Steinberg WAVELAB LITE 2.5 Operation Manual

Operation Manual

Operation manual for version 2 by Dimi Popow

Edited for version 2.5 by C. Bachmann, H. Bischoff, S. Pfeifer, C. Schomburg

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies AG. 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 AG.

All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

7	Introduction	31	The Wave window –
			Basic operations
8	Welcome!
8	WaveLab Lite features	32	Opening Waves
9	Background	33	Setting the zoom factor
		37	Navigating through the file
	information
		37	Setting the ruler start
10	Why you should read this		position
	chapter	37	Working with a meter based
10	Program settings		display
11	Multitasking	38	Setting the wave cursor
12	Audio – Quality, formats and		position
	sound card limitations	39	Selecting
13	Available disk space	43	Basic editing commands
13	About the Undo function	51	Playback and
14	Automatically created files
			Recording
15	Basic methods

		52	Playing back

16	Why you should read this	55	Recording
	chapter	61	Document and file
16	Getting help
17	Working with windows		handling
20	Control bars
		62	About file formats
22	The status bar
		62	Creating new empty
22	Speed menus
			documents
23	Units of time and level
		62	Opening Waves
24	Setting values
		64	Importing Audio CD tracks
27	Presets
		67	The Import Audio CD
29	About non-modal dialogs
			Tracks dialog functions
30	Using the computer
		68	Saving
	keyboard
		71	Editing properties and

			showing info
		72	Revert to saved

WaveLab Lite

4 Table of Contents

73	Off-line processing		111	Customizing
74	Introduction	112		What is Customizing?
74	Applying processing	112		Preferences
75	Normalize	113		Saving the window layout
76	Change gain	114		Styling Wave windows
77	Invert phase		117	Index
77	Eliminate DC offset		117	Index

78Fade In/Out

79Crossfade

81Dynamics

84Reverse

85Harmonization

86Hi-fi Chorus

87EQ

88Convert sample rate

883D Frequency analysis

91The Master Section

92Introduction

93The Master Section window

94The signal path

95The Master level pane

98 The Effects pane

102 Rendering

106 The Monitor window

WaveLab Lite

Table of Contents 5

WaveLab Lite

6 Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome!

Congratulations on your choice of WaveLab Lite! Digital audio editing

– an area previously reserved for professionals – has now been opened up to anyone involved in music or multimedia! WaveLab Lite makes audio editing even easier, by combining a very quick and user friendly interface with many professional features. We hope you will enjoy working with WaveLab Lite!

Your Steinberg Team.

WaveLab Lite features

WaveLab Lite contains many of the features that can also be found in its professional “big brother” WaveLab. Using WaveLab Lite, you can:

•Record audio.

•Edit audio.

•Import tracks from Audio CDs.

•Save audio in the formats Wave and AIFF.

•Use Plug-in effects in real-time during playback or while saving.

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1 – 8 Introduction

Background information

Why you should read this chapter

In this chapter you will get general information about how WaveLab Lite integrates with your computer system. Read this chapter to get a better understanding of how to make the most of your system.

Program settings

Before you start working with the program you should make the following settings.

Audio card settings

You need to “inform” WaveLab Lite of the audio card you intend to use:

1.Select “Preferences” from the Options menu.

2.Click on the “Audio Card” 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 possibly 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 therefore not recommended.

4.Choose your “Preferred Playback Resolution”.

Normally this will be 16 bits.

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Temporary files

You also need to specify where WaveLab Lite should store temporary files. Temporary files are used for certain operations, such as WaveLab Lite’s extensive Undo function (see page 13).

1. In Windows, create a separate folder in which to store your »temp« files.

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

2.In the Preferences dialog, click the File tab.

3.Either type in the path to the directory or click the Browse button to locate and select the folder.

Save the Preferences

To make permanent the settings you just made, proceed as follows:

1.Click on the General tab in the Preferences dialog.

2.Activate the “Save preferences on exit” option.

3.Close the Preferences dialog.

Multitasking

WaveLab Lite is a truly multitasking program, i.e. different processes can occur simultaneously. Below follow some examples:

•Adjusting of start and end points for the wave during playback.

•Processing a wave while it is being played back, even in Loop mode.

As soon as the processing is finished, you will hear the altered wave instead of the original.

•Apply processing from the Master Section to one or more files, while other files are being played back.

•Cut, copy and paste into a wave while it is being played.

•Undo and Redo (see page 13) during playback.

Together with Loop mode this allows you to try out the effect of some processing.

•Play, stop, undo and redo even if the active window is a dialog box.

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Background information 2 – 11

Audio – Quality, formats and sound card limitations

Audio quality

The recording and playback audio quality in WaveLab Lite is determined by the quality of your sound card, not by WaveLab Lite. WaveLab Lite always works with 32 bit internal processing to ensure pristine audio quality during all editing processes.

The sampling frequency and bit resolution settings greatly affect the audio quality of the resulting files.

Bit resolution

A file can be recorded in the formats 8, 16, 20 or 24 bit and 24 bit alt. Higher bit resolutions lead to bigger files and require more disk space. If you run into problems you may want to lower the settings for the recording formats. The following table lists the most frequent bit resolutions:

Bit resolution	Description
8 bit	Used for audio in many games and multimedia applications.
16 bit	The most common format, used in CDs and DATs.
24 bit alt.	If the Audio Properties window is opened from within the Record dia-
	log, the last Bit Resolution option is named “24-bit Alt”. This is an alter-
	nate way of transmitting 24-bit audio, used by a lot of audio hardware
	(and often the recommended choice). For more information see the
	documentation for your audio hardware.

Sample rate

You can choose a sample rate between 11 and 96kHz. The higher the sample rate, the better the audio quality. The most common sample rate is 44.1kHz. It is used by CDs, some DAT recorders and professional audio devices and is supported by most audio cards. 22kHz is used for audio in many computer games and multimedia applications.

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Available disk space

The available disk space for recording and Undo is limited by the size of the disk where you store your temporary files.

•To find out how much disk space you have available on each of your drives, select “Free disk space…” from the Help menu.

About the Undo function

WaveLab Lite has an extensive Undo function which makes to undo as many steps back as you like:

•Open the Edit menu. The first menu item shows what you can undo.

The Redo function below allows you to undo the undo function. Experiment with the Undo and Redo function to get a feeling for what they do.

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Background information 2 – 13

Automatically created files

WaveLab Lite creates two types of files automatically.

Temporary files

These have the extension “$$$” and are stored in the temporary files folder you have specified. These files are automatically deleted when you quit WaveLab Lite. If you find any such files when you are not running WaveLab Lite, you can delete them. In case you experience a computer crash, you may restore some of your work by opening any stray “$$$” files on your hard disk(s).

Waveform overview files

When you open or record larger files, a file for speeding up waveform drawing is created (see page 32 for more on opening files). This file has the same name as the wave file, but with the extension “GPK”. It is stored in the same folder as the wave and is not automatically deleted, since it is used each time you open the wave file. You can delete “GPK” files, but they will be created anew next time you open the wave file.

Keeping waveform overview files up to date

Normally, WaveLab Lite can detect whether a file has been edited in another program since you last opened it in WaveLab Lite (it does this by checking the date of the file). It will then automatically update the waveform overview (GPK) file.

However, it is theoretically possible that the date has not been updated correctly by the other program and the overview file will then be “out of sync” with the real audio file. If this happens, close the audio file, delete the “GPK” file and open the audio file again. A new overview file will be created.

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Basic methods

Why you should read this chapter

This chapter describes the basic methods when working with WaveLab Lite.

Getting help

There are several ways to invoke the help system:

•By selecting “Help Topics” from the Help menu.

This takes you to the Help system’s “Table Of Contents”. From there you can move to the Index and Find Tabs.

•By clicking on a Help button in a dialog or pressing [F1].

This gives you context-sensitive help about that dialog.

•By clicking with the right mouse button on an item in a dialog.

This option is not available for all elements.

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3 – 16 Basic methods

Working with windows

Basic window handling

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

Quick switching

•You can switch between the two last active windows by pressing [F2] repeatedly. This allows you to quickly move back and forth between two windows.

•To “cycle” between all the open windows, press [Ctrl]+[Tab].

Panes

The wave window is divided into two panes: the overview and the main view. These are separated by the divider. In the main view you can select wave sections, use the tools, drag and drop etc. The overview is used to navigate through the files.

Divider

Panes

The panes and divider in a wave window.

•If you want to adjust the size of the panes, drag the divider upwards/downwards with the mouse.

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Basic methods 3 – 17

•If you want to hide a pane, drag the border between the two panes all the way up or double click anywhere on it.

•To show the pane again, drag the miniature divider symbol down or doubleclick on it.

The miniature divider symbol

•If you want to hide/show the overview pane in the wave window, press [O] on the computer keyboard.

•If a window takes up too much screen space, you can “fold it in” to temporarily by clicking the fold-in icon on the title bar.

The fold-in icon

•To return to normal size, just click the icon again.

•If you want to open a copy of the opened wave file, drag the drag icon on an empty area.

The drag icon

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Working with multiple windows

Working with multiple windows allows you to work e.g. on the start and the end of a wave file, without scrolling back and forth.

Creating a second window using menus

1.Activate the desired window.

2.Select Duplicate view from the View menu.

Creating a Second window by dragging

1.Activate “Create window using mouse” on the Display tab of the Preferences dialog.

2.Click and drag a rectangle in an empty area of the WaveLab Lite desktop.

If you do not get a new window, try again with a bigger rectangle.

Dragging a box like this, to get a new window for the same file.

The two windows are actually views of exactly the same data, i.e. any change you make in one window is immediately apparent in the other.

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Basic methods 3 – 19

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 Toolbox

•The Transport bar

Docking a control bar

Use one of the following methods to dock a control bar:

•Drag the control bar (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 on the title bar of a control bar window.

It will return to its last docked position.

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

•You can display a control bar as a separate window by dragging it out from the docked position or by double-clicking its handle.

Control bar windows are moved by dragging the title bar. If you want to drag a control bar to the rim of the application window, without docking it, hold down [Ctrl] when dragging.

Showing/Hiding a control bar

•Pull down the View menu, select Control bars, and from the menu that appears, select the desired option.

•You can of course hide a control bar by clicking its close box.

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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.

The various control bars

The Standard commands

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

The Tool box

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

The Transport bar

The Transport bar is used for various playback commands, as described on page 53.

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Basic methods 3 – 21

The status bar

Wave cursor position	Wave details
Wave selection length	Zoom factor

The status bar is normally displayed at the bottom of the screen and contains information about the active window, e.g. about the file. You can also click on some fields to perform an operation related to that field. The status bar also indicates the progress of operations that take some time to finish.

Speed menus

Many sections have speed menus associated with them.

•To bring up a speed menu, click with the right mouse button in the desired area.

In the Wave windows e.g. there is one speed menu for the level ruler, one for each time ruler and one for each waveform display.

The main view “speed menu”.

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The Speed menus double up for 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!

Units of time and level

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 speed menu that appears.

Time formats

Menu name	Description
Time	Positions are shown as hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds. At
	large magnification factors, hundredths of milliseconds are shown.
Samples	Positions are shown as number of samples. How many 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.
Time Code	Also called SMPTE. Positions are shown in the format:
	“hours:minutes:seconds:frames”.
	The number of frames per second is set in the Preferences dialog on
	the “Tempo/Time code” tab.
Meter	Positions are shown as bars, beats and ticks, as specified in the Prefer-
	ences dialog on the “Tempo/Time code” tab.
File size	Positions are shown in file size units, MegaBytes, where the decimals
	represent kiloBytes.

WaveLab Lite Basic methods 3 – 23

Level formats

Menu name Description

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

dB	Amplitude is shown in decibels, a logarithmic scale used in audio engi-
	neering.
Decimal	This is the actual value of the amplitude as stored in computer memory
	(always displayed as 16 bits). The range is from negative to positive
	with “0” representing “no signal”.

Setting values

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

All values can be set using the spin controls – two arrows pointing up/ down.

The spin controls.

•Clicking either arrow raises/lowers the value.

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

•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.

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Using sliders and pop-ups

Many times, the most convenient way of changing a value is using WaveLab Lite’s proprietary sliders and pop-ups:

1.Click with the right mouse button on the spin control.

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.

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” (e.g. 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 effect panels which resemble the appearance of physical effect processors. In these panels, values are adjusted using special methods described on page 98.

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Basic methods 3 – 25

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 WaveLab Lite:

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 also hold down [Ctrl], the value changes in bigger steps and if you hold down [Ctrl] and [Shift] it jumps to the bottom/top values.

Master Section

•When working in the Master Section window, the wheel can be used to adjust the master volume. If you hold down [Shift] the value changes in steps of 6dB (rather than 1dB).

•If you hold down [Alt] you can change the Master Section volume, regardless of which window is active. This can be combined with [Shift] as described above.

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Presets

Many dialogs in WaveLab Lite have presets. If you think of the dialogs as forms, presets allow those forms to be filled out automatically. WaveLab Lite comes with a selection of presets for each dialog, but the real power of presets becomes evident when you start creating your own!

A number of presets in the Harmonization dialog.

Loading presets

1.Open the dialog you wish to use and click on its Presets tab.

2.Select the preset you want to use and click the Load button (or doubleclick on the preset).

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

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Basic methods 3 – 27

Creating a preset

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

2.Click on the Presets tab.

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

4.Click the Add button.

Modifying a preset

1.Select and load the preset as described above.

2.Click the other tab(s) and modify the settings.

3.Click the Preset tab.

4.Select the preset you want to overwrite with the new settings.

If this is the same preset as the original, you can skip this step, since that preset is already selected.

5.Click the Update button.

Deleting a preset

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

2.Click the Delete button.

How presets are saved

The presets are automatically saved when you quit the program. 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.

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About non-modal dialogs

Many of the dialog boxes in WaveLab Lite are “non-modal”, i.e. the window behind the dialog can be operated even though the dialog box is still up on the screen. This allows you to e.g. 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

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Basic methods 3 – 29

Using the computer keyboard

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

Transport Controls

The Transport functions (Play, Stop, Record, etc.) can all be managed from the computer keyboard. The keyboard commands for these functions are located on the numeric key pad, to the right of the computer keyboard. See page 53.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts for menus

Many functions in WaveLab Lite have a computer keyboard equivalent, an “accelerator”, listed on the menu. Some abbreviations might need an explanation:

Abbreviation	Explanation
KP	The numeric key pad. “KP 2” for example means the “2” key on the
	numeric key pad.
BkSp	The Backspace key.
F1 to F12	The Function keys.

Additional shortcuts

In addition to the above, there are keyboard commands that are not listed on the menus or in this manual. Check the online help for a full list.

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