TAK too but only for decoding).

Now for undoing my inadvertent thread derailing  I would agree CoolLAME is the "best" way to encode MP3, although the internal MP3 encoder is doable when sending someone a rough draft over the internet. The easiest way I found not to lose the lossless source is to use "Save Copy As..." since it tends to remember its settings independently from "Save As...". The process would go:
1) Save As... [filename].WAV
2) Save Copy As... [filename].MP3

The "Options" for native MP3 encoding in Cool Edit has a way to disable joint stereo but it is recommended to leave joint stereo enabled.
"Something bothering you, Mister Spock?"