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.

© Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 2007.

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

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™

4

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

5

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

6

Table of Contents

1

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

8

2

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!

10

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.

11

Requirements

3

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:

13

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-

14

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.

15

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

16

4

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.

18

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.

19

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

20

5

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.

22

!

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.

23

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

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.

24

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.

25

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.

26

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!

27

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.

28

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.

29

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

menu

#5).

–

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

corresponding number from the Restore submenu.

30