STEINBERG WaveLab Essential 6 User Manual

Operation Manual

Operation Manual by Anders Nordmark, Revision for WaveLab Essential by Stefan Zachau

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. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. Macintosh and Power Macintosh are registered trademarks.

7 Introduction

8 Welcome! 8 Key command conventions 8 How you can reach us

9 Requirements

10 This is what you need… 10 Computer requirements 11 About audio cards 11 About the System Information feature

12 Installing and setting up

13 Setting up the computer 13 Installation procedure 13 Register your software! 13 Program settings 16 Installing a CD/DVD recorder 16 Installation done! Where do I go next? 16 About the Tracer application

17 Overview

18 Get to know WaveLab Essential 18 The windows and what you can do with them 20 Find your way around in WaveLab Essential

21 Basic methods

22 Why you should read this chapter 22 Getting help 22 Undo and Redo 23 Working with windows 25 Dockable control bars 27 Speed menus 27 The status bar 28 Units of time and level 28 Setting values 30 Presets 31 About non-modal dialogs 31 Using the computer keyboard

32 Editing in the Wave window

33 About this chapter 33 Creating new empty documents 33 Opening Waves 35 Window overview and adjustments 35 Setting the zoom factor 38 Navigating through the file 39 Snapshots 39 Setting the ruler start position 39 Working with a meter based display 40 Setting the wave cursor position 40 Selecting 44 Basic editing commands 49 File handling in Wave windows 55 Editing audio properties and file attributes

56 Playback and recording

57 Playing back 59 Recording

63 Metering

64 Introduction 64 The meters

67 Off-line processing

68 Introduction 68 Applying processing 68 Level Normalizer 69 Gain Change 69 Dynamics 71 Level envelope 72 Fade-in and fade-out 73 Crossfade 74 Invert Phase 74 Reverse 74 Eliminate DC Offset 75 Waveform Restorer 75 Time Stretch 77 Pitch Correction 78 Harmonization 78 Hi-fi Chorus 79 EQ 79 Convert sample rate 80 Support for reNOVAtor™

Table of Contents

81 Master Section

82 Introduction 82 The Master Section window 83 About the signal path 83 The Master level pane 85 The Effects pane 88 The Dithering pane 89 Master Section presets 91 Rendering 93 The Monitor window

95 Batch file encoding

96 Basic procedure

97 Markers

98 Introduction 99 Creating markers 99 About the marker list 100 Marker appearance and visibility 100 Editing, converting and naming markers 101 Moving and duplicating markers 101 Deleting markers 101 Operations involving markers

103 The Audio CD Montage

104 Introduction 104 The Audio CD Montage window 106 Assembling the Montage 109 Zooming and navigating 111 Playing back 113 Rearranging clips 117 Managing clips and source files 117 The volume envelope 121 Using fades and crossfades in the Montage 124 Adding effects to clips 126 The Meta Normalizer 127 Using markers in the Montage 129 File handling in the Audio CD Montage 130 Using video tracks 131 Mixing down – The Render function 132 Preparing the Audio CD Montage for CD burning

134 Burning an audio CD

135 Introduction 135 Selecting a CD-R unit 135 Testing an audio CD before burning 136 Writing a CD 137 The audio CD format – Background information

139 Data CD/DVD Projects

140 Introduction 140 Creating a new Data CD/DVD Project 140 Source window settings 141 Destination window settings 142 The Write dialog for the Data CD/DVD

143 Importing audio CD tracks

144 Importing audio CD tracks into WaveLab Essential

147 Creating labels

148 Introduction 148 Using the Label Editor 150 Positioning objects 152 Defining user variables 153 Printing labels

155 Analysis

156 Global analysis 161 3D Frequency Analysis

163 Podcasting

164 Introduction 164 Creating a new Podcast 165 The Podcast window 167 Publishing the Podcast

169 Sampling and creating loops

170 Introduction 170 Using WaveLab Essential with Steinberg HALion 170 Editing sample attributes 171 Basic looping 172 Using the Crossfade Looper 176 Using the Loop Tone Equalizer

178 Customizing

179 What is customizing? 179 Preferences 179 Folder editing 180 Saving the window layout 180 Styling WaveLab Essential – Wave windows 181 Styling WaveLab Essential – Audio CD Montage

windows

183 Working with window layouts 184 Setting default size and position for windows 184 Creating a Favorites menu 184 Customizable key commands 186 Organizing plug-in processors

Table of Contents

190 Plug-in processor reference

191 About WaveLab Essential plug-ins 194 VST Plug-ins

203 Troubleshooting

204 General problems 204 Problems with opening files 204 Problems with saving files 205 Recording problems 205 Playback problems 206 Editing problems 206 Troubleshooting and precautions 206 Problems and solutions 206 Questions and Answers 207 Day to day precautions for trouble-free CD writing 207 Hardware and setup issues

209 Key commands

210 File handling 210 View 210 Zooming 210 Processing 211 Playback and cursor position 211 Selecting 212 Editing and Recording 212 Markers 212 Miscellaneous

213 Index

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome!

Congratulations on your choice of WaveLab Essential, which is the audio editor of choice for any serious engineer or musician.

WaveLab Essential is continuously developed and refined, in collaboration with our users – from professional audio engineers to hobbyists. Your input helps making this program one of the most flexible and user-friendly ever!

Find out about the ease of use and workflow that makes working with WaveLab Essential so effective.

Your Steinberg Team.

Key command conventions

Many of the default key commands in WaveLab Essential use modifier keys. For example, the default key command for Undo is [Ctrl]-[Z] under Windows.

When key commands with modifier keys are described in this manual, they are shown with the Windows modifier key first, in the following way:

[Win modifier key]-[key]

For example, [Ctrl]-[Z] means "press [Ctrl] , then press [Z]".

Similarly, [Alt]-[X] means "press [Alt] then press [X]".

How you can reach us

After having installed and launched the program, you will find a number of useful Steinberg Web links on the Help menu (“Steinberg on the internet” submenu). These allow you to get online support, check for updates, get answers to frequently asked questions, etc.

These features require that you have a working Internet connection.

Introduction

Requirements

This is what you need…

To use WaveLab Essential you need the following:

• A PC with Windows XP or Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate (32-bit only) installed and ready.

An Internet connection is also required. For more details about the computer requirements, see below.

• A Multimedia PC compatible, 16-bit (or better) audio card.

By audio card we mean a card capable of recording and playing back audio, using the computer’s hard disk as storage media. See “About au-

dio cards” on page 11.

To take advantage of WaveLab Essential’s more advanced features, you need the following:

• To utilize WaveLab Essential’s CD burning capabilities, you will need a CD recorder.

Your CD recorder must support the disc-at-once write mode.

• DirectX 9 or later must be installed.

Computer requirements

Below, the minimum computer requirements are listed, with recommendations where applicable. The following sections describe each system component (processor, RAM, etc.) in more detail.

Minimum requirements

• Intel Pentium III/AMD Athlon 800 MHz (Intel Pentium IV/AMD Athlon or AMD Opteron 2,4GHz or faster recommended).

• 256 MB RAM (1GB recommended).

• A monitor and video card with a resolution of 24 bit (32bit recommended).

• Display resolution 1024 x 768 pixels (1280 x 1024 pixels and a dual-monitor setup are recommended).

• 80MB of free hard disk space.

• Windows XP or Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate (32-bit only).

• Windows MME compatible audio hardware (ASIO compatible audio hardware recommended).

• CD or DVD ROM drive for installation (CD/DVD writer recommended).

• Internet connection required for product activation and the Podcast feature.

• The Product can only be used on the system on which it was activated.

RAM

Since WaveLab Essential is disk based, the amount of RAM does not limit the size of audio files you can work with. Even with moderate amounts of RAM, you can have many files open at the same time. However, when more RAM is available, some processes can be accelerated by WaveLab Essential.

Processing power

The difference between running WaveLab Essential on a faster computer and a slower one is noticeable in many cases:

• More real-time processing

The faster the computer, the more real-time plug-ins you will be able to use.

• Faster “off-line” processing and analysis tasks

Certain types of processing which make heavy demands on the computer will be completed more quickly on a faster machine.

• Screen updates

Scrolling, editing and manipulating objects is “snappier” on a faster machine.

Hard disk

Audio files are relatively big. Approximately 10.6 MB of hard disk space is used up for every minute of 16 bit stereo/44.1 kHz audio recorded. For 24 bit/48 kHz audio or higher, the audio files are of course a lot bigger. Therefore we recommend that you get the largest hard disk you can afford. The speed of the hard disk will affect some of the processing operations. This is mainly noticeable when you work with very long files.

In addition, a fast hard disk is absolutely crucial for CD-R and DVD-R burning. If the hard disk is slow, your recorder might not be able to write at its maximum possible speed.

Do not use file compression on hard disks where audio files are stored!

Requirements

About audio cards

WaveLab Essential works with any Multimedia PC compatible audio card. However, the audio quality varies dramatically between cards.

For serious work with WaveLab Essential, we recommend that you get a card with the highest possible specifications.

However, if you use WaveLab Essential to edit files for use with other hardware (such as a hard disk based recording system using its own audio converters) any loss in audio quality that you experience when listening to files in WaveLab Essential (due to deficiencies in the audio card) will not

For professional use (mastering, etc.) we recommend that you get a card capable of playing back files in 24 bit resolution.

affect the final audio files in any way.

the

About the System Information feature

After having installed and launched WaveLab Essential, you can get a very detailed report describing your computer system by selecting “System Information” on the Help menu. This function analyses your system and lists operating system specifics; processor(s), memory, hard drives, and much more. This is especially useful if you need to contact Technical Support, since this allows you to describe your computer configuration accurately.

Requirements

Installing and setting up

Setting up the computer

Before proceeding, your computer should be set up and the following items should be installed:

•Windows (see “This is what you need…” on page 10 for details on which version to use).

• The audio card and its driver.

Checking the audio card

To make sure the audio card will work as expected, you can perform the following two tests:

• Use the software included with the audio card to make

sure you can record and play back without problems.

• Use the Media Player application (included with Win-

dows and described in the Windows documentation) to record and play back audio.

Colors

At this point you might want to check and for example change the number of colors you use on your computer screen. See your Windows documentation for instructions on how to do this. The recommended setting for WaveLab Essential is 24 or 32 bit mode (“True Color”).

Installation procedure

Installing the software

The installation procedure unpacks all the files and automatically puts them in the right places.

1. Insert the CD-ROM disk in the drive.

The installation program should start automatically after a few seconds. If, for some reason it doesn’t – for instance if you have “Auto Insert Notification” deactivated for your CD drive – perform steps 2-4 below. Otherwise, proceed to step 5.

2. Launch the Explorer, open the “My Computer” window

or select “Run” from the Start menu.

3. Locate and double click on the drive symbol for the

CD-ROM drive.

4. Double click on the “setup” symbol (setup.exe).

5. Follow the instructions on screen.

6. Finally, a dialog informs you that the installation was

successful.

A restart may be requested – but if no dialog requests a restart it is not necessary to do so.

When the installation is finished, the program is found among your other programs on the Start menu and/or the desktop.

This completes the installation of your WaveLab Essential program! But, you’re not really done yet…

Activating WaveLab Essential

After installing WaveLab Essential you can use the program for 30 days without any restrictions. After this period, you will have to enter your permanent activation code. You will find this code in the “Essential Product Licence Information” document that is included in the WaveLab Essential package. Otherwise, WaveLab Essential will not run anymore.

Proceed as follows:

1. Open the Syncrosoft License Control Center (which can be found in the Start/Programs menu under Windows or in the Applications folder on a Mac).

2. In the Syncrosoft License Control Center, open the Wizards menu and select the “License Download” option. Follow the instructions and enter your WaveLab Essential activation code.

You are now ready to permanently run WaveLab Essential!

Register your software!

Registering your software will make sure you are entitled to technical support and kept aware of updates and news regarding WaveLab Essential.

Program settings

Before you start working, you should make some settings:

Installing and setting up

Audio card settings

You need to specify which audio card and driver you intend to use. WaveLab Essential can communicate with the audio card via any of the standard protocols; ASIO, MME or WDM.

Selecting an ASIO driver

1. Open the Preferences–Audio device tab.

2. Select the ASIO driver from the “Playback device”

pop-up menu.

Note that the “Playback device” menu heading has now changed to “Playback/Record device” and the Recording device section has been greyed out. This is because with ASIO, the same driver is always used both for output and input.

3. If you click the “Control Panel” button the audio card

settings application (usually installed with the audio card) for the ASIO driver opens.

In the Control Panel you may find settings for buffer size, digital formats, additional I/O connections, etc. depending on the audio card and the driver.

4. Click on the “Connections” button.

The ASIO Audio connections dialog will appear, listing all available channel inputs and outputs in WaveLab Essential. Select the channels you want to use for stereo output and input.

5. Close the dialog.

• When using ASIO, the playback resolution is set from

the ASIO driver (you may find a setting for this in the ASIO Control Panel, depending on the hardware and driver).

Therefore, the Playback Resolution settings will be greyed out.

Selecting an MME/WDM driver

1. Select “Preferences…” from the Options menu.

2. Click on the Audio device tab.

3. Select the audio card you want to use for recording

and playback from the pop-ups.

If you only have one audio card you can also select the “Microsoft Sound Mapper” options (the sound mapper is a “virtual audio card” which “maps” all audio to your real card). However this does not let you take full advantage of the card’s driver when recording audio and is not recommended.

4. Choose your “Playback Resolution”.

Additional audio settings

There are other settings in the Preferences that affect audio playback and recording. We recommend that you try the default settings before you change anything, since these work well in most cases.

On the “Audio Card” tab, you will find the following settings:

• Playback Buffer Number and Size.

These determine how much RAM memory is used for buffering when playing back. If you get playback problems such as dropouts or glitches, you should try to increase these values.

With ASIO drivers, you may find these settings in the ASIO Control Panel.

• Recording Buffer Number and Size (not available when using ASIO).

These determine how much RAM is used for buffering when recording. If you get dropouts in the recorded audio, you should try increasing these values.

On the Preferences–File tab, you will find the following settings:

• Disk block buffer size.

Governs the buffer size used when WaveLab Essential is reading data from the hard disk. If you experience problems in a read intensive scenario (such as playing back an Audio CD Montage with a lot of simultaneous clips), you should try changing this value. If you change this setting, playback will stop when you leave the dialog.

• Use system cache.

When this is deactivated (default), WaveLab Essential reads files directly from the hard disk, bypassing Windows’ file cache.

We recommend that you leave this option deactivated!

The option is available since it may remedy problems on certain systems with slow disk drives. Note:

• If you activate this, avoid using large disk block buffer size values!

• After activating this option, you need to close and reopen all open files, for the setting to take effect!

About latency

In the Playback section of the Audio device tab, you will find an indication of the current latency (at 16bit/44.1kHz stereo). Latency is the delay between when audio is “sent” from the program and when you actually hear it. The la-

Installing and setting up

tency in an audio system depends on the audio hardware, its drivers and their settings. It’s usually possible to reduce latency by lowering the number and size of the playback/ recording buffers. However, please note:

While a very low latency can be crucial in a real-time DAW application such as Steinberg Nuendo or Cubase, this is not strictly the case with WaveLab Essential. Here the important issues are optimum and stable playback and editing precision. Therefore, you should not try to reach the lowest possible latency figures when working with WaveLab Essential. And again, should you get dropouts, crackles or glitches during playback, raise the Buffer Number setting on the Preferences–Audio device tab.

Temporary files

You also need to specify where WaveLab Essential should store its temporary files. Temporary files are used for certain operations, such as WaveLab Essential’s extensive Undo function (see “Undo and Redo” on page

22).

If you have access to more than one drive, saving your temp files on a separate drive (not partition) can considerably speed up performance. For example, if your source files are located on the C: drive, you could specify D:\temp as temporary folder.

This will not only improve performance, but also reduce disk fragmentation.

1. In Windows, create a separate folder in which to store

your “temp” files.

The folder should be on your fastest hard disk and you should make sure you have plenty of room available on that hard disk (or partition). Putting the “temp” files on a separate drive (that is, not the same drive as your regular files) will speed up file operations considerably.

2. Select “Folders…” from the Options menu.

This opens the Folders dialog, where you can edit how various WaveLab Essential folders are handled .

3. Click on the plus sign beside the “Temporary folders”

item (this is located in the “Work folders” category).

4. Selecting the Temporary Folder item will show the current location where the temp files will be created in the Folder field to the right.

5. Either type in the path to the directory or you can browse the drives to locate and select the folder via a standard Windows file dialog.

Click OK to select a folder and exit the file dialog.

Peak and view memories

A peak file is a small file with the extension “.gpk” automatically created by WaveLab Essential each time a file is modified or opened in WaveLab Essential (if it hasn’t been previously). The peak file contains information about the waveform, and determines how it is drawn in the wave window.

View memory files (extension “.mem”) store view information relating to a specific audio file such as window and scroll positions, etc. – see “Saving view settings” on page

54.

By default, peak files and view memory files are stored in the same folder as the related audio file. Setting this to another folder on a different drive will also improve performance to a certain degree. Regardless of whether this folder is on a different drive or not you also get the advantage of not having the audio file folder cluttered with nonaudio files if a separate folder is used.

This folder can be specified from the Folders dialog, either directly or via the Preferences–Wave edit tab:

• Select Preferences from the Options menu and select the Wave edit tab.

• If the “Save view settings in companion file” option is activated, view memory files will be saved in the same folder as the related audio file.

• If you select “Save in independent folder” you can click the “Edit” button, which will open the Folder dialog with the “Peak and view memories” work folder selected.

From here you can navigate to a new folder location to store the peak and view memory temp files.

Installing and setting up

Installing a CD/DVD recorder

Hardware installation/connection

For general instructions on installing internal or connecting external recorders via USB or Firewire, please refer to the instructions that came with the computer, or the recorder itself.

For WaveLab Essential, please just check the following points:

• Make sure to have the latest firmware version installed in your recorder unit. For CD recorders, the firmware you have must support Disc-at-Once mode! In addition, running a unit with older firmware might for example prevent you from writing CDText information into the tracks.

Checking the installation of the CD/DVD recorder

You might want to check that the recorder unit was actually found by the program. Proceed as follows:

1. Select “CD/DVD Information…” from the Tools menu.

The CD/DVD Info dialog appears.

• Examine your WaveLab Essential directory and other disks included in this package for files that might be useful to you.

• If you run into problems, check the Troubleshooting chapter in the Operation Manual.

About the Tracer application

In the WaveLab Essential directory created on your hard disk during installation, you will find a folder called “Tools”. Among other things, this folder contains a small application called Tracer. This is a diagnostic tool that tracks and logs various procedures that WaveLab Essential executes when it is launched, e.g. the loading of plug-ins.

Should you run into problems with WaveLab Essential and need to contact technical support, you can use the Tracer application and pass on the information it displays to the technical support staff. This could be of great assistance since it might be possible to see exactly which operation caused a problem.

• To use the Tracer, locate the file Tracer.exe in the Windows Explorer and double click on it – or use the Run command on the Start menu to browse for the file.

• After you have activated the Tracer application, launch WaveLab Essential.

• All loading procedures are displayed as plain text, and you can copy this information and then paste it into, for example, an email.

2. Check that your recorder unit appears in the list to the left.

The list will also contain any regular DVD-ROM drives, etc. If your CD/ DVD recorder isn’t listed, there’s either something wrong with the installation or the unit is not supported by WaveLab Essential.

Installation done! Where do I go next?

There are three things we suggest you do:

• Read through the rest of this book and try out the different possibilities as you go along.

Installing and setting up

Overview

Get to know WaveLab Essential

Welcome to WaveLab Essential!

This chapter is intended to get you acquainted with the program. We will here briefly describe its fundamental functions and main features, so as to point you in the right direction on your road to mastering all of the possibilities that WaveLab Essential offers.

The windows and what you can do with them

Working with WaveLab Essential, you will encounter a number of different windows that let you do different things. Editing audio files, compiling files for burning CDs or DVDs, applying effects and much, much more. This is an overview of the main windows in the program.

The Wave window

This is a Wave window, a graphical representation of an audio file. It consists of two parts – the lower is the Main view, and this is where you can perform various audio editing operations such as copying, cutting, pasting, moving, deleting, etc.

The upper part is the Overview and serves to let you easily navigate through long files.

You can read more about the Wave window and the operations you can perform in it in the chapter “Editing in the

Wave window” on page 32.

The Audio CD Montage window

This is an Audio CD Montage window. An Audio CD Montage lets you compile and edit multiple clips (references to audio files on disk) on one or two tracks.

As you can see, the window consists of two panes. The lower one is called the Track View, and this is where you assemble the clips. The appearance of the upper pane depends on which of the six tabs at the very top of the window is selected. These tabs give you access to various functions.

After you have imported audio files as clips into an Audio CD Montage, you can arrange, edit and play back the clips. You can also apply effects, fades or crossfades, and much more, and last but not least, you can directly create CDs. All in all, the Audio CD Montage is an excellent tool for advanced music CD creation.

Read more about the Audio CD Montage and its features in the chapter “The Audio CD Montage” on page 103.

Overview

The Data CD/DVD window

The Data CD/DVD window can be used for compiling and creating data CDs/DVDs (discs that exclusively contain computer data) and Mixed Mode CDs (discs that contain both data and audio).

The window is divided into two panes; the upper is called the source window, and the lower is the destination window. You drag files from the source window to the destination window, in which you can rename, remove and move files before burning a CD or DVD.

For a detailed description of the Data CD/DVD window and what you can do with it, see “Data CD/DVD Projects” on

page 139.

The CD/DVD Label Editor

The Master Section

This window is the Label Editor. Here you can design and print custom labels for the CDs or DVDs you create. You can create labels for both the front and back of a jewel case, as well as for the discs.

Read more about this in the chapter “Creating labels” on

page 147.

This is a very important part of WaveLab Essential, called the Master Section. It has a number of uses including:

• Adding real-time effect plug-in processors such as Chorus, Reverb, etc.

• Applying effects to files so that they are permanently made a part of the files (as opposed to using them in real-time).

• Monitoring and controlling the WaveLab Essential output level.

• Adding dithering.

For details, see “Master Section” on page 81.

Overview

Find your way around in WaveLab Essential

Editing and processing

Where do I go if I want to…

• Edit an existing audio file?

When you open an audio file, it appears in a Wave window, in which you can edit it in various ways. See “Editing in the Wave window” on page 32.

• Compile and edit several audio files on two independent tracks?

Create an Audio CD Montage. See “The Audio CD Montage” on page

103.

• Apply processing to a wave file?

The Process menu contains a number of options for manipulating wave files, including fade-in/out, normalize, time stretch and much more – see

“Off-line processing” on page 67. You can also use the Render function

in the Master Section to apply effects to a file.

• Convert an audio file into another audio format?

There are several ways: You can use either the “Save as” command or the “Save Special” command on the File menu (see “Saving in another

format (Save as…)” on page 51), or the “Render” function in the Master

Section (see “Rendering” on page 91). Finally, batch file encoding lets you convert multiple files to another format – see “Batch file encoding” on page 95.

CD/DVD creation

Where do I go if I want to…

• Create an audio CD that can be played back in a regu-

lar CD player?

You create an Audio CD Montage and insert audio files as clips into it, with each clip representing one track on the audio CD (see “The Audio

CD Montage” on page 103).

• Create a data CD/DVD or a Mixed Mode CD/DVD con-

taining audio, data and video?

You do this in a Data CD/DVD window. See “Data CD/DVD Projects” on

page 139.

• Create labels for the CDs/DVDs I make?

This is done in the Label Editor. See “Creating labels” on page 147.

The above are just a few pointers to some of the fundamental functions in WaveLab Essential. While using them, you will discover a multitude of other features and functions that let you make full use of the possibilities of this amazing program.

Have fun exploring WaveLab Essential!

Playback and recording

Where do I go if I want to…

• Play back with real-time effects?

Effects are added in the Master Section, see “Master Section” on page 81. In Audio CD Montages you can also add individual clip effects, see “Add-

ing effects to clips” on page 124.

• Record new audio files?

Use the Record button on the Transport bar. The new file will appear in a Wave window, see “Recording” on page 59.

• Record songs from an audio CD into WaveLab Essential?

You don’t – you import them directly from the disc. On the Tools menu there is an option called “Import Audio CD tracks” (see “Importing audio

CD tracks into WaveLab Essential” on page 144).

Overview

Basic methods

Why you should read this chapter

This chapter describes general methods that you will use when working with WaveLab Essential. Getting accustomed with these procedures will allow you to work more effectively with the program.

Getting help

WaveLab Essential comes with a detailed help system, making it easy to look up procedures and descriptions from within the program. There are two ways to access the help system:

• By selecting “Operation Manual” from the Help menu.

This takes you to the help in Adobe Acrobat format (extension “.pdf”). This PDF file contains all chapters of the manual including additional sections describing plug-ins, key commands and troubleshooting procedures.

• By pressing [F1].

Undo and Redo

For this reason, WaveLab Essential will need to store files on your hard disk, in the folder you have specified for the temporary files (see “Temporary files” on page 15). These files are automatically deleted each time you close or save the related document.

Limiting the Undo function

If you run out of hard disk space or if you are applying processing to extremely long sections of waves, you might want to put a limit on the Undo function (applicable to Wave windows only):

1. Select “Preferences” from the Options menu and click

the Wave edit tab.

2. Uncheck the “Unlimited” option in the Undo/Redo

section.

3. Change the Limit number to the desired value.

WaveLab Essential has an extremely extensive Undo function, applicable when working in Wave windows, Audio CD Montages or the CD Label Editor. You can:

• Undo as many steps back as you like, by using the Undo item on the Edit menu.

The only limitation is the available hard disk space. You can also use the shortcuts [Ctrl]-[Z] or [F3] to undo. [F3] has the added advantage in that you can undo even if a modal dialog is currently open.

• Redo as many steps as you like, by using the Redo item on the Edit menu (or by pressing [Ctrl]-[Y] or [F4]).

Furthermore, each window has its own undo “history”, so you can click on any window and undo the last changes made there, even if you afterwards worked in another window.

About Undo and disk space

Many undo operations require no memory or disk space. However, operations that modify actual wave data (like time stretch, EQ, etc.) require that a file copy of the selected part of the wave is stored, so that it can be brought back when you need to redo.

Basic methods

Clearing the undo

There might be situations where you have “collected” a large number of undo possibilities that you know you don’t need. You might then clear the whole undo “buffer” for one file at a time. This will free up some primary memory (RAM) but more importantly it will also delete all the “undo files” from your hard disk, to free up space.

1. Select “Clear undo” from the Edit menu.

A window appears informing you of how much RAM and hard disk space you will gain by this operation.

2. Click OK.

Please note that this function works on one document at a time. It is only the undo buffer for the file in the active window that will be cleared. Also note that it only applies to Wave windows.

Working with windows

Quick window switching

• To “cycle” between all open windows, press [Ctrl]-[Tab]

or [Ctrl]-[F6].

• If you release the [Ctrl] key, and use any of these com-

mands again, you will switch to the previous window, rather than the next window in the stack.

This allows you to quickly move back and forth between two windows.

Basic window handling

WaveLab Essential follows the basic guidelines for the Windows interface, which means standard “Windows procedures” apply.

Closing Wave windows

You can close a document window by clicking its close button, by selecting Close from the File menu or by pressing [Ctrl]-[W]. If document window(s) contain unsaved changes, you will be asked whether you want to save those changes before closing.

Ö If you hold down [Ctrl]+[Shift] when clicking the close button, the window closes immediately. Any changes you have made will not be saved.

Ö You can also close all windows in one go (either all Wave windows, or all windows regardless of type), by selecting the corresponding option from the Windows menu.

Minimizing Wave windows

WaveLab Essential windows are minimized like any other, but there are also options for minimizing all Wave windows or all windows (regardless of type, as with closing, see above), from the Window menu.

The document switch bar

A quick way to switch between the open document windows is to use the document switch bar.

In this example, clicking on the tab will bring the “MoonProject” window to front.

Ö You can position the document switch bar at the top, bottom, left or right side of the screen by using the document switch bar submenu on the View menu.

This submenu also lets you hide the document switch bar, if you like.

Panes

Several of WaveLab Essential’s windows are divided into panes. Panes are separated by dividers. For example, a Wave window can have two panes, the Overview and the Main view.

Panes

Dividers

Quitting

When you quit the program, and have files with unsaved changes, the “Exiting with modified documents” dialog, see “Save All” on page 52, appears. Selecting all files in the list and clicking Save Selected, ensures that all changes made to any and all files, are saved.

Basic methods

The panes and dividers in an Audio CD Montage window.

Adjusting the size of a pane

1. Position the mouse over the divider between the two panes.

The pointer turns into a two-way arrow.

2. Drag the divider to adjust the pane size.

Hiding and revealing a pane

In some windows, a pane can be hidden altogether.

To hide a pane, drag the border between the two panes all the way up or double click it. To reveal the pane again, drag the miniature divider symbol down or double click it.

The miniature divider symbol

You can also hide/show the Overview pane in the Wave window by pressing [O] on the computer keyboard.

“Folding” windows

If you find a window takes up too much screen space, but you still don’t want to close it, you can “fold it in” by clicking on the fold-in icon on the title bar. For dialogs, you can also double click on the title bar.

The fold-in icon

The normal Time Stretch dialog… …and when “folded in”.

The Document icon

WaveLab Essential adds another symbol to some document windows, the Document icon. This is used to drag the whole document to various other windows, such as Audio CD Montages or Data CD/DVD windows.

To return to normal size, just click again.

Unsaved changes indicator

When you have made changes to a document window, an asterisk will be displayed after the document name in the title bar until you save the document.

Basic methods

Working with multiple windows

You can edit the same data in more than one Wave window. Among other things this allows you to work on different sections of a wave file (for example the start and end), without scrolling back and forth.

Ö The two windows are views of exactly the same data.

Any change you make in one Wave window is immediately apparent in the other.

Creating a second window using menus

1. Make sure the desired window is the active one.

If it isn’t, click once in its title bar.

2. Select Duplicate View from the View menu.

Creating a second window by dragging

1. Make sure “Create windows using mouse” is activated on the Preferences–Wave edit tab.

2. Click and drag a rectangle in an empty area of the WaveLab Essential window.

This must be of a certain minimum size or bigger. If you don’t get a new window, try again with a bigger rectangle.

Windows sets, snapshots and Wave view settings

In addition to the above, there are other ways to manage windows:

• Snapshots store individual settings for one Wave window at a time, which allows you to quickly move between various views of a file. See “Snapshots” on page 39.

• Screen layouts store document window and dialog box positions and sizes. See

183.

• View settings can be automatically stored (Preference setting) when saving wave audio files. This will store all view settings for an individual Wave window; i.e. window size & placement, time ruler style, scroll positions, selection ranges and snapshots. See “Saving view settings” on page 54.

“Working with window layouts”

on page

Dockable control bars

Various tools, shortcuts and commands are gathered on “control bars” (strips with symbols). These can be used either as “palettes” (separate windows) or you can “dock” them to the window edges. The following control bars are available:

• The Standard Commands

• The Transport bar

• The Wave toolbox

• The Wave Snapshots control bar

• The Marker toolbar

Dragging a box like this will create a new window for this audio file.

Docking a control bar

There are two ways to dock a control bar:

• Drag the control bar window (by its title bar) to any of

the sides of the application window and release the mouse button.

The outline shows you the shape of the control bar at the docked position.

• Double click the title bar of a control bar to return it to its

last docked position.

Basic methods

Please note that you can stack control bars and put them side by side, to create any type of layout you desire.

In this example, the Standard Commands, Toolbox and Transport control bars have all been docked to the upper part of the application window.

Turning a docked control bar into a separate window

To “un-dock” a control bar, drag it out from the docked position, or double click somewhere on its handle.

Ö Control bar windows are moved by dragging the title bar, just as with any other window.

To drag a control bar on side of the application window, without docking it, hold down [Ctrl] when dragging.

Showing/hiding a control bar

There are different ways to show/hide a control bar:

• Pull down the View menu, select Control Bars, and from the submenu that appears, select the desired control bar, or…

• Hide a control bar by clicking its Close box.

4. Move the pointer over an item on the control bar and wait a moment.

A text showing the name of the button appears.

An example of a “Tip” pop-up for the control bar.

The various control bars

The Standard Commands

The Standard Commands bar supplies shortcuts for the most commonly used menu items, as well as some unique functions.

The Toolbox

Changing the appearance of a control bar

To change the shape of a control bar to either horizontal, square or vertical, drag the right or bottom edge as when resizing any other window.

To change the size of the buttons in the control bar, open the Preferences–Environment tab and adjust the “Button size” setting.

Finding out what a button on a control bar does

1. Select Preferences from the Options menu and click

on the Environment tab.

2. Make sure “Show Tips” is activated.

3. Close the Preferences dialog.

Basic methods

The tools are used to perform various operations on the data in the window, like selecting, playing, etc.

The Snapshots control bar

This is used to store and recall window “layouts”, see

“Snapshots” on page 39.

The Transport bar

The Transport bar is used for various playback commands, see “Using the Transport bar” on page 57.

The Marker toolbar

This is used for various commands related to markers, see

“Introduction” on page 98.

Speed menus

Most displays have speed menus associated with them.

Ö To bring up a speed menu, right-click in the desired area.

In the Wave windows for example, there is one speed menu for the level ruler, one for each of the time rulers and one for each of the waveform displays.

The status bar

This is normally displayed at the bottom of the screen, but it can be hidden on the Preferences–Environment tab.

The status bar shows information related to the active window. Exactly what information appears depends on the window type – for Wave windows it shows various information about the file. See “The status bar” on page 35.

• For some of the fields you can also click to perform operations related to that field.

• The status bar also indicates the progress of operations that take some time to finish.

The Wave window main view “speed menu”

The Speed menus contain the same items that can be found on the main menus, but some speed menus also contain unique items.

When searching for a function, don’t forget to check the speed menus in the window in which you are working!

Basic methods

Units of time and level

Setting values

For rulers

You can specify the time and level (amplitude) formats for each ruler in each window, by right-clicking on the ruler and selecting a format from the pop-up menu that appears.

Time formats

Menu name Description

Time Positions are shown as hours, minutes, seconds and

Samples Positions are shown as number of samples. How many

Time code Also called SMPTE. Positions are shown in the follow-

Meter Positions are shown as bars, beats and ticks, as speci-

File size Positions are shown in file size units, MegaBytes, where

Level formats

Menu name Description

% Amplitude (level) is shown as a percentage of full level.

dB Amplitude is shown in decibels, a logarithmic scale

Decimal This is the actual value of the amplitude as stored in

Ö To make a ruler format the default (to be used in new Wave windows), you need to save it as part of the default window style.

See “Styling WaveLab Essential – Wave windows” on page 180.

milliseconds. At large magnification factors, hundredths of milliseconds are shown.

samples there are to a second depends on the sample rate of the wave. For 44.1 kHz for example, there are 44100 samples for each second.

ing format: hours:minutes:seconds:frames. The number of frames per second is set on the Preferences–Wave Edit tab.

fied on the Preferences–Wave Edit tab.

the decimals represent kiloBytes.

used in audio engineering.

computer memory (always displayed as 16 bits). Please note that the range is from negative to positive with “0” representing “no signal”.

In dialog boxes, you will find yourself adjusting values. The following techniques apply:

Typing values

As in most other Windows programs you can “tab to” or click directly on a value and type in a new one.

Using the spin controls/value fields

Values can be set using either the regular Windows spin controls, or any of the other methods described below.

The spin controls

The history pop-up

• Clicking either arrow raises/lowers the value.

• Keeping the mouse button pressed over an arrow will “scroll” the value.

• Holding down [Ctrl] makes the value change in larger steps.

• Holding down [Ctrl]+[Shift] changes the value to its minimum/ maximum.

↑

• The last adjusted control can be changed using the [

] and [↓] keys, also in combination with [Ctrl] or [Ctrl]+[Shift] as described above.

• You can also click and hold in the value field and move the pointer up or down to change values.

• Pointing in a value field will display the available parameter range.

• The down arrow to the right of the spin controls brings up a history pop-up where the last applied value change(s) in the current dialog are shown and can be selected.

Basic methods

Using sliders and pop-ups

Many times, the most convenient way of changing a value is using WaveLab Essential’s proprietary sliders and popups:

1. Click with the right mouse button on the spin control (in some windows you can also double-click with the left mouse button).

2. If a pop-up menu appears, select one of the options on it.

3. If one or more sliders appear, drag the handle(s) or click the arrows to set the value.

The setting is shown in the value box “behind” the slider window.

In this case, four faders appear, one for the integer and three for the decimals.

The value gets updated when you move the sliders.

4. When you have finished, click outside the slider window.

• If the value is “segmented” (for example divided into minutes and seconds, etc.), more than one slider will appear, each used for adjusting one of the “segments”.

• The slider window can be dragged to any position on the screen, using the “title bar” at the top.

• The last-used slider can also be adjusted using the computer keyboard:.

These keys Move the slider handle

[↑] and [↓] One step up/down.

[Page Up] and [Page Down] A few steps up/down.

[Home] and [End] To the top/bottom.

In effect processor panels

In the Master Section you will find either generic or custom effect panels for each effect processor. In custom panels, values are adjusted using special methods, see

“The Effects pane” on page 85.

Using a wheel mouse

If you are using a mouse with a scroll wheel or similar, you can take advantage of the wheel for various operations in WaveLab Essential:

Scrolling

If you point at a waveform, the wheel scrolls the view horizontally.

Zooming

If you hold down [Ctrl] and point at a waveform, the wheel zooms the view horizontally.

If you hold down [Ctrl] and [Shift] and point at a waveform, the wheel zooms the view vertically.

Changing values

If you point at an edit field in a dialog, the wheel can be used to adjust the value.

• If you hold down [Ctrl], the value changes in bigger increments.

• If you hold down [Ctrl]+[Shift] the value jumps to the minimum or maximum.

Master Section

• When working in the Master Section window, the wheel

can be used to adjust the master volume.

You have to point in the Master Section for this to work.

Ö This functionality can be turned off in the Preferences– Environment tab.

Basic methods

Presets

Many dialogs in WaveLab Essential have either a Presets tab or a Presets pop-up menu. If you think of the dialogs as forms, presets allow those forms to be filled out automatically. WaveLab Essential comes with a selection of presets for most dialogs that use them, but the real power of presets becomes evident when you start creating your own!

Ö For some WaveLab Essential effect panels there is a Preset button instead of a Presets tab or pop-up menu. Clicking the button opens the Presets dialog which has the same items as described below.

Depending on how presets are displayed in a certain dialog (tab or menu) they are handled slightly differently, but both cases are described below.

Creating a preset

1. Open the dialog you wish to use and set up the dialog

as desired.

2. Click on the Presets tab or pull down the Preset menu.

3. Click on the name line and type in a name for the pre-

set or click the Save As… menu item and type in a name in the dialog that appears.

4. Where applicable, click the Add button.

Modifying a preset

1. Load the preset you want to modify, as described

above.

2. Make the desired settings in the dialog.

3. Click the Update button or click the Save item.

Deleting a preset

1. In the Presets tab, click on the preset you want to de-

lete.

2. Click the Delete button.

Or…

1. From the Presets menu, select the option Explore pre-

sets.

2. In the Explorer window that appears, select the preset

file you want to delete and press [Delete].

A number of presets in the Harmonization dialog

Loading presets

1. Open the dialog you wish to use and click on its Presets tab or pull down its Presets menu.

2. Select the preset you want to use.

3. Where applicable, click the Load button.

Ö A quick way to load a preset is to right-click on the Preset tab and select a preset from the menu that appears.

Basic methods

Store temporarily and Restore

Some dialogs also allow you to quickly save and load up to 5 presets with the Store temporarily and Restore menu items. This is useful if you want to quickly test and compare different settings.

1. Select the option “Store temporarily” and from the sub-

select the number under which you want to save (#1

#5).

–

2. To quickly load the saved settings again, select the

corresponding number from the Restore submenu.

How presets are saved

The presets are automatically saved when you quit the program. The next time you load the program, the presets are ready and waiting, just as you left them. Furthermore the presets are “global” to all files. No matter which file you are working on, you still have access to all your presets.

About non-modal dialogs

Many of the dialog boxes in WaveLab Essential are “nonmodal”. This means that the window behind the dialog can be operated even though the dialog box is still up on the screen.

For example, when you have a Processing dialog up on screen, you can still work with the Wave window and the main menus. For example, this allows you to perform the following operations without closing the dialog.

• Play back the wave to hear the effect of any applied processing.

• Adjust the selection before re-processing.

• Use the menu to undo the last processing.

Keyboard commands

Windows normally does not allow you to select from menus and use keyboard accelerators when a dialog box is the active window. However, we have provided a few special key shortcuts for the most crucial commands:

Key Command

[F3] Undo

[F4] Redo

[F6] Play selection

[Shift]+[F6] Activate loop and play selection

[F7] Stop

[F8] Play

Using the computer keyboard

When you are working with WaveLab Essential, the computer keyboard has several different uses:

Transport controls

The Transport functions (such as Play, Stop, Record and so on) can all be managed from the computer keyboard. The keyboard commands for these functions are located on the numeric keypad, to the right on the computer keyboard. See “Using the Transport bar” on page 57.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts for menus

Many of the items in WaveLab Essential’s menus have a computer keyboard equivalent – an “accelerator”, listed on the menu. Some abbreviations might need an explanation:

Abbreviation Description

KP The numeric keypad. “KP 2” for example means

BkSp The Backspace key.

F1 to F12 The Function keys.

Due to the large number of functions in WaveLab Essential, some key commands consist of double or triple key strokes (known as “key sequences”). These are displayed with the different keys separated by comma signs. For example, “Alt+F12, T” means “hold down [Alt] and press [F12], release, then press [T]”.

Customizable shortcuts

You can define your own key shortcuts for a number of functions in the program, see “Customizable key com-

mands” on page 184.

Additional shortcuts

In addition to the above, there are key commands that are not listed on the menus or in this manual. Check the Key Commands chapter in the online documentation for a full list.

the “2” key on the numeric keypad.

Basic methods

Editing in the Wave window

About this chapter

Opening Waves

The Wave window is the heart of WaveLab Essential’s audio editing capabilities. This is where you view, play back and edit individual audio files. This chapter describes how to open and save audio files, how to perform wave editing and how to handle the Wave window itself.

Creating new empty documents

If you want to start with an empty file, for assembling material from other files for example, proceed as follows:

Using menus

1. Select New from the File menu, and Wave from the

submenu that appears.

Or, right-click the New icon on the Standard Commands control bar.

2. Fill out the dialog that appears.

See “Supported file formats” on page 49 for details about the various options.

By dragging

This is only possible if the currently active window is a Wave window (or if no document windows are open).

1. Make sure “Create window using mouse” is activated

in the Preferences–Wave edit tab.

2. Drag to make up a box in an empty free area of the

WaveLab Essential application window.

This must be of a certain minimum size. If you don’t get a new window, try again with a bigger box. The new window “inherits” its attributes from the last active window. If no window is open, the dialog box settings for units are used instead.

About display options

There are a number of options that govern how a window will look when it is first created. These are all found on the Preferences–Wave edit tab.

For a list of supported file formats, see “Supported

file formats” on page 49.

Using the Open dialog

1. Select Open Wave from the File menu, press [Ctrl]-[O] or click the Open icon on the Standard commands control bar and select “Wave…” from the pop-up menu that appears.

2. Use the standard controls to locate and select the desired file.

The file format pop-up allows you to only view files in a certain format and the buttons in the upper left half provide various views of the files on the disk.

3. Click Open.

The Wave appears in a new window.

Below follow descriptions of the items/procedures which are not standard for all Windows Open dialog boxes:

The Recent Folders pop-up menu

At the top of the dialog, you will find a pop-up menu which lists the most recently accessed folders. Select one to open it.

The playback functions

Once you have selected a file in the list you can audition it by clicking Play. Click again to Stop.

You can also have files play back automatically as soon as they are selected. To do this, activate the Auto button.

Opening multiple files

As in many other Windows programs, you can select and open as many files as you wish. The [Shift] key is used for making continuous selections and [Ctrl] is used for selecting any combination of files.

When you click Open the selected files will be opened, each in an individual window.

The Open in Audio CD Montage window option

If you check this option at the bottom of the dialog, the file(s) you open will be placed in an automatically created new Audio CD Montage.

Editing in the Wave window

Inserting a file into the current document

You may have a file that you want to insert into an existing file. The two must have the same attributes (e.g. sample rate), or a warning will appear.

1. Locate the document into which you want to add ma-

terial, and make it active.

2. If you want to add the file at some arbitrary position in

the document (rather than at the beginning or end), click to move the wave cursor to that position.

3. Pull down the Edit menu and select Insert Audio File

and then one of the options from the submenu that appears.

4. Select a file and click Open.

The file is added. If you used the “at cursor position” option, a temporary marker is added at the insertion point.

Using drag and drop

To open files from the Windows desktop, use one of the following possibilities:

• Drag and drop the file(s) on the WaveLab Essential ap-

plication window.

• Drag and drop the file(s) on the WaveLab Essential pro-

gram icon or a shortcut for it.

If the program isn’t already running, it will be launched. This works even if the application is running but minimized.

To Nuendo

Ö It is also possible to drag and drop files from WaveLab Essential to Steinberg’s Nuendo!

This should be done using the Document icon.

Using the Recent Files lists

On the bottom of the File menu you will find one or several hierarchical menu items that allow you to open recently used document files. There are different submenus for different file types, as indicated by the menu items (“Recent Audio Files”, “Recent Audio CD Montages”, etc.). Each section holds up to twenty files. Selecting an item on one of the submenus opens the corresponding file.

Using Favorites

Just above the “Recent…” items is the Favorites menu. This lets you create a “library” of files that you want to be able to open quickly.

• The “Add current document” option, adds the currently active document to the menu.

The list is sorted alphabetically.

• “Validate list” checks whether each document on the menu is still residing in the specified location on your hard disk(s).

If a document can’t be found, it is removed from the list.

• “Clear list” removes all files from the menu.

Opening Wave files from within other windows

You can also open files from Audio CD Montage windows. See the respective chapter for details.

Importing tracks from an audio CD

This is described in the section “Importing audio CD

tracks into WaveLab Essential” on page 144.

Opening files from the desktop

To open a file in WaveLab Essential by double-clicking on it, you must have created an association between the file format and the WaveLab Essential application.

• You can do this from within WaveLab Essential at any

time by selecting “Associate all files of this type with WaveLab Essential” on the File menu–Special submenu.

This association is made according to the currently selected file’s format, and will ensure that all files of this format always opens with WaveLab Essential.

Editing in the Wave window

Window overview and adjustments

Left audio channel

Right audio channel

Overview

Main view

Zoom controls

• The “Selection length” field shows the length of the entire wave if nothing is selected, and the length of the selection (in brackets) if there is one. If you click this value with the right mouse button the window zooms in on the selected range.

Sizing, moving and minimizing

WaveLab Essential uses standard Windows techniques for resizing, moving, maximizing and minimizing windows. See your Windows documentation for details.

Maximizing width

Selecting the Maximize Width item on the View menu makes the window as big as the screen (or any other factor) permits.

About the window sections

Main view

The lower waveform area is where the main action is going on. It is here that you select, apply tools, drag and drop, etc.

• There are both time and level rulers. These can be hidden and displayed (see the ruler and wave display speed menus). You can also set which units of time and level they show (see

“Units of time and level” on page 28).

Overview

The overview is mainly used for navigating through long files. Since you can have different zoom factors in the two areas, the Overview can display the entire wave while the Main view only shows you a short portion.

The status bar

The status bar can be hidden. This is done on the Preferences–Environment tab. The status bar provides the following information:

Mouse cursor position/Level

Wave cursor position/Selection length

• The Wave and Mouse cursor time positions are shown using the same unit of time as in the rulers and dialog boxes.

• Level positions are always shown in dB.

File format details (see “Supported

file formats” on page 49)

Zoom factor

The divider

The divider between the Main view and the Overview can be dragged to change the view sizes. See “Panes” on

page 23 for details.

Setting the zoom factor

About zooming

Horizontal zoom

• When you zoom out all the way the entire file fits the window.

• When you zoom in as far as possible, each sample will occupy several pixels on the screen. This allows for single sample-accurate editing of waveforms.

Zoom out all the way to see the entire wave.

Zoom in until you can see each individual sample point, for very detailed editing.

Editing in the Wave window

Vertical zoom

• When you zoom out all the way, the complete height of the wave fits into the window. You can note this by checking the ruler on the left side.

• As you progressively zoom in, the display will only show you a smaller part of the total height. Exactly which section you see can be adjusted with the vertical scroll bars. Again, check the ruler to see which part of the waveform is currently shown in the display.

For example, to check the peaks of the waveform in great detail, zoom in and scroll all the way up and down.

Detailed view of waveform peaks

Using the zoom controls

Both the Main view and the Overview have horizontal and vertical zoom controls. These behave just like scroll bars:

Using the Magnifying Glass tool

The Magnifying Glass tool is used to specify any section of the waveform and have it occupy the entire window.

The Magnifying Glass tool selected.

Selecting the tool

The Magnifying Glass tool can of course be selected from the tool box, but there are two other options:

• When you hold down [Ctrl] and move the pointer over the Main view, the Magnifying Glass is automatically selected.

This is just a momentary selection. As soon as you release [Ctrl] you get the previous tool back.

• When you move the pointer over the overview, it turns into the Magnifying Glass automatically.

Using the tool in the Main view

1. Press the mouse button with the pointer somewhere in the waveform.

2. Drag left or right to make up a box, and then release the button.

The area encompassed in the box now fills up the entire window.

Vertical and horizontal zoom controls

• You can drag the handle to any position.

• You can click anywhere on the scale to move the handle

there.

• You can click on the arrows at either end to change the

zoom factor in smaller steps.

Either way, the zoom factor on the status bar is updated continuously.

Editing in the Wave window

Making a box like this…

…zooms in so that the “boxed” area will span the entire display.

Using the tool in the Overview

The Magnifying Glass can be used in the Overview, just as in the Main view. However, even though you use the tool in the Overview, it is the Main view that gets zoomed.

You can for example use this as follows: keep the Overview zoomed out all the way and use the Magnifying Glass tool to display any section in the Main view.

Mouse zooming

Using the mouse, you can continuously change the zoom factor by dragging:

1. Position the mouse pointer over the ruler in the Main

view.

2. Press the mouse button and drag up or down.

The zoom factor changes continuously.

Dragging to change the zoom factor.

• To zoom with the cursor in a fixed center position, hold

down [Shift].

• To make vertical zoom adjust automatically to the peaks

in the waveform, hold down [Ctrl].

• To switch to scrolling, hold down [Alt].

This technique works very well in combination with the fact that you can move the song position by dragging horizontally in the ruler. By dragging in both directions, you can quickly find a certain position in the file and display it at the desired magnification factor.

Using mouse zooming to its full effect requires some practice – but it is worth the effort!

Using a wheel mouse

• If you hold down [Ctrl] and point at a waveform, the wheel zooms the view horizontally.

• If you hold down [Ctrl] and [Shift] and point at a waveform, the wheel zooms the view vertically.

Using the Zoom menu

The Zoom submenu can be invoked from two places:

• From the main view menu.

• By clicking on the Zoom factor on the status bar.

It provides the following options:

Option Description

Restore last zoom Brings back the last zoom factor set using this

Overview Zooms the view out as far as possible.

Zoom in 1:1 Zooms in so that one pixel (dot) on the screen rep-

Microscope Zooms in as far as possible, so that one sample oc-

Zoom selection Zooms the window so that the current selection

Custom… This brings up a dialog that allows you to enter any

Optimize vertical zoom

menu or the Magnifying Glass tool.

resents one sample.

cupies several pixels.

(see “Selecting” on page 40) fills the entire display. You can also click the selection range (in brackets) with the right mouse button on the Status bar.

zoom factor.

This changes the vertical zoom factor so that the peaks are clearly visible. This adjustment is done according to the section of the wave currently visible in the window, not the whole file.

Using the keyboard

A quick way to zoom the active Wave window is to use the arrow keys on the computer keyboard: Press [arrow up] or [arrow down] to zoom in or out (respectively) horizontally. Hold down [Shift] and use the arrow keys to zoom in or out vertically.

There are also additional key commands for zooming – check the Key Commands chapter in the online documentation for a full list.

Setting sensitivity for mouse zooming

On the Preferences–Environment tab, there’s a Sensitivity setting for mouse zooming. The higher the value, the less sensitive the function. You might want to raise this value when you first try out the function.

Editing in the Wave window

Using auto zoom for Overview

This setting, found on the Preferences–Wave edit tab, allows you to have the zoom factor automatically adjusted, so that it always shows the entire wave.

1. Activate “Auto zoom for overview” in the Preferences dialog.

2. Zoom out on the overview so that you see the entire wave.

Now, when you resize the window, the overview zoom factor is automatically adjusted so that the entire wave is always shown.

Which part of the file do I see?

In the overview, a striped line called the “range indicator” tells you which section of the file is currently displayed in the Main view.

Furthermore, the range indicator moves while you drag the scroll bar handle. This means that by observing the overview you can easily find positions in the Main view when scrolling, even though the Main view might be zoomed in very closely.

When you drag the scroll bar, the range indicator continuously shows you which part of the wave is shown in the Main view.

The range indicator can be displayed at the top or bottom of the overview, see “Range Indicator at top/bottom” on

page 181.

Navigating through the file

There are several ways to move the view to a certain position in the file:

Scroll bars

This is the most evident option. These work exactly as in any other Windows program. Please note that the waveform scrolls while you drag the scroll bar handle.

Furthermore, WaveLab Essential uses proportional scroll bars, that is, the size of the handle shows you how much of the entire document you see. To get a feeling for how this works, drag the horizontal zoom control while observing the size of the scroll bar “handle”.

Centering the view vertically

If you have zoomed in vertically, you might want to center the waveform view. To do so, double click in the level ruler.

Clicking in the Overview

If you click once in the Overview, the Main view is scrolled so that the position where you clicked is shown on the left side of the window.

Using the Scroll to menu

To bring up the Scroll to menu, either select “Scroll to” from the Main view menu, or right-click in the Overview or the Main view. The difference between the methods is that the main menu always affects the Main view, whereas the speed menus affect either view depending on where you clicked.

The following options are available on the menu:

Option Scrolls the view to

Start/End The beginning or end of the wave.

Selection start/end The beginning or end of the current selection, if

any.

Cursor The wave cursor.

Editing in the Wave window

Clicking on the status bar

If you click on the cursor position on the status bar, the view is scrolled so that the wave cursor becomes visible.

If you right-click instead, a dialog appears to let you specify a certain time position to scroll the view to.

Using a wheel mouse

If you move the wheel down the scroll bar will move forward and vice versa. You can also hold down the wheel and drag the view in either horizontal direction.

Snapshots

Snapshots store the Main view’s “layout” – essentially two things:

• How a window is scrolled (which part of the wave you see).

• The window’s zoom factor.

If you move back and forth between various positions in a file, or if you zoom in and out for detailed or overview editing, using snapshots will save you a lot of time. Snapshots are created and managed on the Wave Snapshots control bar, opened from the View menu.

To create a snapshot, you first set up the view as desired (by scrolling and/or zooming). Then click the camera icon on the Wave Snapshots control bar, followed by one of the numbers. The snapshot is now stored under that button. The fact that the snapshot is used is indicated by a red circle around the number.

Setting the ruler start position

Normally, the ruler is set so that the beginning of the file represents position “0”. However, for editing purposes you may want to set the “0” position at some other point in the file. The picture sequence below shows you how to do this:

1. Set the wave cursor where you want the “0” position.

2. Right-click the ruler to bring up this pop-up menu.

3. Select “Set origin at cursor”.

The ruler start position is moved.

This snapshot is “programmed”.

You use the same procedure to “reprogram” existing snapshots.

To recall a stored snapshot, simply click on its number on the Wave Snapshots control bar.

Ö Snapshots will be automatically saved with the individual file if “Save view settings in companion file” is activated in the Preferences–Wave edit tab, see “Saving view

settings” on page 54.

Editing in the Wave window

Working with a meter based display

If the material on which you are working is tempo based, and you know the tempo, you can make the ruler show positions in meter format (bars, beats and ticks), to make it easier to find musically related cutting points:

1. Select Meter for the ruler time format, see “Units of

time and level” on page 28.

2. Open the Preferences–Wave edit tab.

3. Set the Time Signature and Tempo to match the file.

4. Set the “Ticks per quarter note” setting to a number you feel comfortable with.

This might for example be the same value as that used by your MIDI sequencer.

Using magnetization

If you have “Magnetize bounds” on the Options menu activated and drag the cursor on the time ruler, it will “snap” to the following positions:

• The start and end of the entire wave.

• The start and end of the selection.

•Markers (see “What are markers for?” on page 98).

In this example, a meter ruler with 96 ticks per quarter note is used.

Setting the wave cursor position

Many operations, such as playback and selection depend on the current cursor position – for example, playback often starts at the cursor. The current cursor position is indicated by a vertical flashing line, both in the Main view and in the Overview. There are various ways to move the wave cursor:

• By clicking once somewhere in the Main view or on the time ruler.

If you have a selection, click on the ruler, since clicking in the waveform deselects all.

• By clicking and dragging in the time ruler.

• By using the Transport controls (see “Setting the start

point for playback” on page 58).

• By using the “Move cursor to” menu on the View menu.

The options on this are similar to the “Scroll to” menu, see above. There’s also a “Position” option which allows you to specify any position in the format selected for dialogs and a “Snap Cursor” option described in the section “Using “Snap Cursor”” on page 40.

• By using the Cursor keys:

These keys Move the wave cursor

[←] and [→] One “pixel” (screen dot) in either di-

[Ctrl] + [←] and [→] Twenty “pixels” in either direction.

[Home] and [End] To the beginning and end of the

• By using markers

Markers allow you to pre-define positions and move the cursor there, see

“What are markers for?” on page 98.

rection.

wave.

Using “Snap Cursor”

This function – which can be reached from the “Move cursor to” item on the View menu and from the main wave display speed menu – moves the cursor position automatically for you. There are two options:

• Move to the closest zero crossing (see “Snapping to

zero crossings” on page 42) to the left of the cursor posi-

tion.

To get this effect, make sure “Snap to time unit” is turned off on the Options menu.

• Move to the zero crossing closest to a major time unit.

For example, this can be to the zero crossing closest to a whole second on the time ruler. To get this effect, make sure “Snap to time unit” is activated on the Options menu.

In the last case, the “time unit” mentioned depends on which type of scale is selected for the ruler:

Option Cursor moves to

Time Closest whole second

Samples Function not available

Time code Closest frame

Meter Closest whole beat

Selecting

Almost all types of editing and processing you perform in WaveLab Essential operate on the selection. There are numerous ways to make a selection:

By dragging or [Shift]-clicking

The standard way to select a range in a Wave window is to click and drag. If you drag all the way to the left or right side of the window, it scrolls automatically, allowing you to select larger sections than what can be shown in the window. The speed of the scrolling depends on how far from the window edge you are.

Editing in the Wave window

You can also press [Shift] and click in the Wave window to make a selection between the position of the wave cursor and the click position.

Selecting in stereo files

If you are working on stereo material you can select either channel or both so that you can apply an operation to one channel only or to the entire stereo material. Which channel will be selected when you drag or [Shift]-click depends on where you position the mouse pointer, as indicated by the pointer shape:

Position Pointer

Upper half of left channel Only the left channel will be

Middle area Both channels will be selected.

Lower half of right channel Only the right channel will be

Shape

Ö To select a single channel by [Shift]-clicking, you need to set the wave cursor in only one channel (by clicking in the upper or lower part of the wave) and then [Shift]-click in the same channel.

Switching the selection between channels

If you have made a selection, you can move this to the other channel or extend it to both channels by selecting the corresponding items from the Select submenu (on the Edit menu). Or, you can press [Tab] to move the selection between channels (if there is no selection, [Tab] moves the cursor between channels).

Description

selected.

To select… You can…

The entire waveform

From the cursor to the following or previous marker

From the cursor to the beginning or end of the file

All data between two start/end loop or region markers

Half or double the current selection length

What was previously selected

• If there are no markers, double click.

• Triple click.

• Press [Ctrl]-[A].

• Select “All” from the Select menu on the Edit menu.

• Select “From cursor to previous/next edge” from the Select menu (on the Edit menu).

• Hold down [Shift] and double click between the cursor and the marker.

• Select “From cursor to start/end of file” from the Select submenu (on the Edit menu).

• Hold down [Shift] and double click to the left/right of the cursor position.

• Press [Shift]+[Home] or [Shift]+[End].

• Hold down [Shift] and double click on either marker head.

• Click between the start/end region markers and select the type (loop or generic region) from the Select menu on the Edit menu.

• Select “Halve selection length” or “Double selection length” from the Select menu on the Edit menu. These options are useful if you are working with measures.

• Select “Toggle” from the Select menu on the Edit menu.

• Press [Esc].

Selecting in the Overview

You can select in the Overview, just as in the Main view. To get the selection tool in the overview, hold down [Ctrl] and move the pointer into the overview.

Selection shortcuts

There are a number of ways to quickly make certain selections (for many options there is more than one method):

To select… You can…

The area between two consecutive markers

The area between any two markers

• Double click between them.

• Depending on the type of marker, use one of the last two options on the Select menu (on the Edit menu).

• Double click between two markers, keep the mouse button pressed and drag left or right.

Editing in the Wave window

Extending and shrinking the selection

Very often you will have made a selection only to find it isn’t completely perfect. In this case you can extend or shrink the selection. In fact you can very well use this as a method: make a coarse selection with a lower zoom factor, then zoom in and adjust the start and end in more detail.

By dragging

1. Move the mouse pointer to the beginning or end of the

selection.

It turns into a double arrow.

2. Press the mouse button and drag left/right.

Dragging the end of the selection.

Using [Shift]

• Hold down [Shift] and click outside (extend) or inside (shrink) the current selection.

If you click inside the first half of the selection, this will change the start point, if you click inside the latter half, this will change the end point.

Using the cursor keys

• If you hold down [Shift] and press the [←] or [→] keys, the start or end of the selection is moved one pixel (screen dot) to the left/right. If you also hold down [Ctrl] it is moved twenty pixels instead.

• If you hold down [Shift] and press [Page Up]/[Page Down], it will also move 20 pixels.

• If you hold down [Shift] and press the [Home]/[End] keys, the selection will extend from the current cursor position to the start/end of the file respectively.

Which end of the selection you change depends on which end of the selection the cursor is closest to.

Exactly how much one pixel represents depends on the zoom factor. If for example the zoom factor is “x1:64”, the cursor keys alone move 64 samples, and together with [Ctrl] they move 1280 samples.

Using the Select menu

The Select submenu (on the Edit menu) has a number of options for extending the selection to various points in the waveform.

Moving the selection

If the selection is the right length, but at the wrong position, you can move it:

1. Hold down [Ctrl] and [Shift].

2. Point at the selection and drag left/right.

Snapping to zero crossings

About zero crossings

If you cut out a portion of a wave and paste it in somewhere else, chances are there will be a discontinuity where the two waves are joined. See the example below. This discontinuity will result in a transient in the wave when it is played back, which is perceived as a “click” or “bump” in the sound.

At this point, there will be a click in the sound, due to the discontinuity in the splice.

To avoid this you need to make the splice at a zero crossing.

A zero crossing is – a point where the wave crosses the zero level axis, the point where the wave is considered to have “zero level”.

Furthermore we recommend that joins are made with the splice points of the two waves heading from opposite directions to the zero crossing. That is, one should be on its way up (below the zero level axis), and the other should be on its way down (above the zero level axis).

WaveLab Essential can help!

If you wish, WaveLab Essential can automatically search for zero crossings, and extend the selection “outwards” (make it bigger at both ends) so that it begins and ends at a zero crossing. Normally this will not be noted in the editing precision (since there are usually hundreds or thousands of zero crossings per second), but it will help avoid “clicks” and “pops” and “bumps”.

Editing in the Wave window

But just making the selection start and end at zero crossings is not enough. When you actually perform the editing operation (cut and paste or dragging, for example) you need to make sure the material is inserted at a zero crossing. See “By dragging” on page 44.

Setting up zero crossing detection

1. Pull down the Options menu and activate “Snap to

zero crossing”.

2. Select Preferences from the Options menu.

3. Click on the Wave edit tab.

4. Fill out the “Snap to Zero crossing” options.

Checking the effect of Snap to Zero crossing

1. Make sure that “Off at high zoom factor” is not activat-

ed and zoom in until the zoom factor is 1:1.

2. Make a selection and observe how it is extended left

and right.

If you make a selection like this…

…it is automatically extended at both ends, to the closest zero crossings.

The “time unit” mentioned depends on which type of scale is selected for the ruler:

Option Cursor moves to

Time Closest whole second

Samples Function not available

Time code Closest frame

Meter Closest whole beat

File size Function not available

Using Magnetization

If you have “Magnetize bounds” on the Options menu activated and create or adjust a selection, it will “snap” to the following positions (or to the zero crossing closest to the position, see above):

• The wave cursor.

• The start and end of the entire wave.

•Markers (see “What are markers for?” on page 98).

Level selections

For some of WaveLab Essential’s level processing functions, it is useful to make a selection not only in time, but in level.

By dragging

1. Make a regular “time” selection.

2. Hold down [Shift].

3. Move the mouse to the top or bottom of the selection

box.

The pointer changes into a vertical double arrow.

Snapping to time units

When “Snap to time units” is activated on the Options menu, selections will automatically be extended to the left and right so that they start and end at whole time units (and also at the closest zero crossing, if that option is activated, see above). This allows you to easily make selections spanning a certain number of seconds for example.

Note that this means that you must drag across a certain “time area” (for example more than half a second) to get any selection at all.

Editing in the Wave window

4. Press the mouse button and drag up/down.

Make a regular selection, move the pointer to its top or bottom and hold down [Shift]…

Basic editing commands

Mono/stereo

WaveLab Essential is totally flexible in its handling of stereo. All editing operations can be performed on either channel or both.

…drag up/down, and release the mouse button.

If you then extend the selection time-wise, the level selection still remains the same.

Extend to peaks

To automatically set the level selection to the highest peak in the current selection, make a time selection as desired and select “Extend to peaks” from the Select submenu on the Edit menu.

Copying audio

The following operations allow you to make copies of sections of audio within the same file or from one file to another.

Please note that any existing markers (see “What are

markers for?” on page 98) in the source audio sec-

tion also will be copied.

By dragging

1. Decide whether you want to use “Snap to Zero crossing” (activated from the Options menu) for this operation.

When this is activated, both the selection start and end as well as the drop position will always occur at zero crossings. See “Snapping to zero

crossings” on page 42 for details.

2. Make a selection.

3. Point at the selection, press the mouse button and

hold it down.

4. Drag to a position outside the selection (in the same file) or to another Wave window.

When you have the cursor over a valid area, the pointer will turn into a single or double waveform (see below). The status bar will show the exact position at which the selection will be inserted.

Make sure you don’t drop on a selection in the destination window, or you will perform a crossfade, see

“Crossfade” on page 73.

Editing in the Wave window

5. Release the mouse button.

The selection is inserted at the indicated point. The audio that previously began at that point is moved forward so that it is now played after the inserted section.

Make a selection, position the mouse pointer over it…

…drag and drop…

…the dragged section is inserted at the drop point.

Stereo/mono “conflicts”

Stereo/mono is handled as follows when you drag between files:

Dragged section

Stereo Stereo The dragged audio is always inserted into both

Stereo Mono Only the left channel is inserted.

Mono Stereo What happens depends on the vertical position

“Drop” wave

Action

channels.

in the destination window at which the drop is made. This is indicated by the cursor shape (see

“Selecting in stereo files” on page 41). The se-

lection can be inserted into only one of the channels, or the same material can be inserted into both channels.

Sample rate conflicts

If you copy or move audio from one window to another, and the sample rates of the two files are not the same, the copied/moved sound will play back at the wrong pitch (speed). The program will warn you if this is about to happen.

While mixing sample rates can sometimes be used as an effect, it is most often not desired. There are two ways to get around this:

• Sample rate convert the source file to the same rate as the destination file before doing the editing.

You might go back later and undo this conversion if necessary.

• Sample rate convert the destination file to the same rate as the source file before adding the audio to it.

Please note that you are then partly “stuck” with this new sample rate, since rate converting back and forth too many times is not recommended, see “Convert sample rate” on page 79.

Using “Magnetize Bounds”

If you have “Magnetize bounds” on the Options menu activated when you drag, the cursor will “snap” to the following positions:

• The wave cursor.

• The start and end of the entire wave.

•Markers (see “What are markers for?” on page 98).

Editing in the Wave window

By using Copy and Paste

1. Make a selection.

2. Select Copy from the Edit menu, press [Ctrl]-[C] or

drag the selection onto the Copy icon on the Standard Commands control bar.

3. If you want to insert the audio, click once at some po-

sition in the same file or in another file.

The wave cursor appears at that point.

4. If you would rather replace a section of audio, select it.

In this case, the position of the cursor is of no relevance.

5. Select Paste from the Edit menu or press [Ctrl]-[V].

The material you copied is either inserted at the indicated point (no selection) or it replaces the current selection (if you have a selection).

Make a selection, and select Copy…

…click for an insertion point…

Copied section

Stereo Mono Only the left channel is pasted.

Mono Stereo What happens depends on whether the wave

Paste wave

Action

cursor is in one channel or both. The Paste can either happen in one of the channels, or the same material can be inserted into both channels.

Moving audio

The following commands allow you to rearrange the “order” of the audio in a file.

By dragging

This is just like drag copying (see above). The only difference is that you hold down [Alt] and [Ctrl] while dragging to move audio. The material you dragged is removed from its original position and inserted where you drop it.

By using Cut and Paste

This is just like using Copy and Paste (you can for example drag the selection to the Cut symbol on the Standard Commands control bar – see above). The only difference is that when you select Cut, the audio is removed from the window. The material after the cut section will be moved to fill out the gap.

…and select Paste. The copied section is inserted at the cursor position.

Stereo/mono “conflicts”

Stereo/mono is handled as follows when you paste:

Copied section

Stereo Stereo If the wave cursor extends across both chan-

Stereo Stereo If the wave cursor is only in one channel, the

Paste wave

Action

nels of the destination file, the material will be inserted into both channels.

Paste will only happen in that channel. Material from the left channel will be pasted in the left channel and vice versa.

Editing in the Wave window

Please note that to completely undo a move between two files you must first undo the paste in the destination window and then undo the cut in the source window.

By nudging

The Nudge tools

The Nudge left/right tools in the Toolbox (also known as “Kicker tools”) can be used to move the audio in small steps within a file.

1. Make a selection.

2. Click on the selection with one of the Nudge tools (de-

pending on the direction in which you want to move it).

The audio is moved one pixel (screen dot). Exactly how much this is depends on how far you are zoomed in. If for example the status bar says x1:256, the selection will be moved 256 samples.

Ö The moved section “overwrites” the audio originally at that position.

For example, when you nudge a selection to the right, silence will appear before the nudged section while audio to the right will be replaced by the nudged section. This is different from moving by dragging.

Ö If you nudge many times in a row and then undo, all the moves are undone in one go.

Repeating an audio selection

To repeat a section of audio, proceed as follows:

1. Make a selection, select Cut or Copy and place a new insertion point, just as when performing a normal Cut or Copy (see above).

2. Select “Multiple copies…” from the Paste Special submenu on the Edit menu.

3. In the dialog that appears, enter the number of copies you desire (up to 1000), and click OK.

Other Paste operations

On the Paste Special menu you will find some additional options:

Overwrite

This will overwrite data in the destination file, rather than moving data to make room for the inserted audio. The actual amount that will be overwritten depends on the selection in the destination file:

• If there is no selection in the destination file, a section with the same length as the pasted data will be overwritten.

If there is a selection, the pasted data will replace that selection, just as when making a regular paste.

Append

This will add the pasted audio after the end of the file, just as if you had placed the wave cursor there and selected Paste.

Prepend

This will add the pasted audio before the beginning of the file.

Mix

This will blend the two files into each other, starting at the selection (if you have one) or at the cursor position (if there is no selection).

• When you select the Paste Special – Mix option, a dia-

log appears, allowing you to specify the desired gain for the audio on the clipboard and at the destination, respectively.

A setting of 0 dB means the level will be unaffected.

• All the data on the clipboard is always mixed in, regard-

less of the length of the selection.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you have a selection in the destination file when you paste.

Deleting selections

Delete

You can use the following methods to delete a selection of audio:

• Select Delete from the Edit menu.

• Click the Delete icon on the Standard Commands control bar.

• Press [Backspace] or [Delete].

• Drag the selection to the Delete icon on the Standard Commands control bar.

Trim

To remove all the audio except the current selection, select Trim from the Edit menu (or press [Ctrl]-[Backspace]).

Silence

The Silence function offers two different methods for inserting silence:

• You can “insert” silence into a section, i.e. to space two sections further apart.

• Or, you can select to “replace” a selection or time range with silence.

Insert silence

If you intend to insert silence, proceed as follows:

1. Make a selection that encompasses the range where

you wish to insert the silence.

2. Select Insert Silence from the Edit menu or press

[Ctrl]+[Shift]-[Space].

Editing in the Wave window

Replace selection

If you intend to replace a specific range with silence, proceed as follows:

1. Make a selection that encompasses the range you wish to replace with silence.

2. Select Silence from the Edit menu or press [Ctrl][Space].

There are four ways to replace a section of audio with silence:

• Select it and select Silence from the Edit menu.

• Select it and click the Silence icon on the Standard Commands control bar.

• Select it and press [Ctrl]-[Space].

• Select it and drag the selection to the Silence icon on the Standard Commands control bar.

Turning selections into new documents

If you want to turn a section of wave into a new document, proceed as follows.

1. Make a selection.

2. Drag the selection out of the window and onto an

empty section of the WaveLab Essential application window.

The cursor turns into a “new document” icon.

3. Release the mouse button.

The selection appears in a new window. You can also use this function to create stereo waves out of mono waves, see below.

Converting from mono to stereo

You may convert a mono file into a stereo file that contains the same material in both channels, for example for further processing into “real” stereo.

1. Make a selection.

2. Drag the selection out to the WaveLab Essential

“desktop”.

3. When the pointer is outside the window, hold down

[Ctrl] and release the mouse button.

Converting from stereo to mono

You may mix the two channels in a stereo file into a mono document.

This can be done in two ways. Which method to use mainly depends on whether you want to convert the entire file or just a selection:

By dragging

1. Make a stereo selection.

2. Drag the selection out to the WaveLab Essential

“desktop”.

3. When the pointer is outside the window, hold down [Ctrl] and release the mouse button.

By saving (converting an entire file)

1. Open the stereo file.

2. Select “Save as” from the File menu and click the

Properties button at the bottom of the dialog to open the “Audio File Format” dialog.

3. Change the Channels setting to the “Mono (Mix)” option, but leave the other settings as they are.

You can of course change the other settings too, but this will have other effects, see “Saving in another format (Save as…)” on page 51.

Ö The other two “Mono (Mix)” options will also convert a stereo file to mono, but the amplitude of the resulting file will be attenuated by 3 or 6 dB respectively.

Since the mixing of the two channels when converting a stereo file to mono might often result in the amplitude increasing to a point where clipping occurs, these two options can be useful to remedy such a situation.

4. Click OK and save the file.

5. Open the file you just saved.

Swapping channels in a stereo file

You may move the material in the left channel to the right channel, and vice versa:

1. Make a selection across both channels.

Only the material in the selected section will be swapped.

2. Select “Swap channels” from the Edit menu.

Editing in the Wave window

Waveform restoration with the Pencil tool

The Pencil tool allows you to redraw the waveform directly in the Wave window. This can be used to quickly repair waveform errors.

This error in the right channel (red waveform) can be corrected quickly by using the Pencil tool.

• The Pencil tool can be used if the Zoom resolution is set

to at least 1:8 (one pixel on the screen equals 8 samples) or a higher resolution.

Resolution values can be set in the Zoom pop-up menu. You can open it by clicking on the Zoom factor field in the Status bar, located at WaveLab Essential’s bottom window rim.

Click here to open the Zoom pop-up menu.

• Select the Pencil tool from the Toolbox and redraw the

waveform.

If you wish to redraw the waveform of both channels at once, press [Shift] on your computer keyboard during the drawing process.

File handling in Wave windows

This section describes file handling in the Wave window (i.e. handling audio files). File handling of other document types (e.g. Audio CD Montages) is described in the respective chapter.

Supported file formats

WaveLab Essential can open and save audio files in a number of file formats. The table below gives you some basic information about the various formats available (note that additional file formats may have been added after this document was written).

• The Format column also lists the typical file name extensions for each format.

• All sample rates are supported, for all file formats.

• All file types can handle mono and stereo.

Format Description

Wave (.wav) The most common file format on the PC platform. If

AIFF (.aif, .aiff, .snd) Audio Interchange File Format, a standard defined

MPEG-1 Layer 3 (.mp3)

MPEG-1 Layer 2 (.mp2/.mpa/.mpg/ .mus))

Original Sound Quality (.osq)

Sound Designer II (.sd2)

you plan to load the files into any other PC program, Wave files are a safe bet. 8, 16, 20, 24 bit and 32 bit (float) resolutions are supported.

by Apple Computers Inc. 8, 16, 20, or 24 bit resolutions are supported.

The most common audio compression format. The major advantage of MPEG compression is that the file size is significantly reduced, while there is little degradation of sound quality. WaveLab Essential can both open and save files in this format.

- Note that when you open an MPEG compressed file in WaveLab Essential, the file is converted to a temporary wave file that is much larger than the original compressed file. Therefore, make sure that you have enough free space on your hard disk when opening MPEG compressed files.

- When you save, the temporary wave file will be converted back to MP3, so from a user perspective the file handling is transparent apart from the size difference mentioned above.

MP2 (sometimes referred to as “Musicam files”) is a common file format in the broadcast industry. With regard to file sizes the same applies as with MP3 files.

This is WaveLab Essential’s proprietary lossless compressed audio format. By saving files in this format, you can save considerable disk space without compromising audio quality. See “About saving

OSQ files” on page 51.

This audio file format is used by Digidesign applications (such as Pro Tools). 8, 16 or 24 bit resolutions supported.

Editing in the Wave window

Format Description

U-LAW (.ulaw, .vox)

A-LAW (.alaw, .vox)

Sun/Java (.snd, .au)

ADPCM – Microsoft/ Dialogic (.vox)

Ogg Vorbis (.ogg)

Text/Excel (.txt) This is a text representation of a waveform. By sav-

Windows Media Audio (.wma, .asf))

Ensoniq Paris (.paf) Used by the Ensoniq Paris™ system (16 bit resolu-

This is an audio encoding and compression technique supported by Windows and Web phones, using 8 bit resolution. The U.S. telephone system uses U-law encoding for digitization.

This is an audio encoding and compression technique for telephony, using 8 bit resolution. The EU telephone system uses A-law encoding for digitization.

This is an audio file format used on Sun and NeXT computers. Files in this format can often be found on the Internet. 8, 16 or 24 bit resolutions are supported.

This is a format commonly used for games and telephony applications that offers a lower bit rate than linear PCM and thus requires less storage space/ bandwidth.

Ogg Vorbis is a relatively new compressed file format that is open and patent-free and offers very small audio files maintaining comparatively high audio quality.

ing an audio file as a text file and then opening it in a spreadsheet application such as Excel, you can view it in textual, decimal form and edit the sample values. When you open a text file representing a waveform in WaveLab Essential, it will be decoded and opened as an audio file. Note that these files are not compressed in any way, so they can get very large! Therefore, avoid creating and opening extremely large .txt files. Also note that when using 32 bit float files, the .txt format is not 100% lossless – i.e. information may be lost! This is because it is not possible to express a binary floating point value in textual decimal form without some precision loss.

Microsoft’s own compressed format. WaveLab Essential lets you import/export audio in this format, provided that you have Windows Media Player 9 (or later) installed on your system.

tion).

About temporary files

As you work in WaveLab Essential, temporary files (file name extension .$$$) used for Undo, etc. are created on your hard disk, see “Temporary files” on page 15.

You can decide whether these files should be in 16-, 24or 32 bit format. This is done on the Preferences–File tab.

The higher this value, the better the quality of the temporary file. However, 32-bit files are also twice as big as 16bit files and take longer to process.

• If you ever plan to export your files in 24-bit or 32-bit format, use this format or a better one (higher number) for your temporary files as well.

• Use 32-bit if you want to create files with levels exceeding 0dB.

• Even if you only work with 16-bit files, selecting 24-bit for your temporary files can improve audio quality slightly.

• For less critical applications where speed and disk space are crucial factors, use 16-bit temporary files.

Opening files

The various methods for opening an audio file in a Wave window are described in the section “Opening Waves” on

page 33. Importing CD tracks from an audio CD is de-

scribed in the section “Importing tracks from an audio CD” on page 34.

Save and Save as – General information

Ö When you save a new document for the first time, it doesn’t matter whether you select Save or Save as.

The “Save as” dialog will appear, since you need to specify a file format, folder, and file name.

About 20-, 24- and 32-bit float files

You do not need a 20- or 24-bit audio card to take advantage of the fact that WaveLab Essential can handle 20and 24-bit audio files. Any processing or editing performed on the files is always done at full resolution, even if your card doesn’t support the full resolution. For playback, WaveLab Essential automatically adapts to whatever card you have installed.

Editing in the Wave window

Ö Once a file has been saved, you can continue to edit it and then select Save from the File menu, or press [Ctrl][S], to update the file and make the changes permanent.

Ö If you want to specify a new name, location and/or file format, you should select Save As from the File menu.

See “Saving in another format (Save as…)” on page 51.

Ö All save operations except “Save a Copy” clear the Undo buffers, which means that after saving you cannot undo or redo.

Automatic backups

For all save operations except a regular “Save”, backups are created automatically if a file with the same name already exists.

If for example you select Save As and specify a file name already used in that folder, the program will ask you if you want to back up the existing file first. If you click Yes, the first letter in the file’s extension will be changed to “~”. “AIF” for example, will become “~IF”.

Saving in another format (Save as…)

If you want to change the format (file format, sampling frequency, bit resolution and stereo/mono status) when saving, proceed as follows:

1. Select Save as… on the File menu.

2. A regular file dialog appears where you can specify a

file name, folder and a file format (see “Supported file for-

mats” on page 49).

3. If you wish to change other attributes of the file (e.g. mono/stereo status, bit resolution or sample rate), click the button at the bottom of the dialog.

This opens the Audio File Format dialog where you can specify the desired properties of the converted file.

If you change the sample rate, bit resolution and number of channels, the following operations are performed:

Property Action

Sample Rate If a new sample rate is specified, a sample rate conver-

Bit Resolution If a different bit resolution is specified, the file is either

Mono/Stereo If the file is converted from mono to stereo, the same

sion will be performed (see “Convert sample rate” on

page 79).

“truncated” down (e.g. to 8 bits), or “padded” up (e.g. to 24 bits). If you are converting to a lower bit resolution, you should consider adding dithering – see “The Dithering pane” on page 88.

material will appear in both channels. If the conversion is from stereo to mono, you can either select to only save the left or right channel, or create a mix of the two channels.

• If you only wish to change the bit resolution you can do

this directly in the “Audio Properties” dialog (see “Editing

audio properties” on page 55) instead and perform a stan-

dard save.

• For high quality mastering purposes, it is not recom-

mended to change the sample rate and number of channels this way, but instead use plug-ins and functions of the Master Section (see “The Effects pane” on page 85).

• For the available compressed file formats (MP3, MP2,

WMA and Ogg Vorbis), you can select “Edit…” from both the Encoding and Attributes pop-up menus in the Audio File Format dialog.

This opens additional settings dialogs, where you can specify various options such as bit rate and compression method, and also enter text tags for the file.

The Audio File Format dialog

4. After making the desired settings, close the Audio File Format dialog and click Save.

A new file is created. The original file is not affected by the operation.

Editing in the Wave window

Ö It is also possible to convert several files to another format in one go (batch encoding).

See “Batch file encoding” on page 95.

Ö Note that you can also save as WMA files, MP3 files and MP2 files via the “Encode to…” options on the Save Special submenu.

About saving OSQ files

OSQ (Original Sound Quality) is a lossless audio compression format, which can significantly reduce the audio file size without affecting the audio quality at all.

• You can save any audio file as an OSQ file by using the Save As function.

The audio will play back exactly the same as in the original, uncompressed file.

• Similarly, if you open an OSQ file in WaveLab Essential and save it as an uncompressed audio file in its original format (e.g. WAV), the audio will play back exactly the same.

• You can also convert several files to OSQ format in a batch. See “Batch file encoding” on page 95.

Save selection as

This is a menu item on the Save Special submenu. It works exactly as Save As, except that only the current selection is saved as a new file.

Save a Copy

This item, also on the Save Special submenu, allows you to save a copy of the file, in its current state, without affecting the original. A regular file dialog is used as with Save As.

Save left/right channel as

These two menu items are also located on the Save Special submenu. They allow you to save each channel individually, into a separate file. A regular file dialog is used as with Save As.

This menu command is used when you have been editing “dual mono” files for example, and wish to save the channels into separate files.

Save All

The Save All dialog

This menu item brings up a dialog that allows you to save some or all of the open documents, in one go.

The list displays all open documents that currently contain unsaved changes. The “Show paths” check box allows you to display/hide the complete file paths.

1. Select /deselect files by clicking on them or by using

the Select/Deselect button.

Only the selected files will be saved.

2. Click “Save selected”.

Revert to saved

This menu option, on the File menu, allows you to revert the file back to its last saved state (actually, the last saved version of the file is loaded from disk). This can be used as a kind of “super undo” which undoes all the changes made to the file since it was last saved.

1. Select “Revert to saved” from the File menu.

2. Click “Yes” in the warning dialog that appears.

The file is restored to its previously saved state.

Editing in the Wave window

Renaming files and documents (Rename)

The Rename function is available from most WaveLab Essential documents, not just Wave windows. The function is however of particular importance when renaming audio files. If you rename an audio file outside WaveLab Essential, and this file is referenced to an Audio CD Montage or Data CD/DVD project, the reference will be lost the next time you open the document that references this file.

But WaveLab Essential allows you to handle file renaming in an intelligent way so that all the documents that reference this renamed file are automatically updated! This works as follows:

Ö All open documents that reference the file or document to be renamed will be automatically updated to reference the new name.

E.g. if you rename an audio file named “India” to “Sitar”, all currently open documents that reference the file “India” will be updated to reference the file as “Sitar”!

For audio files, peak and marker files will also be renamed accordingly.

• Documents that use audio file references are Audio CD Montages and Data CD/DVD projects.

• WaveLab Essential documents can also refer to the names of other documents, e.g. a Data CD/DVD project will contain references to Audio CD Montages.

This will work in the same way – if the document/project that references the document to be renamed is open, the references will be updated.

To rename a file or document proceed as follows:

1. Select the audio file/document to be renamed.

Make sure all documents that reference this particular file are open. This is not mandatory, but if they aren’t, the file references will not be updated.

2. Select “Rename…” from the File menu, or press [F2].

The Rename dialog opens.

The dialog contains the following items:

Item Description

Name text field This is where you type in the new name.

Change folder It is also possible to change the folder location

Keep as default path If you check this option, the same path will be

Extension pop-up The file extension can be changed, but only if

of the file when renaming. If Change folder is ticked, you can navigate to a new location. Note that this is only possible within the same drive partition.

selected the next time you open the dialog. This is useful if you need to move several files successively.

corresponds to the original file format (certain file formats can have different possible file extensions, e.g. “aif” or “snd”).

Deleting files and documents

It is possible to delete whole files or documents from within WaveLab Essential. This function is available from the File menu and will delete the currently selected file or document from disk. Make sure the file or document you wish to delete is in focus.

1. Select “Delete…” from the File menu.

A dialog appears as a warning, allowing you to cancel or proceed with the operation.

2. Select whether to permanently delete the file or to

move it to the Recycle bin by clicking the appropriate button in the Method section of the dialog.

Only select to permanently delete if you are absolutely certain – you won’t be able to retrieve the file!

• Any Data CD/DVD project that is open in WaveLab Es-

sential and has a reference to this file will be updated accordingly.

The file will get removed from the Data CD/DVD project(s).

Editing in the Wave window

• However, if a file is being referenced by a currently open Audio CD Montage, you will not be able to delete the file and a warning will appear.

In addition, you will not be able to delete the file in the following circumstances:

• If it is currently copied to the clipboard.

• If a part of it is has been pasted into another file that is open.

• If the file is open in another application.

• Deleting an audio file will also automatically delete its peak and marker file names.

Saving view settings

WaveLab Essential can automatically save all settings associated with a Wave file. This includes:

• Window size and position.

• Zooming.

• Scroll position.

• Snapshots.

The view setting information is stored in a companion file (extension “.mem”) either together with your audio files or in a separate folder.

• This feature is activated/deactivated (on by default) in the Preferences–Wave edit tab (“Save view settings in companion file”).

If the feature is activated and you save a file, the settings will be recreated exactly as you had them when later reloading the same file!

Compression encoded export formats

Apart from the formats available in the Save As dialog and the Save special encode MP3/MP2/WMA options, WaveLab Essential allows you to export files in a number of compression encoded audio formats, suitable for multimedia, web publishing, etc. (see “Supported file formats” on

page 49). The basic functionality for this is part of a soft-

ware technology called Microsoft ACM (Audio Compression Manager) which is included with Microsoft Media Tools.

The number of formats you can export, depends on which ACM drivers you have installed on your computer.

For more information, see www.microsoft.com/windows/ windowsmedia.

About “lossy” and “non-lossy” compression

There are two types of compression methods. When you use a “non-lossy” method (like saving as an OSQ file – see above), all information about the file is preserved, which means that when you decompress the file, you get it back exactly as it was.

However, most audio compression techniques are “lossy”. This means that once the file has been compressed, some information has been lost. This type of compression always results in some kind of audio degradation, albeit in many cases a very small one.

WaveLab Essential can also import any file supported by ACM, provided that the correct ACM drivers are installed.

If you need audio file compression with uncompromised audio quality, you should use the OSQ (Original Sound Quality) lossless audio compression format instead (see “About saving OSQ files” on

page 51).

Exporting to encoded formats

The menu item “Encode (ACM)” uses the Microsoft MediaTools technology to convert the file to one of a number of compressed formats.

1. Select “Encode (ACM)…” from the Save Special sub-

menu.

The dialog that appears is a MediaTools dialog, not a WaveLab Essential dialog.

2. Select one of the formats from the pop-up in the mid-

dle and chose a setting for it from the pop-up below.

The dialog also provides possibilities for creating “presets” of formats and settings, using the upper row of controls.

The options which are available depend on the original format of the file, its sample rate, the number of channels, etc. However, we have noted problems with some ACM drivers. Even though a certain format can be selected, an error message appears when you try to save the file. If this happens, please use another encoding method.

3. Click OK.

A regular file dialog appears.

4. Specify a name and location for the file, as with any

Save operation.

Editing in the Wave window

Note: When you export to compressed files using the “Encode (ACM)” option, the file that is created will technically be a Wave file, regardless of the compression format (the files will have the extension “wav”). But instead of the regular “linear” audio data that usually makes up a wave file, a special audio data “chunk” is included that contains the compressed audio.

This is normally not a problem, but something to be aware of when planning for usage of files in other programs and on other computer platforms.

Editing audio properties and file attributes

Editing audio properties

Each audio file has a certain set of properties, that is, information about the sample rate at which it was recorded, what the bit resolution is, etc. The “Audio Properties” dialog allows you to change that information.

There are two ways to bring up this dialog:

• Select “Audio Properties” from the Edit menu.

• Click on the properties information field, on the status

bar.

• If you change the bit resolution the file will be converted to the new resolution the next time you save it.

There is no Undo for this item. If you save with a lower bit resolution, the file is permanently converted.

File attributes

If you select this option on the Edit menu, a dialog opens in which you can specify various information about the wave file.

The Wave Attributes dialog

You can enter information on either the Standard tab or the Broadcast Audio Extension tab. The information you enter here is added to the header of the file, and thereby labels it as either a Standard wave file or a Broadcast wave file. A Broadcast wave file is essentially the same thing as a Standard wave file, the difference is what information the file headers can contain.

• On the Standard tab in the dialog, you can enter infor-

mation that will be displayed for instance when viewing the file’s properties in the Windows explorer.

The Audio Properties dialog

About changing the values

Changing the values in this dialog does not process the file in any way, unlike Convert File (see “Saving in another

format (Save as…)” on page 51). However, the following

rules apply:

• If you change the sample rate, the file will play back at the wrong pitch.

Editing in the Wave window

Ö Note that you can instruct WaveLab Essential to automatically fill out the text fields for “Originator software” (WaveLab Essential) and “Creation Date” (the current), by clicking the small buttons to the right of the fields.

• On the Broadcast Audio Extension tab you can also enter information to be embedded in the file, such as title, author, etc. A Timecode position is included in the file as well. This makes it possible to insert audio at precise positions in other applications. By default, the Timecode position is set to the start position of the audio.

Playback and recording

Playing back

Background information

About sample rates

If the wave file is recorded at a sample rate not supported by your audio card you will not be able to play it back. You might then opt to use sample rate conversion, see “Con-

vert sample rate” on page 79. Also see “Supported file formats” on page 49 for more on file formats.

About the playback cursor position and appearance

Great care has been taken to achieve synchronization between what you hear and what you see (the wave cursor position in the wave during playback). However, by nature, this precision depends to a large extent on the audio card and its driver. In case you run into problems you may want to adjust the settings on Preferences–Audio device tab.

About audio cards and playing in the background

When you activate playback or recording in WaveLab Essential, it will “grab” the audio card so that other applications cannot access it. The opposite is also true: if another application has grabbed the card, WaveLab Essential will be unable to play.

Ö If you want to run WaveLab Essential together with another audio program, and make sure whichever application is active gets access to the audio card, activate the “Release audio hardware…” option in the Preferences– Audio device tab.

When you do, WaveLab Essential will “let go” of the audio card when another application is made active (provided that this doesn’t happen during playback or recording in WaveLab Essential).

Using the Transport bar

Displaying the Transport bar

If the Transport is hidden, select Transport from the Control bars submenu on the View menu.

The Transport controls

Start Point

Skip

Goto beginning

Stop Point/Loop

Rewind

Loop On/Off

Record

Play

Stop

Goto End

Fast Forward

The Stop button

The result of clicking on the stop button depends on the current situation:

• If the program is stopped and you click the Stop button, the wave cursor is moved to the beginning of the last start position. A second click will move the cursor to the start of current selection (if any and if this is located before the last start position).

• If there is no selection, or if the wave cursor is already to the left of the selection, it is moved to the beginning of the file instead.

• If there is no selection, and you activate playback from a point and then stop so the wave cursor is to the right of the original point, the cursor will move to the place you last started when you click Stop again.

• If you click on the Stop Point/Loop button and activate the “On stop, move cursor back to start” option on the menu, the cursor will be automatically moved back to the beginning of the selection when you click Stop (from playback).

If there is no selection, it will automatically move back to the place you started from.

Playback and recording

Transport control settings for separate windows

By default, open windows in WaveLab Essential (wave windows and montage windows) all use the same Transport control settings (loop settings, playback speed, etc.). You can however choose to use separate settings for separate windows if you want: open the Preferences–Audio device tab and make sure the option “Transport settings are global to all windows” is not activated.

When this option is deactivated, the following transport controls can be set differently for each open wave or montage window:

• Start point (see “Setting the start point for playback” on page

58).

•Skip (see “Skipping sections during playback” on page 58).

• Stop point/loop (see “Setting the Stop point/loop” on page

58).

• Loop On/Off (see “Looping” on page 58).

Setting the start point for playback

The Start point button on the transport brings up a menu that allows you to specify where playback will start.

For example, if you select “Play from start of file”, as soon as you hit Play, the wave cursor will jump back to the beginning of the file and playback starts from there.

About loop updating and short loops

The loop points are updated continuously during playback, which means that if you change the loop start or end during playback, the loop changes. This is a great feature for auditioning selection points for rhythmic material!

Please note that it takes some time for positions to be updated (0.3 to 1 second, depending on the file’s bit resolution and sample rate). If you don’t want to wait, activate “Restart on loop/selection change” on the Options menu. When this is activated, the loop starts over as soon as you adjust the selection or move a loop start marker.

Also please note that WaveLab Essential handles playback of extremely short loops without problems. However, the cursor position might not be updated correctly.

Skipping sections during playback

You can also have playback automatically jump past certain positions during playback. This way, you will be able to audition what the material would sound like with certain sections cut out, before the actual edits are made.

This selection is done from the menu invoked by clicking the Skip button on the Transport bar.

• If you have made a selection range, you can select “Skip selection” to skip the selected area.

Setting the Stop point/loop

The Stop point/loop button on the Transport bar allows you to select where playback should stop and whether it should loop indefinitely.

Automatic Stop

For example, if you select “Stop at next marker”, playback will stop as soon as the program reaches a marker or the end of the file, whichever comes first.

Looping

Let’s say you have chosen “Loop selection” mode. Now, if some piece of the wave is selected, this will be repeated indefinitely (as long as you don’t start playback from a position later than the selection).

If no selection is made, the entire wave is looped.

Playback and recording

Play tool – Playing one or both channels in stereo files

Selecting the Play tool momentarily

The Play tool can of course be selected by clicking in the Toolbox, but there are situations when you are working with another tool and just momentarily want to use the Play tool.

• To momentarily select the Play tool, hold down [Alt]. When you have finished playing, release [Alt].

Using the Play tool

The Play tool allows you to play back from any position:

1. Point at the position where you want playback to start.

2. If the wave is in stereo, move the pointer up or down to

decide whether only one channel should be played back.

Watch the cursor shape, it indicates what will be played back (L, R or both).

3. Press the mouse button.

Playback continues for as long as you keep the mouse button pressed, or until the wave ends. After playback has stopped, the cursor will be moved to the playback start position, making this a quick way to locate to certain positions in the audio.

Using the Playback Browser

The Playback Browser feature helps you find a certain position in an audio file, by restarting playback repeatedly when you click or drag to move the wave cursor.

1. Activate playback using the regular Play function, or

select the Play tool.

Note that depending on your Preferences settings, Playback Browsing may only be available for the Play tool.

2. Click or drag in the ruler.

If you click, playback jumps immediately to the position at which you clicked. If you drag continuously, a short snippet of audio from each new position is played (looped).

Playback Browser preferences

On the Preferences–Wave edit tab you will find two preferences for Playback Browsing:

• The Sensitivity setting is used to determine the size of the “snippets of audio” played back when you drag.

• When the “Restrict to Play tool” option is activated, Playback Browsing is not available when you activate Playback using the transport bar or computer keyboard.

On the Options menu you will also find an option called “Stop after playback browsing”, which determines what happens when you release the mouse button: playback continues (deactivated) or stops (activated). Note that when this option is activated, the cursor will automatically be moved back to the playback start position on stop, allowing you to use this function for locate positions in the audio.

Playing the selection only

There are several ways to play the selected part of the wave only:

• Press the right mouse button in the Overview or the

Main view and select Play Selection from the menu that appears.

• Hold down [Ctrl] and click on the Play button.

• Press [F6].

If you hold down [Shift] and press [F6], the selection will be played back repeatedly (looped).

• Drag and drop the selection on the Play button on the Transport.

Scrolling during playback

The “Scrolling during playback” submenu on the Options menu contains several options for how the view should be scrolled in Play mode:

Option Description

Immobile view This disables scrolling completely.

View follows cursor In this mode, the waveform view will automati-

Scroll wave (partial) In this mode, the waveform view is scrolled con-

Scroll wave (always) In this mode, the waveform view is scrolled con-

cally change when the Wave cursor reaches the right side of the window during playback.

tinuously, attempting to keep the Wave cursor in the middle of the view. However, if loop mode is activated and the loop range fits on the screen, no unnecessary scrolling takes place, allowing for a more stable view of the loop. The program will also “sense” the end of a file and stop scrolling when it is “in view”, rather than when the end is reached.

tinuously, attempting to keep the Wave cursor in the middle of the screen.

Ö Note: these options do not apply to playback using the Play tool, and the last two options require a fast computer and graphics card.

If you get dropouts during playback, please select another Scrolling mode.

Recording

For details on connections, recording levels, etc. please refer to the documentation that came with your audio card.

About automatic gain controls

Some audio cards may have a feature which automatically sets the recording level for the microphone input. This feature is often called AGC (Automatic Gain Control). For “professional” results we recommend that you deactivate this feature using the software that came with the card.

Playback and recording

Please note that if you leave this feature activated, the Microphone input gain control in the Mixer (see later in this text) will have less effect on the recording level.

Preparations

To record a new file, proceed as follows:

1. Click the Record button, or press [*] on the numeric

key pad.

The Record dialog appears.

The Record dialog

2. Decide whether you want to record to a “named” or a

“temporary” file, by selecting from the pop-up at the top of the dialog.

Temporary files are practical to use, since you don’t need to name the file beforehand, you just “hit record and go”. On the other hand, you will need to save the file at a later stage. Temporary files are always wave files, while named files allow you to choose to record files in a number of different formats. Also note that if you plan to make a recording over several minutes we recommend that you record a named file.

3. If you have selected one of the “Named File” options in

the step above, type in the path to the desired destination for the file on the line below the pop-up or click the folder button and specify a file location.

If you activate the Auto number checkbox, a three-digit number will be added to the file name. Starting at the number you specify in the value field to the left of the checkbox, the Auto number will be increased in increments with each new recording, to prevent existing files from being overwritten.

4. Click the file format button at the top of the Record dialog, and decide on a recording format. WaveLab Essential lets you record directly into a number of different formats (see “Supported file formats” on page 49 for details).

In the Audio File Format dialog that appears, you can among other things choose the desired format, sample rate, number of channels to record and bit resolution.

The Audio File Format dialog

If you choose a bit resolution not supported by your audio card, you will not be able to record.

5. Click OK to close the Audio File Format dialog.

6. If needed, activate the desired recording options in the

dialog.

There are also additional settings in a separate dialog, opened by clicking the Settings button.

At this point, you can start recording (see “Start record-

ing!” on page 61) if you like.

Setting up the mixer (MME/WDM drivers)

At this point you may want to click the Mixer button to adjust the relative volume of your card’s inputs.

Ö For the mixer to appear, you must have specifically selected the card on the Preferences–Audio device tab.

If the Input and Output are set to “Microsoft Sound Mapper” a mixer cannot be created.

Exactly what controls will appear in the mixer depends on the card, but here are some possibilities:

• Master Gain (output-fader)

• Synth In (input-fader plus on/off check box)

Playback and recording

• CD (input-fader plus on/off check box)

• Line (input-fader plus on/off check box)

• Mic (input-fader plus on/off check box)

In addition to the above, the card might have custom controls for monitoring, etc., which cannot be accessed from the WaveLab Essential mixer. Again, please use the application(s) included with the card.

Not all audio cards have a mixer application and can therefore not access the WaveLab Essential mixer. This is especially true with digital I/O cards.

Using the meters

In the lower part of the Record dialog, you will find a meter display. This is useful for checking the input level, as well as the frequency spectrum of the input signal.

Ö The meters in the Record dialog are “miniature” versions of the Level and Spectrum Meters in the Meter windows.

For detailed descriptions of the functionality and features, see “Level

meter” on page 64.

For the meters to register the signal, you need to activate the Monitor checkbox. This can be done automatically, if the option “Activate meters when opening record window” is activated in the Record Settings dialog. The popup menu in the lower left corner allows you to select between Level or Spectrum metering.

You can reset the meters by clicking the Reset button – this instantly resets all meters and numerical indicators, including the Maximum Peak and RMS values to the right in the Level Meter.

You can also select one of five presets for the Level Meter on the pop-up menu next to the Reset button. These presets (containing settings for meter ranges, colors, etc.) can be edited by selecting “Settings…” from the pop-up menu. The options are described in the chapter “Making

settings for the level meter” on page 65.

Use the Level Meter to check the audio input level. Adjust this (with the mixer controls or the audio card’s applications), so that the Peak Level Meters go as high as possible without ever reaching 0dB!

Checking disk capacity

The Disk Capacity indicator above the meters helps you make sure you have enough disk space for the recording. This indicator shows the amount of available disk space on the hard disk specified in the Named File path, or the hard disk you have selected for your temporary files (see

“Temporary files” on page 15). Please note that this value

is approximate.

When there is less than ten seconds of available hard disk space, the disk capacity indication is displayed in red.

• When the Level Meter is selected, horizontal bars show

the peak level (outer bars) and average loudness (VU, inner bars) of each channel.

Values are also shown numerically. If the Phase Scope option is activated on the pop-up menu next to the Reset button, a Phase Meter is displayed to the right of the Level Meter.

• When the Spectrum Meter is selected, a “bar diagram”

will be shown, providing a continuous graphical representation of the frequency spectrum.

See “Spectrum meter (60 bands)” on page 65.

Playback and recording

Start recording!

When all the preparations are done, click Record to start the actual recording.

• If you have selected one of the Auto-start options, the recording will go into Pause mode (the Record button will blink), until the specified Auto-start criteria are met.

When recording starts, the Record button will be “lit” and the Recorded Time value will indicate how much you have recorded.

• If you have selected the “Auto-stop after given duration” option, the “Remaining Time” value will indicate how much recording time you have left.

• If you like, you can pause the recording by clicking the Pause button at any time.

The Record button will blink to indicate Pause mode. To resume recording, click the Pause or Record button again. A short section of audio just before you resume recording (according to the Pause memory value in the Record Settings dialog) will be captured.

• You can drop markers in the file during recording by

clicking the Drop Marker buttons.

See below.

• If you want to abort the recording, click the Discard but-

ton.

This terminates recording and discards the recorded file.

• When you have finished, click Stop. You can also have

recording stop automatically by using one of the Autostop options. Either way, the recording by default appears in a new window behind the dialog.

If you want to perform more recordings after the first, click the Record button and record again. If you have selected the Named File option, and the Auto number option is deactivated, you have to specify another file name to avoid overwriting the previously recorded file.

When you have finished recording completely, click the Close button (in the lower right corner) to close the dialog.

Ö If you have created temporary files, and want to save the file(s) permanently, click on each document you have created and use Save As on the File menu to save each one.

See “Saving in another format (Save as…)” on page 51 for details.

About dropping markers during recording

When you are recording, you can click the marker buttons at any time, to add a marker to the recorded file. The yellow button will generate a numbered, generic marker (see

“The various marker types” on page 98), while the white

buttons will generate numbered, generic region start and end markers.

If you want to name the markers you drop rather than using generic, numbered markers, you can do this in the following way:

• Type in the desired name in the box below the buttons.

You can type in a new name for each marker before you drop. This works well if you know beforehand where you want to drop the markers and what their names should be. If you want to be able to drop markers not planned beforehand though, use the dialog that will appear each time you click a button to drop a marker. In this dialog, you can either type in a

name for the marker, or you can confirm that you want to use an already entered name. The benefit of using this method is that the marker will be dropped at the time position when you clicked the marker button, regardless of how long you take to type in a name for the marker.

Furthermore, this dialog also allows you to specify a delay value for the marker. The marker will then be dropped at the position when you clicked the marker button, minus the delay value you specify. So if you clicked the marker button after 10 seconds of recording and specify a delay value of 2 seconds, the marker will be dropped 8 seconds into the recording.

Ö Note: if you insert two or more region start markers in a row (with no region end markers in between), only the last of these start markers will be kept (the first marker(s) will be removed).

In other words, the last region start marker doesn’t become “permanent” until you insert a region end marker. The same goes for region end markers – if you insert several end markers in a row, only the last one will be kept.

This is a very useful function, because it allows you to “change your mind” when inserting markers during recording. For example, let’s say you are recording a continuous performance and want to mark all takes worth keeping. At the start of a take you insert a region start marker. However, this turns out to be a false start or a flawed take. When the next take starts you insert a new region start marker again and the previous, unwanted start marker is removed.

Playback and recording

Metering

Introduction

WaveLab Essential offers very detailed and versatile metering, allowing you to monitor level and spectrum during playback, and also featuring an oscilloscope display. This chapter describes how to display, set up and use the various meters.

Monitor playback

The meters reflect the audio being played back. Note that metering occurs after the Master Section, which means the results of effects, dithering and Master faders are taken into account.

The meters can be used for monitoring all kinds of audio playback: Wave windows, Audio CD Montage, audio CD track lists, audition in file dialogs, etc.

• 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, as described on “Making settings for the

level meter” on page 65.

• 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, 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.

The meters

There are three different meters in WaveLab Essential, each with its separate window. The meters are opened and closed from the Analysis menu.

As with any standard window, you can resize the meter windows by dragging the window borders, and fold the windows by clicking the fold icons (or by double clicking the title bars).

On the following pages, the available meters are described.

Level meter

This meter window shows the peak level and average loudness, in the following way:

Meter presets (see “Selecting meter presets” on page 65)

Reset button

Peak level meters

VU meters

Difference value

Recent minimum Recent maximum

• If you are monitoring audio playback, 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). 1 or 2 clips can be acceptable, but if you get a larger number, you should lower the master level to avoid digital distortion.

Resetting the meters

You can reset the level meters by clicking the Reset icon, or by selecting Reset from the Options pop-up menu. This instantly resets all meters and numerical indicators, including the Maximum Peak and RMS values and the number of signal clips.

The Reset icon

Metering

Making settings for the level meter

You can adjust the behavior, scale and color of the meters as desired. It is also possible to save five sets of meter settings as presets, for instant access. Proceed as follows:

1. Pull down the Options pop-up menu and select “Set-

tings” (or click the “tool” icon).

The Level Meter Settings dialog appears.

2. Adjust the settings as desired.

By using the Apply button, you can check the results of your changes without closing the dialog. The following settings are available:

Setting Description

Global colors Click these buttons to select colors for the meter back-

Global range This is where you specify the low and high end of the

Peak meter – Ballistics

Peak meter – Zones

VU meter – Show

ground, marks (scale units) and grid lines.

displayed level range. Typically, you may want to create a preset showing the full level range, and other presets for detailed view of a smaller range.

These settings determine how fast the peak level meter falls after a peak (Release rate) and for how long the numerical peak indication remains displayed after a peak (Peak hold time).

The color buttons allow you to select colors for the peak level meters’ low, middle and top zones. You can also define what should be considered “middle” and “top” zones, by changing the “Middle zone from” and “Top zone from” values.

Allows you to activate or deactivate the VU meters.

Setting Description

VU meter – Ballistics

VU meter – Color

These settings determine how the VU meter responds: Resolution is the sample width of the “average window” for the VU meter (the number of samples continuously evaluated to calculate the average). The smaller this is, the more the VU meter behaves like the peak meter. Range inertia determines the “average windows” for the recent minimum and maximum value lines, and will therefore affect how quickly these respond to changes in loudness.

The color button allows you to select the color for the VU level meter.

3. If you want to store your settings for later use (or assign them to a preset), select “Save as…” from the popup menu at the bottom of the dialog, and specify a name for the preset in the file dialog that appears.

4. To make the settings instantly available for selection in the Meter window, use the “Assign to preset button” submenu on the pop-up menu.

5. When you are finished, click OK to close the dialog.

Clicking Cancel closes the dialog and discards any changes you have made (even if you have used the Apply button to apply them to the meters).

Selecting meter 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.

Spectrum meter (60 bands)

The Spectrum meter shows a continuous graphical representation of the frequency spectrum, in the shape of a “bar diagram” with 60 frequency bands.

Metering

Oscilloscope

The Oscilloscope is a “microscope” version of the level meter, showing the area around the cursor position at large magnification.

If you are analysing stereo audio, the Oscilloscope will normally show the separate levels of the two channels. However, if you activate the option “Show Mix and Subtraction” on the Options pop-up menu (or click the +/– icon) the upper half of the Oscilloscope will show the mix of the two channels and the lower half will show the subtraction.

Making settings

Selecting “Settings” from the Options pop-up menu (or clicking the “tool” icon) will open the Oscilloscope settings dialog. Here you can adjust the display colors, and choose whether Auto-zoom should be active or not. When Auto-zoom is activated, the display will be optimized so that the highest level reaches the top of the display at all times.

Metering

Off-line processing

Introduction

When we refer to off-line processing, we mean functions that “permanently” alter the file, to make it sound more or less different. This is in opposition to “real-time processing”, which makes the file play back differently, without making any permanent changes to it. Real-time processing is described in the next chapter.

Applying processing

Processing can be applied to a selection or to a whole file. For certain processing operations processing the entire file is necessary. This will be indicated in the respective section.

Ö If “Process whole file if no selection exists” is activated in the Preferences–Wave edit tab, the whole file will automatically be processed if no selection exists.

To apply processing to a selection, proceed as follows:

1. Make a selection.

Note that you will “Select All” to process the entire file. If the file is in stereo, you can apply processing to either channel or both, by selecting one channel or both, see “Selecting in stereo files” on page 41.

2. Select the desired type of processing from the menus.

3. If a dialog appears, fill it out.

If the dialog uses presets, you can load one of them to fill out the settings automatically, see “Presets” on page 30.

4. When you have finished with the settings in the dialog,

click the Apply/Paste/Process button.

The status bar shows the progress of the operation. If you need to interrupt a long process, click the “Stop” button on the status bar or press [Esc].

Getting the most out of the non-modal dialogs

The processing dialogs are non-modal, which means they stay on screen even after the processing has been applied. This, together with the Undo allows you to try different types of processing without ever leaving the dialog (or even stopping playback!):

• When the dialog is still the active window you can use the computer keyboard for the following operations:

Key Command

[F3] Undo

[F4] Redo

[F6] Play selection

[Shift]+[F6] Loop selection

[F7] Stop

[F8] Play

• While the dialog is still open (but inactive) you can select from menus and use other dialogs and palettes (for example the Transport bar).

• You can “fold in” and “fold out” non-modal dialogs, as described in the section ““Folding” windows” on page 24.

Presets

As described in the section “Loading presets” on page

30, you can use presets for most processing dialogs, to

save and recall settings. In addition, the program comes with a number of useful presets for each processing option.

Level Normalizer

Undo/Redo

No matter how long the selection is or how elaborate the processing may be, you have access to unlimited Undo/ Redo for all processing. The only limitation to this is the available hard disk space, as described in the section

“Undo and Redo” on page 22.

Off-line processing

This allows you to change the amplitude (volume) of the selection. The value is always related to the maximum level that can be obtained.

Gain Change

This also allows you to change the amplitude (volume) of the selection, just like the Level Normalizer. The difference here is that the gain change is set in absolute numbers, plus/minus the current level (which is indicated as 0dB).

Clipping

This processor lets you do something that most other functions in WaveLab Essential never do: introduce clipping.

Clipping is when the gain is raised to a point where distortion is added. While this is normally not wanted, mild clipping in for example the attack of a drum sound can add some “punch”.

If you try to raise the level of a wave above 0dB (100%)…

…it will get distorted (the peaks are “clipped”).

Dynamics

This dialog allows you to tailor the dynamics of the audio, to create effects like compression, expansion, limiting and noise gating. Since dynamic processing of audio is a big subject, we will not be able to describe all the possibilities in this short text. Please study the included presets which implement examples of the above-mentioned functions and experiment with the controls to get a feeling for what they do.

The Time Response controls

The settings in this section apply regardless of whether you use the graphic editing possibilities or not. These controls govern how a variation in sound level in the material affects the amount of processing.

The Attack parameter, for example, is related to the beginning of new sounds in the material (for example each new “hit” in a drum recording). Raising the Attack time means that more of the beginning of each sound (the attack) will pass through unprocessed.

We recommend that you try the Auto feature first, and if that doesn’t give the desired result, use the individual controls instead.

Off-line processing

The Normalize controls

These are used to normalize the sound before and/or after processing. Please note the following:

• The effect of all dynamic processing depends on the amplitude (level) of the material to be processed. Therefore, if you process a number of files with slightly different levels (for example using presets or batch processing) the effect of the processing will be different from file to file. To avoid this, activate “Normalize before”.

• On the other hand if you are experimenting with different settings, this means that after activating “Normalize before” you may have to re-adjust the Threshold level. See “Level Normal-

izer” on page 68 for more information on normalizing.

• One reason for setting the “Normalize before” value to less than 0 dB (full level) is if you are expanding, which might introduce clipping if the signal is too strong to start with.

The Dynamics controls

When the Graphic Editing switch is deactivated, the dynamics processor works very much like a simple compressor. Use the Threshold and Ratio settings to set the amount of compression.

About graphic editing

When the Graphic Editing check box is activated, you can specify any input to output function. This allows you to “draw” limiters, noise gates, expanders, etc. and combinations of all these. See the presets for examples.

• The curve shows input level along the horizontal axis and output level along the vertical axis. With a straight line diagonally, each input level is represented by the same output level (the signal is not processed at all).

• If the curve starts at 45° and then tilts downwards from any point, signals above this point will have a lower output level than input level. In other words, a gain (compression) reduction is performed.

Compression

• If the curve is tilted upwards instead, the output level will be higher than the input level, which is referred to as expanding.

Expansion

• If the curve is horizontally flat from some point, the output level will be the same regardless of input level. This is referred to as limiting.

No processing

Limiting

Off-line processing

• If the curve starts out horizontally flat and then rises upwards, signals in the flat area will be eliminated completely. This is called (noise) gating.

Gating

Setting up the curve

• You can drag any breakpoint in the curve to any posi-

tion, using the left mouse button.

• When you move breakpoints closer to the left side or

the bottom of the graph, you will note that the number of positions is more limited. This is due to the nature of digital audio, where, for lower levels, a smaller number of “bits” is used to represent the data.

• You can add a new breakpoint by clicking anywhere on

the curve with the left mouse button.

• You can delete a breakpoint by clicking on it with the

right mouse button.

• The Reset button restores the curve to a straight line

with only one breakpoint.

• The “Add point at level selection” button adds a break-

point at the level indicated by the current level selection (see “Level selections” on page 43 and the example below).

2. Select “Extend to peaks” from the Select submenu on the Edit menu.

The selection height now represents the level of the background noise.

3. Open the Dynamics dialog and set it up for graphic editing.

4. Remove all breakpoints from the graph.

5. Click on the “Add point at level selection” button.

6. Add a second breakpoint, “manually”, to the left of the

one that just appeared.

7. Drag this second breakpoint so that it appears directly below the other one, at the bottom of the graph.

See the noise gate example above.

8. Adjust the Attack, Hold and Release settings as desired.

9. Go back to the Wave window and select the section to be gated.

10. Open the Dynamics window and click the Process button.

11. Listen to the result, and if necessary, Undo, adjust the settings and Process again.

Expert settings

The Dynamics dialog also has a special tab devoted to “expert” settings.

Level envelope

An example of using “Add point at level selection”

The “Add point at level selection” function can be used to create a noise gate with a threshold at a certain level. Let’s say you have a recording of narration, with noise between the phrases that you’d like to remove:

1. Make a regular selection in a section that only contains

background noise.

The longer this selection, the more accurate the result will be.

Off-line processing

This dialog allows you to create a volume envelope which can be applied to a selected range or a whole file.

The dialog consists of a waveform view in the middle, with an envelope curve (initially a straight line) running through it. A vertical ruler displays the level change in dB, and the horizontal ruler displays the time line. You can boost the level up to 6 dB and decrease it down to silence.

Option Description

Flip Horizontal This will flip the current envelope horizontally (in

Smooth envelope This allows you to create spline curves, for

the time axis).

smoother level changes.

Basic operation procedure

By adding points to the envelope curve you can create an envelope curve that will change the volume of the material over time.

1. Double click on the envelope curve to add a point.

A point will be added where you click.

2. If you click on the point it will be selected (red color)

and by click-dragging you can move it in any direction.

The curve changes accordingly in the waveform display.

• When you point the mouse in the display (or move a

point), the current position and level change is shown continuously in the field above the display.

3. You can keep adding as many points as you like to the

curve.

You cannot move a point past a another point in the horizontal direction.

4. You can select several points using [Shift] and move

them together.

By clicking on the envelope curve itself (not on a point) you can move the whole curve up or down.

Envelope functions in the dialog

The functions are selectable in three ways (the same options in all cases):

• From the Functions menu.

• By clicking the icons above the display.

• By right-clicking in the display.

The following options are available in the dialog:

Option Description

Deselect all points This will deselect all selected points.

Delete selected points Deletes all selected points.

Reset selected points Resets all selected points to 0dB.

Reset whole envelope This removes all added points.

Flip Vertical This will flip the current envelope vertically (in the

level axis).

Fade-in and fade-out

A fade-in is a gradual increase in level and a fade-out is of course the opposite. There are two ways of applying fades in WaveLab Essential: by using the Easy Fade function or by using the Fade dialog.

Easy Fades

The Easy Fade function allows you to very quickly apply a fade-in or fade-out to an audio file, without having to make any settings:

1. To create a fade-in, make a selection from the start of the audio file to where you want the fade-in to end.

Similarly, to create a fade-out, you should make a selection from the position where you want the fade to start, to the end of the audio file.

2. Select “Easy Fade” from the Process menu, or press [Ctrl]-[D].

A fade is applied to the selection. The shape of the fade is governed by the Default fade/crossfade setting in the Preferences–Wave edit tab.

Using the Fade dialog

The Fade dialog allows you to specify the desired shape of the fade, and to create fade-ins or fade-outs anywhere in a file:

1. Make a selection that spans from where you want the fade to start to where you want it to end.

2. Select fade-in/out from the Process menu to open the Fade dialog.

Off-line processing

3. Use the Type options to select a fade-in or a fade-out.

4. Set the Offset and Damping parameters.

A graph in the waveform indicates the resulting shape. The Damping value indicates how much the wave will be attenuated at the Offset point. A 6dB Damping with a 50% Offset normally gives the most natural results. See “Crossfade” below for more details.

Crossfade

A crossfade is a gradual fade between two sounds, where one is faded in and the other faded out. This function allows you to do just that. It also lets you create plain mixes of two sounds.

Performing a regular crossfade

The material you want to crossfade can either be in two different sections of the same file, or it can be in two different files.

Since the crossfade is a type of paste operation, you must start by getting the section into which you want to fade (the later part of the fade) onto the clipboard.

1. Select the section into which you want to fade.

2. Select Copy, from the Edit menu.

Now it’s time to move over to the section from which you want to fade, which might very well be in another Wave window:

3. Select the section from which you want to fade-out.

4. Select Crossfade from the Process menu.

The dialog appears and crossfade slope indicators are shown in the current selection.

5. Make sure that “Mix without fading” is not activated in either section.

6. Adjust the Offset and Damping parameters as desired.

The shape of the two curves is indicated in the selection. See below for details.

7. Click the Paste button.

Please note that if both waves already have full level sections in the crossfade area (for example if you have normalized both waves), clipping (and hence distortion) might occur! If this happens, reduce the amplitude of both waves by 3 to 6 dB and try again. Also note however, that if one of the “Inverse of Fade In/Out” boxes is checked, clipping can never occur.

This selection cannot be longer than the selection you just copied, or the program will not be able to perform the crossfade!

The length of this selection will determine the length of the actual crossfade (check the length on the status bar). In a typical case, this selection will be at the end of the wave. See below for details.

Off-line processing

How the fade is done

• As described above, the length of the fade is determined by the size of the selection in the file into which you paste.

• The pasted material has to be longer than the selection you paste “into” (or there won’t be enough material to finish the fade).

• Any “excess” material in the copied selection will appear after the fade (at “full level”). The wave is lengthened as needed.

• Any material that originally appeared after the selection in the file into which you paste, will be moved so that it now appears after the newly pasted material.

About the curves

The design of the fade and crossfade curves is based on psycho-acoustic research material, in order to give as pleasant and harmonic a result as possible.

For each of the two sections – the fade-out and the fadein – you can select an Offset and a Damping value. When you adjust these values, the curves in the wave are adjusted accordingly so that you can see what kind of crossfade you will get.

The Offset factor determines where in the fade section the file will play at its “mid level” (normally half the level, see below).

The Damping parameters adjust the “steepness” of the fade. For example, a -6dB setting for the fade-in will result in a normal fade, where the level is half the original when it reaches the Offset point. Values closer to 0dB will emphasize the beginning of the fade-in wave. Values closer to -18dB will make the fade-in sound drop drastically at the beginning of the fade.

Here, the default -6dB Damping curves with 50% Offsets are selected. This gives you a normal crossfade with the focus on the middle of the fade.

1. Select the entire “restaurant” wave and copy it.

2. Make a selection in the “city” wave, from a point close

to the end.

The length of this selection is equal to the length of the fade.

3. Open the crossfade dialog, set both Offsets to 50%,

both Damping settings to -6dB, deactivate both “Mix without fading” options and click the Paste button.

The “city” wave is now lengthened, so that it starts as it originally did, then fades over to the beginning of the “restaurant” wave and ends like the “restaurant” wave.

Invert Phase

This turns the signal “upside down”, which is the same as inverting the phase by 180°. No settings are needed for the operation.

There is no audible change when you invert the phase of a mono signal. However, if one channel in a stereo pair is out of phase with the other, this will lead to artifacts such as a drop in the bass register and a “blurred” stereo image.

The most common use for this function is therefore to fix a stereo recording where one of the channels has accidentally been recorded out of phase with the other.

In this example, the Offsets have been moved so that the focus of the fade is more to the left. This means the fade-out is faster than the fadein. However, both Damping factors are still set to the standard -6dB.

Mix without fading

If you activate “Mix without fading” for either section, it will play at full level throughout the entire fade.

An example

Let’s say you have two environmental sound effects you want to fade between, “city” and “restaurant”. You want to fade from “city” to “restaurant”. The two sounds are in different windows.

Off-line processing

Reverse

This function reverses the selection, as if playing a tape backwards. No settings are needed.

Eliminate DC Offset

This function removes a problem that most often appears due to mismatches between various types of recording equipment.

This function should be applied to whole files, since the problem is normally present throughout the entire recording.

A DC offset is when there is too large a DC (direct current) component in the signal. If the DC offset is really bad, it can be visible as the signal not being visually centered around the “zero level axis”. However, the DC offset can be significant without actually being seen.

A wave with a serious DC offset

A DC offset is problematic for two reasons:

• It affects where the zero crossings appear, which in turn affects the smoothness of splices between audio files.

• Certain processing options do not give optimal results when performed on files with a DC offset.

Time Stretch

Time stretch is an operation that allows you to change the length of a recording without affecting its pitch. Actually the standard term “time stretch” is a bit misleading since you can of course also make the material shorter.

This function is most often used to make a section of audio fit in with some other material. Therefore this dialog is set up exactly for that. You select the material to be stretched and use the options in the dialog to find a stretch factor (the “Percentage”). This is done by specifying the desired length, or the desired tempo, all according to what the situation requires.

Opening the dialog

When you open the dialog, the following information about the selection is displayed:

Checking for and eliminating DC Offset

1. Select the wave you want to check and fix.

2. Select “Eliminate DC Offset” from the Process menu.

A dialog appears stating the amount of DC offset.

3. Click OK or Cancel.

Waveform Restorer

This lets you remove intermittent clicks and pops in an audio file. First make a selection encompassing the artefact you want to remove, then apply one of the available methods. Usually, you will have to use a high zoom factor to be able to locate and select the undesired element.

The Waveform Restorer lets you select one of several available restoration methods. The selected method is described in the dialog.

The original length in samples.

The original length in seconds.

The calculated original tempo according to the set length and time signature.

Specifying a percentage directly

If you know by how many percent you want to change the length, you can enter this value in the “Percentage” field.

Calculating the percentage by specifying a new length

• If you know the desired length in samples, adjust the Samples value in the “Desired result” section.

• If you know the desired length in minutes, seconds and milliseconds, adjust the corresponding value in the “Desired result” section.

Regardless of which you choose, the other values and the Ratio are updated accordingly.

Off-line processing

Calculating the ratio by specifying a time code range

If you want to fit the selection to a certain range, for example in a video or film sequence, you can specify the start and end of this range as time code values:

Enter the start position here.

Enter the desired end position here.

The other values and the Percentage are updated accordingly.

Calculating the Percentage by specifying a new tempo

If you know you want the selection to play back in a certain tempo, after the stretch, proceed as follows:

1. If you know the current tempo of the selection, type it

in the Tempo field in the Source part of the dialog.

2. If you don’t know the exact current tempo, but the

length of the selection and the time signature, you can specify these instead, in the Bars and signature fields, and the Source tempo will be calculated for you.

Please note for these operations to work properly, the exact specified source tempo or length must be selected. Any deviation from the real values will be transferred to the stretched audio.

3. Type in the desired tempo in the Tempo field in the

“Desired result” section.

Reset

The Reset button resets the Percentage to “100%”.

Additional settings

Setting Description

Quality There are three Quality settings, “Quick Process”,

Preserve pitch When this option is activated, the pitch of the audio

Audio quantize When this option is activated, the length of the re-

Rhythm accuracy This is only available if “Standard” or “High Quality”

“Standard” and “High Quality”. The High Quality mode provides very high quality pitch correction, but the process will take longer. For most uses, the Standard mode is probably sufficient.

material will not be affected when you apply Time stretch. This is the normal mode of operation. If you turn this off, the pitch will change proportionally with the Time stretch ratio, much like when speeding up or slowing down a tape recorder.

sulting file will be exactly the one displayed in the “Desired result” section of the dialog. When it is deactivated, the actual file length may differ by a few milliseconds. If you don’t need this accuracy, you should leave the option deactivated, for a slightly better audio quality.

mode is selected. Set this parameter according to whether the rhythmic feel of the audio material has a high priority or not. If you set this to a high value, the timing and rhythmic feel will be preserved as far as possible, which is important for drum tracks, etc. If you set it to a low value, the audio quality can be slightly better, but sections of audio might be moved slightly (in the milliseconds region) in the process.

Limitations

Time stretch is a very complicated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) operation. It requires complicated mathematical operations and always affects the sound quality to some extent:

• For speech, stretch factors within a ±30% limit will normally provide very good results.

• For composite music, try to limit the range to ±10%.

• For sensitive material, like solo piano, try not to exceed ±3%.

Off-line processing

Pitch Correction

Pitch Correction is a function which allows you to detect, and to change, the pitch of a sound, with or without affecting its length.

Amount of shift

This allows you to specify the amount of pitch change in semitones and/or cents.

Pitch detection

WaveLab Essential can analyze an audio selection and detect the pitch of the audio. Click the “Find current pitch of audio selection” button to perform the detection. The found pitch is displayed below the button.

You also have the option to automatically compute the required pitch shift, based on the currently detected pitch and the pitch specified in the value field below the “According to the current pitch, etc.” button. When the button is clicked the “Amount of Shift” parameters are automatically adjusted to the computed pitch shift.

Length compensation

This allows you to set how the length of the selection should be affected by the operation.

• A setting of 100 means that the length will be the same after the operation.

• A setting of 0 means that the program will behave like a tape recorder does when the speed of its tape is varied. For example, if you raise the pitch by one octave, the sound will become half as long.

• Intermediate values will give results in between these two extremes.

• For large transposition values, the lower this setting is, the better the quality of the effect will be.

Additional settings

Setting Description

Quality There are three Quality settings, “Quick Pro-

Audio Quantize When this option is activated, the processed file

Preserve Formants When this option is activated, changing the

Rhythm Accuracy This is only available if “Standard” or “High

cess”, “Standard” and “High Quality”. The High Quality mode provides very high quality pitch correction, but the process will take longer. For most uses, the Standard mode is probably sufficient.

will have the exact same sample length as the original. When it is deactivated, the resulting file length may differ by a few milliseconds. If you don’t need this length accuracy, you should leave the option deactivated, for a slightly better audio quality.

pitch of vocal material will give a more realistic result. When you are processing non-vocal material, you should leave this option deactivated, since it uses a slightly slower processing algorithm. Warning: this algorithm might increase the signal level. If your audio material has a high level, you may need to lower its level before pitch shifting.

Quality” mode is selected. Set this parameter according to whether the rhythmic feel of the audio material has a high priority or not. If you set this to a high value, the timing and rhythmic feel will be preserved as far as possible, which is important for drum tracks, etc. If you set it to a low value, the audio quality can be slightly better, but sections of audio might be moved slightly (in the milliseconds region) in the process.

Off-line processing

Harmonization

This is a variation of the Pitch Correction, which allows you to create not only one shifted voice, but up to sixteen!

Setting up the voices

1. Set the scroll bar to the voice for which you want to make settings.

Which voice is currently shown is indicated just above the scroll bar.

2. Activate the voice by clicking the check box.

3. Set up the amount of pitch shift for this voice, by ad-

justing the Semitones and Cents values.

The maximum range is ±36 semitones (±3 octaves). The cents value adjusts the pitch within one semitone, that is, 50 means a quarter tone.

4. If you want one of the voices to play back the original wave (at the recorded pitch), activate one voice for this and set both its Semitones and Cents settings to 0.

5. If you are processing a stereo selection or if you have activated “Create stereo wave” (see below), you can adjust the stereo position of the voice by using the Pan control.

If you pull the slider all the way left or right, this voice will be played in that channel only.

6. Use the scroll bar to select the next voice and set this up like the first.

The text to the right of the Pan control tells you how many voices are activated.

Additional controls

Control Description

Preserve level When this is activated, the resulting audio will have the

Create stereo wave

same level as the original, even though a number of voices have been added.

If you are operating from a mono selection you can still create a stereo wave by activating this option. The processed wave will then open in a new window.

Please note that by specifying very small pitch shift amounts (a few cents only) and panning the detuned voices hard left and right, you can create stereo material out of mono recordings without a noticeable change in pitch. Please try to keep a balance in the detuning. If for example you set one voice to +5 cents, set another to -5 cents.

Hi-fi Chorus

This chorus works slightly differently from many others. Often chorusing is achieved by delaying a copy of the signal, continuously varying the amount of delay and mixing the delayed signal back in with the original.

While this is adequate for many purposes, WaveLab Essential takes a more natural approach to creating chorus. Since a chorus effect is about making a recording sound as if it was performed by many “identical musicians”, WaveLab Essential takes just that approach. It multiplies the recording up to 100 times and detunes and delays each “voice” slightly and – if so desired – pans the voices across the stereo image.

Off-line processing

This is a three-band equalizer with high and low shelving filters and a full parametric mid-frequency band. The following parameters are available on the Settings tab:

Parameter Description

High Shelf Gain Determines the boost or cut (in dB) of the high

High Shelf Frequency

Mid Shelf Gain Determines the boost or cut (in dB) of the Mid

Mid Shelf Frequency

Mid Q Use this parameter to set the width of the Mid

Low Shelf Gain Determines the boost or cut (in dB) of the low

Low Shelf Frequency

shelving filter.

Sets the frequency of the high shelving filter. Frequencies above this value will gradually be increased or reduced in level, according to the High Gain setting.

range EQ.

Sets the center frequency of the Mid range EQ. Frequencies around this value will be affected by the Mid Gain.

range, i.e. how wide a frequency range around the Mid Frequency should be affected by the Mid range EQ. The higher this value, the “narrower” the Mid range.

shelving filter.

Sets the frequency of the low shelving filter. Frequencies below this value will gradually be increased or reduced in level, according to the Low Gain setting.

Presets tab

The Presets tab features a list of EQ presets, with self-explanatory names.

• To load a preset, select it in the list and click the “Load”

button.

• If you have modified a preset which you wish to save,

use the “Update” button.

• You can also save your own presets by typing in a name

and clicking the “Add” button.

Convert sample rate

This function allows you to change the sample rate of a recording. This is very convenient if you have a file that you wish to use in a certain audio system and find that the file was recorded at a sample rate this system doesn’t support. Please note that Sample rate conversion can also be done as part of the Saving process (see “Saving in an-

other format (Save as…)” on page 51).

Please note the following:

• Sample rate conversion from a low frequency upwards does not improve sound quality. The high frequencies that were lost due to a low recording frequency cannot be restored by a conversion.

• When you sample rate convert down to a lower frequency, high frequency material will be lost (this is part of the mathematics behind digital audio). Therefore, do not convert down and then up again, since this will lead to a degradation in sound quality (unless that’s exactly what you’re after). Instead, use the Undo and Redo functions.

Performing the sample rate conversion

1. Select Convert sample rate from the Process menu.

This opens the Sample Rate dialog.

Off-line processing

2. Select the desired sample rate from the pop-up menu and click OK.

If you want to change any other audio properties (e.g. the bit resolution or stereo/mono status), you can do this in one of two ways:

• Open the Audio Properties dialog from the Edit menu and make the desired settings (see “Editing audio properties” on

page 55).

• Open the Audio File Format dialog by selecting “Save as” on the File menu and clicking the Properties button in the lower section of the dialog (see “Saving in another format (Save

as…)” on page 51).

Sample rate conversion is always applied to the entire file. Any selection you have made is not used in any way for this operation.

Support for reNOVAtor™

If this audio restoration plugin is installed on your system, you can select it from the Tools menu.

This menu option is enabled if a wave window is open and an audio selection is active (it can be both channels or a single channel).

Selecting “reNOVAtor…” from the menu opens this plugin and the active audio range is edited. The plug-in window is non-modal, hence you can work in WaveLab Essential without closing the plug-in.

Go to http://www.algorithmix.com/en/renovator.htm for more info.

Off-line processing

Master Section

Introduction

The Master Section is the heart of WaveLab Essential’s “Real-time Engine” and the final block in the signal path, before the audio is sent to the audio hardware (or to an audio file on disk). This is where you adjust master levels, add effect processors and dither.

The settings and processors in the Master Section are taken into account in the following cases:

There are four slots for inserting effect processors. Effects can be turned on or off with the On buttons, and reordered by dragging the slots.

Indicates that an effect is activated.

The Effects pane allows you to add and manage effect processors. See “The Effects

pane” on page 85.

Ö When playing back an audio file in a Wave window.

Ö When playing back an Audio CD Montage.

Note that the Master Section effects are global for all clips and tracks in a Montage, as opposed to the individual clip effects.

Ö When using the Render function with any of the above.

The Render function writes the output of the Master Section to a file on disk, allowing you to apply Master Section processing to a Wave or mix down a Montage to an audio file. See “Rendering” on page 91.

About the “Use Master Section” option

If you don’t need the Master Section at all, you can turn it off completely by deactivating the Use Master Section setting on the Options menu. This will save processor power, but makes the following sections of the program unavailable:

• The Master Section window, including processors and dithering.

• The functions of the Monitor window.

• Audio CD Burning from the Audio CD Montage.

The Master Section window

To open the Master Section window, you can either select it from the Specialized Windows submenu on the View menu or press [Ctrl]-[F9].

Indicates that the level faders are active (any setting other than

0.00), or that the Mono button is activated.

Level faders.

The Master Level pane. This is where you adjust the final output level. See “The Master level pane” on page 83.

Activate this for mono output.

Here you can insert a post-master fader effect or other dithering plugins, replacing the internal dithering.

Indicates that dithering is on.

The Dithering pane lets you add dithering when mixing down to a lower bit resolution. See “The Dithering

pane” on page 88.

Options for the internal dithering algorithm.

Click here to render the output to a file.

Ö When you open the Master Section, active effect processor panels will also appear (if they haven’t been hidden).

To close the Master Section, select it from the menu again or press [Ctrl]-[F9].

Master Section

Showing and hiding panes

You can independently hide the three Master Section panes in any combination:

• Clicking on the Hide button for a pane will “fold” it, leav-

ing only the pane title bar visible.

This is useful for saving screen space, if you e.g. don’t need to see the Dithering settings. Note that the green indicator for the pane will still be visible when the pane is hidden, allowing you to see at a glance whether effects, master volume or dithering are used or not.

• To show a hidden pane, click its Hide button again.

• Right-clicking (or [Ctrl]-clicking) a Hide button will hide the other two panes and bring the clicked pane to view (if hidden).

• Double clicking a Hide button will hide or show that pane and the pane(s) below it.

About the signal path

The three panes in the Master Section window correspond to the Master Section’s three “processing blocks”: Effects, Master Level and Dithering. The signal passes through these blocks from top to bottom, as shown in this figure:

Audio from WaveLab

Note that the signal passes

Slot 1

Slot 4

Master Level

Dithering (or post-master effect)

Audio Hardware (or file on disk)

through the effects in series (from top to bottom) – reordering the effect slots affects the signal path.

Master Section meters monitor the signal here.

Meters in the Meter windows monitor the signal here.

The Master level pane

The Faders

The faders in the Master level pane govern the final output level. Use these in conjunction with the level meters (those next to the fader, or even better, the meters in the Level Meter window) and the clip indicators to optimize the level of the signal sent to the audio hardware.

It’s particularly important to avoid clipping (signal levels exceeding the available headroom), especially when mastering. Clipping is indicated by the Master Section’s clip indicators (see below) and by the number of clip indicators in the Level Meter.

To adjust the level, use the following methods:

1. To make coarse adjustments, click a fader handle and drag it.

You can also click directly anywhere along the fader scale to move the fader handle there immediately.

2. For fine adjustments, click on the upper or lower half of the fader handle.

This raises or lowers the level by a small amount.

• To reset a fader to 0.00 dB, press [Ctrl] and click anywhere on the fader.

When both faders are set to 0.00 (and the Mono button isn’t activated), the Master level section will not affect the signal at all. This is indicated by the green indicator for the Master pane going dark.

• You can control the faders using a wheel mouse.

This has to be activated in the Preferences–Environment tab.

The fader settings are shown numerically below each fader.

Master Section

About the Unlink mode

The Unlink button determines whether the faders should be individually adjustable (indicated by a lit Unlink button) or “ganged”. Normally, you will probably want Unlink deactivated, so that moving one fader also moves the other by the same amount. Turning on Unlink allows you to correct improper stereo balancing by adjusting the channels’ levels individually. Note:

Ö If you offset the faders (with Unlink turned on) and then deactivate Unlink again, you can adjust the overall level without changing the level offset between the channels.

In other words, moving one fader will move the other one by the same amount, relative to its current setting. Note that the faders use an exponential scale – this means that when you move one fader, the other does not follow in a linear fashion on the screen. However, the audio result is what you expect.

Ö Fader offsets are not preserved at the end of the range of movement.

The Meters

The Master Section meters show the signal level of the signal before dithering (or any other plug-in you have applied post-master fader – see “Adding other plug-ins to

the Dithering pane” on page 89). Use these to get an

overview of the signal levels.

• The numeric fields above the faders show the peak lev-

els (the highest signal levels reached) for each channel.

They will hold these values until you click on them to reset them.

• The red “LEDs” above the meters are clip indicators,

which will light up whenever the signal clips (exceeds the maximum available headroom).

If this happens, you should lower the faders, reset the clip indicators by clicking on one of them, and play back the section again until no clipping occurs.

For critical level metering, we recommend using the Level Meter (see “The meters” on page 64). Not only is this more detailed, it’s also applied after the whole Master Section (after dithering) and will thus show the actual signal level sent to the audio hardware.

The Mono button

If you activate the Mono button, the two channels will be summed to mono. Furthermore, the output level is automatically reduced by -6dB, to avoid clipping. The Mono button is useful for checking mono compatibility of stereo mixes, etc.

Ö If the Mono button is activated, the green indicator for the Master level pane will be lit, even if the master level isn’t adjusted.

This helps you avoid accidentally leaving the Mono button activated.

The Dropout indicator

This indicator lights up whenever WaveLab Essential fails to properly play back as little as a single sample of the currently selected wave. A dropout is most likely to occur when your computer does not have the processing power to adequately handle all effect processors you have inserted.

To avoid dropouts, try the following:

• Use fewer effects.

You might be running out of processing power.

• Consider “Rendering” the processing rather than running it in real time. Then master from the processed file without any processors plugged in. See “Rendering” on

page 91.

Dropouts never occur when “Rendering” to a file.

• Do not process any files in the background while mastering digitally to a DAT for example. See “Working with

multiple files” on page 92.

• If neither of the above helps, please check the audio card preference settings, you might need to adjust the audio buffer settings.

If a dropout occurs during a real-time mastering process (and if your master needs to be flawless) we recommend that you re-master. Stop playback, click on the dropout indicator to reset it, and try again.

Ö As mentioned above, this indicator lights up as soon as even a single sample is not played back correctly. This type of precision is not often required, but it’s there if you need it.

Master Section

The Effects pane

WaveLab Essential allows you to insert up to four effect plug-ins in series (plus an additional, post-master fader plug-in, normally used for dithering, see “The Dithering

pane” on page 88). Three plug-in formats are supported in

the Master Section:

• WaveLab Essential-specific plug-ins, included with the

program.

• VST plug-ins.

Steinberg’s VST plug-in format is supported by a lot of programs and plug-in manufacturers. You will find a number of VST plug-ins included with WaveLab Essential; other plug-ins can be purchased separately from Steinberg or other manufacturers or in some cases downloaded from the Internet. Note that if you have additional VST plug-ins installed on your computer, these can optionally be available in WaveLab Essential (provided that they are installed in the “Shared VST Plug-ins” folder). Whether the effects in the “Shared VST Plug-ins” folder should be available in WaveLab Essential or not is set in the Preferences–VST tab. You can also specify an extra VST plug-ins folder in the Preferences if you wish, meaning that you can have access to both the effects in the “Shared VST Plug-ins” folder and the effects in some other folder containing VST plug-ins.

• Plug-ins that adhere to the Microsoft DirectX standard.

These are known as DirectX or DX plug-ins and are also widely available.

Selecting effects and managing slots

To select an effect plug-in for a slot, click on the slot (or the numbered button to the right of the slot) and select an effect from the pop-up menu that appears. Note that effects can be organized in groups (see “Organizing plug-in

processors” on page 186), in which case they will appear

in hierarchical submenus.

Selecting an effect from the VST group.

The number of effects available on the menu depends on which plug-ins you have installed. It’s also possible to globally deactivate or exclude effects you don’t need, as described in the section “Activating

and deactivating plug-ins and groups” on page 187.

When you have selected an effect, it is automatically activated (the On button lights up), and its control panel appears as a separate window (see “Making settings – The

Effect control panels” on page 86 for more on effect con-

trol panels).

• You can turn off an effect (without removing it) by clicking its On button.

To activate the effect again, click the On button so that it lights up.

• To hide the control panel for an effect, right-click its On button (or right-click the effect slot and select Hide from the pop-up menu that appears).

A hidden control panel can be shown by right-clicking the On button again (or by selecting Show from the same pop-up). You can also have one effect panel shown and automatically hide all the other panels, by right-clicking the Solo button for the slot.

• Clicking the Solo button for an effect will bypass all other effect slots, allowing you to check the sound of that effect only.

You can also bypass effects manually in their control panels – see below.

Master Section

• You can change the order of the slots (and thus the or-

der in which the signal passes through the effects) by clicking a slot and dragging it to a new position.

When you drag, a dotted outline shows the position of the slot.

• To remove an effect from a slot, right-click the slot and

select Remove from the pop-up menu that appears.

This is the same as selecting “None” from the effect selection pop-up menu.

Making settings – The Effect control panels

The control panel window is where you make settings for an effect. Plug-ins can either have specialized control panels (with any combination of knobs, sliders, buttons and displays) or use standard panels.

Bypass, Mute and Preset

As you can see in the figure above, the three buttons above the actual panel are common to both kinds of control panel windows. They have the following functionality:

• Clicking the Bypass button will temporarily bypass the effect.

Unlike turning off the On button for the slot, the bypass function does not free up any processing power. Note that you can bypass all effects except one by using the Solo button for a slot. It’s also possible to bypass all effects by using the global bypass button in the Effects pane. Also note that bypassing effects is for playback only, and does not affect rendering. To deactivate an effect when rendering, use the On/Off buttons in the Master Section effect pane.

• The Mute button turns off the signal output from the effect.

This means that you will no longer hear your signal because it won’t even reach the next stage (either another slot or the master faders).

• The Preset button allows you to select and edit presets for the effect.

This is described in the section “Working with effect processor presets” on page 87.

Standard panels

A standard panel shows parameter names and values in the display to the left. To make settings, use the slider beside the corresponding parameter.

Custom panels

An effect plug-in can actually have any control panel that the plug-in designer desires. There are several examples of custom panel plug-ins included with WaveLab Essential.

For information about the panels for additional plug-ins, see the documentation for each plug-in.

Master Section

Working with effect processor presets

With WaveLab Essential comes a number of “factory presets” for the included processors, which you can either select and use as is, or use as a starting point for your own settings. Additional plug-in processors may provide their own “factory presets”.

Ö To access the presets for an effect, click the Preset button in its control panel window.

The result and available functions depend on the type of plug-in:

WaveLab Essential specific plug-ins

Applying and saving presets for WaveLab Essential specific processors works exactly as with any other preset, apart from the fact that there are no preset “tabs” or menu items as in dialogs. Instead, clicking the Preset button will open a separate Preset dialog. The options in this dialog are exactly the same as for dialogs with Preset tabs. See

“Presets” on page 30 for more details.

VST-compatible plug-ins

VST plug-ins have their own preset handling. When you click the Preset button for this type of effect, a pop-up menu with the following options appears:

Item Description

Load/Save Bank… This allows you to load and save complete sets of

Load/Save Default Bank

Load/Save Effect Lets you load or save one preset at a time. Also

Edit name of current program…

Preset List This allows you to select one of the currently

presets. The file format is compatible with Cubase.

This allows you to load the default set of presets (as will appear when first loading the plug-in) or save the current set of presets as the default bank.

compatible with Cubase.

This allows you to define a name for the preset, which might be displayed in the panel (depending on the plug-in).

loaded presets.

About the effect plug-ins supplied with WaveLab Essential

Included with WaveLab Essential is a large number of plug-ins for all kinds of purposes, audio compression, chorus, stereo enhancement, reverb, etc. The parameters for each plug-in are described in the “Plug-in Processor Reference” in the online documentation.

Installing additional effect plug-ins

If you have purchased or downloaded additional plug-ins (VST or DirectX), you need to install these to be able to use them in WaveLab Essential. Normally, plug-ins come with an installer application of some kind, along with a manual or installation notes – make sure to follow the instructions in these when installing the plug-in.

About installing DirectX plug-ins

Normally if the DirectX plug-in has been installed properly, it will automatically be “visible” in WaveLab Essential. If it isn’t, you need to “update the Windows registry” so that it is. Proceed as follows:

1. In Windows, locate the actual plug-in file on your hard disk.

These are “dll” (dynamic link library) files, which means they normally have the extension “.dll”. Sometimes other extensions are used as well.

2. Drag and drop the file icon, either onto the WaveLab Essential program icon, or somewhere in the WaveLab Essential application window.

A dialog box will ask you whether you want to register the plug-in or not.

Organizing plug-ins

You can specify which plug-ins should be available in the program and how these should be organized on the menus. See “Organizing plug-in processors” on page 186.

DirectX plug-ins

Here, the same functionality is provided as for WaveLab Essential plug-ins. In addition, you can import “native” presets created for the plug-in.

Master Section

The Dithering pane

The Dithering pane allows you to add dithering to the signal before it’s sent to the audio hardware or to a file on disk. You can choose between WaveLab Essential’s internal dithering algorithm or any external dithering plug-in of your choice. First, some theory:

What is dithering?

Dithering is a method for reducing quantization errors in digital recordings. In the case of WaveLab Essential, dithering is applied when reducing the number of bits in a recording, for example when moving from 24 to 16 bits, and when applying processing.

The theory behind this is that during low level passages, only a few bits are used to represent the signal, which leads to quantization errors and hence distortion. To the ear, this is perceived as “graininess” during low level passages in a recording.

When “truncating bits”, as a result of moving from for example 24- to 16-bit resolution, such quantization noise is added to an otherwise immaculate recording.

By adding a special kind of noise at an extremely low level, the quantization errors are minimized. Indeed, the added noise can be perceived as a very low-level quiescent hiss added to the recording. However, this is hardly noticeable and much preferred to the distortion that otherwise occurs.

Ö The reason for the dithering block to be last in the Master Section is that the output level must not be changed after dithering a signal.

When should I apply dithering?

The basic rule-of-thumb is that you should dither when moving to a lower bit resolution. One obvious instance of this is when converting an audio file to a lower resolution (e.g. preparing a 24-bit file for mastering to CD, which uses 16-bit format).

However, even if you’re playing back or rendering a 16-bit file to the same resolution, you need to dither if you’re using any real-time processing whatsoever in WaveLab Essential! The reason for this is that WaveLab Essential works with an internal resolution of 32-bit (floating point), for supreme audio quality. This means that as soon as you perform any kind of real-time processing, the audio data will be treated at this high resolution instead of the original 16 bits, thus making dithering necessary.

Examples of real-time processing include level adjustments, any effects, mixing of two or more clips in a Montage, etc. In fact, the only time when a 16-bit file will be 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 adjustment – Master level indicator turned off).

Selecting a dithering algorithm

To select and activate a dithering algorithm, click on the arrow button next to the plug-in slot in the Dithering pane, and select one of the options from the pop-up menu that appears. The default option is “Intern” (WaveLab Essential’s internal dithering algorithm). However, you can also add other plug-ins to this list, see “Adding other plug-ins

to the Dithering pane” on page 89.

Once you have selected a dithering algorithm, dithering is active (as indicated by the green indicator for the Dithering pane). It will apply to all playback (through the Master Section) or rendering.

Ö To turn off dithering completely, right click in the slot and select “Remove” from the pop-up menu that appears.

This is the same as selecting “None” from the effect selection pop-up menu.

Master Section

Making settings

When dithering, there are no hard and fast rules for how to set up the parameters – this largely depends on the type of material. We recommend that you experiment and let your ears be the final judge.

Internal dithering

Parameter Description

Noise Type Determines the dithering method used:

Noise Shaping This parameter alters the character of the noise added

Output Bit Resolution

In “Off” mode, no dithering is applied – use this as a Bypass function. The “Type 1” mode is the most “all-round” type of method. The “Type 2” mode emphasizes higher frequencies more than Type 1.

when dithering. Again, there are no hard and fast rules, but you may notice that the higher the number you select here, the more the noise is moved out of the ear’s most sensitive range, the mid-range.

This is where you specify the intended bit resolution for the final audio, after dithering, regardless of whether you will “Render” the settings or play back in real-time. It is very important to set this to the correct resolution! Dithering will change the sample resolution, but not the sample size. E.g. when dithering 24-bit to 16-bit, the file will be still be 32-bit in size, although only 16 bits of information will have significance. Hence, when rendering to a 16-bit file, specify the desired file resolution to avoid wasting space!

To make a plug-in available on the plug-in slot pop-up menu in the Dithering pane, proceed as follows:

1. Pull down the Options menu and select “Organize Master Section plug-ins…”.

A dialog appears, listing all plug-ins installed in your system. See “Orga-

nizing plug-in processors” on page 186.

2. Locate the plug-in in the list.

Note that plug-ins can be placed in groups (folders) in the list – click the plus sign next to a folder to view the contents of a group if needed.

3. Activate the checkbox in the PM column for the plugin.

PM stands for “Post Master fader”.

4. Click OK to close the dialog.

Now, the plug-in will appear on the pop-up menu in the Dithering pane, and can be inserted after the Master Level faders (as with the regular dithering types). You make settings for the plug-in like you would for effects in the Effects pane. Note also that the plug-in will still be available for selection as a regular, pre-master effect.

Master Section presets

Adding other plug-ins to the Dithering pane

If you have purchased another dithering plug-in that you prefer, you can use this instead of the internal dithering. It’s also possible to insert some other type of plug-in in the Dithering pane – it will be applied after the Master level faders (possible useful plug-ins would be maximizers, limiters, etc.).

Please remember that the meters in the Master Section monitor the signal before the Dithering pane! To avoid clipping, check the Level Meter and adjust the output level setting of the plug-in, if available.

Master Section

You can turn all settings currently made in the Master Section into a preset. This includes which processors were used, what settings were made for each one of them, and dithering options.

Creating presets

To create a new preset, proceed as follows:

1. Set up the Master Section as you want it.

This includes selecting Processors, making settings, and setting dithering options.

2. Click the Presets button in the Effects pane.

3. Type in a name for the preset in the upper right corner.

4. If you want the dithering options and Master level set-

tings to be part of the preset, make sure “Save Dither/ Level settings” is activated.

This is the default.

5. Click Add.

Ö The presets are saved automatically when you quit the program. The next time you load the program, the presets are ready and waiting, just as you left them.

Loading a preset

To load a preset, select it in the list to the left, and click on one of the Load buttons, depending on the desired load method:

• The Replace method replaces all settings in the Master

Section with the setting in the preset.

• The Mask method replaces only those slots in the Mas-

ter Section that are actually used in the preset.

• The Append method fills the unused slots in the Master

Section with the settings in the preset.

If there are not enough free slots available to load the entire preset, a warning message will appear.

Modifying a preset

1. Set up the Master Section as desired.

If you only want to adjust a few settings in an existing preset, you may want to load this first, as described above.

2. Go back to the “Master Section Presets” window.

3. Select the preset you want to overwrite with the new

settings.

4. Click the Update button.

• To update settings for the last loaded preset you can

[Ctrl]-click the Presets button.

This will save any changes without having to open the dialog.

Deleting a preset

To delete a preset, select it in the list to the left and click the Delete button.

Using key sequences for presets

If you want to invoke a preset via a key command sequence, you can do this by defining key sequences.

A key sequence contains between one and three keys that must be pressed in a certain order to recall the preset.

Defining key sequences

1. Select the preset for which you want to create a key sequence, and click the key sequence button.

2. If you want to clear the current key sequence, click Clear.

3. Make sure Catch mode is active.

4. Press the first combination of keys that you want to

use.

You can include modifiers ([Shift], [Ctrl], [Alt], etc.) if you like. There is also a setting that makes the program distinguish between two modifiers with the same label, on each side of the space bar.

5. Proceed with the following key(s).

6. Disable Catch mode.

This is just a safety measure so that you don’t accidentally erase or add to your current key sequence, when pressing more keys.

7. Close the dialog.

8. Use the Default Key Action buttons to decide whether

your key sequences will invoke the “Replace”, “Mask” or “Append” load method.

This setting is global to all Key sequences.

Using key sequences

Key sequences can only be invoked when the Master Section Presets dialog is closed. Press the keys in the order they were entered in the dialog, and the preset is loaded.

Saving and loading preset groups

You can save one or more created presets as a preset group for easy access. If you have added presets to the Preset window and want to save them as a group, use the drop-down menu at the bottom of the dialog to enter a name for the group and save it.

Master Section

This function is useful if you are working on several projects, since it makes for a convenient way to keep specific Master Section presets for specific projects well organized and easily accessible.

Rendering

While the Master Section can perform all processing in real time during playback, it’s also possible to save the audio output to a file on disk. This is done with the Render function.

There are several uses for Rendering:

• Mix down a complete Audio CD Montage to an audio

file.

This can be a goal in itself, but can also be necessary if your Montage uses e.g. more effects than the system can handle in real time. By Rendering it to a file first, and creating a CD from this file instead, you can avoid dropouts and CD burning failure.

• Mix down a file in a Wave window to a new audio file,

complete with Master Section effects, dithering and other settings.

You can freely choose the format of the new audio file, allowing you to create an mp3 file and add effects at the same time, for example.

• “Apply” all settings in the Master Section to a file in a

Wave window.

This is the same as the previous option, but the Master Section processing will transparently and permanently be “applied” to the current file instead.

Rendering Audio CD Montages is described in the Audio CD Montage chapter (see “Mixing down – The

Render function” on page 131). This section de-

scribes Rendering waves.

What is rendered?

When you use Render, all Master Section settings (effects, master levels, dithering, etc.) are included in the resulting audio file. In other words, what you hear is what you get.

Ö One thing to note: the Bypass switch affects playback only, while the effect On switches affect both playback and Rendering.

Calling up the Render dialog and filling out the options

Click the Render button to call up the following dialog:

The Render dialog for Wave windows (for information on Rendering Audio CD Montages, see “Mixing down – The Render function” on page

131).

Here is what the options mean:

Range

This is where you specify what part of the wave to render.

Option Description

Selection Process only the portion that is currently selected

Whole file Process the entire file.

Result

Here, you can choose whether the original wave file should be changed (“applying” the Master Section settings) or whether a new audio file should be generated.

Option Description

Process in place Modifies the original file. If you wish to keep the

No tail If this is activated, the resulting file will end where the

Copy markers If this is ticked, the resulting new file will contain all

in the Main view.

changes, you need to save the file again. Note: if you use this for adding effects to a file, you may want to activate the “Activate Global Bypass” option on the Schedule tab (see below).

original did, even if the processing adds material (like for example echoes or reverb tails).

markers present in the original file.

Master Section

Create named file

If this is activated, the resulting new file will be saved (not temporary). The field below the checkbox allows you to specify a name and location for the file, and you can click the audio properties button to set the desired audio format. Clicking the “Rename as source” button will set the file name to the same as the file being processed (but retaining any path you have specified above).

Ö If you click the audio properties button at the bottom of the dialog, you open the Audio File Format dialog in which you can choose the desired format of the file and make settings for the conversion and encoding.

Options on the Schedule tab

• The On Start options determine what WaveLab Essential should do before rendering:

Stop playback Stops playback to free up some processing

Open Monitor window Opens the Monitor window, see “The Monitor

Minimize window The file window is minimized to free up screen

power. This option is not available if playback is already stopped.

window” on page 93.

space.

• The On Completion options determine what should happen after rendering:

Beep WaveLab Essential will beep to signal that the opera-

Show message box

Restore audio window

Activate Global Bypass

tion is completed.

WaveLab Essential will display a message to confirm the operation. Click OK to continue.

Upon completion, WaveLab Essential will restore a minimized window (see above) to its original size.

WaveLab Essential will automatically activate the Bypass switch in the Master Section’s Effects pane (see

“Bypass, Mute and Preset” on page 86) upon comple-

tion. This allows you to play the processed file back after rendering, without hearing the effects “twice” (applied to the file and activated in the Master Section).

• The Priority setting lets you specify how fast the file should be processed.

Relax Background

Background The file is processed in the background but with a lower

Fast Processing is given a high priority. A fairly high-perfor-

The file is processed in the background, but priority is given to audio playback and to your continued work on other files. This makes WaveLab Essential as responsive as possible, but slows down processing.

priority given to your continued work on other files. This makes processing faster but the program less responsive. Try this mode when several files should be processed in the background.

mance computer may be required to avoid dropouts in playback.

Any dropouts that occur as a result of too little processing power left will only affect the played file. Files processed in the background will always be free of dropouts!

Processing the file

Once everything is set up correctly, click OK to initiate the processing. Or, if you change your mind, click Cancel.

Ö Tip: If you just need to process the current audio selection in place, you can press [Ctrl] while clicking on the Render button. This will process the audio selection in place without opening the dialog.

Other settings are kept from the last time you accessed the dialog.

Working with multiple files

Once you have applied settings to one wave, as described below, you can continue with processing the next. The processing of the first wave will continue in the background. This way you can apply processing to as many waves as desired. Please also note that each wave can have its own priority setting, as described below.

If you are rendering to MP3 format, you should only render one file at a time.

Master Section

The Monitor window

This window allows you to monitor the ongoing processes and check how hard your computer’s CPU is working with various tasks.

To open this window, select “Monitor” from the Specialized Windows submenu on the View menu or press [Ctrl][F10].

The window has two displays, selected by clicking the corresponding tab at the bottom of the window.

The Progress display

The Progress display shows a list with the following columns:

Column Description

Name The name of each wave or montage being pro-

Progress How much of the wave has been processed so far.

Remaining time This indicates how much time is required to finish

Priority Boost The priority assigned to this particular processing

cessed.

the processing.

(see “The Priority setting lets you specify how fast

the file should be processed.” on page 92 and be-

low).

Process menu

Even while a wave is being processed, you can change its settings. Position the pointer in the monitor window and press the right mouse button.

The following options are available:

Option Description

Suspend/Resume Suspends processing of the wave. The menu

Suspend/Resume All Halts/starts processing of all waves.

Relax Background, Background, Fast

Cancel Cancels the processing operation for the se-

option changes to Resume so that you can activate processing again. When a process is suspended, more CPU power will be available to the other processes.

Changes the priority status for the wave, see

“Relax Background” on page 92.

lected wave, in which case the message in the Priority Boost column reads Cancelled until WaveLab Essential has performed all the necessary clean up operations.

The Performance display

The Performance display provides an overview of the processing power currently being used.

Master Section

• The yellow lines refer to the power used for providing input to the Master Section, i.e. reading waves from disk. Please note that the values are an approximation.

• The purple lines indicate the processing power that is required for all processors currently running in the Master Section. The shorter the line, the less the load on the CPU. This is a very precise measurement.

• The blue lines reflect the processing power required by the output device.

• There is also a number indicating processor usage in percent.

Customizing the Performance display

You can customize the way the processing information is displayed. If you want to see more of what is going on, resize the window.

Other options are available if you position the cursor anywhere in the black part of the window and press the right mouse button.

The following options are available:

• You can activate/deactivate the Input, Process, and Output information (see above).

• To get an exact (but not as smooth) picture of the processor usage, deactivate Average.

• You can select a Zoom factor for the display (50%~400%).

• You can change the direction of the status information flow (horizontal or vertical).

Master Section

Batch file encoding

Basic procedure

WaveLab Essential can open and play both uncompressed and compressed files in a number of different formats, including WAV, AIFF, MP3, WMA (Windows Media Audio) and OSQ (Original Sound Quality), which is WaveLab Essential’s proprietary lossless audio format.

It’s also possible to convert WAV or AIFF files to another format. While this can be done by opening a file and selecting “Save As” or “Save Special/Encode” on the File menu, you can also convert several files in one go (batch conversion).

Proceed as follows:

1. Select “Batch file encoding…” from the Tools menu.

The “Encode audio files” dialog opens.

2. Click on the green “plus” symbol.

A file selector opens, where you can select the desired audio files (WAV or AIFF). Files must have the same sample rate and number of channels (e.g. stereo/mono).

Click here to add files.

3. In the file type pop-up select one of the available for-

mats (WAV or AIFF) and then – in the file list – select the desired files. If necessary, use the [Ctrl] and/or [Shift] keys to select several files. Confirm your selection by clicking “Open”.

This brings you back to the “Encode audio files” dialog.

4. Select the destination folder for the converted files from the corresponding pop-up menu.

5. Select the desired destination format by clicking the audio properties button at the bottom of the dialog.

This opens the Audio File Format dialog in which you can select the desired format and make settings for it.

6. For some compressed file formats, clicking on the arrow button to the right of the Encoding and Attributes menus calls up dialogs where you can set the encoding parameters and enter text strings.

Note that it is possible to simultaneously batch encode audio files of different formats, given that all the files have the same sample rate and number of channels.

Batch file encoding

Markers

Introduction

About marker pairs

Two of the marker types come in pairs: Loop and Region.

Since you can’t have a region that starts but never ends, a loop end point without a start, etc., special rules exist for creating, deleting and moving these types of markers.

• Loop and region markers only have a functionality when balanced.

You can enter just a start marker, but its purpose will be defeated by the lack of a corresponding end marker. Furthermore, if you delete a start marker, the corresponding end marker will also be deleted.

What are markers for?

Markers allow you to save and name certain positions in a file. You can use these positions later on in various ways:

• Set the wave cursor to a marker.

• Select all audio between two markers.

• Loop the section between two markers, etc.

There is no limit to the amount of markers you can have in a file.

This chapter describes how to use markers in Wave windows. Audio CD Montages have their own markers, see

“Using markers in the Montage” on page 127.

The various marker types

The following marker types are available:

Marker type Description

Generic This is mainly used for locating certain important

Loop start and end

Region start and end

positions and for editing (for example selecting all audio between two positions). Generic markers can be created directly during recording if needed (see “About dropping markers during recording” on page 62).

These are used for defining loop points. This is useful for editing purposes as well as when creating loop sounds (e.g. for samplers).

Use these to define start and end points for generic regions. This is useful for editing purposes and can be created directly during recording if needed (see “About dropping markers during re-

cording” on page 62).

About importing and saving loop markers

There are a few points to be aware of when importing files with loops into WaveLab Essential. This is because the loops can be defined in two places: Wave and AIFF file formats have the ability to contain loop points, and WaveLab Essential stores loop points as markers separately for each file, in “.MRK” files. So, there’s a potential risk for conflict:

• When you import a file that has never been used in WaveLab Essential before, and which contains loops, the loops are “imported” and displayed as loop markers (in addition, the sample note and detune information described in the section “Editing

sample attributes” on page 170 is imported, if present).

• 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 Essential).

• When you open a file that has been used in WaveLab Essential before, loop indications that were originally in the file, before you used it in WaveLab Essential, are ignored. Only the loop information in the “.MRK” file is used.

Markers

The Marker toolbar

This is a special control bar for markers. It can be brought up from the Control Bars submenu on the View menu.

4. Fill out the other options in the dialog and click OK.

Open marker list

Add new marker

Drop Generic marker

Go to previous marker

Add region markers

Add loop markers

Go to next marker

Creating markers

Dropping markers on the fly

To add a marker on the fly, proceed as follows:

1. Play back the file.

2. When the cursor reaches the position where you want

a marker, do one of the following:

• Press [Insert].

• Click the Drop marker button on the Marker toolbar.

• Select Drop Marker from the time ruler speed menu.

You can give the marker a proper name later.

Ö The markers dropped this way are generic.

Creating a marker from “stop mode”

1. Set the wave cursor to where you want the marker to appear.

2. Do one of the following:

• Click on the New Marker button on the Marker toolbar.

• Click with the right mouse button on the time ruler and

select New Marker from the menu that appears.

• Press [Ctrl]+[Insert] as a shortcut for the “New Marker” operation described above.

3. Select a marker type.

The new marker appears at the wave cursor position.

Dropping markers while recording

You can drop markers during a recording. For example, if you are auditioning some material while transferring it from DAT tape to WaveLab Essential, you can add markers at important positions, as they are coming up. The marker types you can add are: Generic, Region start and Region end. See “About dropping markers during recording” on

page 62.

Creating marker pairs from the Marker toolbar

To create a loop or a generic region, you can use the Marker toolbar:

1. Make a selection that spans the area you want to en-

close by a marker pair.

2. Click on the corresponding marker pair symbol on the

Marker toolbar.

Markers are added at the start and end of the selection.

About the marker list

There is a marker list window that displays all markers in a wave. This can be used for various purposes, for editing, deleting and locating to markers, as described in the following sections.

Markers

Opening the list

To open the marker list, either select “Specialized Windows”/”Wave Marker List” from the View menu, or click the corresponding button on the Marker toolbar.

The marker list

• To sort the list alphabetically, click on the “Name” heading.

• To sort the list according to position, click the “Position” heading.

This is the default when you first open the window.

Marker appearance and visibility

Hiding marker heads

To hide/display the marker triangles from the ruler, click with the right mouse button in the ruler and select Hide/ Show Marker Heads.

Hiding all markers of a certain type

There’s a special dialog for hiding markers of certain types. To open it:

• Click with the right mouse button on the time ruler and

select Visibility, or…

• Open the marker list, click with the right mouse button

on a marker and select Visibility.

In this dialog you can show/hide markers of any type.

Editing, converting and naming markers

The Edit Marker window can be used to change existing marker’s properties. There are several ways to open this window with settings for a certain marker:

• Right click on the marker in the time ruler and choose “Edit Marker” from the menu that appears.

• Hold down [Alt] and double click on the marker.

• Open the marker list, select a marker and click with the right mouse button on a marker and select Edit or press [Return].

Changing the appearance of marker lines

To hide the marker lines in the waveform, click with the right mouse button in the waveform and select Elements. From the menu that appears, set things up so that neither Solid markers, nor Dotted markers are activated.

To transform a marker into any other type, select that type in the list to the left.

100

Markers

STEINBERG WaveLab Essential 6 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome!

Key command conventions

How you can reach us

Requirements

This is what you need…

Computer requirements

About audio cards

About the System Information feature

Installing and setting up

Setting up the computer

Installation procedure

Register your software!

Program settings

Installing a CD/DVD recorder

About the Tracer application

Installation done! Where do I go next?

Overview

Get to know WaveLab Essential

The windows and what you can do with them

Find your way around in WaveLab Essential

Basic methods

Why you should read this chapter

Getting help

Undo and Redo

Working with windows

Dockable control bars

Speed menus

The status bar

Units of time and level

Setting values

Presets

About non-modal dialogs

Using the computer keyboard

Editing in the Wave window

About this chapter

Opening Waves

Creating new empty documents

Window overview and adjustments

Setting the zoom factor

Navigating through the file

Snapshots

Setting the ruler start position

Working with a meter based display

Setting the wave cursor position

Selecting

Basic editing commands

File handling in Wave windows

Editing audio properties and file attributes

Playback and recording

Playing back

Recording

Metering

Introduction

The meters

Off-line processing

Introduction

Applying processing

Level Normalizer

Gain Change

Dynamics

Level envelope

Fade-in and fade-out

Crossfade

Invert Phase

Reverse

Eliminate DC Offset

Time Stretch

Waveform Restorer

Pitch Correction

Harmonization

Hi-fi Chorus

Convert sample rate

Support for reNOVAtor™

Master Section