Comparison from http://sounds.gamedesign.net

Cool Edit's nearest competition is the more pricey Sound Forge by Sonic Foundry. While Sound Forge has an incredible array of features, Cool Edit seems to match them every step of the way.

Cool Edit allows you to record in any sound sampling you want (as long as your sound card can support it). It's nice to have that freedom even if it's not practical most of the time. The bit depth also can be nudged up to 32 bits (!) versus Sound Forge's limitation of 16.

There are thirty types of "Transforms", or effects/alteration types you can apply to a waveform split up into six categories. It's pretty much the standard selection of flange, reverb, chorus, distortion, etc. The neat thing is that some of these presets are really cool! Some of these effects I'd spend hours trying to replicate with Sound Forge, especially the chorus 'Another Dimension' preset, wow what a strange sound! Most of the effects are setup like this too, with the normal to the not-so-normal, giving a nice easy and quick alternative to blind searching for a cool effect.

If you happen to create your own masterpiece of an effect, you can save it for later use, simply by clicking the save button located on the effect control box.

Little enhancments such as when you insert a wav into the multitrack, which let's you resample the file on the fly, is such a breath of fresh air. The multitrack editor, as I've mentioned before, is really well done. It allows you to splice, dice, chop and cutt any wav file any way you like it. Tired of trying to synch up files when mixing in other software? Cool Edit's multitrack editor makes it easy, taking the pain out of synchronizing drum beats, foreground, and background music or effects. The multitrack editor supports a hefty 64 tracks (mixable at once) with most sound cards.

There's, of course, equilization (appearing in both graphic and parametric forms) with a good dose of different presets to go with them.

The standard array of formats are supported with Cool Edit including Real Audio (which seems to get alot of implementation these days).

Cool Edit Pro also features an auto-recover feature. I just love software that corrects itself when the OS or you makes mistakes. Everyone has probably had the misfortune of accidentally clicking no when a program prompts you to save when it exits when you really meant to click yes.

NT support is also featured in this robust package, topping off an already impressive array of goodies.

Documentation

The thing that really floored me was the in depth tutorials that came on an accompanying cd with Cool Edit Pro. There are plenty of tutorials, teaching you the very basics of the interface, right down to common and uncommon functions you may want to utilize in your own projects some day. Each tutorial is captured in full motion video and accompanied by show and tell narration. This is one of the best tutorial cds I've ever had the pleasure of watching. In only 20 minutes I was able to jump right into Cool Edit Pro and use the software like I had known it for years. If only every company would document their products as well as Syntrillium.

On the Web

Taking a visit over to Syntrilliums site, I noticed a section of user made presets. Turns out people are posting presets they've found useful in the past for others to use. Syntrillium sifts through the presets and posts them in the appropriate forum, creating a somewhat small, but rich offering of effect styles. Syntrillium is demonstrating product support, and more importantly, community through this which needs to be applauded.

Although you'll find no official add on packs for effects or plugins through Syntrilliums site, you will notice that Cool Edit Pro has the capability to use Direct X plugins such as QSound or Waves products.

The Verdict

Cool Edit Pro is the most robust and versatile sound editing software any Audio Engineer could ask for. Being a hundred dollars less than Sound Forge, Cool Edit Pro is a real steal. In short, it's raised the bar for competitive software to leap over.

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**We agree that Cool Edit is a better deal.  If you want to upgrade to Cool Edit Pro, its a much better, much cheaper, and has an overall higher value for the price.  Sound Forge (Audio Anywhere) can cost from $260 - $400 and does have many useful features, but it costs much more than Cool Edit, which has all of the basic features and much more.  For the price, Cool Edit is much better.