Mastering with Cool Edit Pro/ Adobe Audition

This is a short guide on how to do mastering using Cool Edit Pro (now called Adobe Audition). Particularly, this is written based on older Adobe Audition 1.5. But I do believe the techniques outlined here can also be applied to later Adobe Audition versions such as Adobe Audition 3.

Mastering is the last stage of the audio production process, next to mixing. So make sure that before you start mastering, your audio wave must pass the following properties:

1.) It is a mix down wave. This is single waveform, which is summation or the final result of the mixing process. It should only be one waveform but containing all musical instruments mix (vocals, drums, guitars, etc). See examples below:

2.) No EQ and Compression is still applied. It should be completely fresh, the single waveform is still NOT being adjusted with any mastering EQ and compression settings.

3.) The maximum peak of the audio wave (Peak amplitude) should not exceed -3dB. An allowance is needed for EQ and Compression adjustments in mastering. If the wave is already peaking at the loudest level (0dB), then there is no room for EQ and Compression adjustments.

It is a good practice in mixing that the completed mix down should have some headroom for EQ/mastering adjustments. You can measure the peak amplitude by going to Edit View –> Analyze –> Statistics.

For details, read this tutorial on the specifications of your audio mix required before mastering.

Step1. Trimming of start and ending. I give a 0.3 second allowance before the start of the audio wave and 0.6 second allowance at the end of the wave. If the wave exceeds 0.3 second from the moment it started playing, cut it. Below is the sample screenshot of the trimmed wave at the start (it was exceeding 0.3 seconds before and I cut it to 0.3 seconds standard).

Step2. EQ stage – The objective of EQ stage is to shape the final sound of the recording, apply presence, boost hi frequencies and lows as well as removing muddiness.

Use the Adobe Audition Parametric Equalizer to adjust settings. You can as well apply EQ plugins like those from Wave. Refer to this following good tutorial on mastering EQ using Audition:

EQ Settings for Mastering
How to use a parametric equalizer

Step3. Compression stage – The overall objective of the compression stage is to make the audio wave as loud as possible without creating distortion. In this case, I am using the L2 Waves plug-in for Adobe Audition 1.5:

Go to Effects –> DirectX –> Waves –> L2 and adjust the following:

Under factory preset change to: Hi Res CD Master then adjusts the following:

Threshold: -7.5
Out of Ceiling: 0.2

Click OK, this will maximize the volume of the recording to around -13dB (average RMS power) which is considered OK for master recordings. You can check the loudness in terms of average RMS power by Analyze –> Statistics.

Fine tune the mastering and use your ear. You can use this technique to remember your settings in the mastering FX chain.

Bear in mind that mastering in Adobe Audition is a destructive audio editing process, so make sure you have backup the original mix before you proceed.

How to Add LAME MP3 encoder in Adobe Audition or Cool Edit Pro

One of the end result in mastering would be to distribute the masters in MP3 format. In this case, you need to install an MP3 encoder to Adobe Audition. LAME MP3 encoder is the best MP3 encoder that will be able to produce the highest quality MP3 of the WAV version. Yet, this is not added to Adobe Audition by default, because it has its own default MP3 encoder.

The good news is that LAME mp3 encoder is released as an open source project. This means that anyone can use it for free. This tutorial will walk you through the steps of integrating a LAME MP3 encoder to your Adobe Audition DAW software (a.k.a Cool Edit Pro).

The following are the steps:

1.) Download the LAME MP3 encoder here designed for Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition. Save it to your Downloads folder or Desktop.

2.) After downloading the zip package, right click on “cool_lame.zip” and click “Extract here”. It will then be extracted into a folder named as “cool_lame”. Inside this folder you will find the following files:

3.) The only important files in that folder are the following:

a.) cool_lame.flt
b.) lame_enc.dll

Copy these two files to your Adobe Audition root directory installation. Your Adobe Audition root directory can be found under Program files folder in your Windows operating system commonly in this path (if your Windows and Program files are installed in Drive C):

C:Program FilesAdobeAudition 1.5

Below is the snapshot of the files inside the Adobe Audition/Cool Edit root directory:

Copy those two files in that directory. After copying these files, it will look like the one below:

4.) Launch Adobe Audition. Go to Edit View and open any WAV audio files that you would like to be converted into an MP3 file using LAME encoder.

5.) Supposing you would like to convert the WAV file into a 320 kbps MP3 using CBR (Constant Bit rate). Go to File – Save As – under “Save as Type” select the option “MPEG Layer-3 [LAME]”. Then since you would like to have a 320kbs MP3 CBR, click “Options” and under “Preset” select “CBR” and select “320” under “CBR/ABR bitrate” Do NOT forget to click OK. Screenshot of this process:

6.) Finally when everything is set, click “Save”.

7.) Try playing the MP3 file with your favorite MP3 player; your player should recognize it as a 320 kbps MP3 such as shown below:

Try experimenting with the LAME options to create a diverse type of MP3 file types such as VBR (variable bit rate) or a CBR at different bit rates.

If you like to remove the LAME encoder, simply delete those two files in your Adobe Audition directory.

Content last updated on June 23, 2012