Getting into the details
The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of
Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and
may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication may
be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission by Steinberg
Media Technologies GmbH.
All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. Windows XP is a trademark of Microsoft
Corporation. Windows Vista and Windows 7 are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. Macintosh and Power Macintosh are registered
trademarks. MP3SURROUND and the MP3SURROUND logo are registered trademarks of Thomson SA, registered in the US
and other countries, and are used under license from Thomson Licensing SAS.
Release Date: November 29, 2011
© Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 2011.
All rights reserved.
Contents
1 WaveLab 7 Help 1
2 Getting Help 3
2.1 Help menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3 Using the interface 5
3.1 About Tool Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2 Adjusting Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3 Command bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4 Context menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.5 Docking windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.6 Double clicking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.7 Dragging operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.8 Playback shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.9 Select-clicking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.10 Shortcut system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.11 Sliders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.12 Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.13 Switcher window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.14 Tab Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.15 Transport controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.16 Value editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.17 Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.18 Zooming and scrolling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4 WaveLab Concepts 27
4.1 Features Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.1 Global analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.2.2 Audio file comparer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.2.3 3D Frequency Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.2.4 Loudness distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3 Authoring CDs and DVDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.4 Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4.1 Marker types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.5 Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.5.1 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.5.2 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.5.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.5.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.5.5 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.5.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
ii CONTENTS
4.6 Offline processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.6.1 Change Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.6.2 Level envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.6.3 Normalize Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.6.4 Silence Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.6.5 Loop Tone Uniformizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.6.6 Pitch correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.6.7 Time stretching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.6.8 Loop Tweaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.6.9 Effect morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.6.10 Loudness distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.6.11 Loudness normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.6.12 Pan Normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.6.13 Pitch bend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.6.14 Pitch quantize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.6.15 Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.6.16 Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.7 Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.8 Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.9 Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.9.1 WaveLab Scripting Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.9.2 ECMAScript Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.10 The Spectrum display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.10.1 Spectrogram options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.11 Spectrum editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.11.0.1 Spectrum Processing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.12 About Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5 Audio File editing 89
5.1 Offline processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.1.1 Change Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1.2 Level envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1.3 Normalize Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.1.4 Silence Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.1.5 Loop Tone Uniformizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.1.6 Pitch correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.1.7 Time stretching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.1.8 Loop Tweaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.1.9 Effect morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.1.10 Loudness distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.1.11 Loudness normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.1.12 Pan Normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.1.13 Pitch bend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.1.14 Pitch quantize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.1.15 Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.1.16 Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.2.1 Global analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.2.2 Audio file comparer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.2.3 3D Frequency Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.2.4 Loudness distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.3 Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.3.1 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.3.2 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
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5.3.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.3.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.3.5 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.3.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.3.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.4 Transport controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.5 Specific tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.5.1 Basic Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.5.2 Error detection and correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.5.3 File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.5.4 Marker Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.5.5 Metadata window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.5.6 Sample attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.5.7 Scripting window (Audio File Workspace) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.5.8 Spectrum editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.5.8.1 Spectrum Processing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.6 Shared tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.6.1 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.6.2 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.6.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.6.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.6.5 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.6.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.6.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.6.8 Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
5.6.9 Background task monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
5.6.10 Log window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.7 Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.7.1 Error detection and correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.7.2 Auto Split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.7.3 Signal generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.7.4 DTMF Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.8 Peak Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6 Audio Montages 141
6.1 Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6.1.1 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
6.1.2 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.1.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
6.1.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
6.1.5 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6.1.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.1.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.2 Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.2.1 Meta-normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6.2.2 Configure external tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6.3 Transport controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
6.4 Specific tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.4.1 File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.4.2 CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.4.3 File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.4.4 Marker Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.4.5 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
6.4.6 Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
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6.4.7 Focused Clip window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
6.4.8 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6.4.9 Scripting window (Audio Montage Workspace) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6.4.10 Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
6.4.11 DVD-Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
6.4.12 Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
6.4.13 Zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
6.4.14 Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
6.4.15 Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
6.5 Shared tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
6.5.1 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
6.5.2 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.5.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
6.5.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
6.5.5 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
6.5.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6.5.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
6.5.8 Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
6.5.9 Background task monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
6.5.10 Log window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
6.6 Audio Montage Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
6.7 Audio Montage contextual information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
7 Batch Processing 183
7.1 Specific tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
7.1.1 File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
7.1.2 Batch Processing Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
7.1.2.1 Audio Injector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
7.1.2.2 Trimmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
7.1.2.3 Resizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
7.1.2.4 Fade-In/Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
7.1.2.5 Instructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
7.1.2.6 Time Stretch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
7.1.2.7 Pitch Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
7.1.2.8 Normalize Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.1.2.9 Stereo to Mono . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.1.2.10 Pan Normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.1.2.11 Loudness normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.1.2.12 DC Remover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.1.2.13 Loudness Restorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.1.2.14 Meta-Normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.1.2.15 Meta-Leveler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.2 Shared tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.2.1 Background task monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7.2.2 Log window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7.3 Batch Processing Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
7.3.0.1 Audio Injector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
7.3.0.2 Trimmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.3.0.3 Resizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.3.0.4 Fade-In/Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.3.0.5 Instructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
7.3.0.6 Time Stretch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
7.3.0.7 Pitch Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
7.3.0.8 Normalize Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
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7.3.0.9 Stereo to Mono . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
7.3.0.10 Pan Normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
7.3.0.11 Loudness normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
7.3.0.12 DC Remover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
7.3.0.13 Loudness Restorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
7.3.0.14 Meta-Normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
7.3.0.15 Meta-Leveler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8 Podcasts 205
8.1 FTP site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.2 Episodes menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.3 Publish menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.4 Specific tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
8.4.1 File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
9 Control Window 211
9.1 Specific tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
9.2 Shared tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
9.2.1 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
9.2.2 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
9.2.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
9.2.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
9.2.5 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
9.2.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
9.2.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
9.2.8 Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
9.2.9 Background task monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
9.2.10 Log window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
9.3 Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
9.3.1 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
9.3.2 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
9.3.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
9.3.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
9.3.5 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
9.3.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
9.3.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
10 Master Section 231
10.1 Render Wave window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
10.2 Render Montage window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
10.3 Plug-ins settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
11 Interface Elements 235
11.1 Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
11.1.1 Insert link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
11.1.2 Align Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
11.1.3 Recording channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
11.1.4 Audio CD Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
11.1.5 Audio file comparer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
11.1.6 Audio File Format Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
11.1.7 Audio Montage properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
11.1.8 Split Clip at silences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
11.1.9 Audio properties dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
11.1.10 Audio Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
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11.1.11 Audio Streaming Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
11.1.12 Auto Split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
11.1.13 Batch Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
11.1.14 Basic Audio CD Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
11.1.15 Batch Renaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
11.1.16 CD Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
11.1.17 CD-Text Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
11.1.18 CD Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
11.1.19 Copy audio information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
11.1.20 Customize Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
11.1.21 Data CD/DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
11.1.22 DVD-Audio options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
11.1.23 DVD-Audio Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
11.1.24 Document list dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
11.1.25 Ducking options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
11.1.26 Effect morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
11.1.27 Edit playback times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
11.1.28 Error detection and correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
11.1.29 Configure external tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
11.1.30 Folder Preferences dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
11.1.31 Frequency range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
11.1.32 FTP site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
11.1.33 Change Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
11.1.34 File attributes (OGG/WMA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
11.1.35 Global analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
11.1.36 Import Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
11.1.37 Insert Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
11.1.38 Level envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
11.1.39 Loop Tone Uniformizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
11.1.40 Loudness distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
11.1.41 Loudness normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
11.1.42 Global Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
11.1.43 Convert marker type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
11.1.44 Load Master Section Preset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
11.1.45 Save Master Section Preset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.1.46 Audio Montage Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.1.47 Write Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
11.1.48 Meta-normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
11.1.49 Audio Montage Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
11.1.50 MP2 encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
11.1.51 MP3 attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
11.1.52 MP3 encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
11.1.53 Normalize Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
11.1.54 OGG encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
11.1.55 Open files list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
11.1.56 Pan Normalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
11.1.57 Mix dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
11.1.58 Pitch bend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
11.1.59 Pitch correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
11.1.60 Pitch quantize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
11.1.61 Playback speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
11.1.62 Podcast options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
11.1.63 Text format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
11.1.64 Repeat Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
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11.1.65 Recently used files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
11.1.66 Recording Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
11.1.67 Record create marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
11.1.68 Remote control devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
11.1.68.1CC121 Advanced Integration Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
11.1.69 Rename File dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
11.1.70 Render ASIO input to file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
11.1.71 Render Montage window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
11.1.72 Render Wave window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
11.1.73 Loudness envelope options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11.1.74 Sample attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11.1.75 Modified files dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11.1.76 Save Audio File dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
11.1.77 Select where and how Audio Files will be saved . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
11.1.78 Save Batch Processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
11.1.79 Save File As . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
11.1.80 Save Preset As . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
11.1.81 Save picture of active window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
11.1.82 Scripting window (Audio Montage Workspace) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
11.1.83 Scripting window (Audio File Workspace) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
11.1.84 Definition of shortcut(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
11.1.85 Signal generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
11.1.86 Silence Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
11.1.87 Smart bypass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
11.1.88 Special File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
11.1.89 Spectrogram options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
11.1.90 Surround Panner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
11.1.91 Create Document Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
11.1.92 Template List Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
11.1.93 Time Format dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
11.1.94 Time stretching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
11.1.95 Track dispatching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
11.1.96 Value Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
11.1.97 File attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
11.1.98 Audio File editing preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
11.1.99 Write Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
11.1.100 WMA encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
11.1.101 Workspace layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
11.1.102 Write Data CD/DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
11.1.103 Loop Tweaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
11.1.104 Zoom factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
11.2 Shared tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
11.2.1 Phasescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
11.2.2 VU Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
11.2.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
11.2.4 Bit Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
11.2.5 Spectroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
11.2.6 Spectrometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
11.2.7 Wavescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
11.2.8 Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
11.2.9 Background task monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
11.2.10 Log window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
11.3 Specific tool windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
11.3.1 File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
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11.3.2 Spectrum editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
11.3.2.1 Spectrum Processing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
11.3.3 Basic Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
11.3.4 Scripting window (Audio File Workspace) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
11.3.5 Metadata window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
11.3.6 Marker Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
11.3.7 Sample attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
11.3.8 Upload to SoundCloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
11.3.9 Error detection and correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
11.3.10 Master Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
11.3.11 Focused Clip window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
11.3.12 Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
11.3.13 File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
11.3.14 Zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
11.3.15 CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
11.3.16 Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
11.3.17 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
11.3.18 Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
11.3.19 DVD-Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
11.3.20 Scripting window (Audio Montage Workspace) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
11.3.21 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
11.3.22 Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
11.3.23 Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
12 Audio Plug-ins 327
12.1 Audio Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
12.2 Using External effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
12.3 Sonnox DeClicker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
12.4 Sonnox DeNoiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
12.5 Sonnox DeBuzzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
12.6 Steinberg Autopan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
12.7 Steinberg Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
12.8 Steinberg Compressor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
12.9 Steinberg DeEsser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
12.10 Steinberg Mono Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
12.11 Steinberg Distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
12.12 Steinberg Dual Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
12.13 Steinberg Envelope Shaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
12.14 Steinberg Expander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
12.15 Steinberg Gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
12.16 Steinberg GEQ-10/GEQ-30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
12.17 Steinberg Limiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
12.18 Steinberg Maximizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
12.19 Steinberg Mix 6 to 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
12.20 Steinberg Mix 8 to 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
12.21 Steinberg Mono to Stereo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
12.22 Steinberg Multiband Compressor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
12.23 Steinberg Octaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
12.24 Steinberg Pingpong Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
12.25 Steinberg PostFilter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
12.26 Steinberg Roomworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
12.27 Steinberg Roomworks SE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
12.28 Stereo Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
12.29 Steinberg Stereo Enhancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
WaveLab 7
CONTENTS ix
12.30 Steinberg Studio Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
12.31 Steinberg Studio EQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
12.32 Steinberg Test Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
12.33 UV22HR Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
12.34 Steinberg Vintage Compressor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
12.35 Steinberg VST Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
12.36 Crystal Resampler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
12.37 Leveler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
12.38 Leveler Multi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
12.39 Peak Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
12.40 Silence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
12.41 Stereo Expander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
12.42 Internal Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
13 Utilities 385
13.1 Import Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
13.2 Burn Audio CD from DDP Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
13.3 Data CD/DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
13.4 Batch Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
13.5 Batch Renaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
13.6 Log window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
13.7 Background task monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
13.8 Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
14 How do I... 393
14.1 ... import songs from an audio CD into WaveLab? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
14.2 ... use VST Plug-ins? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
14.3 ... edit an existing Audio File? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
14.4 ... compile and edit several Audio Files on multiple tracks? . . . . . . . . . . . 394
14.5 ... apply processing to an Audio File? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
14.6 ... convert an Audio File into another audio format? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
14.7 ... play back with real-time effects? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
14.8 ... record new Audio File? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
14.9 ... convert the sample rate of an Audio File? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
14.10 ... create a Podcast? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
14.11 ... open an aac, m4a or m4p Audio File from Apple iTunes? . . . . . . . . . . 396
15 Glossary 397
15.1 ADPCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
15.2 AES31 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
15.3 AIFF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
15.4 Apple Lossless files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
15.5 ALAW files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
15.6 Aliasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
15.7 Amplitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
15.8 ASIO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
15.9 Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
15.10 Audio montage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
15.11 Bandwidth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
15.12 Bit depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
15.13 Blu-ray Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
15.14 CD Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
15.15 CD Pre-emphasis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
15.16 CD Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
WaveLab 7
x CONTENTS
15.17 Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
15.18 Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
15.19 Clipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
15.20 Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
15.21 Cross fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
15.22 DAW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
15.23 DC Offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
15.24 DDP files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
15.25 Decibel (dB) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
15.26 Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
15.27 DVD-A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
15.28 ECMAScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
15.29 Ensoniq Paris files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
15.30 Equalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
15.31 FFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
15.32 Focused Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
15.33 Formant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
15.34 FTP Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
15.35 Headroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
15.36 ISO image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
15.37 ISRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
15.38 Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
15.39 Loudness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
15.40 Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
15.41 Media Catalog Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
15.42 MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
15.43 MIDI Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
15.44 Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
15.45 Mobile phone Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
15.46 MP2 files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
15.47 MP3 files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
15.48 Non-destructive editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
15.49 Normalize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
15.50 NTSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
15.51 Ogg Vorbis files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
15.52 OSQ files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
15.53 PAL/SECAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
15.54 Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
15.55 Peak level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
15.56 Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
15.57 Pre-roll and Post-roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
15.58 Preset system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
15.59 Processor cores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
15.60 Quantization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
15.61 Raw PCM files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
15.62 Red Book CD-DA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
15.63 Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
15.64 RF64 files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
15.65 RMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
15.66 Sample rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
15.67 SMPTE timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
15.68 Sound Designer II files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
15.69 Spectrogram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
15.70 Sun/Java files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
WaveLab 7
CONTENTS xi
15.71 Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
15.72 Text/Excel files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
15.73 ULAW files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
15.74 UPC/EAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
15.75 WAV files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
15.76 WAV64 files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
15.77 Waveform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
15.78 Wet/Dry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
15.79 WMA files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
15.80 Zero crossing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
WaveLab 7
Chapter 1
WaveLab 7 Help
Welcome to the WaveLab Help browser. You can expand the tree structure in the panel on
the left (under the Contents tab) to find individual Help topics. You can also use the Index
and Bookmarks tabs, in addition to a powerful Search feature (under the Search tab).
Please see Getting Help for more ways of using the Help browser and other help features
available throughout WaveLab.
For a quick overview of the features provided in WaveLab see Features Overview.
Top-level topics
Getting Help
Using the interface
WaveLab Concepts
Audio File editing
Audio Montages
Batch Processing
Podcasts
Control Window
Master Section
Master Project
Interface Elements
Audio Plug-ins
Utilities
How do I...
Glossary
2 WaveLab 7 Help
WaveLab 7
Chapter 2
Getting Help
WaveLab's detailed help system makes it easy to look up interface features and get information from within the program. There are three main types of help available:
What is this?
Access this by clicking on the icon, or the question mark icon in a dialog window titlebar,
or by holding down [Shift]+[F1]. Once activated, the cursor changes to a question mark.
Click on an interface feature for information on what it does and details of any settings/values/functions involved. This is a quick way to learn about the more detailed features of
WaveLab.
When a Context menu is open, holding down [Shift]+[F1] allows the "What is This?" mode
to activate while the menu is open, and this is actually the only way to get help for Context
menu features.
It is worth noting too that "What is This?" help is sometimes available for sub-parts of controls,
such as List headers.
Tooltips
Hold your cursor over a button to show a brief description of its function wherever available.
Help window
This window provides you with detailed information on WaveLab's features and functionality.
You can access this help window in several ways:
via the Help menu. See Help menu.
from each dialog window provided with a Help button. This opens the Help window at
the relevant entry.
by pressing [F1]/[Command]+[?]. If a window is active, the Help window opens to the
relevant entry. If a dialog box is open, the dialog is described.
4 Getting Help
Related topics
Help menu
Command bars
2.1 Help menu
The Help menu gives you a convenient point of access to WaveLab's Help system.
Help about the active window...
Select this (or press [F1]/[Command]+[?]) to give help on the active window. If a dialog
box is open, the dialog is described.
Contents...
This lists the Help contents as a "tree structure" in the Contents window. Like many
WaveLab windows, you can make this a floating window, if you want to park it in a
convenient place on screen.
Index...
This accesses an Index to Help entries. Type in the "Look for:" box, or scroll down the
alphabetical list. If there is more than one entry for the Index item, you'll be given a
choice of entries to be displayed, in the "Choose Topic" box.
Search...
Type the name of the topic you wish to find in the "Search for:" box. If more than one
topic is found to match the search string, a list is displayed: click on the most likely
entry to display the topic. If there are too many entries, you can refine the search by
clicking on [+] "Advanced search".
Bookmarks...
Click the [+] Add button to add the displayed topic to the list of Bookmarked favorites.
Now you can return to the entry speedily.
What is this?
This gives a short "Tooltip" explanation by pointing and clicking on the interface feature
you need information on. This can also be used to get help on any menu item. Activate the question mark icon by selecting "What is this?" from the Help system; using
[Shift]+[F1]; or by selecting from the command bar button.
Steinberg on the internet - This fly-out menu opens a window on your browser with
the appropriate URL to support, update, upgrade or register WaveLab. You can also
access the Steinberg Home Page.
Related topics
Getting Help
WaveLab 7
Chapter 3
Using the interface
This section gives information on interface features that may not be obvious and which may
help to speed up your workflow, especially as your experience with WaveLab increases.
WaveLab is incredibly flexible in the ways that you can set up your working environment.
Interface elements can be arranged to suit your workflow, the type of project you are creating
and the size and number of your displays.
You can move, reorder and detach windows and tabs from frames and tear off groups of buttons in the Toolbar. You can slide and quickly partition different panes (areas) of the WaveLab
window.It's easy to set up different layouts for different projects and switch between them.
WaveLab has distinct Workspaces where you can work on a "session". Each Workspace
lets you collect a number of files that you want to keep together. This could be all of the
Audio Files used in a single song for instance, or all the Audio Files that go to make up a
Podcast episode.
Tip: If you're a user of Nuendo (a Steinberg product), don't forget that you can drag files
directly from within WaveLab.
Related topics
About Tool Windows
Adjusting Envelopes
Command bars
Context menus
Docking windows
Double clicking
Dragging operations
Playback shortcuts
Select-clicking
Shortcut system
Sliders
Status Bar
6 Using the interface
Switcher window
Tab Groups
Transport controls
Value editing
Workspaces
Zooming and scrolling
3.1 About Tool Windows
Throughout WaveLab there are various tool windows available that enable you to view, analyze and edit the current active document. Generally the content of a tool window is synchronized with the active document, with the exception of the audio meters which can display
information related to other documents.
There are two types of Tool windows:
Specific tool windows - these are dedicated to a given Workspace type. The File
Browser and Marker windows are examples of specific tool windows.
Shared tool windows - Only one instance of these windows can exist at any one
time in WaveLab, and it can be shared between Workspaces. The Master Section is
an example of a shared window and as such there is only ever one instance of it.
All tool windows can be accessed via the Workspace menu. See Docking windows for
information on docking and undocking tool windows.
Specific Tool windows
Specific tool windows are specific to the current Workspace and are dedicated to that
Workspace type. They perform useful tasks in the active Workspace. The File Browser
and Marker windows are examples of specific tool windows.
Specific tool windows can be docked and un-docked anywhere within their Workspace,
and saved in your custom layouts. They can also float as standalone windows in a specific
Workspace.
Shared tool windows
Shared tool windows are shared between certain Workspaces and are independent of any
one Workspace. Like specific tool windows, they can be docked and un-docked, and saved
in your custom layouts. The Master Section is an example of a shared window.
The main difference with Specific tool windows is that only one instance of a Shared tool
window can exist at any one time in WaveLab. When you open a shared tool window that is
referenced in another Workspace it will "move" from the other Workspace to the active one.
A shared tool window can be moved and docked exactly like a specific tool window, however in addition Shared tool windows can "float as an independent window", that is, independent of any Workspace. Each shared tool window has a menu entry to allow this floating
WaveLab 7
3.2 Adjusting Envelopes 7
mode.They can also be placed in the Control Window, in a tab group. Each shared tool
window has a menu entry to allow this ("Place in Control Window").
Differences between Mac and Windows
Floating windows behave slightly differently on Apple Mac and Windows, due to some basic
differences between the platforms:
Mac - On the Mac, a tool window is always on top of all other windows and a floating
window remains visible even if its dependent Workspace is not active or is minimized.
If WaveLab is no longer the active application, all its floating windows are hidden.
Windows - A floating window is hidden when its dependent Workspace is minimized
or covered by another window. If WaveLab is no longer the active application, all its
independent floating windows are hidden.
Saving a windows location
Once you have your tools windows, command bars and tab groups set up the way you wish
to work, you can save their location in the current Workspace by choosing Workspace >
Layout > Save as... and saving a preset; or you can save the current layout as the default
layout by choosing Workspace > Layout > Save current layout as default.
If you wish to save the location of all Workspaces, then use the global option by choosing
Global > General Window Layout > Save as... and saving a preset; or you can save
the current layout as the default layout by choosing Global > General Window Layout >
Save current layout as default.
Related topics
Workspaces
Shared tool windows
Specific tool windows
3.2 Adjusting Envelopes
At various places in WaveLab, envelopes are used to constrain the way effects are expressed.
Some offline processes such as Level Envelope, use envelopes to adjust an effect over time.
You can edit the profile of these envelopes quickly and easily.
Adjusting an envelope
Edit the envelope using the envelope editor window in the following ways:
Create and erase points by double clicking.
Select points by clicking on them.
WaveLab 7
8 Using the interface
To select more than one point, press [Ctrl]/[Command] when clicking - you can then
move them together. Selected points don't have to be contiguous. You can also click
anywhere in the window and drag the cursor over the envelope points to select them.
You can drag any segment to move the whole envelope profile up and down.
You can drag a single segment vertically by pressing [Ctrl]/[Command] and move the
segment up and down.
You can drag a single segment horizontally by pressing [Ctrl]/[Command] + [Shift]
and move the segment left and right.
You can also use the controls at the top of the editor window to delete or reset points in
the envelope. Use the envelope smoothing button to toggle the envelope points between a
linear (polygonal) or a curved path. The envelope is not applied until you click "Apply".
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Level envelope
Time stretching
Pitch correction
Pitch bend
3.3 Command bars
Commonly used tools, shortcuts and commands are represented by "Command buttons",
each with their own icon. Related buttons are grouped into various Command bars. You
can dock Command bars to any window edge and rearrange them. Each Workspace has
an appropriate set of command bars that are available to be displayed. All the commands
accessed via the Command buttons can also be found in the menus.
Hiding and displaying Command bars
To view a list of available command bars right-click on an empty part of the top edge of the
Workspace. More precisely, on Windows computers right click anywhere along the window's
top menu, on Apple Macintosh computers right click in the window's caption bar. This displays the Peripheral Windows context menu, which you can use to select which Command
bars are displayed.You can also choose which individual Command buttons are displayed
from the Customize commands dialog.
To move a set of Command bar tools
Drag on the left side of the command, or at top for vertical command bars - the pointer
changes to when you have "grip". Drag the group of Commands to any side of the appli-
WaveLab 7
3.4 Context menus 9
cation window and release the mouse button. The application window and other Command
bars will automatically make space for the Command bar in its new position.
By default, Command bars are docked and don't float. You can make them float individually
or not, by right clicking and selecting the desired option from the menu. Once the option has
been selected, move the command bar.
You can drag Command groups below an existing row to form a new row (or next to an
existing column, to form a new column). You can also reorder their position within a row or
column, to customize your layout.
If a Command bar does not have room to display all of its icons, it will have a double right (or
down) arrow >>. Click on the double arrow to reveal any obscured Command buttons.
Finding out what a Command button does
Hover over an individual Command button to display its tooltip. If no tooltip appears, make
sure "Show tips when mouse stays over buttons" is activated in Preferences... > Global
Preferences > Display tab.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Global Preferences
Customize Commands
Context menus
3.4 Context menus
Throughout WaveLab there are various Context menus available. These menus group together a range of commands and/or options specific to the window you are working in. They
appear when clicking with the right mouse button in certain places and may be useful for
speeding up your workflow.
Some Context menus have colored title bars (these were formerly known as "Speed menus"
in WaveLab 6), and their title indicates the part of the interface they relate to.
Using Context Menus
To bring up a context menu, right-click in the desired area. This is normally somewhere
along the edges of a window, or in some cases anywhere on the window itself or its title.
Right-clicking on a File tab, for example, shows a context menu with some relevant file options. Right-clicking on the waveform window header brings up the Time Ruler context menu
allowing you to access a number options for changing the Time Ruler display format.
Tip: Most context menu commands can be found on the normal menu bar but some unique
commands are only found in context menus. As they are not always obvious, when
searching for a function, it may be worth checking for a Context menu in the window in which
you are working by right-clicking on it, or around its edges.
WaveLab 7
10 Using the interface
Related topics
Shortcut system
3.5 Docking windows
All of WaveLab's tool windows can be used as docked windows or as stand-alone "floating"
windows. They can be freely dragged around and docked at various locations. Command
bars can also be freely moved around and docked along the edges of most windows. See
Command bars for more information.
Undocking a window
Double-click on the title bar. This works with all tool windows, Specific and Shared.
About Specific tool windows
To undock a Specific tool window use one of the following methods:
double-click on the title bar.
click on the small double window icon which is located at the top left hand corner of
the window.
click and drag the window by its title bar.
Once un-docked, you can freely drag the window around by clicking and dragging on the
window's title header bar.
To dock the window again, drag it to any location where you are visually prompted to release
the window. Around the edges and the top of the Workspace is where this normally occurs.
Most windows can be docked horizontally or vertically, but some can only be docked in one
direction, because of the nature of their contents. To dock the window again, you can also
double-click in the title bar.
Tip: To move a window and prevent it from docking, hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] before
you begin to undock the window. This will avoid the window docking again and allow you to
place it anywhere. Once you begin to drag, you can release [Ctrl]/[Command].
About Shared tool windows
Shared tool windows such as the meters and the Master Section are slightly different to
other tool windows as there is only ever one of them available and it can only appear in
one Workspace at a time. As such, when you open a shared tool window from the menus
in another Workspace it undocks and moves from its original Workspace. An empty tab
container with a vertical title bar will remain in its previous Workspace.
To retrieve a window again from another Workspace use the button at the top left of these
empty containers. For example, if you have the VU Meter displayed in the Audio Montage
WaveLab 7
3.6 Double clicking 11
Workspace and you wish to display it in the Audio File Workspace, you can simply click the
blue button and the VU Meter window will move back into its tab container.
You can choose to deactivate the default moving behavior by deselecting Workspace >
Auto move shared tool windows. Shared tool windows do not then move when you
switch between Workspaces.
Docking/Undocking in the Control Window
Certain windows (those with a Window and Global menu in their title header) can also be
arranged in the Control Window. These are placed centrally - slightly differently to how they
behave in the other Workspaces. For more information on docking/undocking windows in
the Control Window see Control Window.
Related topics
Tab Groups
About Tool Windows
Command bars
Control Window
3.6 Double clicking
A double click is the act of pressing the mouse button twice quickly without moving the
mouse.
Throughout WaveLab you can achieve the following by double clicking in certain places:
Create a new empty document - double click on the empty part of a tab bar. See
Tab Groups for more information.
Edit a marker name - double click at the right side of a marker's icon (in the Audio
File or Montage Workspace) above the time ruler.
Select a region (Audio File Workspace) - double click to select the whole Audio
File. Where markers exist, the region between the markers is selected. If markers exist
and you wish to select the entire file you can triple-click to select the whole file.
Set zoom to display entire waveform (Audio File/Montage Workspace) - double click on the horizontal zoom wheel to reset the zoom to display the whole Audio
File.
Set zoom to default value (Audio File/Montage Workspace) - double click on
the vertical zoom wheel to reset the zoom to its default value.
Center the waveform (Audio File Workspace) - double click on the vertical scroll
bar to center the waveform around the horizontal axis.
WaveLab 7
12 Using the interface
Start playback (Audio File/Montage Workspace) - double click in the time line to
start playback from that point.
In addition to these specific examples, in various places throughout WaveLab, doubleclicking can be used to begin editing certain values. Depending on the context the type
of editing triggered will vary. In most list views for example, double-clicking in a cell will allow
you to edit its value.
Related topics
Tab Groups
Select-clicking
3.7 Dragging operations
WaveLab makes much use of "drag-and-drop" techniques to perform various operations,
some of which can't be performed otherwise. These are referred to as drag operations in
this documentation.
To drag an object, press and hold down the left mouse button while over the object and drag
it to the desired destination. Drop the object by releasing the button.
Many types of objects can be dragged between different source and destination locations
including files, text, Clips, the playback head and markers.
Tip: This help entry describes some of the most important drag and drop operations. There
are many other possibilities, especially within the various list views for example where you
can possibly drag from the list to an external window, drag a file into the list (to import), or
reorder, these vary of course according to the context). Therefore we encourage you to try
drag and drop wherever you feel it may make sense.
Within Workspaces
Drag objects within and between Workspaces to perform the following functions:
Docking a tool window - drag a window's title bar to any side of the Workspace,
beside or above an existing tool window, to dock the window at a new place.
Moving a Command bar - drag the bar grip at the left-hand end of a command bar
and reposition it. See Command bars for more information.
Moving a Document Tab - drag the tab to a new location within its own tabbed group
to reorder.You can also drag a tab to another group of tabs.
Open a file - drag a compatible file from the WaveLab's File Browser, from the operating system's file browser or from another application to the tab bar.
Insert a file in another Workspace - drag an Audio File by its title bar tab between
the Audio File and Audio Montage Workspaces. You can also use the Switcher window
to drag any object to another Workspace. Drag the object over the corresponding
Workspace icon in the Switcher window and wait until the new Workspace becomes
active. Then you can release the file in the target Workspace.
WaveLab 7
3.7 Dragging operations 13
Within the Audio File Workspace
Drag objects within the Audio File Workspace to perform the following functions:
Paste an Audio File - drag a document's title bar tab or document button onto the
waveform area of another file, to copy and paste its audio content. You can also drag
a compatible file directly from the File Browser, the operating system's file browser, or
from another application.
Delete/Move a marker - drag the marker along the time ruler to change its position.
Drag while pressing the [Shift] key to create a copy of this marker. Drag above the
time ruler to delete the marker.
Copy an audio selection - drag a selected region of audio onto the waveform area
of the same file, or of another file. Left, right or both channels can be copied.
Create a new file from an audio selection - drag a selected region of audio onto
the empty space of a tab bar to create a new copy of the audio. If dragging happens
right after double clicking, the selection is quantized and extended up to the marker's
"region" under the mouse.
Modify a selection - drag left or right to change the extent of the selection.
Move the waveform - drag anywhere above the time ruler to move it horizontally.
Create a marker from selected text - drop text that you have selected in an external
application onto the time ruler to create a generic marker there. The text becomes the
marker's name.
Scroll the waveform - drag the cursor to the left or right sides of the waveform area
to display the region before or after.
Mix to Mono - by holding down [Control + Alt]/[Command + Alt] while dragging the
file to a new tab, you can quickly mix a stereo file to mono.
Convert from Mono to Stereo - by holding down [Control + Alt]/[Command + Alt]
while dragging the file to a new tab, you can quickly convert a mono file to stereo .
Tip: When aligning some objects in the waveform area, labeled prompts will help you to
snap to other locations in the waveform (for example, the end points of Audio Files, markers
or cursors).
Audio Montage Workspace
Drag objects within the Audio Montage Workspace to perform the following functions:
Paste an Audio File - drag a document's title bar tab or document button onto
the Montage area of another file, to copy and paste its audio content. You can also drag
a compatible file directly from the File Browser, the operating system's file browser, or
from another application.
WaveLab 7
14 Using the interface
Delete/Move a marker - drag the marker along the time ruler to change its position.
Drag while pressing the [Shift] key to create a copy of this marker. Drag above the
time ruler to delete the marker.
Create a marker from selected text - drop text that you have selected in an external
application onto the time ruler to create a generic marker there. The text becomes the
marker's name.
Scroll the Montage - drag the cursor to the left and right sides of the Montage to
display what comes before or after.
Paste a Clip - drag a document's title bar tab or document button onto the Montage
area to copy and paste its audio content. You can also drag a compatible file directly
from the File Browser, the operating system's file browser, or from another application.
Within the Podcast Workspace
You can drag episodes in the Episodes list to reorder them.
Within the Master Section
You can drag effects between different Effects slots to change the order of processing (which
takes place from top to bottom).
Within the Batch Processor Workspace
Change the order of effects - you can change the order in which plug-ins are processed by dragging plug-ins within the Audio plug-in chain window.
Add to batch process - you can drag a file (via its tab) to the batch conversion tool
or batch processor, for "instant" processing.
Related topics
Docking windows
Switcher window
3.8 Playback shortcuts
Playing back audio is a common repetitive task in WaveLab. In addition to the playback
command buttons in the Transport controls, there are a few extra commands that can only be
accessed via special keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts can be used even when the audio
window is not the active window. These special keyboard shortcuts cannot be customized.
They are:
Space bar - Start/Stop
WaveLab 7
3.9 Select-clicking 15
0 or F7 - Stop. When pressed while already stopped, the cursor jumps to the previous
playback start position. A further "0" returns the cursor to the start of the file.
Enter (Numeric Pad) or F8 - Start
[Ctrl]/[Command] + F6 - Plays from the beginning to the end of the selection, if any.
Where there are markers it plays between them. If there are no markers it plays from
the beginning to the end of the Audio File.
[Win]/[Ctrl] + F6 - As above, but playback starts with a preroll before the region and
stops at its end.
[Shift] + F6 - As above, but playback ends with a postroll after the region.
[Win]/[Ctrl] + [Shift] + F6 - As above, but playback starts with a preroll before the
region and ends with a postroll after the region.
Related topics
Transport controls
3.9 Select-clicking
Select-clicking is the act of selecting an object with the mouse and while it is selected,
clicking again. This is a common interface interaction when renaming a file or folder in your
computer's native file browser.
Throughout WaveLab there are places where you need to select-click fields to edit values. In
some lists such as the Basic Audio CD window, you need to select-click cells to edit a track
name or ISRC code. Generally if a value can be edited, a double click selects all characters
in that cell and allows you to begin editing; if not, then try select-clicking the cell instead.
Related topics
Tab Groups
Double clicking
3.10 Shortcut system
Throughout WaveLab there are many predefined shortcuts and custom commands that can
be used to speed up your workflow. The offline process "Fade-in", for example can be triggered from its menu entry, from its command bar icon, using a custom key sequence, and you
can use MIDI events as well. Each shortcut is restricted to its specific Workspace, which
means you can re-use the same shortcut in different Workspaces. When a command is
available from more than one Workspace, then the shortcut applies to all Workspaces and
cannot be reused.
WaveLab 7
16 Using the interface
Not all commands are restricted to a Workspace, for example, all Master Section commands
are global to the application, and Record commands (Record dialog) are active only when
the Record dialog has focus. In addition, a few specific Global shortcuts can be defined
from Preferences... > Global Preferences > Global shortcuts tab.
Shortcuts are defined and can be edited in the Customize commands dialog. There are
various places where you can access this dialog, and each dialog restricts editing of the
shortcut to the related context. You can generate a summary of custom commands in a Print
preview or HTML format from the dialog's "Summary" button.
There are several types of shortcuts available in WaveLab:
Key sequences
You can define a sequence of up to four keys to trigger a desired action. Note that these
keys must be pressed/released one after the other, and the action is performed when the last
key has been pressed. Key stroke sequences give you a very large choice of combinations,
which is useful in an application with a large feature set. There are however possible pitfalls,
if for example:
Shortcut #1 is defined with the sequence: Control+D, Control+E
Shortcut #2 is defined with the sequence: Control+D
The application watches for key strokes, and when Control+D is pressed, Shortcut #2 won't
be triggered because Control+D is also used in a longer sequence (the application can't
know if it should wait for Control+E or not).
Note: A few very basic shortcuts cannot be redefined. If this is the case, the relevant edit
field is disabled. On the Mac, only the first key of native menus can be displayed.
MIDI event sequences
This is the same as with keyboard sequences, but using MIDI events sent from an external
MIDI device instead.
Keywords
Unless you use them frequently, key sequences are not always easy to remember but keywords normally are. In WaveLab you can define any unique keyword to trigger a command.
Type the keyword in the dedicated "Keyword" field in the "Definition of shortcut(s)" dialog,
and click OK.
To trigger the command, enter the keyword in the Keyword command bar, found in all
Workspace, and press Return. This command bar keeps a list of recent commands, to improve performance.
Keywords are useful in conjunction with presets, because a specific preset is easier to remember from a keyword (for example, "norm-1" to trigger a "Normalize to -1dB" process, if
such a preset has been set).
WaveLab 7
3.11 Sliders 17
Adding menu items to a Command bar button
Each Workspace has a number of default Command bars defined, but you can add further
menu items to customize Command bars.
Each menu command with an icon can be potentially added to a Command bar. Commands
are internally grouped by functionality, so the button always appears in its related command
bar (File commands appear in the File command bar, for example).
Add a menu command using the Customize commands dialog. Each command has a checkbox in the "Bar" column.
Other shortcuts
There are many other shortcuts in WaveLab that are accessed using the mouse. These are
described in Double clicking, Dragging operations and Tab Groups. Clicking the right button
on the mouse in certain places will produce a Context menu which offers quick access to
relevant commands.
Related topics
Customize Commands
Definition of shortcut(s)
Double clicking
Dragging operations
Tab Groups
Context menus
3.11 Sliders
At various places in WaveLab, slider controls are available to change parameters. There are
a number of ways to change a slider's value:
Turn the mouse wheel over the slider (no click is required). Press [Ctrl]/[Command]
simultaneously to scroll faster. This modifier also applies to the zoom wheels.
Left click on the button to move it.
Left click outside the button to move the button directly to that position.
Right click before or after the button, to move the button step by step. Keep the mouse
button pressed to automatically step to the next value.
Middle click anywhere to reset the slider to the default value (if a default is available).
Left click and press [Ctrl]/[Command] anywhere to reset the default value (if a default
value is available).
Double click on the button to reset the default value (if a default value is available).
WaveLab 7
18 Using the interface
Related topics
Adjusting Envelopes
3.12 Status Bar
The Status bar is normally displayed at the bottom of the screen and shows information about
the active window using the units specified in the rulers.
The Wave and Mouse cursor time positions are shown using the same units of time as in the
rulers and dialog boxes. Level positions are always shown in dB. This information is updated
depending on the cursor position and whether you have a region of audio selected. In the
case of the Audio File Workspace it gives the following information about the Audio File.
From left to right:
Time/Level (dB) - at the mouse cursor position.
Wave cursor Time - displays the time at the position of the Wave cursor. This information changes when you click to reposition the cursor. Click on this status bar field to
show the Cursor position dialog, which you can use to accurately position the cursor.
Audio selection indicator - displays the length of the current selection, or the total
length of the Audio File if there is no selection. Right-click on this to display the entire
audio range.In WaveLab Left-click also opens the Audio Range dialog, so you can
define or refine a selection.
Zoom indicator - displays the current zoom factor. Click this to edit the zoom factor;
right-click to display a pop-up menu (equivalent to selecting View > Zoom).
File format details - displays the number of audio channels, bit resolution and sample
rate; Click to display Audio properties dialog.
Document button - allows you to click and drag the current Audio File into an-
other document (for example, in the Audio Montage Workspace). This is equivalent to
dragging the file Tab.
Sample Key indicator - indicates the key of the current Audio File (if defined) and
opens the Sample Attributes window. The status bar also indicates the progress
of some background operations, such as rendering an effect. The operation can be
paused or canceled using the buttons provided.
The "Play through Master Section" buttons and allow you to completely bypass the
Master Section for playback, or not, with a setting for each file (Audio File and Montage).
There are also the Save/Restore Master Section presets buttons, which allow you to store/restore these settings for each file. See Save Master Section Preset.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
WaveLab 7
3.13 Switcher window 19
Related topics
Time Format dialog
Zoom factor
Audio properties dialog
3.13 Switcher window
This small floating window allows you to switch between each of the main Workspaces in
WaveLab, and also to open and create documents.
It is visible at all times and floats above all other windows. You can choose which Workspace
buttons are visible and adjust its transparency in Global Preferences. You can resize, rotate
and move the Switcher window anywhere on your monitor(s).
It is useful to use a file in a different Workspace. For example, you can drag an Audio File
from the Audio File Workspace over the Audio Montage icon in the Switcher window
and wait until the Audio Montage Workspace becomes active before inserting the file
in a montage.
To switch between Workspaces: click on a Workspace button and if the Workspace is
not already open, a menu opens and offers several options.
If two instances of the same Workspace are open, you can toggle between them by
repeatedly clicking on the appropriate icon.
To create a new document in any Workspace: click + [Ctrl]/[Command] on a
Workspace button.
To open a document in any Workspace: click + [Shift] on a Workspace button.
To display a menu listing the files used recently in a particular Workspace, click on any
Workspace icon and hold the button down. This means that with just one click you can
access the history of a document from any Workspace. From the same menu, you can
also create a new document or open the file selector box. If you click on the icon of the
active workspace, you don't need to hold the button down. Alternatively, you can right
click to show a menu instantly.
Related topics
Workspaces
Docking windows
3.14 Tab Groups
A tab group is a region within a Workspace that contains windows that can be activated by
a tab, each with its own content and title bar. Only one tab can be active at a time.
WaveLab 7
20 Using the interface
In an editing Workspace, a tab group contains one or more documents (e.g. Audio Files).In
the Control Window, a tab group contains one or more shared tool windows. In WaveLab it
is possible to create more than one tab group.To activate a tab, simply click on the title bar
of the tab you wish to work on.
Tip: Because it can be useful to quickly display multiple files side by side, the Audio File
Workspace has a Tile mode that can be activated from the Tabs menu. To make this possible,
a single tab group must exist.
Using Tabs for editing audio
Tabs have a variety of useful behaviors depending on the type of window contained by the tab
group.Tabs that display meters and other tool windows can be dragged and moved around
in the Control window.Tabs that contain Audio Files (in the Audio File Workspace) symbolize
a whole Audio File and where applicable allow you to perform many other useful functions:
Reorder the tab bar - by dragging and dropping the tab at a new position on the tab
bar.
Move it to another Workspace - by dragging and dropping the tab in the editing
window of another Workspace.
Paste it into an Audio File - by dragging and dropping the tab onto the waveform
display at the cursor position you want to insert the copied audio.
Paste it into another application - by dropping the tab into the relevant window of
the other application. The result depends on the target aplication.
Tip: You can also achieve the same actions by dragging the Audio File from the document
button on the status bar at the bottom right of each window.
Other useful functions can be accessed using tab groups:
Create a new empty document - by double clicking on an empty part of the tab bar
(on the right normally). The new file is created by using the active file as template (for
example, Sample rate).
Display the document file path - by keeping the mouse over a tab for a small moment. This displays a popup that indicates the full file path of the associated document.
Access additional tab functions - by right clicking on a tab.
Access the Recent file list - by Right-clicking in the empty tab area.
Move a file between tab groups - by dragging a tab from one tab group to another.
Copy a file - by holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] to create a copy by dragging the
file elsewhere in the tab area.
Mix to Mono - (Audio File Workspace) by holding down [Control + Alt]/[Command +
Alt] to mix a stereo file to mono while dragging the file to a new tab.
WaveLab 7
3.15 Transport controls 21
Convert from Mono to Stereo - (Audio File Workspace) by holding down [Control
+ Alt]/[Command + Alt] to convert a mono file from mono to stereo while dragging the
file to a new tab.
Quickly switch between tabs - by moving the mouse wheel while over the tab bar.
This switches the focus between the different tabs.
Tip: An option in global preferences allows you to hide the title bar if there is only one tab
open Global preferences > User Interface > Show tab if there is a single window.
Related topics
About Tool Windows
Docking windows
3.15 Transport controls
The transport controls allow you to control playback within an Audio File or montage, and to
open the record window. It can be accessed via the Transport menu or the Transport toolbar.
See Command bars for more information.
The Transport menu gives access to (and shows keyboard shortcuts to) the same functions
that are available in the transport toolbar.
The Transport toolbar gives quick access to most of these functions. If the toolbar is hidden, select Workspace > Command bars > Transport commands. Transport functions
operate on the current Audio File.
The basic transport functions are:
Loop On/Off
- Toggles looping on/off for the currently selected Audio File or montage.
Move cursor to start of file / Move cursor to end of file
- Move the cursor to the beginning or end of the currently selected Audio File.
Move cursor to the right / Move cursor to the left
- Skip the cursor forwards or backwards within the currently selected Audio File.
Play
- Begin playback of the current Audio File.
Stop
- Stop playback of the current Audio File. A second click moves the cursor to the
beginning of the last start position. A further click returns the cursor to the start of the
file.
Record
- Opens the recording window from which you can start recording.
WaveLab 7
22 Using the interface
Additional transport functions such as start, skip and stopping playback options are also
available from the transport command bar.In WaveLab additional playback speed and
jog/shuttle shortcuts are also provided.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Playback speed
Recording Dialog
Command bars
3.16 Value editing
At various places in WaveLab, numerical values can be edited using a combination of text
fields and spin controls.
These values are sometimes made of several parts, for example, 12 mn 30 sec 120 ms. Each
value can be edited using the following methods:
With the value selected, type a new value.
Use the up and down arrow keys to change the value by one unit at a time.
Use the page up and page down keys to change the value by several units.
Use the home and end keys to jump to the maximum and minimum values.
Use the left and right arrow keys to move from one part to another.
Click on the small button arrows (the spin controls), to change the value.
Move the mouse cursor over the desired section. Now use the mouse wheel to change
the value, without clicking. The hovered section will be highlighted when the wheel
spins.
Move the mouse cursor over the part you wish to change. Click and drag up and down
to change the value.
Tip: Right clicking on the edit control may display a context menu, where additional functions
are available.
Related topics
Sliders
WaveLab 7
3.17 Workspaces 23
3.17 Workspaces
A Workspace is a window that provides an editing and playback environment for a particular
audio document type. Each type of Workspace presents the functions related to the specific
file types it is made for; this reduces clutter in the user interface.
In WaveLab there is a Workspace for each main type of file to edit:
Audio File Workspace - for viewing and editing Audio Files. See Audio File editing
Audio Montage Workspace - for assembling and editing audio montages. See
Audio Montages
Batch Processing - allows you to process a list of Audio Files with offline effects,
VST-plug-ins and Master Section presets. Each file is processed and then outputted
to a folder of your choice. You can run batches repeatedly if required. See Batch
Processing.
Control Window - for hosting and organizing tool windows (e.g. meters), especially
in a multi-monitor setup. You can choose not to use it if you do not find it convenient,
since removing the Control Window does not remove any features of WaveLab. See
Control Window.
Podcast Workspace - for preparing and uploading Podcasts. See Podcasts
A Workspace is highly customizable, to match your workflow, experience and screen setups
(which may vary from a studio-based multi-screen DAW to a single-screen laptop on the
road). A Workspace can appear in a wide variety of styles, from a simple window with a
single menu in its most uncluttered form, to a sophisticated arrangement of Command bars,
tool windows, Tab groups and active meters.To meet the varied needs of users, custom
layouts can be saved (using Global > General window layout > Save as...) and restored
from a menu or shortcut. When a file is opened from a given Workspace, it is added to the
active tab group of this Workspace.If a file is opened from the application Workspace, a new
Workspace is created for it. You can have several instances of the same Workspace type
open simultaneously (for example, you could have two Audio File Workspaces open with
different layouts). However, for performance reasons it is generally better to have just one
instance of a Workspace type open at a time. You can drag files between Workspaces if
they both share compatible formats. For example, you can drag an Audio File from the Audio
File Workspace and drop it into the Audio Montage Workspace by using its tab bar or its
document button (this is located on the status bar at the bottom right of the Workspace).
For more information on using shortcuts to speed up your workflow in different Workspaces
see Dragging operations and Tab Groups.
Elements of a Workspace
Each Workspace is comprised of:
A Menu bar. Each Workspace has a different Menu bar, but certain menus are
shared among all Workspaces and each menu can be customized in various ways.
The Workspace menu has a sub-menu to show/hide the available Command bars and
tool windows. Alternatively, you can right-click in the menu (Windows) or caption bar
(Mac) area to access the Peripheral Windows Context menu.
WaveLab 7
24 Using the interface
One or more Command bars, for quick access to functions via buttons. Command
bars can be customized extensively. See Customize Commands.
Tab groups, to host the document(s) to edit. This is a central part of the Workspace:
you can reorder the tab bar, move it to another Workspace, create a new empty document, display the document filepath and access other functions by right-clicking. See
Tab Groups.
A set of Specific tool windows. The specific tools offered vary according to the
Workspace; their display can be turned on or off individually, and the windows can float
or be docked. See Specific tool windows.
A set of Shared tool windows. The shared tools offered vary according to the
Workspace; their display can be turned on or off individually, and the windows can
float or be docked. See Shared tool windows.
Tip: To switch easily between different Workspaces use the floating Switcher window.
Related topics
Audio File editing
Audio Montages
Podcasts
Control Window
Batch Processing
Customize Commands
Specific tool windows
Shared tool windows
Command bars
Tab Groups
Docking windows
Switcher window
3.18 Zooming and scrolling
In WaveLab you can use several mouse and keyboard shortcuts for scrolling and zooming in
the Audio File and Audio Montage Workspaces.
Scrolling with the Mousewheel
With the cursor in the wave window you can scroll the view horizontally using the mouse
wheel.
Zooming with the Mousewheel
WaveLab 7
3.18 Zooming and scrolling 25
With the cursor in the wave window hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] while rotating the
mouse wheel. The view will zoom horizontally; if you hold down [Shift] the view will
zoom vertically.
Activating the zoom tool
Activate the zoom tool by holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] and click on the waveform
( [Ctrl]/[Command] must be pressed first).
Zooming with the Mouse
Holding your cursor over the Time Ruler and moving the mouse up and down also zooms
the view horizontally. Hold down the [Shift] key to do the same thing while maintaining
the edit cursor in the same position.
Zoom by dragging the thumb edges of the scroll bars in the Audio File and Montage
windows.
Zoom by acting on the wheel controls in the bottom right corners of the Audio File and
Montage windows, by click and drag or using the mouse wheel.
Zoom and scrolling can be undone or redone by the View > Navigate backwards/-
forwards commands.
Changing the Zoom level
you can make quick changes to the zoom level using the View All or Zoom In
buttons in the control bar. Scrubbing the vertical or horizontal Zoom Wheel (located
in the bottom right hand corner of Main wave window) also alters the zoom level.
Related topics
Shortcut system
WaveLab 7
26 Using the interface
WaveLab 7
Chapter 4
WaveLab Concepts
WaveLab is an incredibly powerful tool and has many features which can be used for a wide
variety of audio editing, mastering and mixing purposes. This section provides you with links
to some of the main concepts used throughout WaveLab. Understanding these concepts
can help you to get the most out of WaveLab.
Related topics
Features Overview
Analysis
Authoring CDs and DVDs
Markers
Metering
Offline processing
Presets
Rendering
Scripting
The Spectrum display
Spectrum editor
About Regular Expressions
4.1 Features Overview
WaveLab 7 Pro - Audio Editing and Mastering Suite
WaveLab 7 Pro is the all-in-one solution for professional mastering, high resolution multichannel audio editing, audio restoration, sample design, radio broadcast and podcasting
work, right through to complete CD/DVD-A production. For some time, WaveLab has been
the standard application for digital audio editing and processing due to its outstanding flexibility and pristine audio quality. Version 7 of the application adds a dazzling collection of
28 WaveLab Concepts
features to satisfy the needs of top professionals and audio enthusiasts.
Sample accurate time and spectrum audio editing
Now available for both the Mac and PC platforms, ideally suited to high performance
multi-screen setups
Excellent performance and outstanding audio quality with support for all common bitrates: 8-, 16-, 20-, 24- and 32-bit floating point resolution, at up to 384 kHz.
Powerful Audio Montage for simultaneous non-destructive editing across several tracks
Red Book-compatible CD mastering and Audio CD/DVD-A authoring and burning
Comprehensive suite of real-time metering and analysis tools, including global analysis, 3D-spectrum analysis, VU meter, spectroscope, oscilloscope, phasescope and a
powerful Spectrum editor
A large library of plug-ins are provided, including the entire Steinberg collection, Sonnox
audio restoration and batch specific plug-ins.
An unlimited number of audio lanes, with unlimited file size (over 2GB)
Extensive batch file processing and full scripting for professional users
A totally flexible and customizable GUI: store master project custom file sets, save
multiple Workspace layouts and tabs. Menus, keyword commands and MIDI shortcuts
may all be customized.
Suite of offline processors provided, including effect morphing, pitch bend, error detection and correction and high-end DIRAC time stretching and pitch correction
Full range of different marker types for looping, CD creation, tagging errors, etc.
Full range of tools: Auto split, Audio File comparison, signal generation, programming
utilities, etc.
Author and publish podcasts directly from within the application
All major Audio File formats are supported, including WAV, AIFF, AU, MP3, MP2, OggVorbis, Windows Media 9, AES-3, RIFF64, Sony Wave64, Raw.
4.2 Analysis
WaveLab provides you with a comprehensive set of tools for analyzing your audio and diagnosing any errors. You can view your Audio File in many different ways using the suite of
audio meters, via its frequency spectrum, or even in three dimensions. There are also several
tools to interrogate any sample of your audio and find any errors or anomalies.In WaveLab
WaveLab 7
4.2 Analysis 29
you can even compare two Audio Files with the Audio file compare tool and view audio in a
Spectrum or Loudness view for greater precision when editing. Below you can find links to
some of these tools used in WaveLab. Most of them can be found in the Analysis menu. The
meters can be found in the Meters menu or via the Workspace > Shared tool windows.
More specialized tools also exist as part of some offline processing dialogs, such as the "Find
current peak level" command in the Change level dialog, or the "Eliminate DC Offset" dialog,
for example.
Related topics
Global analysis
Audio file comparer
3D Frequency Analysis
Loudness distribution
Metering
The Spectrum display
Audio File editing
Offline processing
4.2.1 Global analysis
This dialog allows you to perform advanced analysis on your audio to identify areas with specified properties. It can be used to find problem areas such as glitches or clipped samples,
or just to check general information such as the pitch of a sound.
How it works When you analyze a section of an Audio File, WaveLab scans it and extracts
information which it displays in the dialog. It also "pin-points" sections of the file that meet
specific characteristics, for example, sections being very loud or almost silent. You can then
browse between these points, set markers or zoom in on them.
Types of analysis On most of the tabs, you will find settings determining exactly how the
analysis will be performed. Each tab focuses on a particular analysis area:
Peaks - this tab is for finding individual samples with very high decibel values.
Loudness - this tab is for finding sections that are perceived by the human ear as
louder or weaker in volume. WaveLab uses an accurate method (RMS - Root Mean
Square), to measure a consecutive section of samples and then average their value.
Pitch - this tab is used for finding the exact average pitch of a section of audio. The
method works best on monophonic material (single notes, without chords or harmonies)
and assumes the analyzed section has a relatively stable pitch. As a general rule try to
analyze the sustain portion of a sound, rather than the attack.
Extras - this tab is for informing you about DC offsets and the significant bit resolution
of the file. This can be useful, for example, if you wanted to check whether a 16 bit
file really uses 16 bits (or if it was actually recorded with only 8 bit resolution and then
upscaled to 16 bits).
WaveLab 7
30 WaveLab Concepts
Errors - this tab is to help you find glitches and sections where the audio has clipped
(gone beyond 0 dB).For more control over the analysis, use Error detection and cor-
rection. Checking and browsing the results Checking the results on the Pitch and
Extra tabs is simple, since only one value is returned for the whole section of analyzed
audio. For all the other tabs, the analysis methods returns a series of exact points ("hot
points") in the file or section of audio. Use the relevant buttons in each tab to select the
"hot points" you wish to look at in more detail. Using the slider you can then browse
or skip between these points, adding markers or focusing the waveform display at that
particular point in the file.
You can access this dialog in the Audio File Workspace via Analysis > Global Analysis....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Error detection and correction
3D Frequency Analysis
4.2.2 Audio file comparer
This analysis tool allows you to compare two Audio Files for differences between them. It
can create a "delta file" that contains these differences. It can also drop markers at positions
where differences are found.
This can be useful for:
Judging the effect of using an equalizer by comparing the file before and after. The delta
file will show what was added or removed.
Check the noise added by a processor.
Compare two digitally recorded files to check for dropouts.
Note - Make sure that the two documents you want to compare are open.
You can access this dialog via Analysis > File comparator....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
4.2.3 3D Frequency Analysis
This function in WaveLab allows you to view a wave file in both the frequency and time
domains. Although a wave display (time domain) tells you a lot about where one sound
starts or ends in a file, for example, it doesn't tell you anything about the timbral contents
of the file. A frequency graph (frequency domain) allows you to investigate the individual
frequency components of an Audio File. With the addition of the time dimension you can
follow these frequencies in your Audio File over time and pick out individual snare hits or
WaveLab 7
4.2 Analysis 31
vocal notes in a song, for example. The graph used in WaveLab is sometimes called a 3DSpectrogram.
Displaying and viewing the graph
You can choose to analyze a selection of audio or an entire file. If you select a stereo recording, a mix of the two channels will be analyzed. Once you have your region selected or no
region (in the case you wish to analyze the whole file) choose Analysis > 3D Frequency
Analysis.... The graph window will appear.
There is a scrub wheel that allows you to rotate the view around and a settings button that
displays the range of frequencies currently displayed. Click on this button to open the set-
tings dialog and edit the frequency range displayed, as well as to access other options.
Tip: The length of the selection affects the accuracy of the analysis. For short selections
the result will be very detailed. For longer selections (over a minute or so) the results are
generally less detailed as the harmonic content may vary between "measuring points", and
as such are not included in the graph. You might for example make a separate analysis of
the attack (beginning) of a sound, since the most drastic variations usually occur there.
Some example uses for 3D Frequency Analysis
The 3d Frequency Analysis graph in WaveLab can be used for many purposes, for example:
to see how the frequency spectrum is distributed in a mix.
as a basis for EQ-ing, so that you know which frequencies to reduce or boost.
to see which parts of the audio spectrum a certain background noise occupies (for
removing by filtering).
for educational purposes - these graphs tell you a lot about how different sounds are
"built".
For detailed spectrum analysis, the 2D Spectrometer remains the best choice, as it provides
more accurate viewing and more options.
Related topics
Frequency range
Metering
4.2.4 Loudness distribution
This dialog allows you to measure the most frequent loudness values found in an Audio File
(this is not the same as average loudness). The graphic peaks found by the analysis represent
these values.
The tool gives an answer to the question: "How often does a given loudness (vertical scale,
in dB) appear in the whole file?". The percentage figure is relative to other peaks. Some
simple examples:
WaveLab 7
32 WaveLab Concepts
1. If, for instance, you have a sine of 0 dB / 2 second followed by a sine of -6 dB /
2 seconds. This means the global audio material has as much 0 dB material as - 6dB
material: you will see 2 peaks (0 / -6 dB), each at 100%.
2. If, for instance, uou have a sine of 0 dB / 1 second followed by a sine of -6 dB / 3
seconds. This means there are 3 times more -6 dB material than 0 dB material. You
will see a peak of about 33% at 0 dB, and another peak of 100% at -6 dB.
This analysis is useful for learning about how the loudness of your music is distributed.
You can access this dialog in the Wave File Workspace via Analysis > Loudness distri-
bution....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Loudness
4.3 Authoring CDs and DVDs
WaveLab provides extensive tools for authoring all types of audio and data CDs or DVDs.
Depending on your connected optical hardware you can burn CD-R, CD-RW and DVDR/DVD+R disks. WaveLab allows you to author professional audio CD and DVD-Audio
disks with full control over track indexes, CD-Text, PQ and ISRC/EAN codes etc. You can
validate your disks before burning to make sure they conform to valid CD standards (such
as the Red Book standard) or choose to author using newer formats with CD-Text support
or gapless tracks. When it comes to outputting your final disk you can choose to output
your audio CD as a DDP image or burn it straight to optical media. If you are creating a
DVD-A, you can output to AUDIO TS and VIDEO TS folders or burn a DVD straight from
within WaveLab. You can also burn a data CD or DVD directly from the application or save
them as ISO disk images.
Important note for Mac OSX users
When using the CD-R/DVD-R drive on Apple OSX computers for importing or burning it is
important to note the following. If you insert a optical CD or DVD disk in the drive while the
drive is not selected in WaveLab for import or burning, WaveLab will not be able to "see" the
drive. The disk drive is "taken over" by other applications under Mac OSX and is not seen by
WaveLab when this happens. To avoid this occurring, make sure there is no disk in the drive
when opening any CD window within WaveLab.
Audio CD authoring basics
You can author an audio CD from within both the Audio Files and the Audio Montage
Workspaces. From the Audio Montage Workspace you can additionally create DVD-Audio
disks and you have a more comprehensive set of tools for creating audio CDs and DVDs.
Many of the tools provided in WaveLab also work together in conjunction to enable you to
create your own workflow for audio CD authoring.
WaveLab 7
4.3 Authoring CDs and DVDs 33
Track markers and CD authoring
In WaveLab one of the main concepts to understand about audio CDs is the use of markers to
define tracks, and the breaks between tracks. Each track must at least have a track start and
track end marker. Some of the various authoring tools provided by WaveLab will generate
these track markers for you automatically but you can also manually define, modify and edit
them using the marker window or directly in the main editing window. You can also use other
marker types to determine where track indexes are and to cross fade two tracks together
seamlessly to create a gapless CD. See "CD/DVD-A authoring markers" in Marker types for
more information on the specific function of different markers.
Authoring in the Audio Montage Workspace
In the Audio Montage Workspace you can use the following tools to author your audio disks:
CD window - this window contains a variety of tools for authoring and burning CDs
with a great deal of precision and control. It even has a CD Wizard to create CD tracks
quickly from your montage Clips. This window provides full control over your audio CD.
See CD window for more details.
DVD Audio window - use this window for authoring and burning DVD-Audio disks.
It uses Audio Montage files to create tracks for your DVD-A disk. See DVD-Audio
window for more details.
Marker window - use this window in conjunction with the CD window to edit CD track
names and times. You can also drag markers in the main Audio Montage editing window
to adjust start/end times and double-click on a marker's name to edit its marker/track
name.
Authoring in the Audio File Workspace
In the Audio File Workspace there are also some tools to allow you to create and author
audio CDs, these include:
Basic Audio CD - use this window to quickly create an audio CD from individual Audio
Files. Any track markers you have previously created will be used to define tracks or
WaveLab will automatically define track markers for you for each Audio File if you haven't
created any. If you wish to have more control over your audio CD, you can export your
Basic Audio CD session to the Audio Montage Workspace. You could do this for
example, if you wanted to create a DVD-Audio disk or wanted to add and adjust cross
fading between tracks. See Basic Audio CD window for more details.
Marker window - use this window to add and edit CD track names and times to an
Audio File. You can also drag markers in the main Audio Files editing window to adjust
start/end times and double-click on a marker's name to edit its marker/track name.
Your markers are saved along with Audio Files (unless you deactivate this option in
preferences) and are used by WaveLab for example, if you import the file later to create
a Basic Audio CD.
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34 WaveLab Concepts
Authoring a data disk
You can also burn data CDs and DVDs using the Data CD/DVD window throughout WaveLab (if you wish to back up all your session files, for example). You can access this window
via Utilities > Data CD/DVD.... You can add any file to a new data CD or dvd at anytime
via the File > Special > Add to DATA CD/DVD function in both the Audio File and Audio
Montage Workspaces. Note that all files referenced by the data disk must be saved before
attempting to create a data CD/DVD. For more information see Data CD/DVD.
Burning your CD/DVD
Once you have compiled an audio CD using any of the tools mentioned you can burn it by
choosing the button which opens the Write Audio CD dialog. Here you can choose
either the device you wish to burn with or to save the disk as a DDP image. This dialog also
allows you to choose standard options as to how the disk will be burnt. For more information
see Write Audio CD.
As well as saving DDP images you can also burn them from within WaveLab. To burn a DDP
image simply select Utilities > Burn Audio CD form DDP Image.... For more information
see Burn Audio CD from DDP Image.
CD burning preferences
Some preferences for CD burning and DDP image creation are set in Global Preferences.
Select Preferences... > Global preferences > CD Burning tab and use "What's this?"
to get more detailed information on the options available.
Related topics
DDP files
Audio CD Report
Write Audio CD
CD Wizard
Data CD/DVD
CD Text Editor
CD
4.4 Markers
Markers are visible indicators that can be used to save and name specific time positions in an
audio or audio montage file.In WaveLab, markers can be used for adding comments, editing,
synchronizing, defining loops, and defining CD/DVD-A tracks.Markers can be used in pairs
as well as individually to mark regions or places for future reference. Once you have defined
some markers in your file you can quickly move the playhead to a marker during editing, or
select the audio between two markers. Markers can also be used to identify an audio cue,
or the beginning or end of a filter or effect.
WaveLab 7
4.4 Markers 35
About marker types
There are many types of markers, all of which, in addition to visually marking locations in a
file, can be used to assist editing and playback. Some like the Loop and CD Track markers
have a unique function. For information on each type and how to use them see Marker types.
Adding markers
The most common way to create markers is from the Marker window. If this is not visible
make sure that "Markers" is ticked in the menu Workspace > Specific tool windows >
Markers. Add markers by:
Placing a single marker
Play back the wave. When the cursor is at the position where you want a marker:
Press [Insert] on the PC or 'M' on the Mac (there is no Insert key on the Mac) to insert
a generic marker.
Click a marker button on the Marker window toolbar. Tooltips for each type of marker
are shown when hovering the cursor over its button.
Select a marker of a specific type from the Marker Window Insert menu.
Placing a pair of markers
Some markers come in pairs. To create a pair of markers make a selection around the audio
region where you wish to define a start and end:
Click a marker pair button on the Marker window toolbar. The types of marker are shown
when hovering the cursor over each button.
Select "Create region type from selection" from the Marker Window Insert menu, choosing the type of marker pair you wish to use. You need to specify a region for these marker
types to become available.
Some types of markers can be added during recording via the recording dialog. You can
also create a marker by dragging a selection of text from a text application to a Time Ruler.
Moving markers
Once placed, markers can be dragged into a new position in the Waveform windows. If you
hover the mouse cursor over a marker, the exact time position is displayed. Dragging the
marker with the left mouse button held down causes the time display to be updated as you
drag. You can also move a marker by editing its time entry in the Marker window.
Removing markers
In the Waveform window, click on the head of the marker you want to delete. Drag the marker
vertically out of the wave window - a delete symbol is shown as confirmation. You can also
use the "Delete selected markers" function from the Marker Window Functions menu.
WaveLab 7
36 WaveLab Concepts
Using markers for editing and playback
Once you have defined one or more markers in an audio montage or Audio File you can use
them to:
Control playback - you can access various commands to start at, stop at, loop between and skip markers during playback via the Transport menu. These can also be
accessed from the Transport toolbar.
Define a selection - you can use markers to help you make selections in a waveform.
These can be accessed by various selection commands in the Edit > Select menu.You
can also access it from the Audio Range dialog.
About importing and saving loop markers
There is an important point to consider when importing files with loops into WaveLab. Both
Wave and AIFF file formats can store limited information about markers (e.g. loop points)
in the Audio File, but WaveLab can store much more information (such as extended marker
types and comments) in external ".mrk" files that are independent of file formats. Because
loop markers may be stored in two ways, there is a potential risk for conflict:
When you import a file that has never been used in WaveLab before, and which contains
loops, the loops are "imported" and displayed as loop markers.
When you then save the file in AIFF or Wave format, the loop points are stored, both
as part of the actual file (so that other applications can read them) and in the ".mrk" file
(for WaveLab).
When you open a file that has been used in WaveLab before, loop tags that were originally in the file, (before you used it in WaveLab) are ignored. Only the loop information
in the ".mrk" file is used.
Using markers in the Audio Montage Workspace
There are some additional marker functions that are specific to the Audio Montage
Workspace which allow you to bind selected markers to individual Clips. These functions
are useful as they allow you to freely move Clips about and perform editing functions without
fear of loosing the exact position of a marker. These additional marker functions are located
in the Marker Window when editing in the Audio Montage Workspace:
Bind selected marker to start of focused clip
Bind selected marker to end of focused clip
Detach selected marker from its associated clip
Bind selected marker to audio samples of focused clip -
Related topics
Marker types
Marker Window
WaveLab 7
4.4 Markers 37
4.4.1 Marker types
Markers have a variety of uses in editing and playback, such as indicating cue points, absolute
time locations, highlighting "problem" sections and for visually separating tracks.WaveLab
provides a set of specialized markers for creating CD/DVD-A tracks, muting or skipping
sections and for use with the Error Correction tool.
Basic markers
Generic markers - these are mainly used for locating certain important positions
and for editing (for selecting all the audio between two points, for example). Generic
markers can be created directly during recording.
Temporary markers - these markers can be used for any purpose, but they only
persist while a file is open, so are "self-clearing" when the file is closed.
CD/DVD-A authoring markers
CD Track start and end markers - these denote where a CD track begins
and ends. They also serve for DVD-A disks. CD/DVD markers must be used as a pair.
CD Track splice markers - a CD track splice is used when a CD track starts just
where another one ends. They also serve for DVD-A disks.
CD Track index markers - these are used to create "index" points in CD tracks.
They also serve for DVD-A disks.
Editing/Navigation markers
Region start and end markers - these markers can be created directly
during recording; they can be used to define start and end points for generic regions.
Editing/Navigation markers must be used as a pair.
Playback start markers - This marker is used to program a playback start point.
Exclusion start and end markers - these let you temporarily silence a certain
section. Sections between Exclusion regions are skipped if this option is activated on
the Transport menu (Skip options > Skip Exclusion regions). In addition, Exclusion
regions can be skipped during file rendering if this option is activated in the Render
dialog. Exclusion markers must be used as a pair.
Loop markers
Loop start and end markers - These are used for defining loop points and
are required to access loop editing functions in the Process menu of the Audio File
Workspace: they are directly connected to the playback Loop mode. These markers
are often useful during editing and for creating loops before transferring a sound to a
sampler. Loop markers must be used as a pair.
WaveLab 7
38 WaveLab Concepts
Error correction markers
These two marker pairs may be placed manually, but their main use is with the Error Detection and Correction tool - see Error detection and correction. You can access this tool by
choosing Workspace > Specific tool windows > Error Correction.
Error start and end markers - these markers are used to highlight errors
such as clicks. They can also be saved in an Audio File Workspace file by choosing the
corresponding preference in Audio file editing prefences.
Correction start and end markers - these markers are used to highlight
corrections done on regions previously marked as errors. They can also be saved in
an Audio File Workspace file by choosing the corresponding preference in Audio file
editing preferences.
Related topics
Markers
Marker Window
Error detection and correction
4.5 Metering
WaveLab contains a variety of audio meters to help in monitoring and analyzing audio.Meters
can be used to monitor audio during playback, rendering, recording and also to analyze a
specific selection of audio. There are seven different audio meters in WaveLab, each with
its own separate window. The meters are accessed via the Meters menu, the Shared Tool
windows menu, or from the Meters control bar.
Monitor Modes
You can choose the audio source and the mode for displaying information in the meters.
You can access the following monitoring functions from the Meters menu or via the Meters
command bar:
Monitor Playback - the meters display the audio output of the Master Section
after the dithering section, unlike the Master Section's own meter.
Monitor Audio Input - the meters display the audio input you have chosen in the
Audio Streaming Settings. This is useful for monitoring audio while recording.
Monitor File Rendering - the meters display what is being written to disk during
file rendering, taking into account Master Section settings, with average, minimum and
maximum peak values computed. After rendering, the meter(s) freeze, and remain frozen
until you refresh or change the monitor mode.
Monitor Edit cursor position - the meters display static information about the
audio beneath the edit cursor. Note that the Master Section settings are not taken into
account in this mode.
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4.5 Metering 39
Analyze audio selection - this allows you to make a selection and have the
meters display the average values over the selected range as a static display. The
Master Section settings are not taken into account in this mode. When you change the
selection, you need to update the meter displays by selecting "Refresh selection
analysis" from the Meters menu (or by clicking the Refresh button on the Meters control
bar).
If you have one of the continuous display modes chosen, you can also select to freeze the
meters at any time using the "Freeze meters" command.
Using meter windows
There can only be one instance of each Audio Meter. For example, if you dock one meter in a
Workspace, it will be automatically removed from the place where it was previously located.
Audio Meters can appear in the Audio File, Audio Montage Workspaces as well as the Control Window.They can be used:
as a docked window in a Workspace
as a tabbed window in the Control Window- as an independent floating window. In this
mode, it can be useful to make the window "frameless" from Window > Hide frame,
to save screen space. In this case, the whole menu is accessed by right-clicking.
The axis of most Audio Meters may be rotated, to view the graphics horizontally or vertically.
Some meters can also have their visual style and display parameters customized via their
corresponding settings dialog. This can be accessed through the Functions > Settings...
menu in each meter window, or by using the icon.
Related topics
VU Meter
Spectroscope
Oscilloscope
Bit Meter
Phasescope
Spectrometer
Wavescope
4.5.1 VU Meter
The vu-meter is used to display the peak and average loudness/decibel level of your Audio
File. It also displays the pan, or the balance between the left and right channels in a stereo
file.
The upper part of the level/pan meter window shows the peak level and average loudness,
in the following way:
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40 WaveLab Concepts
The Peak Level meters display the peak levels of each channel, graphically and numerically. By default, the meter segments and numerical peak values are displayed in green
for low levels, yellow for levels between -6dB and -2dB, and red for levels above -2dB.
You can change both the colors and the range boundaries if you wish via the Level/Pan
Meter Settings dialog. This can be accessed through the Functions > Settings...
menu, or by using the icon.
The VU (Volume Unit) meters measure the average loudness (RMS) of each channel.
These meters have a built-in inertia, evening out loudness variations over a user-defined
time span. If you are monitoring playback or audio input, you will also note two vertical
lines following each VU meter bar, seemingly "trying to reach" the current RMS value.
These lines indicate the average of the most recent minimum RMS values (left line)
and the average of the most recent maximum RMS values (right line). To the left, the
difference between the minimum and maximum average values is displayed (the level
value in brackets) - this gives you an overview of the dynamic range of the audio material.
If you are monitoring real-time audio (playback or input), the maximum peak and loudness values are displayed numerically to the right of the meter bars. Numbers in brackets to the right of the Maximum Peak values indicate the number of successive clips
(0dB signal peaks). Recording levels should be set so that they only rarely clip. If the
master level is set too high, the sound quality and frequency response will be compromised at high recording levels, with unwanted clipping effects. If the level is set too
low, noise levels may be high relative to the main sound being recorded.
Pan meters
The lower part of the window shows the pan (the difference in level between the left and
right channel, only applicable when monitoring stereo audio):
The upper pan meters show the peak level difference between the channels, graphically
and numerically. Note that the pan meters are "two-sided"; the level bars can go to the
left or right, indicating which channel is the loudest. The two sides are shown in different
colors (which can be changed via the Settings dialog as explained previously).
The lower pan meters show the average difference in loudness between the channels,
in a similar way. This gives you a visual indication of whether a stereo recording is
properly centered, for example.
If you are monitoring real-time audio (playback or input), the maximum balance difference value (peak and loudness) for each channel is displayed numerically to the left and
right of the meter bars. The VU meter can be found in the Meters menu of the Audio
Files and Audio Montage Workspaces.It can be used either as a floating window, or
docked in the Workspace or the Control Window.
Related topics
Metering
4.5.2 Spectroscope
The Spectroscope shows a continuous graphical representation of the frequency spectrum,
analyzed into 60 separate frequency bands, represented as vertical bars. Peak levels are
WaveLab 7
4.5 Metering 41
shown as a short horizontal lines above the corresponding band, indicating recent peak/maximum values. The Spectroscope offers a quick spectrum overview. For a more detailed
analysis of the audio spectrum, use the Spectrometer. The Spectroscope can be found in
the Meters menu of the Audio Files and Audio Montage Workspaces. It can be used either as a floating window, or docked in the Workspace.It can also be docked in the Control
Window.
Related topics
Metering
Spectrometer
4.5.3 Oscilloscope
The Oscilloscope offers a highly magnified view of the waveform around the playback cursor
position.
If you are analyzing a stereo file, the Oscilloscope normally shows the separate levels of
the two channels. However, if you activate the option "Show Sum and Subtraction" on the
Functions menu (or click the +/- icon), the upper half of the Oscilloscope shows the sum of
the two channels and the lower half shows the subtraction.
Making settings
By opening the Settings dialog you can adjust the display colors, and choose to activate
Auto-zoom or not. With Auto-zoom activated, the display is optimized so that the highest
level reaches the top of the display at all times. The Settings dialog can be accessed through
the Functions > Settings... menu, or by using the icon.
The Oscilloscope can be found in the Meters menu of the Audio Files and Audio Montage
Workspaces. It can be used either as a floating window, or docked in the Workspace.It can
also be docked in the Control Window.
Related topics
Metering
4.5.4 Bit Meter
The Bit Meter shows the resolution or the number of bits used in the digital audio being
monitored. Normally the maximum number of bits in an Audio File is the same as the resolution
of the Audio File (e.g. a 16 bit Audio File shows that up to 16 bits are used), but sometimes
this is not the case.
As soon as you perform any kind of real-time processing on an Audio File, the audio data is
treated at a much higher resolution (32 bit floating point), to allow for pristine audio quality.
Examples of such processing include level adjustments, effects, the mixing of two or more
files, etc. In fact, the only time when a 16 bit file is played back at 16 bit resolution is if
you play it without any fades or effects, and with the Master Faders set to 0.00 (no level
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42 WaveLab Concepts
adjustment). You can try this out for yourself by playing back a 16 bit Audio File and viewing
the Bit Meter - as soon as you adjust the Master Faders, note that 24 bits are used and the
"inter" indicator is lit (more on this below).
How to read the Bit Meter
The innermost meters (closest to the bit scale) show the number of bits in use. You can
adjust this display in the Settings dialog.
The outer meters are "history" meters, showing how many bits were recently in use. You
can adjust the hold time in the Settings dialog.
The "over" segment indicates clipping, similar to a clip indicator.
If the "below" segment is lit, there are more than 24 bits. The bit meter will show the 24
higher bits, and the "below" segment indicates the existence of extra, lower bits. Note
that audio is always processed with more than 24 bits internally.
If the "inter" segment is lit, this indicates that the audio data cannot really be expressed
on a regular 24 bit scale (there are floating point values "in between" bits, thus the label
"inter"). This is typically the case if you apply effects; thus the "inter" segment allows
you to differentiate processed from non-processed 24 bit PCM files.
When to use the Bit Meter
To check whether dithering is necessary or not. As a rule, if you're playing back or
mixing down to 16 bits, and the Bit Meter shows that more than 16 bits are used, you
should apply dithering.
To see the "actual" resolution of an Audio File. For example, even though a file is in 24
bit format, only 16 bits may be used. Or, a 32 bit file may only use 24 bits (in this case,
the "below" segment would not be lit). For this purpose, the Bit Meter is best used in
"Analyze selection" mode.
To see whether a "zeroed" plug-in still affects your signal, or whether a plug-in uses
16 bit internal processing, or more generally, to detect any signal modifier stage in the
audio chain between reading and playing.
To adjust the Bit Meter settings, select "Settings..." from the Options pop-up menu or by
using the icon.
The Bit meter can be found in the Meters menu of the Audio Files and Audio Montage
Workspaces. It can be used either as a floating window, or docked in the Workspace or the
Control Window.
Related topics
Metering
Dithering
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4.5 Metering 43
4.5.5 Phasescope
The Phasescope indicates the phase and amplitude relationship between two stereo channels. It is only really relevant when monitoring stereo audio material.
Reading the Phasescope
It can be interpreted as follows:
A vertical line indicates a perfect mono signal (the left and right channels are the same).
A horizontal line indicates that the left channel is the same as the right, but with an
inverse phase.
A random but roughly elliptical shape indicates a well balanced stereo signal. If the
shape "leans" to the left, there is more energy in the left channel and vice versa (the
extreme case of this is if one side is muted, in which case the Phasescope will show a
straight line, angled 45 degrees to the other side).
A perfect circle indicates a sine wave on one channel, and the same sine wave shifted
by 90 degrees on the other.
Generally, the more you can see a "thread" shape, the more bass there is in the signal;
the more "spray-like" the display, the more high frequencies are in the signal.
Phase Correlation meter
At the bottom of the display, you will find a Phase Correlation meter, which shows the same
information but in a different way:
The green line shows the current phase correlation, while the two red lines show the
recent peak minimum and maximum values, respectively (these are the default colors,
which you can change).
With a mono signal, the meter would show +1, indicating that both channels are perfectly in phase.
Similarly, -1 indicates that the two channels are the same, but one is inverted.
Generally, for a "good" mix, the meter should show a value between 0 and +1.
Unlike the main Phasescope, the Phase Correlation meter is also available in "Analyze audio
selection" mode, showing an average value for the selected range.
Changing settings
You can define display colors, peak hold time, and the resolution or number of samples to
display from the Functions > Settings... menu.
The Phasescope meter can be found in the Meters menu of the Audio Files and Audio Montage Workspaces. It can be used either as a floating window, or docked in the Workspace
or the Control Window.
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44 WaveLab Concepts
Related topics
Metering
4.5.6 Spectrometer
The Spectrometer uses FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) techniques to display a continuous
frequency graph, providing a very precise and detailed real-time frequency analysis.
The current frequency spectrum is shown as a linear graph.
Spectrum "peaks" are shown as a short horizontal lines, indicating recent peak/maximum values.
Snapshots
By using the "Add snapshot" and "Erase last snapshot" buttons, you can take and erase
snapshots of the current spectrum. These will be superimposed over the current peak spectrum graph, in a color you can customize, until you click the icon again to take a new snapshot.
One use for this is to check the effects of adding EQ, for example. Up to five snapshots can
be superimposed on the display; the sixth snapshot replaces the earliest one in the display,
and so on. (Don't confuse the order of snapshots with the numbered buttons - these are
Spectrometer presets, see below.)
Zooming
You can adjust the frequency scale and range in the Settings dialog as described below,
but it's also possible to temporarily zoom in on a frequency area of interest. This is done by
clicking and dragging a rectangle in the Spectroscope display. When you release the mouse
button, the display is zoomed in so that the enclosed frequency range fills the window. To
return to full-scale display, select "Zoom-out fully" from the Functions menu, or double-click
anywhere on the display.
Making settings
You can adjust the behavior and display of the meters as desired, and assign up to five sets
of Spectrometer settings to the Preset buttons, for instant access. Open the Settings dialog
by selecting "Settings" from the Functions menu or clicking the "tool" icon. Note that you
can apply your settings without closing the dialog, by clicking the Apply button.
If you want to store your settings for later use (or assign them to a Preset button), select "Save
as..." from the pop-up menu in the lower part of the dialog, and specify a name for the preset
in the file dialog that appears. Now, you can choose to make the settings instantly available
for selection in the FFT Meter window, by using the "Assign to preset button" submenu on
the pop-up menu.
When you are finished, click OK to close the dialog.
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4.5 Metering 45
Selecting Spectrometer presets
If you have assigned your settings to the Preset buttons in the Settings dialog, you can quickly
switch between different level scales and display modes, by clicking one of the Preset icons
[1]-[5], or selecting the desired preset from the Options pop-up menu.
Exporting FFT data as ASCII text
When using the Spectrometer in off-line mode ("Monitor Edit cursor Position" or "Analyze
audio election" mode) you can export the displayed FFT data as a text file, by selecting
"Export FFT data as ASCII" from the Options pop-up menu. The resulting text file can then
be imported into applications that allow graph plotting from text files (Microsoft Excel, for
example).
The Spectrometer can be found in the Meters menu of the Audio Files and Audio Montage
Workspaces. It can be used either as a floating window, or docked in the Workspace or the
Control Window.
Related topics
Metering
Spectroscope
4.5.7 Wavescope
The Wavescope meter displays a real-time waveform drawing of the audio signal being monitored.
It can be useful when recording or rendering a file if "Monitor File rendering" mode is active.
Making settings
You can adjust settings for the display via the Wavescope Settings dialog. This can be
accessed via Functions > Settings... menu, or by using the icon. Here you can set
various color options for the background, grid and waveform display, as well as setting the
waveform rendering speed and vertical zoom. If "Clear waveform when reaching right of
pane" is checked the waveform display is cleared each time the cursor reaches the right end
of the display. If unchecked, the previous waveform is overwritten.
Tip: Wavescope is a useful meter for visualizing audio during recording. The Wavescope
meter can be found in the Meters menu of the Audio Files and Audio Montage Workspaces.
It can be used either as a floating window, or docked in the Workspace or the Control Win-
dow.
Related topics
Metering
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46 WaveLab Concepts
4.6 Offline processing
Offline processes are used for a variety of editing purposes and creative effects. Offline
processing refers to functions that are only performed when saving the file.
"Offline" means the process can't be monitored during playback, either because they require
too much processing power or because they require an analysis pass prior to processing.
Note that WaveLab only writes temporary files when applying an effect, so the original Audio
File is safe. Only when saving the original is the original audio possibly modified.
These offline processes differ to realtime processes (such as listening to effects via the
Master Section for example), which only temporarily render an effect while audio is played
"through" them.
Applying processing
Processing can be applied to a selection or to a whole Audio File. For certain processing
operations processing the entire file is necessary. This will be indicated by the effects respective dialog. If "Process whole file if there is no selection" is selected in the Audio File
editing preferences editing tab, the whole file will automatically be processed if no selection
exists.
To apply processing to some audio, proceed as follows:
1. Make a selection. If the file is in stereo, you can apply processing to either channel or
both, by selecting one channel or both.
2. Select the desired offline process from the Process menu.
3. If a dialog appears, make the appropriate settings. If the dialog uses presets, you can
load one of them to fill out the settings automatically.
4. When you have finished with the settings in the dialog, click the Apply/Paste/Process
button to permanently render the effect to file.
In some cases a status bar dialog is displayed showing the progress of the operation. If you
need to interrupt a long process, click the "Cancel" button on the status bar dialog.
Undo/Redo processing
Even though offline processes appear to alter the file permanently, you can always reinstate
a previous version using WaveLab's "undo" feature. The number of Undo/Redo commands
is limited only by your available hard drive space. Access the Undo and Redo commands via
Edit > Undo or Edit > Redo.
Tips for using Offline Processing
Processing dialogs are non-modal - meaning that they stay open and on screen even after
processing has been applied. This means that you can still playback audio and access undo/redo commands to audition the results of your effect and make any further adjustments to
any settings. You can also use key commands and access any other menu commands while
leaving the offline process dialog open. Remember that using and saving presets when you
have settings you are happy with can also save you time.
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4.6 Offline processing 47
WaveLab contains a powerful array of offline processing tools including the following:
Change Level
Level envelope
Normalize Level
Silence Generator
Loop Tone Uniformizer
Pitch correction
Time stretching
Loop Tweaker
Effect morphing
Loudness distribution
Loudness normalizer
Pan Normalizer
Pitch bend
Pitch quantize
Related topics
Presets
Rendering
4.6.1 Change Level
This dialog allows you to apply a gain to change the level of an Audio File.
You can also use "Find current peak level" to obtain a report on the peak level of the current
audio selection (or the peak level in the whole file, if "Process whole file if there is no selection"
is selected in the preferences). This can be useful if you wish to calculate how much you can
increase the overall gain of a file without introducing clipping (exceeding 0dB), for example.
To change the level, enter the desired gain and click Apply.
You can access this dialog by choosing Process > Change level... in the Audio File
Workspace.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Audio File editing
Value editing
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48 WaveLab Concepts
4.6.2 Level envelope
This dialog allows you to create a volume envelope which can be applied to a selected range
or a whole Audio File. This could be useful if you need to even-out loud and quiet parts, for
example.
You can edit the envelope by:
Double clicking on the line to add a point: double click on a point to remove it.
Selecting multiple points (using [Shift] click) allows you to move the selection as a
group.
You can also use the controls to delete or reset points in the envelope. Use the envelope
smoothing button to toggle the envelope points between a straight (polygonal) line or a
curved path.
Click Apply to apply the envelope to the audio selection or file.
You can access this dialog in the Audio File Workspace via Process > Level envelope....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Audio File editing
Adjusting Envelopes
4.6.3 Normalize Level
This dialog allows you to change the peak level of your Audio File.
Enter the desired peak level (in dB) that you wish the audio selection to have. You can also
use "Find current peak level" to obtain a report on the peak level of the current audio selection
(or the peak level in the whole file, if "Process whole file if there is no selection" is selected
in the preferences). You can choose to apply the same gain to both stereo channels (Stereo
Link) or mix down to a mono file (Mix to Mono) with the assurance that no clipping will occur
when both channels are mixed together.
To normalize the selected audio, enter the desired peak level and click Apply.
You can access this dialog by choosing Process > Level Normalizer... in the Audio File
Workspace.
This function is also available as a batch processing plug-in. You can access it from Batch
Processing Workspace > Plug-ins window > Multipass Plug-ins > Normalizer.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Audio File editing
Value editing
WaveLab 7
4.6 Offline processing 49
4.6.4 Silence Generator
This dialog allows you to generate "silence", either by replacing an audio selection, or by
specifying a duration.
You can also specify a cross fade at each end of the silent region, for a smoother transition.
Radio buttons determine where the silent period is placed in the audio.
In WaveLab you can also specify a file to be inserted instead of "true" silence. This can be
useful for example, if you wish to keep the ambience, or background noise of a particular
environment in a recording.
You can access this dialog in the Audio File Workspace via Edit > Silence (advanced)....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Silence
4.6.5 Loop Tone Uniformizer
This dialog allows you to create sounds that will loop, from audio that is seemingly "unloopable". These are normally sounds that constantly decay in level or continuously change
in timbre. The Loop Tone Uniformizer applies processing to the sound that evens out changes
in level and timbral characteristics in order for a sound to loop properly. For example, this
could be useful for creating looped samples for a softsynth or hardware sampler.
To use the Loop Tone Uniformizer you need to have a loop defined using a pair of loop markers
. The original length of the loop is not changed.
Uniformizers
This tab allows you to specify the method/s used to even out the sound you wish to loop.
Choose between "Slice mixing" and/or "Chorus smoothing". For a full explanation of how
each of these methods operate use the "What's this?" help function.
For slice mixing, you may need to experiment to see how many slices are needed. Generally
the more slices you use, the more natural the sound will be (up to a certain point).
Pre Cross fade
The Loop Tone Uniformizer also includes the option to cross fade the end of the loop with
the start of the newly processed section so that transition into the newly looped section is
smoother during playback. Use the envelope drag points or value sliders to adjust the cross
fade.
A note about Post Cross fading
If you have used the Loop Tone Uniformizer within a region of an Audio File, the transition
from the end of the loop into the original file in many cases won't be very natural. This can
be fixed as follows:
1. Close the Loop Tone Uniformizer and open the Loop Tweaker.
2. Click on the Cross fade tab and deactivate the Cross fade option (the check box).
3. Click on the Post Cross fade tab and make sure Cross fade is activated.
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50 WaveLab Concepts
4. Set up the post cross fade parameters and click Apply.
It can also be a useful tip to lock the loop markers after you use this command on a selection
within an Audio File. Once the loop is processed in place, moving the loop markers will upset
playback of the loop.
You can access this dialog in the Audio File Workspace via Process > Loop Tone Uni-
formizer....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Markers
Adjusting Envelopes
4.6.6 Pitch correction
This dialog allows you to detect and change the pitch of a sound without affecting its length.
Amount of Shift - use these controls to find out the current pitch of the audio and if
desired, calculate the required shift to match a specific pitch.
Method - use these controls to adjust the method and quality you wish to use when
processing the pitch change. You can also choose how the length of the sound is
affected by the operation. By default this process will not change the length of the
sound.
This tool could be useful for fixing an off-key vocal note in a live recording, or tuning the pitch
of a kick drum sample to fit a particular song, for example.
You can access this dialog from the Audio File Workspace via Process > Pitch Correc-
tion....
Pitch correction is also available as a batch processing plug-in in the Batch Processor
Workspace. In addition, Pitch correction for a Clip is available from the Focused Clip window
(via Edit > Pitch shift...).
Note that for Batch processing and Clip processes, the envelope option is not available.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Adjusting Envelopes
4.6.7 Time stretching
This dialog allows you to change the duration of an audio selection (usually without changing
its pitch).
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4.6 Offline processing 51
You can view exact time information on the original audio selection you wish to stretch and
choose the amount you wish to "stretch" it in seconds, beats per minute or as a percentage.
You can also choose which method WaveLab uses to stretch the audio and the quality/speed
of the processing.
If you select "Use modulation envelope" you can vary the time stretch over time using an
envelope editor that becomes available. When choosing a method, it is useful to experiment
with the different algorithms available to find which one suits your source material the best.
Use "What's this?" to find out more information on each method and determine which one
will produce the best time stretch without introducing unwanted artifacts.
This function is useful if you want to speed up or slow down a recording to match other
material, such as matching the tempo of two drum beats, or fitting an audio track to a section
of video, for example.
Time stretching is also available as a batch processing plug-in in the Batch Processor
Workspace. In addition, Time stretching for a Clip is available from the Focused Clip window.
Note that for batch processing and Clip processing, the modulation envelope option is not
available. You can access this dialog from the Audio File Workspace by choosing Process
> Time stretching....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Adjusting Envelopes
4.6.8 Loop Tweaker
This dialog allows you to refine a region of audio to loop seamlessly.
The Loop Tweaker can just be used to "tweak" an existing loop selection so that it loops
perfectly or you can also use it to create a loop from material which does not naturally repeat.
To use the Loop Tweaker you must first have a loop defined using a pair of loop markers
.
The Loop Tweaker consists of the following tabs:
Loop points adjustment
This is a visualization of the beginning and end of the waveform between the loop markers.
You use this dialog to manually refine a loop selection by dragging on the waveform left/right
or using the automatic search buttons to find the nearest "good" loop point. The aim is to
align the waveforms so they meet in the middle at a zero-crossing point with the waveforms
matching as closely as possible, being "in phase". When you adjust your loop start and end
points within the dialog the start and end loop markers in the main waveform window will
adjust accordingly. Note that this movement may or may not be visible depending on the
amount you move the markers and the zoom factor you have selected.
It is helpful to have the transport looped during playback so you can hear the difference when
you adjust the loop markers within the dialog. Use the Display options to adjust how the Loop
Tweaker waveform is visualized. You can also use the temporary memory buttons to capture
a number of different loop "candidates" and audition them one by one. Note that if you are
not using a cross fade or post cross fade you do not need to click Apply when just tweaking
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52 WaveLab Concepts
loop points. You can also leave this dialog window open and manually adjust the position of
the markers in the main waveform windows if you need to make large adjustments.
Cross fade
This tab allows you to apply a cross fade at the end of a loop by mixing a copy of the beginning
of the loop with it. This can be useful to smooth the transition between the end of a loop and
its beginning - especially when using material that doesn't naturally loop. Use the envelope
drag points or value sliders to adjust the cross fade envelope. Click Apply to process the
cross fade.
Post cross fade
This tab allows you to cross fade the loop back into the audio after the end of the loop. This
is done by mixing a copy of the loop back into the audio. Use the envelope drag points or
value sliders to adjust the cross fade envelope. Click Apply to process the post cross fade.
Using the "Copy" button you can insert multiple copies of the loop into the active Audio File,
creating a smooth audio sequence, since copies will loop without an audible transition.
You can access this dialog by choosing Process > Loop Tweaker....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Markers
Adjusting Envelopes
Zero crossing
4.6.9 Effect morphing
This dialog within the Audio File Workspace allows you to gradually mix two audio ranges
that have different effects/processing applied to them.
Effect morphing allows you to smoothly "morph" or blend from one effect to another, or from
an unprocessed audio segment to a processed audio segment. Effect Morphing always
involves two audio ranges. Normally, these are two versions of the same audio range, of
which one is unprocessed and the other processed.
Effect morphing works by using WaveLab's Undo buffer to mix a copy of the processed audio
with the unprocessed version. You can also use any other bit of audio from the application's
clipboard that has the same length as the one you wish to morph with.
To set up a basic effect morph, proceed as follows:
1. Start by making a selection range over the time you wish the effect morphing to take
place.
2. Now process this range using any Master Section effect(s), or use some other off-line
processing. You cannot use processing/effects that alter the length of the selection,
e.g. time stretching.
3. Open the Effect Morphing dialog by choosing Edit>Effect Morphing....
WaveLab 7
4.6 Offline processing 53
4. Adjust your envelope points over time between 0% and 100%. This will determine the
level and direction of the morph. For example, starting at 100% and ending at 0% will
fade out the effect you just applied.
5. Choose "Unprocessed selection" for this example. As mentioned previously you can
also use any audio of the same duration from the clipboard.
6. Click Apply to apply the Effect morphing.
You can access this dialog in the Audio File Workspace via Edit > Effect morphing....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
4.6.10 Loudness distribution
This dialog allows you to measure the most frequent loudness values found in an Audio File
(this is not the same as average loudness). The graphic peaks found by the analysis represent
these values.
The tool gives an answer to the question: "How often does a given loudness (vertical scale,
in dB) appear in the whole file?". The percentage figure is relative to other peaks. Some
simple examples:
1. If, for instance, you have a sine of 0 dB / 2 second followed by a sine of -6 dB /
2 seconds. This means the global audio material has as much 0 dB material as - 6dB
material: you will see 2 peaks (0 / -6 dB), each at 100%.
2. If, for instance, uou have a sine of 0 dB / 1 second followed by a sine of -6 dB / 3
seconds. This means there are 3 times more -6 dB material than 0 dB material. You
will see a peak of about 33% at 0 dB, and another peak of 100% at -6 dB.
This analysis is useful for learning about how the loudness of your music is distributed.
You can access this dialog in the Wave File Workspace via Analysis > Loudness distri-
bution....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Loudness
4.6.11 Loudness normalizer
This dialog allows you to adjust the loudness of a file. Because it relates to loudness as
opposed to maximum peak level, this tool works quite differently from the Level Normalizer. A
typical application is to specify a loudness, for example -12dB, and the Loudness Normalizer
processes the audio to match this level of loudness.
Like Gain Change, increasing the loudness to a certain value can introduce clipping. To avoid
this occurring, a peak limiter (the Peak Master plug-in) can be used as part of the process.
WaveLab 7
54 WaveLab Concepts
The Loudness Normalizer raises the loudness and limits peaks in the signal at the same time
(if needed), to achieve the target loudness.
In the case of stereo files, both channels are processed independently. This process happens
over several stages; analysis precedes the final rendering. The Loudness Normalizer dialog
gives access to useful statistics about the file and the Loudness distribution tool, and you
can choose to remove any DC offset in the file.
You can access this dialog from the Audio File Workspace via Process > Loudness nor-
malizer....
This function is also available as a batch processing plug-in. You can access it from Batch
Processing Workspace > Plug-ins window > Multipass Plug-ins > Loudness Normalizer.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Loudness
DC Offset
Loudness distribution
4.6.12 Pan Normalizer
This dialog allows you to ensure that both channels of a stereo file have the same level or
loudness. Since loudnesss is more important than peak volume in the perception of sound,
this is a powerful tool to get the best possible stereo balance.
This process uses two passes to first analyze the audio and then render any level changes
required.
You must have a stereo selection in a stereo file to apply this process.
You can access this dialog from the Audio File Workspace via Process > Pan Normalizer....
This function is also available as a batch processing plug-in. You can access it from the Batch
Processor Workspace via Plug-ins window > Multipass Plug-ins > Pan Normalizer.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
4.6.13 Pitch bend
This dialog allows you to change the pitch of a sound over time. Note that changing the pitch
using Pitch bend will affect its duration unless length preservation is activated.
Using an envelope you can 'draw' the curve you wish the pitch to follow. The pitch offset is
displayed along the vertical ruler of the envelope and the range the envelope effects can be
adjusted using the spin control. Positive pitch values produce sounds with a higher pitch and
of shorter length, negative values produce sounds with a lower pitch and of longer length.
WaveLab 7
4.6 Offline processing 55
If length preservation is activated, you can choose the algorithm that is used to perform the
pitch bend operation. Depending on the type of audio material you are processing, choose
the appropriate mode. For more information on the different modes, use the "What's This?"
tool. You can also adjust the quality used when processing the pitch bend. The quality setting
and the selected mode will affect the processing time for this effect.
This function could be used for creating the classic 'tape stop' effect, or for blending the
tempo/pitch of one track into another, for example.
You can access this dialog from the Audio File Workspace via Process > Pitch bend....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Adjusting Envelopes
4.6.14 Pitch quantize
This dialog allows you to correct the pitch of an Audio File.
The musical notes in the audio selection are quantized to the nearest semitone. Pitch quantize works best on recordings that have a single fundamental frequency, such as voice or
single instruments. It can be useful for 're-tuning' the pitch of an imperfect recorded vocal
performance, for example.
The dialog allows you to choose the reference frequency (normally 440 Hz) and the time
taken for the pitch correction to reach the nearest semitone. An explanation of when and
how to adjust the Slur time is given using the 'What's this?' tooltips.
You can also choose to preserve the formants of the original material. Choosing this option
can sometimes help to produce a more realistic result when correcting the pitch of vocals or
acoustic instrument sounds.
You can access this dialog from the Audio File Workspace via Process > Pitch quantiz-
ing....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
Adjusting Envelopes
Formant
4.6.15 Presets
WaveLab's powerful preset system allows you to create your own presets to store commonly
used settings. They are available every time you open WaveLab. Presets can be saved for
many parameters such as plug-in settings, Audio File Formats or File Attributes, for example.
You can access the Presets pop-up menu wherever you see one of these icons: or .
Presets are saved as local files on your hard drive, allowing you to conveniently back-up or
WaveLab 7
56 WaveLab Concepts
copy them for use on another computer.They are also useful when used in conjunction with
batch conversions and Scripting.
Working with Presets
When working with Presets you save/edit and load them from their own pop-up menu. Depending on the context, the available functions sometimes vary but generally you can:
Save/Save As... - creates a new Preset file by saving the currently selected settings
to your hard disk.
Explore presets... - opens the folder where any existing Presets are stored. This
allows you to delete, duplicate and organize your settings into sub-folders using the
flexibility of the operating system's file browser.
Restore factory settings - restores the current settings to the factory default.
Preset list - select a Preset from the list of those currently available.
Store/restore temporary presets - when available, use the temporary slots provided
to save your settings for the duration of the session. This is useful if you want to quickly
test and compare different settings. Select the option "Store temporarily" and from the
submenu select the number under which you want to save (#1 - #5). To quickly load the
saved settings again, select the corresponding number from the "Restore" submenu.
Define shortcut for the current setting - when available, this allows you to assign a
shortcut to the current preset using either a key shortcut, keyword or via a MIDI trigger.
For example, if you have a preset to normalize audio at -0.1 dB and you assign it a
key shortcut then everytime you execute the shortcut, the preset is applied to the audio
selection, without the need to open the dialog.
VST-2 Presets
VST plug-ins have their own preset handling. When you click the preset button for this type
of effect the following options are available:
Load/Save Bank - this allows you to load and save complete sets of presets. The file
format is compatible with Cubase.
Load/Save Default Bank - this loads the default bank of presets, or saves the current
set of presets as the default bank.
Load/Save Effect - this loads or saves one preset at a time. The file format is again
compatible with Cubase.
Edit name of current program - allows you to define or edit the name for the currently
selected preset.
Preset list - select a Preset from the list of those currently available.
VST-3 plugins have a simplified list of options.
WaveLab 7
4.6 Offline processing 57
About Preset files
Each preset is stored as an individual file inside WaveLab's main presets folder. This makes
it easy to back them up or copy them to another computer. You can change the location of
this main Presets folder via Global Preferences > Setting location. You have the choice
of the following locations:
a standardized location that can be accessed by all users of the computer. That is, all
users will share the same settings.
a standardized location accessed by the current user (the default). That is, each user
has his/her own private settings.
any specific location of your choice. This allows you to customize it for your own requirements.
a location relative to the application. This allows you to use the application from an
USB dongle.
Default locations - By default the main Presets folder is found at:
Windows 7 - C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\WaveLab
7\Presets
Windows XP - C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application
Data\Steinberg\WaveLab 7\Presets
Mac OS X - root/[User Name]/Library/Prefences/WaveLab 7/Presets/
You can also find this folder by using the "Open active settings folder" link in the preferences
pane. This opens your file browser to wherever the main Presets folder is currently located.
Inside this Presets folder each type of preset file has its own folder. For example, all the presets for the Normalizer are stored within C:\Users\[User
Name]\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\WaveLab 7\Presets\Normalizer\ on Windows
7. When you open the Normalizer dialog and choose a preset via the pop-up menu, the
files in this directory will appear as available presets. The reason each preset type has its
own dedicated folder is so that WaveLab can locate them automatically when you open the
preset pop-up menu.
You can organize your presets into sub-folders so they appear as sub-menus. This can be
useful if you wish to organize a lot of presets into your own categories. You can continue to
nest folders inside one another to build a standard tree structured menu system. Below is
an example of how this looks for a set of window layout presets:
WaveLab 7
58 WaveLab Concepts
Related topics
Scripting
4.6.16 Rendering
To Render effects into a temporary or final file, you use the Render function (note that the
"Save" function from the File menu does not Render!). The Render function is part of the
Master Section and in other applications is sometimes referred to as "bouncing down" or
"mixing down".
Rendering a file "prints" all audible settings and effects that the audio is being routed through
in the Master section, to the resultant Audio File. This includes any plug-ins, the level of the
faders and any dithering you have set in the Master Section. In WaveLab you normally use
the Render function to:
Mix down a file in a Wave window to a new Audio File, complete with Master Section
effects, dithering and other settings.
Mix down a complete Audio Montage to an Audio File.
"Apply" all settings in the Master Section to a file in a Wave window.
When you render a file you can choose the format of the new Audio File and whether you
wish to create a new file or render the file in place. When the file is rendering you will
see a progress bar in the status bar.In WaveLab you can also view this Progress bar in the
Background tasks window (a shared tool window that can be set to float independently).This
allows you to monitor the progress of rendering, pause and if necessary cancel the rendering
process.
Rendering tips
When you are new to the rendering process in WaveLab there are a few things to note:
when rendering a file with the default option "Bypass Master Section on resulting Audio
File" selected in the Render dialog, the Master Section will be bypassed completely
when the new file has finished rendering. If this option is not selected you will hear the
Master Section effects being played back on top of the newly rendered effects. You can
check if the Master Section has been bypassed by checking the status of the "Play
through Master Section" button, which is located at the bottom right hand corner of the
status bar.
the Master Section's "Bypass" switch affects playback only. So even if you can't
hear effects when you are playing back your audio, any applied effects are still rendered.
the "Effect on/off" switch for each individual plug-in affects both playback and
Rendering.
if you are working with an Audio File/montage that contains lots of effects and/or tracks
and you experience playback problems, it can be useful to mix down a copy of your
WaveLab 7
4.7 Presets 59
montage/audio file to free up some processing power. You can then continue editing
the resultant file with the effects rendered. Remember to save a copy of your session
before doing this so you can go back and edit any levels or effects if you need to.
For more information about choosing settings when rendering see the Render Wave window
and Render Montage window. For more information on applying effects see the Master
Section
.
Related topics
Render Wave window
Render Montage window
Master Section
Audio Plug-ins
4.7 Presets
WaveLab's powerful preset system allows you to create your own presets to store commonly
used settings. They are available every time you open WaveLab. Presets can be saved for
many parameters such as plug-in settings, Audio File Formats or File Attributes, for example.
You can access the Presets pop-up menu wherever you see one of these icons: or .
Presets are saved as local files on your hard drive, allowing you to conveniently back-up or
copy them for use on another computer.They are also useful when used in conjunction with
batch conversions and Scripting.
Working with Presets
When working with Presets you save/edit and load them from their own pop-up menu. Depending on the context, the available functions sometimes vary but generally you can:
Save/Save As... - creates a new Preset file by saving the currently selected settings
to your hard disk.
Explore presets... - opens the folder where any existing Presets are stored. This
allows you to delete, duplicate and organize your settings into sub-folders using the
flexibility of the operating system's file browser.
Restore factory settings - restores the current settings to the factory default.
Preset list - select a Preset from the list of those currently available.
Store/restore temporary presets - when available, use the temporary slots provided
to save your settings for the duration of the session. This is useful if you want to quickly
test and compare different settings. Select the option "Store temporarily" and from the
submenu select the number under which you want to save (#1 - #5). To quickly load the
saved settings again, select the corresponding number from the "Restore" submenu.
WaveLab 7
60 WaveLab Concepts
Define shortcut for the current setting - when available, this allows you to assign a
shortcut to the current preset using either a key shortcut, keyword or via a MIDI trigger.
For example, if you have a preset to normalize audio at -0.1 dB and you assign it a
key shortcut then everytime you execute the shortcut, the preset is applied to the audio
selection, without the need to open the dialog.
VST-2 Presets
VST plug-ins have their own preset handling. When you click the preset button for this type
of effect the following options are available:
Load/Save Bank - this allows you to load and save complete sets of presets. The file
format is compatible with Cubase.
Load/Save Default Bank - this loads the default bank of presets, or saves the current
set of presets as the default bank.
Load/Save Effect - this loads or saves one preset at a time. The file format is again
compatible with Cubase.
Edit name of current program - allows you to define or edit the name for the currently
selected preset.
Preset list - select a Preset from the list of those currently available.
VST-3 plugins have a simplified list of options.
About Preset files
Each preset is stored as an individual file inside WaveLab's main presets folder. This makes
it easy to back them up or copy them to another computer. You can change the location of
this main Presets folder via Global Preferences > Setting location. You have the choice
of the following locations:
a standardized location that can be accessed by all users of the computer. That is, all
users will share the same settings.
a standardized location accessed by the current user (the default). That is, each user
has his/her own private settings.
any specific location of your choice. This allows you to customize it for your own requirements.
a location relative to the application. This allows you to use the application from an
USB dongle.
Default locations - By default the main Presets folder is found at:
Windows 7 - C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\WaveLab
7\Presets
WaveLab 7
4.8 Rendering 61
Windows XP - C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application
Data\Steinberg\WaveLab 7\Presets
Mac OS X - root/[User Name]/Library/Prefences/WaveLab 7/Presets/
You can also find this folder by using the "Open active settings folder" link in the preferences
pane. This opens your file browser to wherever the main Presets folder is currently located.
Inside this Presets folder each type of preset file has its own folder. For example, all the presets for the Normalizer are stored within C:\Users\[User
Name]\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\WaveLab 7\Presets\Normalizer\ on Windows
7. When you open the Normalizer dialog and choose a preset via the pop-up menu, the
files in this directory will appear as available presets. The reason each preset type has its
own dedicated folder is so that WaveLab can locate them automatically when you open the
preset pop-up menu.
You can organize your presets into sub-folders so they appear as sub-menus. This can be
useful if you wish to organize a lot of presets into your own categories. You can continue to
nest folders inside one another to build a standard tree structured menu system. Below is
an example of how this looks for a set of window layout presets:
Related topics
Scripting
4.8 Rendering
To Render effects into a temporary or final file, you use the Render function (note that the
"Save" function from the File menu does not Render!). The Render function is part of the
Master Section and in other applications is sometimes referred to as "bouncing down" or
"mixing down".
Rendering a file "prints" all audible settings and effects that the audio is being routed through
in the Master section, to the resultant Audio File. This includes any plug-ins, the level of the
faders and any dithering you have set in the Master Section. In WaveLab you normally use
the Render function to:
Mix down a file in a Wave window to a new Audio File, complete with Master Section
effects, dithering and other settings.
Mix down a complete Audio Montage to an Audio File.
WaveLab 7
62 WaveLab Concepts
"Apply" all settings in the Master Section to a file in a Wave window.
When you render a file you can choose the format of the new Audio File and whether you
wish to create a new file or render the file in place. When the file is rendering you will
see a progress bar in the status bar.In WaveLab you can also view this Progress bar in the
Background tasks window (a shared tool window that can be set to float independently).This
allows you to monitor the progress of rendering, pause and if necessary cancel the rendering
process.
Rendering tips
When you are new to the rendering process in WaveLab there are a few things to note:
when rendering a file with the default option "Bypass Master Section on resulting Audio
File" selected in the Render dialog, the Master Section will be bypassed completely
when the new file has finished rendering. If this option is not selected you will hear the
Master Section effects being played back on top of the newly rendered effects. You can
check if the Master Section has been bypassed by checking the status of the "Play
through Master Section" button, which is located at the bottom right hand corner of the
status bar.
the Master Section's "Bypass" switch affects playback only. So even if you can't
hear effects when you are playing back your audio, any applied effects are still rendered.
the "Effect on/off" switch for each individual plug-in affects both playback and
Rendering.
if you are working with an Audio File/montage that contains lots of effects and/or tracks
and you experience playback problems, it can be useful to mix down a copy of your
montage/audio file to free up some processing power. You can then continue editing
the resultant file with the effects rendered. Remember to save a copy of your session
before doing this so you can go back and edit any levels or effects if you need to.
For more information about choosing settings when rendering see the Render Wave window
and Render Montage window. For more information on applying effects see the Master
Section.
Related topics
Render Wave window
Render Montage window
Master Section
Audio Plug-ins
4.9 Scripting
WaveLab contains a powerful scripting language to help advanced users create their own
scripts to automate tasks. Using basic scripts can be useful for automating repetitive editing
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 63
tasks such as trimming and cropping a file at specific times, for example. You can write
scripts that perform other basic editing commands, apply offline processing, place markers,
and display information about the active file. You can script commands to edit the active
Audio File or the active Audio Montage. If you have some experience of programming with
modern scripting languages you should have no problem writing utility scripts for WaveLab.
The WaveLab Scripting language is based on ECMAScript, with the addition of WaveLab
specific commands. If you have had any experience with Javascript, Jscript or Actionscript
the code syntax will be familiar to you as they are all based on ECMAScript too. If not, there
is a large amount of teaching and reference material available online. A Javascript reference
such as www.w3schools.com for example, or a book like JavaScript: The Definitive
Guide are good places to start.
To begin exploring the WaveLab specific functions available see WaveLab Scripting Lan-
guage. For a broader look at the complete subset of commands available see ECMAScript
Reference.
Getting started
To write and execute a script:
1. Open the Script window in either the Audio File or Audio Montage Workspaces.
2. Type your script directly in the Script window or copy and paste it from an external text
editor.
3. Run the script by clicking Execute Script or selecting it from the Functions menu.
The script will run if there are no syntax errors. Any errors will appear in a dialog box to help
you debug them.
Tip: There are several free utility text editors that are context sensitive. This means that they
can color and highlight parts of your code to make it more readable. If you use one of these
for writing and editing your scripts, choose Javascript as the editing language and/or save
the file with a .js (Javascript) extension.
Using the Log window
It is a good idea to begin by writing some simple scripts that output some text to the Log
window. The Log window is part of the Control Window and can be accessed via Utilities
> Log. To output a simple text message:
1. Open the Log window.
2. Open an Audio File in the Audio File Workspace.
3. Copy and paste the following script into the Script window and try executing it.
//output the number of samples in the active wave as text in the log window.
logWindow.printInfo("This file has " + activeWave.size() + " samples");
Note: Any lines of a script that begin with two forward slashes // are comments, and are
ignored when the script is executed. For commenting multiple lines you can use the following
syntax:
/* This a long comment,
that wraps onto more than one line. */
WaveLab 7
64 WaveLab Concepts
Scripting window contexts
It is important to note that certain scripting commands are only available in the Audio File
Workspace and others only in the Audio Montage Workspace. Others are "global", meaning
you can use them in either Workspace. To begin exploring the WaveLab Scripting Language
in more detail see the WaveLab Scripting Language.
A basic scripting example
Below is a basic scripting example which uses some WaveLab scripting functions to perform
some simple operations on an Audio File in the Audio File Workspace. The script first displays
information about the Audio File, fades in the start and fades out the end of the file, and then
adds ten markers at 1 second intervals. Examine it line by line and read the comments for
each operation to see how it works.
/* To run this script:
- open an Audio File that is at least 10 seconds long
- open the Log window via the Utilities menu
- copy and paste this script into the Script window
- choose Functions > Execute Script */
//clear the log window
logWindow.clear();
//show some information about the active wave file in the log window
logWindow.printInfo("This wave file has " + activeWave.size() + " samples");
logWindow.printInfo("Its sample rate is " + activeWave.sampleRate());
logWindow.printInfo("It has " +activeWave.numChannels() + " channels");
//Work out how long the file is in seconds and round to a whole number
var lengthSecs = activeWave.size() / activeWave.sampleRate();
logWindow.printInfo("This wave file is " + lengthSecs + " seconds long");
//Select the first 10 seconds of the file
activeWave.select(0, 10 * activeWave.sampleRate());
//Trim the file to 10 seconds
activeWave.trim();
//select the first two seconds of the file and fade it in
activeWave.select(0, 2 * activeWave.sampleRate()); //sample rate multiplied by tw
o = 2 seconds
activeWave.fadeIn(linear);
//select the last two seconds of the file and fade it out
activeWave.select(activeWave.size() - (2 * activeWave.sampleRate()), activeWave.s
ize());
activeWave.fadeOut(linear);
//loop through 10 times and add a marker each second
for (i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
{
//work out next cursor time
var nextCursorPosition = i * activeWave.sampleRate();
//set cursor position forwards by a second
activeWave.setCursorPosition(nextCursorPosition);
//add a generic marker at the next cursor position and give it a name and comme
nt
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 65
activeWave.addMarker(generic, "Marker "+i, "A comment for marker "+i);
//write some information about the new marker
var cursorTimeSecs = nextCursorPosition/activeWave.sampleRate();
logWindow.printInfo("created a new marker at " + cursorTimeSecs + " seconds");
}
Related topics
WaveLab Scripting Language
ECMAScript Reference
Scripting window (Audio File Workspace)
Scripting window (Audio Montage Workspace)
Control Window
4.9.1 WaveLab Scripting Language
WaveLab's scripting language varies slightly between Workspaces. This Help entry briefly
introduces you to the commands that are available in each Workspace and to those that are
global.
Global Commands
These are scripting commands that are available in all scripting contexts.
logWindow
Object representing the Log window, where you can output messages to. If the log window
is not open, all functions are ignored (as they are not visible anyway).
Functions
printInfo(messageString) - Outputs an informal message to the Log window. The mes-
sage argument must be typed as a String - i.e. between inverted commas.
Example:
logWindow.printInfo("start");
printWarning(messageString) - Outputs a warning message to the Log window.
printError(messageString) - Outputs an error message to the Log window.
clear() - Clears the log window.
Example:
logWindow.clear();
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66 WaveLab Concepts
Audio File Scripting Commands
Objects
activeWave
Object representing the active Audio File.
Many functions make use of presets as an argument. For example, the normalize() function
accepts a preset as an argument:
activeWave.normalize("myPreset");
The advantage is that you don't need to specify many parameters in your scripts, instead you
can use the corresponding dialog to define the settings of a particular function, and then
save them as a preset file. Since each type of preset is unique, you don't need to specify a
full path name to the preset. Only specifying the preset name is enough, there is no need for
its extension. Since presets can also be stored in a sub-folder, you can use a relative path
name if necessary.
So if for example, you wanted to normalize a file using a preset you had defined in the Normalize level dialog (and saved in a sub-folder as a preset), it would look like this:
activeWave.normalize("mySubFolder/myPreset");
All audio processing functions operate on the selected audio range. If there is no selection
the whole file range will be processed (if that editing option is selected in Audio File editing
preferences). If the cursor or selection is in one channel only, only that channel is processed.
In other words, it operates exactly the same as if you were applying a process from within a
dialog.
All positions and sizes are measured in sample units. If you wish to specify a time range in
another unit you will need to convert it from samples.
var twoSeconds = 2 * activeWave.sampleRate();
Functions
size() - Returns the number of samples in the Audio File.
sampleRate() - Returns the sample rate of the Audio File.
numChannels() - Returns the number of channels of the Audio File.
cursorPosition() - Returns the current cursor position (in samples).
setCursorPosition(pos) - Sets the current cursor position at a certain sample location.
selectionStart() - Returns the index of the first selected sample, or -1 if there is no selection.
selectionSize() - Returns the number of selected samples.
select(presetName) - Loads the audio range preset and applies its setting to the active
Audio File.
select(start, size) - Selects a number of samples, starting from a given position.
setCursorChannel(channel) - Sets the cursor position to a new channel, Use leftCh,
rightCh or allCh as arguments.
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 67
addMarker(type, name, comment) - Add a marker at the cursor position. Possible values
for type are:
generic
temporary
cdTrackStart
cdTrackEnd
cdTrackFrontier
cdTrackIndex
loopStart
loopEnd
muteStart
muteEnd
playbackStarter
regionStart
regionEnd
errorStart
errorEnd
correctionStart
correctionEnd
Example:
activeWave.addMarker(generic, "SomeName", "SomeComment");
findNextMarkerPosition(posStartSearch, type) - Searches for the next marker of type,
from a given position. Returns the marker position, if any is found, or -1.
normalize(presetName) - Loads the normalizer preset and applies its setting to an audio
range.
normalizeLoudness(presetName) - Loads the loudness normalizer preset and applies its
setting to an audio range.
normalizePan(presetName) - Loads the pan normalizer preset and applies its setting to
an audio range.
silence(presetName) - Loads the silence preset and applies its setting to an audio range.
timeStretch(presetName) - Loads the time stretch preset and applies its setting to an
audio range.
pitchCorrection(presetName) - Loads the pitch correction preset and applies its setting
to an audio range.
pitchQuantize(presetName) - Loads the pitch quantize preset and applies its setting to
an audio range.
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68 WaveLab Concepts
changeLevel(dbValue) - Changes the level of the selected audio range.
fadeIn(shape) and fadeOut(shape) - Applies a fade on the selected audio range. shape
can be one of the following:
linear
sinus
squareRoot
sinusoid
log
exp
expp
Example:
activeWave.fadeIn(squareRoot);
levelEnvelope(presetName) - Loads the envelope shape and applies its setting to an
audio range.
morph(presetName) - Loads an effect morphing preset and applies it according to its
settings.
invertPhase() - Inverts the phase of the samples in the audio range.
reverse() - Reverses the order of the samples in the audio range.
cut() - Cuts the selected audio range.
copy() - Copies the selected audio range.
paste() - Pastes audio from the clipboard to the current cursor position.
trim() - Trims the selected audio range.
remove() - Deletes the selected audio range.
removeSmooth() - Deletes the selected audio range and cross fades the resulting regions
together.
mute() - Mutes the selected audio range.
swapChannels() - Swaps stereo channels.
undo() - Undoes the last command.
removeDcOffset() - Removes the DC offset in the audio range.
readSamples(channelIndex, from, numSamples) - Reads a number of samples from a
given cursor position, on a given channel:
Use 0 for the left channel
Use 1 for the right channel
Returns the result in an array. Example:
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 69
buf = activeWave.readSamples(0, 20, 100); // read 100 samples on left channel, fr
om sample index 20
for (i = 0; i < 100; i++)
{
logWindow.printInfo(buf[i]);
}
Audio Montage Scripting Commands
Functions
Preliminary info: the Scripting API is an open project and will evolve according to user requests.
size() - Returns the number of samples in the Audio Montage.
sampleRate() - Returns the sample rate of the Audio Montage.
numChannels() - Returns the number of output channels of the Audio Montage.
numTracks() - Returns the number of tracks of the Audio Montage.
cursorPosition() - Returns the current cursor position (in samples).
setCursorPosition(pos) - Sets the current cursor position at a certain sample location.
selectionStart() - Returns the index of the first selected sample, or -1 if there is no selection.
selectionSize() - Returns the number of selected samples.
select(presetName) - Loads the audio range preset and applies its setting to the active
Audio Montage.
select(start, size) - Selects a number of samples, starting from a given position.
setFocusedTrack(index) - Sets the focused track.
addMarker(type, name, comment) - Add a marker at the cursor position. Possible values
for type are:
generic
temporary
cdTrackStart
cdTrackEnd
cdTrackFrontier
cdTrackIndex
loopStart
loopEnd
muteStart
muteEnd
playbackStarter
regionStart
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70 WaveLab Concepts
regionEnd
errorStart
errorEnd
correctionStart
correctionEnd
Example:
activeWave.addMarker(generic, "SomeName", "SomeComment");
findNextMarkerPosition(posStartSearch, type) - Searches for the next marker of type,
from a given position. Returns the marker position, if any is found, or -1.
insertMonoTrack(where) - Adds a Mono Audio Track at index 'where'
insertStereoTrack(where) - Adds a Stereo Audio Track at index 'where'
insertClip(iTrack, timePosition, fileName, autoShift) - Creates a Clip from 'fileName',
inserts it in track 'iTrack', on the time line at posision 'timePosition', add possibly shift other
Clips to make room according to parameter 'autoShift' autoShift can be one of the following:
autoShiftNo
autoShiftTrack
autoShiftGlobal
This function returns the ID of first created Clip, or 0.
clipWithName(name) - Returns the ID of first Clip with name 'name', or 0.
clipWithFile(name) - Returns the ID of first Clip that refers to 'fileName', or 0.
firstClip() - Returns the first Montage Clip ID, or 0, if the Montage is empty.
nextClip(clipId) - Returns the ID of the Clip stored after 'clipId', or 0. Clips are not sorted
in any special order. Using both firstClip and nextClip allow to access all Montage Clips.
clipName(clipId) - Returns the name of the Clip identified by 'clipId'
clipPosition(clipId) - Returns the time line position of the Clip identified by 'clipId'
clipSize(clipId) - Returns the size of the Clip identified by 'clipId'
setClipName(clipId, name) - Rename the Clip identified by 'clipId'
setTrackName(index, name) - Rename the Track identified by 'index'
moveClip(clipId, newPos) - Move on the time line the Clip identified by 'clipId'
resizeClip(clipId, qlonglong newSize) - Resize the Clip identified by 'clipId'. The size
will be limited by the Audio File referenced by the Clip.
setClipDefaultFadeIn(clipId) - Sets the default fade-in shape and time for the Clip identified by 'clipId'
setClipDefaultFadeOut(clipId) - Sets the default fade-out shape and time for the Clip
identified by 'clipId'
undo() - Undoes the last command.
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 71
Related topics
ECMAScript Reference
4.9.2 ECMAScript Reference
WaveLab's scripting language is based on the ECMAScript scripting language, as defined
in standard ECMA-262 Microsoft's JScript, Netscape's JavaScript and Adobe's Actionscript
are also based on the ECMAScript standard. If you are not familiar with the ECMAScript
language, there is a large amount of teaching and reference material available online.
This reference page contains a list of all ECMAScript objects, functions and properties supported by the WaveLab scripting system. These are available in any scripting context but are
not WaveLab specific. When scripting for the Audio File Workspace for example, (using the
Scripting window (Audio File Workspace)) there are specific additional functions that allow
you to perform editing commands. For a list of these WaveLab specific scripting commands
and functions see WaveLab Scripting Language.
Tip: Some basic scripting examples are included below so you can see the scripting syntax
in context. These scripts will work if you copy, paste and execute them in a script window.
Supported ECMAScript subset
The Global Object
Values
NaN
Infinity
undefined
Math
Functions
eval(x)
parseInt(string, radix)
parseFloat(string)
isNaN(number)
isFinite(number)
decodeURI(encodedURI)
decodeURIComponent(encodedURIComponent)
encodeURI(uri)
encodeURIComponent(uriComponent)
WaveLab 7
72 WaveLab Concepts
Objects
Object
Function
Array
String
Boolean
Number
Date
RegExp
Error
Examples:
//Test if a value is not a number
var isNumber = isNaN("this is a string");
//Print the result in the log window
logWindow.printInfo(isNumber); //Traces "true" because it is a String
//Convert a string to a number
var numStr = "2.345";
var num = parseFloat(numStr);
//Print the result in the log window
logWindow.printInfo(num);
//Encode a string into an internet valid ASCII String
var str = "a sentence with spaces";
var encodedStr = encodeURI(str);
logWindow.printInfo(encodedStr);
Function Object
Prototypes
toString()
toLocaleString()
valueOf()
hasOwnProperty(V)
isPrototypeOf(V)
propertyIsEnumerable(V)
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 73
Functions
toString()
apply(thisArg, argArray)
call(thisArg [, arg1 [, arg2, ...]])
Example:
//Create a new custom marker Object
function customMarker(name, comment, timeSecs)
{
this.name=name;
this.comment=comment;
this.timeSecs=timeSecs;
}
//Create a new instance of the custom marker
var myMarker=new customMarker("A custom marker", "My custom marker comments",5);
//Use prototype function to add a new property to it
customMarker.prototype.samples = null;
myMarker.samples = activeWave.sampleRate() * myMarker.timeSecs;
//Trace the results in the log window
logWindow.printInfo(myMarker.name);
logWindow.printInfo(myMarker.samples);
Array Objects
Functions
toString()
toLocaleString()
concat([item1 [, item2 [, ...]]])
join(separator)
pop()
push([item1 [, item2 [, ...]]])
reverse()
shift()
slice(start, end)
sort(comparefn)
splice(start, deleteCount[, item1 [, item2 [, ...]]])
unshift([item1 [, item2 [, ...]]])
Example:
WaveLab 7
74 WaveLab Concepts
//Create an empty array
var a = new Array();
//Add some items to it
a.push("first array item");
a.push("next array item", "last array item");
//Print them out in the Log window
logWindow.printInfo(a.toString());
//Call the Array's reverse function
a.reverse();
//View the results in the Log window
logWindow.printInfo(a.toString());
String Objects
Functions
toString()
valueOf()
charAt(pos)
charCodeAt(pos)
concat([string1 [, string2 [, ...]]])
indexOf(searchString ,position)
lastIndexOf(searchString, position)
localeCompare(that)
match(regexp)
replace(searchValue, replaceValue)
search(regexp)
slice(start, end)
split(separator, limit)
substring(start, end)
toLowerCase()
toLocaleLowerCase()
toUpperCase()
toLocaleUpperCase()
Example:
//Create a string variable
var str = new String("WaveLab is a powerful editing tool");
//Make it all upper case
var capsStr = str.toUpperCase();
//View the results in the Log window
logWindow.printInfo(capsStr);
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 75
Boolean objects
Functions
toString()
valueOf()
Example:
//Test if an equation is true or false
var isTrue = (1 + 1 == 3);
//Convert the Boolean to a String and trace in the Log window
logWindow.printInfo(isTrue.toString());
Number Objects
Functions
toString(radix)
toLocaleString()
toFixed(fractionDigits)
toExponential(fractionDigits)
toPrecision(precision)
Example:
//Convert a number into exponential notation
var num = new Number(13.3714);
//Show the result in the Log window
logWindow.printInfo(num.toExponential());
Math Objects
Values
E
LN10
LN2
LOG2E
LOG10E
PI
SQRT1 2
SQRT2
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76 WaveLab Concepts
Functions
abs(x)
acos(x)
asin(x)
atan(x)
atan2(y, x)
ceil(x)
cos(x)
exp(x)
floor(x)
log(x)
max([value1 [, value2 [, ...]]])
min([value1 [, value2 [, ...]]])
pow(x, y)
random()
round(x)
sin(x)
sqrt(x)
tan(x)
Examples:
//Get a random number from 0 to 1
var r = Math.random();
//Print it out in the log window
logWindow.printInfo(r);
//Trace out Pi in the log window
logWindow.printInfo(Math.PI);
Date Objects
Functions
toString()
toDateString()
toTimeString()
toLocaleString()
WaveLab 7
4.9 Scripting 77
toLocaleDateString()
toLocaleTimeString()
valueOf()
getTime()
getFullYear()
getUTCFullYear()
getMonth()
getUTCMonth()
getDate()
getUTCDate()
getDay()
getUTCDay()
getHours()
getUTCHours()
getMinutes()
getUTCMinutes()
getSeconds()
getUTCSeconds()
getMilliseconds()
getUTCMilliseconds()
getTimeZoneOffset()
setTime(time)
setMilliseconds(ms)
setUTCMilliseconds(ms)
setSeconds(sec [, ms])
setUTCSeconds(sec [, ms])
setMinutes(min [, sec [, ms]])
setUTCMinutes(min [, sec [, ms]])
setHours(hour [, min [, sec [, ms]]])
setUTCHours(hour [, min [, sec [, ms]]])
setDate(date)
setUTCDate(date)
setMonth(month [, date])
WaveLab 7
78 WaveLab Concepts
setUTCMonth(month [, date])
setFullYear(year [, month [, date]])
setUTCFullYear(year [, month [, date]])
toUTCString()
Example:
//Create a new date object
var d = new Date();
//Print it out in the log window
logWindow.printInfo(d);
//Get just the hours
logWindow.printInfo(d.getHours());
RegExp Objects
Functions
exec(string)
test(string)
toString()
Example:
//Create a new regular expression defining a 5 digit number
var reg = new RegExp(/^\d{5}$/);
//Test a string with it to see if it contains a 5 digit number
var isFiveDigit = reg.test("12345");
//Trace the result to the log window
logWindow.printInfo(isFiveDigit);
Error Objects
Values
name
message
Functions
toString()
WaveLab 7
4.10 The Spectrum display 79
Types of Native Errors available
EvalError
RangeError
ReferenceError
SyntaxError
TypeError
URIError
Related topics
WaveLab Scripting Language
Scripting window (Audio File Workspace)
Scripting window (Audio Montage Workspace)
4.10 The Spectrum display
In WaveLab's Audio File Workspace, the main wave editing and overview windows can be
set to display your audio as a spectrogram (Spectrum).This spectrum mode allows a unique
view of your audio and when used in conjunction with the Spectrum editor offers powerful
audio restoration and processing functions. The Spectrum display is a "spectrogram", where
each vertical line represents the frequency spectrum at the corresponding time location.
The bottom of the display corresponds to the lower frequencies while the upper part of the
display represents the higher frequencies. The intensity or level of the frequencies are either
represented as a color spectrum, from red (maximum intensity) to purple/black (minimum
intensity), or as a monochrome intensity (depending on the setting in the Spectrum options
dialog). The vertical ruler on the left shows the frequency area (in Hz) for the spectrum.
You can view the Spectrum display in the Audio File Workspace by choosing the "Spectrum"
tab below either of the waveform display windows.
Related topics
Spectrogram options
Spectrum editor
4.10.1 Spectrogram options
This dialog allows you to adjust how the Spectrogram is displayed.
You can adjust the visual style of the spectrogram and its resolution. You can also specify
a cut-off point above which frequencies are displayed and to plot them using a linear or
logarithmic scale. This can be useful for isolating a certain range of frequencies: for example,
in sound restoration you may wish to focus on a high frequency band which is more accurately
displayed using a linear scale.
WaveLab 7
80 WaveLab Concepts
You can access this dialog from both wave windows in the Audio File Workspace via the
Spectrum tab > Edit settings....
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
The Spectrum display
Spectrum editor
4.11 Spectrum editor
This specific tool window allows you to select and perform operations on an Audio File via
its audio spectrum.
It uses high quality linear-phase filters to process a spectrum selection both in the time domain and in the frequency domain. This can be useful for advanced audio restoration tasks
like removing noise from a specific source in a recording, for example.
Making and editing selections
Spectrum editing can only be performed when a waveform is first displayed in Spectrum
display mode and when a spectrum selection is defined. To activate the Spectrum editor,
click on the Spectrum edit tool in the command bar (or via Workspace > Specific tool
windows > Spectrum Editor). This displays the Spectrogram if this is not already the case
(see The Spectrum display).
To select a region, point and drag to define a rectangle. The region selection defines a time
and a specific frequency range. This allows you to edit and process audio both in the time
domain and in a specific frequency domain, as opposed to standard wave editing which
always operates in the full frequency domain.
Notes on spectrum selections:
When defining a region in a stereo file, a "mirrored" region is automatically created in
the other channel. To define a region in only one channel, press [Shift] while drawing
the region.
Once you have a region selected, if you place your mouse cursor inside the region,
a pop-up appears showing the currently set frequency range (Hz) and the time range
(seconds/milliseconds) for the selection.
A selected region can be moved in any direction by clicking and dragging the region
with the cursor.
If you press [Shift] whilst dragging a region, it only moves horizontally thus retaining
your selected frequency range. If you press [Ctrl]/[Command] + [Shift] the region
only moves vertically thus retaining the selected time range.
WaveLab 7
4.11 Spectrum editor 81
You can resize a region by placing the mouse cursor at the edges of the region (so that
a double-arrow appears) and then clicking and dragging.
To remove a region that you have drawn, click anywhere else on the waveform and it
disappears.
If you have defined a region as a Source or Target, it can be selected at any time to
create a new selection using the same dimensions.
Spectrum editor functions
The Spectrum Editor has the following parts:
Selection - use this part to refine and define your selection(s). You can expand selections, shift selections around and define a source and target region for performing
copy operations.
Operations - use this part to perform copying, filtering and processing operations.
For copying operations, you require both a source and a target region to have been
defined using the Selection tab. You can choose which method to copy audio between
the Source and Target regions. You can also choose to apply processing to a single
spectrum region using a variety of different modes. See Spectrum Processing Modes
for information on each mode type.
Master Section - use this part to process and route selected spectral audio regions
through the Master Section and its effects plug-ins. This allows for frequency-selective
processing. A selected region's frequency spectrum can be routed to the Master Section where you can choose to process it separately from the non-selected frequency
spectrum. The signal is split so that one part (region spectrum or non-selected spectrum) is sent to the plug-ins, while the other part can be mixed with this processed
signal, after the Master Section output.
Using the Spectrum editor
You can use the Spectrum editor in two main operational modes:
Region copying and filtering (Operations tab)
This is mainly intended for audio restoration applied over brief time ranges. Selections can
be copied, pasted, and filtered. This type of processing is mainly used to reduce, remove
or replace unwanted sound artifacts in the audio material, and can be carried out with great
precision. This could be useful for example, to replace part of a live recording that contains
an unwanted noise (such as a mobile phone ring tone), with a copy of a similar region of the
spectrum that only contains a "clean" signal. In general, the spectral Copy/Paste combination
gives the best results, given that the source and destination regions are properly choosen.
Master Section processing (Master Section tab)
This allows you to process a specific frequency range via the Master Section. The selected
or non-selected regions of the spectrum can be processed differently. You can also employ
a number of filters (Bandpass/Low-pass/High-pass) to further refine the particular range of
frequencies to be affected by any Master Section effects.
A selected spectrum region can either be:
WaveLab 7
82 WaveLab Concepts
Processed separately by the Master Section plug-ins. The non-selected spectrum can
either be bypassed or sent to the Master Section.
Bypassed. This removes the selected spectrum region from the Audio File. The nonselected spectrum can either be routed to the Master Section input or the Master Section output.
Sent to Master Section output. The non-selected spectrum can either be bypassed
or sent to the Master Section input. If the latter is selected, it will be mixed with the
selected spectrum region at the Master Section output.
You can access this window by choosing Workspace > Specific tool windows > Spec-
trum Editor.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see Getting Help
Related topics
The Spectrum display
Spectrum Processing Modes
Spectrogram options
Spectrometer
4.11.0.1 Spectrum Processing Modes
When applying processing to a spectrum region in the Spectrum Editor you can use a variety
of different modes:
Damp
This is used to attenuate the level of a region. The Gain parameter specifies the level of the
attenuation (it is also possible to set positive gain values, i.e. to boost the frequencies in the
region). Three filter types are available to perform the damping:
Bandpass filter: All frequencies in the region are equally attenuated.
Low-pass filter: Higher frequencies in the region will be more attenuated.
High-pass filter: Lower frequencies in the region will be more attenuated.
For the Low- and High-pass filters, a low Filter steepness setting is normally used (around 6
to 18dB).
Blur peaks
This filter operation analyzes the region to find the frequencies with the highest level. The
level of these frequencies will be attenuated (or boosted) according to the set Gain value. If
the gain is negative, these frequencies will be "blurred" and disappear in the mix as a whole.
The purpose of the filter is to mask the loudest frequencies (e.g. it could be used to eliminate
a sudden burst of pitched but unwanted sound in the audio material, like acoustic feedback).
WaveLab 7
4.12 About Regular Expressions 83
This mode works best with the Infinite steepness setting, which is automatically selected
when Blur peaks is used. You can, however, freely set any Filter steepness setting. The filter
type options are not available when this mode is selected.
Dispersion
This is a special filter that "smears" the dynamics and pitch of the region, without changing
the actual frequency content. This works best on lower frequencies, to mask the identity of
a signal without changing the frequency spectrum.
This mode works best with the Infinite steepness setting, which is automatically selected
when Dispersion is used. You can, however, freely set any Filter steepness setting. The filter
type options are not available when this mode is selected. Dispersion can also be used to
create special effects as it warps the sound in an unique way.
Fade Out
This can be used with any of the three filter types (Bandpass/Low-pass/High-pass). It gradually filters the frequencies in the region along the time axis (from nothing at the left edge of
the region, to maximum allowed by the gain parameter at the right edge), useful for gradually
removing frequencies from a region.
Fade In
This works like Fade out but inversed. It can also be used in conjunction with any of the three
filter types (Bandpass/Low-pass/High-pass).
Fade out then in
This is a mix of the two previous options; the filtering effect gradually fades out until the
middle of the region, then fades back in. It can also be used in conjunction with any of the
three filter types (Bandpass/Low-pass/High-pass).
Fade in then out
The inverse of the above. It can also be used in conjunction with any of the three filter types
(Bandpass/Low-pass/High-pass).
Related topics
The Spectrum display
Spectrogram options
Spectrum editor
4.12 About Regular Expressions
At various places in WaveLab you can use Regular Expressions to build complex text matching capabilities into your conversion and renaming processes. A regular expression is a set
of text symbols that describe a method to find a specific text string within a large body of
text, and then apply a specific operation to this text string. Regular expressions are available
for the advanced user to perform powerful string search/replace operations, for example, in
batch renaming or batch processing.
Throughout WaveLab, wherever you see this bulb icon there is a field where you can
create your own regular expressions. A fly-out menu containing shortcuts to build up the
basic syntax of an expression is also available.
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84 WaveLab Concepts
It is beyond the scope of this Help system to describe this subject thoroughly (there are good
internet resources available), but please read on if you wish to check out the basic building
blocks used in regular expressions.
Common expressions
A regular expression is a formula composed of characters that have special meanings (called
operators). Other characters are just plain letters and numbers that are searched for.
The search engine browses the target text one character at a time and stops as soon as
it finds a sequence of characters that matches the regular expression. Searches are not
case-sensitive. Note that there are various versions of regular expressions: WaveLab uses
a version that represents a good compromise between power and ease-of-use.
The term expression refers to a single character, a character class, or a sub-expression
enclosed with () or {}.
The following items are available on the Regular Expression pop-up menu:
WaveLab 7
4.12 About Regular Expressions 85
Menu item Operator Description
Any character . Symbolizes any character
Character in range [ ] A bracketed text is treated
as a single character, for
example: [AEW13] means
A or E or W or 1 or 3. A
hyphen within the brackets
specifies a range of
characters. For example,
[F-I] means F or G or H or I,
and [A-Z0-9] matches all
letters and all digits.
Character not in range [∧] A circumflex located at the
first position in a bracket is
a complement operator. In
other words, all characters
match except those
included in the bracket.
Example: [∧E] means any
character except E.
Slash / A slash before a character
means that this character is
to be treated literally, not as
an operator.
0 or 1 match (1 if possible) ? Matches 0 or 1 time the
preceding expression. 1
repeat if possible is
grabbed, then the rest of
the regular expression
continues to be evaluated.
0 or 1 match (0 if possible) ?? Matches 0 or 1 time the
preceding expression. 0
repeat if possible (the
NEXT step in the regular
expression is also
evaluated and has priority).
0 or more matches (as
many as possible)
∗ Matches 0 or more times
the preceding expression.
As many repeats as
possible are grabbed, then
the rest of the regular
expression continues to be
evaluated.
0 or more matches (as few
as possible)
∗? Matches 0 or more times
the preceding expression.
As few repeats as possible
are grabbed (the NEXT
step in the regular
expression is also
evaluated and has priority).
1 or more matches (as
many as possible)
+ Matches 1 or more times
the preceding expression.
As many repeats as
possible are grabbed, then
the rest of the regular
WaveLab 7
expression continues to be
evaluated.
1 or more matches (as few
as possible)
+? Matches 1 or more times
the preceding expression.
As few repeats as possible
are grabbed (the next step
86 WaveLab Concepts
The Shortcuts sub-menu on the Regular Expression pop-up menu contains the following
options:
Menu item Operator Description
Any digit /d Special code to symbolize
any digit, as [0-9].
Any non-digit /D Special code to symbolize
any non-digit, as [∧0-9].
Any letter /l Special code to symbolize
any letter, as [a-z].
Any non-letter /L Special code to symbolize
any non-letter, as [∧a-z]. -
Any alphabetic /w Special
code to symbolize any
alphabetic character, as
[0-9a-z].
Any alphabetic /w Special code to symbolize
any alphabetic character,
as [0-9a-z].
Any non-alphabetic /W Special code to symbolize
any non-alphabetic
character, as [∧0-9a-z].
Any number /u Special code to symbolize
a number (without a sign).
Number with possible +before.
/i Special code to symbolize
a number which can be
preceded by a + or - sign.
Quoted string /q Special code to symbolize
quoted text.
Simple word /z Special code to symbolize
a simple word (a sequence
of letters surrounded by
non-letters, e.g. spaces).
All special characters used for regular expressions are available from the "Special characters"
submenu. There is also a Presets sub-menu with pre-defined operations, which include the
following:
Menu item Description
1st/2nd/3rd word This searches for the first, second or third
word, respectively (separated by a space).
Last word This searches for the last word (separated
by a space).
1st/2nd/3rd expression in parentheses This searches for the first, second or third
string enclosed in parentheses,
respectively.
Last expression in parentheses This searches for the last string enclosed
in parentheses.
1st/2nd/3rd expression in brackets This searches for the first, second or third
string enclosed in brackets, respectively.
Last expression in brackets This searches for the last string enclosed
in brackets.
WaveLab 7
4.12 About Regular Expressions 87
Related topics
Batch Renaming
Convert marker type
Regular Expressions
WaveLab 7
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