Hardware
considerations
Your sound card is what converts audio from an analog
signal to digital when you record, and back from digital
to analog when you play it back. Sound cards differ
in their ability to handle different types of audio
data. Almost all sound cards can record and play back
CD-quality audio (44100Hz, stereo, 16-bit), and most
can also record and play audio at various lower-quality
settings. Some can record at much higher settings,
like 24-bit/96kHz. Cool Edit 2000 can record and play
up to 32-bit audio at sample rates up to 10 megahertz.
To find out what your sound card can do, select Settings
from the Options menu and look at the chart under
the Devices tab.
Your hard disk drive(s) also play a key role in recording
and editing audio on the computer. Audio files can
take up a large amount of space-- roughly 10 megabytes
per minute of CD-quality audio. That means one three-minute
song can take up 30 MB! Your hard disks' capabilities
affect both the storage space requirements and the
throughput speed necessary to handle these large amounts
of data.
It's a good idea to maintain at least three
times the size of your file in unused hard disk space.
For example, if you are editing a 30MB file, you should
try to maintain at least 90MB in unused space. If
you want to do extensive editing and storing of audio,
you may want to consider getting an additional hard
drive.