Operation Manual
Operation Manual by Anders Nordmark Quality Control: Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Sabine Pfeifer, Claudia 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 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.
Table of Contents
11 Introduction 12 12 14 Welcome! What’s new in WaveLab 6.
175 Off-line processing 255 Spectrum Editor 176 176 178 178 180 183 184 189 191 192 195 195 195 196 196 201 204 205 207 208 209 210 211 215 256 256 260 262 269 Introduction Applying processing Level Normalizer Gain Change Loudness Normalizer Pan Normalizer Dynamics Level envelope Fade-in and fade-out Crossfade Invert Phase Reverse Eliminate DC Offset Waveform Restorer Time Stretch Pitch Correction Pitch Quantize Pitch Bend Harmonization Hi-fi Chorus EQ Convert sample rate Effect Morphing Support for reN
334 336 337 338 Editing, converting and naming markers Moving and duplicating markers Deleting markers Operations involving markers 341 Using Auto Split 342 342 Introduction The Auto Split dialog 347 Preparing a Basic Audio CD 348 349 350 353 353 354 355 356 357 358 360 360 360 361 361 362 363 364 Creating, opening and saving Basic Audio CDs About the Basic Audio CD window Adding files to a Basic Audio CD Setting the order of the tracks on the CD Deleting files from Basic Audio CDs Managing list column
546 547 549 Using DVD-A picture and text tracks Exporting and importing AES-31 files XML Export/Import of Audio Montages 551 DVD-Audio projects 552 553 554 556 558 566 568 Creating and opening a DVD-Audio project Adding Montages to a DVD-Audio project The DVD-Audio project window The Main settings dialog Generating DVD menus DVD-Audio text Final preparations 571 Burning an audio CD 572 572 573 574 576 577 Introduction Selecting a CD-R unit Testing a basic audio CD before burning Writing a CD Validating
664 664 665 665 666 667 669 671 679 Receiving samples Deleting and getting information about samples The Transmit Back feature In case of problems Using WaveLab with Steinberg HALion Editing sample attributes Basic looping Using the Crossfade Looper Using the Loop Tone Equalizer 683 Audio Databases 684 685 685 686 687 693 693 694 694 694 695 699 702 703 704 705 What is an Audio Database and why do I need it? Creating and opening Audio Databases How Audio Databases are saved Window overview and adjustment
791 Sampler Details 809 Key commands 792 810 810 811 811 812 813 815 817 817 818 818 792 793 793 794 794 795 795 796 SDS - Generic Sample Dump Standard SMDI (Standard SCSI transfer) Akai S1000/1100 including PB models Akai S2000/S2800/S3000/ S3200, including all “i”, CD, and “XL” derivatives etc.
WAVELAB 10 Table of Contents
1 Introduction
Welcome! Congratulations on your choice of WaveLab! Ever since its early versions WaveLab has enjoyed a high reputation among professional and semiprofessional users. WaveLab is the audio editor of choice, not only in topof-the-line mastering and restoration facilities, but also for any serious engineer or musician.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • External gear plug-in allows you to process audio via external equipment. New Audio input plug-in replaces the Live input feature, with the option to record the incoming signal. Option to save an audio selection as an Audio Montage clip. Redesigned graphic user interface in all menus and dialogs. Auto Split enhancements includes Split to specific file length and Split according to a text file (XML support). Clip files can be created when using Auto Split.
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.
2 Requirements
This is what you need… To use WaveLab you need the following: • A PC with Windows XP or 2000 installed and ready. A free USB port 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 audio cards” on page 18.
RAM Since WaveLab 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. Processing power The difference between running WaveLab 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.
Sampler requirements To communicate with samplers, you need the following: • • • A MIDI interface, or… A SCSI card, or… Both a MIDI interface and a SCSI card. Exactly which of the three is most appropriate depends on the capabilities of your sampler and how you intend to communicate with it. See “About the various communication methods” on page 658. SCSI card considerations WaveLab works with SCSI cards that are 100% Windows compatible.
About the System Information feature After having installed and launched WaveLab, 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.
WAVELAB 2 – 20 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 16 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.
Installation procedure The Steinberg Key Please read the following section before installing the WaveLab software. Included with the WaveLab package, you will find the Steinberg Key (sometimes referred to as a “dongle”), a hardware copy protection device that is part of the WaveLab copy protection scheme. WaveLab will not run if there is no Steinberg Key. The Steinberg Key The Steinberg Key is, in fact, a little computer on which your Steinberg software licenses are stored.
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.
Launching WaveLab 1. Make sure the Steinberg Key is plugged into the USB port. 2. Launch WaveLab. WaveLab starts. • The Steinberg Key has to be plugged in at all times when running WaveLab. Program settings Before you start working, you should make some settings: Audio card settings You need to specify which audio card and driver you intend to use. WaveLab can communicate with the audio card via any of the standard protocols; ASIO, MME or WDM.
• 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.
• Use system cache. When this is deactivated (default), WaveLab 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.
Temporary files You also need to specify where WaveLab should store its temporary files. Temporary files are used for certain operations, such as WaveLab’s extensive Undo function (see “Undo and Redo” on page 47). WaveLab allows you to specify up to three different folders for storing temporary files. If you have access to more than one drive, saving your temp files on separate drives (not partitions) can considerably speed up performance.
Peak and view memories A peak file is a small file with the extension “.gpk” automatically created by WaveLab each time a file is modified or opened in WaveLab (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.
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, please just check the following points: • Make sure to have the latest firmware version installed in your recorder unit.
Installing samplers Installing MIDI and SCSI interfaces If your sampler communicates with WaveLab via MIDI, you need to install a MIDI interface. If it communicates via SCSI you need a SCSI card. For some samplers you will need both. For all general instructions on installing MIDI interfaces and SCSI cards, please refer to the instructions that came with the units.
• • • • If you set up with too many terminators, or a terminator missing, data transmission most probably won’t work properly. In the worst case, one of your SCSI devices may be physically damaged. The computer should always be at one end of the SCSI chain of devices. Always turn on the computer last, after all other devices have been started up. Always switch on all devices. If some device is not turned on, you may lose data. Booting up 1. Make sure you have the latest operating system for your sampler.
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. • Examine your WaveLab 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 online documentation.
WAVELAB 3 – 34 Installing and setting up
4 Overview
Get to know WaveLab Welcome to WaveLab! 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 offers. The windows and what you can do with them Working with WaveLab, you will encounter a number of different windows that let you do different things.
The Audio Montage window This is an Audio Montage window. An Audio Montage lets you compile and edit multiple clips (references to audio files on disk) on one or several 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 12 tabs at the very top of the window is selected. These tabs give you access to various functions.
The Basic Audio CD window If you just want to create an audio CD, with each CD track corresponding to a single, whole audio file on disk, you may not need all the editing features in the Audio Montage. Instead, you can use the Basic Audio CD window. This is an environment that quickly and easily lets you compile audio files in a track list and burn them onto a music CD. You can freely change the order of the tracks, the length of the pauses between them and more.
The Data CD/DVD Project 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), as well as DVD-Audio discs that contain audio, data and video. The window is divided into two panes; the upper is called the source window, and the lower is the destination window.
The CD/DVD Label Editor 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 603. The Backup Plan window WaveLab lets you back up all kinds of files and folders onto CD or standard media.
The Audio Database window An Audio Database is a convenient way of storing and organizing audio files in libraries and categories, making it easy to locate and access specific files. What is stored is not the audio files themselves, but instructions on where the files are located. Thus, the files can be located on any storage media connected to your computer. You can read more about this in the chapter “Audio Databases” on page 683.
The Master Section This is a very important part of WaveLab, 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 output level from every WaveLab channel. Adding dithering. For details, see “Master Section” on page 217.
Find your way around in WaveLab 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 69. • Compile and edit several audio files on multiple tracks? Create an Audio Montage. See “The Audio Montage” on page 371.
CD/DVD creation Where do I go if I want to… • Create an audio CD that can be played back in a regular CD player? You can either create a Basic Audio CD (see “Preparing a Basic Audio CD” on page 347) or an Audio Montage (see “The Audio Montage” on page 371). As the name implies, the Basic Audio CD allows for quick and easy CD creation, while the Audio Montage lets you perform advanced, clip-based editing.
5 Basic methods
Why you should read this chapter This chapter describes general methods that you will use when working with WaveLab. Getting accustomed with these procedures will allow you to work more effectively with the program. Getting help WaveLab comes with a detailed help system, making it easy to look up procedures and descriptions from within the program. There are several ways to access the help system: • By selecting “Operation Manual” from the Help menu.
Undo and Redo WaveLab has an extremely extensive Undo function, applicable when working in Wave windows, Audio 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.
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.
Working with windows Basic window handling WaveLab 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.
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. • 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.
The dialog contains the following items: Item Description Filter pop-up This pop-up (in the top right corner) allows you to only show files of a certain type by selecting an item from the menu. Visible/Hidden files checkboxes You can select to show visible files and/or hidden files (i.e. files that are open internally in WaveLab but not open in a separate window, e.g. an audio file referenced by an open Montage). Hidden files are shown with grey text.
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.
To return to normal size, just click again. The normal Time Stretch dialog… …and when “folded in”. The Document icon The Document icon WaveLab adds another symbol to some document windows, the Document icon. This is used to drag the whole document to various other windows, such as Databases, Audio Montages and Basic Audio CDs. 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.
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. • 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.
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 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. Dragging a box like this will create a new window for this audio file.
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 87. Screen layouts store document window and dialog box positions and sizes. See “Working with window layouts” on page 744. View settings can be automatically stored (Preference setting) when saving wave audio files.
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. • 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.
The various control bars The Window Controller The Window Controller acts as “master selector” for the main windows and control bars, providing quick access even to those that have no keyboard shortcut. If a Window Controller button is “pressed”, the corresponding window/bar is active and visible. If not, the window/bar is hidden. The Standard Commands The Standard Commands bar supplies shortcuts for the most commonly used menu items, as well as some unique functions.
The Transport bar The Transport bar is used for various playback commands, see “Using the Transport bar” on page 135. The Marker toolbar This is used for various commands related to markers, see “Introduction” on page 328. The Meters This provides shortcuts to the various level meters in WaveLab, see “Metering” on page 155. The status bar This is normally displayed at the bottom of the screen, but it can be hidden on the Preferences–Environment tab.
Speed menus Most displays have speed menus associated with them. • 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 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.
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 pop-up 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.
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/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.
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.
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.
Presets Many dialogs in WaveLab 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 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! • For some WaveLab effect panels there is a Preset button instead of a Presets tab or pop-up menu.
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 preset 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.
About non-modal dialogs Many of the dialog boxes in WaveLab are “non-modal”. 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.
Using the computer keyboard When you are working with WaveLab, 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 135 in this book.
6 Editing in the Wave window
About this chapter The Wave window is the heart of WaveLab’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.
Opening Waves For a list of supported file formats, see “Supported file formats” on page 113. 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.
Opening dual mono files If you have two mono files which are actually the left and right channels of a stereo recording (some systems handle stereo this way), you can open these as if they were a stereo file. Proceed as follows: 1. Open the Preferences from the Options menu, and click the File tab. 2. Make sure the option “Allow opening of dual mono files” is activated, and close the dialog. 3. Select Open Wave from the File menu. 4. Select the first file, hold down [Ctrl] and select the other. 5.
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 application window. Drag and drop the file(s) on the WaveLab program 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.
At the bottom of these submenus there is an item named “Open file selection box”. If you select it, a dialog opens. This is a handy file manager dialog which lists all recently used files of the corresponding type. Up to 200 files can be shown (this is set in the Preferences–Environment tab) in the dialog. • Files in this list are by default sorted according to when the files were last used, but you can click on a column header to sort the list by Name or Path.
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.
Window overview and adjustments Overview Display mode pop-up Left audio channel Right audio channel Main view Display mode pop-up Zoom controls 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).
About the Display modes Both the main view and the overview can independently be set to show the audio in one of three display modes: • Wave display. This is the standard waveform display, as shown in the main picture. • The Spectrum display. This displays the audio as a “spectrogram” which allows you to view the level intensity of each area in the frequency spectrum across the time line.
Synchronizing the views You may find it useful to work with separate display modes for the main view and the overview, as this gives you the option of viewing the audio in two different ways. In such cases you might want the two views to display the same part of the audio file simultaneously, so that the cursor position is synchronized in both views. • This is done by selecting “Synchronize top and bottom views” from the Display mode pop-up menu (either for the main view or the overview).
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 • • • • File format details (see “Supported file formats” on page 113) Zoom factor 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.
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. Vertical zoom • • When you zoom out all the way, the complete height of the wave fits into the window.
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: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 uses proportional scroll bars, that is, the size of the handle shows you how much of the entire document you see.
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.
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.
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 61. 2. Open the Preferences–Wave edit tab. 3. Set the Time Signature and Tempo to match the file. 4.
• • By using the Cursor keys: These keys Move the wave cursor [←] and [→] One “pixel” (screen dot) in either direction. [Ctrl] + [←] and [→] Twenty “pixels” in either direction. [Home] and [End] To the beginning and end of the wave. By using markers Markers allow you to pre-define positions and move the cursor there, see “What are markers for?” on page 328.
Selecting Almost all types of editing and processing you perform in WaveLab 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.
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).
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. 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.
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.
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.
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. Click the question mark icon in the respective dialog for details. Checking the effect of Snap to Zero crossing 1. Make sure that “Off at high zoom factor” is not activated and zoom in until the zoom factor is 1:1. 2. Make a selection and observe how it is extended left and right.
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.
Level selections For some of WaveLab’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. 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]… …drag up/down, and release the mouse button.
Basic editing commands Mono/stereo WaveLab is totally flexible in its handling of stereo. All editing operations can be performed on either channel or both. 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 328) in the source audio section also will be copied. By dragging 1.
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. 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.
Stereo/mono “conflicts” Stereo/mono is handled as follows when you drag between files: Dragged section “Drop” wave Action Stereo Stereo The dragged audio is always inserted into both channels. Stereo Mono Only the left channel is inserted. Mono Stereo What happens depends on the vertical position in the destination window at which the drop is made. This is indicated by the cursor shape (see “Selecting in stereo files” on page 91).
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… …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 Paste wave Action Stereo Stereo If the wave cursor extends across both channels of the destination file, the material will be inserted into both channels. Stereo Stereo If the wave cursor is only in one channel, the Paste will only happen in that channel. Material from the left channel will be pasted in the left channel and vice versa. Stereo Mono Only the left channel is pasted.
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 (depending 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.
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.
Trim To remove all the audio except the current selection, select Trim from the Edit menu (or press [Ctrl]-[Backspace]). Smooth Delete This function is available from the Edit menu. It is similar to the standard “Delete” function, but in addition, a short crossfade is performed at the edges of the section to be deleted, allowing for a smoother audio transition. • • • • The default length and shape of the crossfade is set in the Preferences–Wave edit tab.
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]+[Shift]-[Space]. This will open the Silence dialog – see below for descriptions of the options in the dialog. 3. In the dialog, set the Length to “As selection”, and the Mode to “Replace selection”. • From here, you can select whether to apply “True silence” or “Background noise”.
Silence dialog options The Silence dialog contains the following options: Item Description Length If set to “As selection”, the silence range will be the same as the selection. If this is unchecked, you can specify a silence length in the field below the checkbox. Fade in/out If this is checked, a crossfade will be performed at the start and end of the silence region for a smoother transition. You can specify the crossfade time.
Replacing a section with silence – Fast mute This is similar to Silence, but always replaces the selection and always applies “True” silence. There are four ways to replace a section of audio with silence: • • • • Select it and select Fast mute from the Edit menu. Select it and click the Fast mute icon on the Standard Commands control bar. Select it and press [Ctrl]-[Space]. Select it and drag the selection to the Fast mute icon on the Standard Commands control bar.
By dragging 1. Make a selection. 2. Drag the selection out to the WaveLab “desktop”. 3. When the pointer is outside the window, hold down [Ctrl] and release the mouse button. By using menus 1. Make a mono selection. 2. Select “Convert to Stereo” from the “Copy to new window” menu on the Edit menu. The selection appears in a new stereo window. Converting from stereo to mono You may mix the two channels in a stereo file into a mono document. This can be done in three ways.
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 117.
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.
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 Montages) is described in the respective chapter. Supported file formats WaveLab 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).
Format Description MPEG-1 Layer 3 (.mp3) 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 can both open and save files in this format. - Note that when you open an MPEG compressed file in WaveLab, the file is converted to a temporary wave file that is much larger than the original compressed file.
Format Description Text/Excel (.txt) This is a text representation of a waveform. By saving 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, 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 .
• • • • If you ever plan to export your files, or create high resolution DVD-A discs, in 24bit 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 71. Importing CD tracks from an audio CD is described in the section “Importing tracks from an audio CD” on page 75. Importing tracks from a DVD-Audio disc is described in the section “Importing DVD-Audio tracks into WaveLab” on page 599.
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. 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.
• For high quality mastering purposes, it is not recommended 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 225). • 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.
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.
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.
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.
Deleting files and documents It is possible to delete whole files or documents from within WaveLab. This function is available from the File menu and will delete the currently selected file or document from disk. 1. Make sure the file or document you wish to delete is in focus. 2. Select “Delete…” from the File menu. A dialog appears as a warning, allowing you to cancel or proceed with the operation. 3.
Saving view settings WaveLab can automatically save all settings associated with a Wave file. This includes: • • • • • • Window size and position. Zooming. Scroll position. Display mode (Wave/Spectrum/Loudness Envelope). Snapshots. Master Section preset associated with the file. The view setting information is stored in a companion file (extension “.mem”) either together with your audio files or in a separate folder.
Compression encoded export formats Apart from the formats available in the Save As dialog and the Save special encode MP3/MP2/WMA options, WaveLab 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 113). The basic functionality for this is part of a software technology called Microsoft ACM (Audio Compression Manager) which is included with Microsoft Media Tools.
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 submenu. The dialog that appears is a MediaTools dialog, not a WaveLab dialog. 2. Select one of the formats from the pop-up in the middle and chose a setting for it from the pop-up below.
Editing attributes and getting information 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.
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.
About the Loudness envelope display mode As described earlier in this chapter, there are three display modes for Wave windows (see “About the Display modes” on page 77). The Loudness envelope wave display is selected from the pop-up menu at the bottom right of the wave window, to the left of the horizontal zoom control (the overview also has a separate Display mode pop-up). The curves represent the loudness over time in an audio file (see “About the curves” on page 130).
• When the Loudness envelope display mode is selected, the “Y” axis is logarithmic, not linear like in the waveform display. The vertical zoom slider will change the scale rather than a zoom factor. By displaying a larger scale, very small volume changes can be viewed. • All standard editing operations, i.e. selecting, cut/copy/paste, etc., are available, except drawing with the Pencil tool. About the curves Up to four different curves can be shown simultaneously in the Loudness envelope display.
Loudness envelope options This dialog contains various options for the Loudness envelope display mode. Select “Loudness envelope options…” from the Display mode pop-up (only available when Loudness envelope is selected).
The dialog contains the following items: Option Description Time resolution This sets how many samples are used to compute the average loudness (“RMS”). The longer the time set here, the more the loudness variations are evened out in the envelope. With shorter times, the envelope will be more sensitive to individual peaks.
7 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 “Convert sample rate” on page 210. Also see “Supported file formats” on page 113 for more on file formats. About sync It is possible to synchronize WaveLab to other devices either via MIDI Time Code or via the ASIO Positioning Protocol which allows for sample accurate sync.
Using the Transport bar Displaying the Transport bar If the Transport is hidden, select Transport from the Control bars submenu on the View menu.
Transport control settings for separate windows By default, open windows in WaveLab (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.
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. • For details about the Stop point/loop menu items, use the help item at the bottom of the menu.
Setting the playback speed You can change the playback speed for open documents with or without affecting the pitch of the audio. Playback speed can be set for: • • Wave windows. Audio Montages (all clips in a montage are affected). Each separate open wave or montage can have its own playback speed setting if you wish, i.e. if you have several wave windows open and change the playback speed for one of them, the set speed does not affect the other windows when you switch to them.
2. From the pop-up menu that appears, select “Edit”. The Playback Speed dialog appears. The Playback Speed dialog 3. Select a preset number by clicking one of the radio buttons to the right, and type in the desired name in the name field above the buttons. Note that WaveLab comes with a number of ready-made playback speed presets, so unless you want to overwrite one of these with your own settings, make sure to select a preset number that isn’t already used (the name should read “Untitled”). 4.
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.
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.
Select the desired options in the FROM and TO sections of the dialog to define an audio range. You can specify audio ranges to play back From/To: • • • • • Start/End of the file, respectively. The Cursor position. Start/End of selection. Named Markers. User specified time positions (Custom). In addition you can specify an offset for any range position. The playback buttons work like this: Play to The range before the set position is played back.
Using the Jog/Shuttle function The Jog/Shuttle function allows you to play back audio forwards or backwards, at any speed. This is useful for finding exact spots in the audio file, etc. The Jog and Shuttle functions are CPU intensive because of the real-time scrolling that occurs. If you experience stuttering playback, try reducing the window size (this will reduce CPU usage proportionally).
Shuttle This can be viewed as playing back with a continuous control for tape speed and direction: 1. Zoom in so that you can get a good visual feedback. 2. Activate the Jog/Shuttle button on the Transport bar or press [F10]. 3. Move the pointer to the lower part of the Wave window. The pointer takes on the shape of a speaker. 4. Click and hold the mouse button to the left or right of the vertical line.
Using ShuttlePro WaveLab features support for Contour Design’s ShuttlePro Multimedia Controller. You can use the buttons on the ShuttlePro to perform the above described Jog and Shuttle functions, as well as several other functions such as zoom in/out, undo/redo, start/stop playback, play selection, toggle loop mode, toggle jog & shuttle mode, open file and save as. The WaveLab functions that can be performed with a ShuttlePro are defined in a ShuttlePro preferences file called “WaveLab Shuttle Pro.
Recording For details on connections, recording levels, etc. please refer to the documentation that came with your audio card. See “Multichannel recording” on page 521 for information on multichannel recording in the Montage. 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).
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.
• Alternatively, if you have the “Support RF64 file format”option activated, the standard Wave file format switches automatically to the RF64 file format as soon as the file size exceeds 2 GB, without any performance loss or interruption. This is especially useful when recording very long sessions as there is no need to worry about file size limit (apart from available disk space). A RF64 file will still have the “.wav” extension but can only be opened with an application that supports the RF64 standard.
• In “Audio input (hardware)” mode, WaveLab will record the signals from the activated inputs on your audio hardware. This is the standard mode. Use this for recording any external audio signal sources connected to the inputs on your audio card. • If you are using an ASIO driver and this mode is selected, you can click the button to the far right in this section of the dialog to access the “Recording channels” dialog. In this dialog you can select which input channels you want to record from.
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. • 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.
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. • The meters in the Record dialog are “miniature” versions of the Level, Spectrum and Phase Meters in the Meter windows. For detailed descriptions of the functionality and features, see “Level/pan meter” on page 159. For the meters to register the signal, you need to activate the Monitor checkbox.
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 Create Final File path, or the hard disk you have selected for your temporary files (see “Temporary files” on page 28). 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.
• You can deactivate the option “Open audio file in WaveLab after recording” in the Record settings dialog if you don’t want the recording to appear in a new window. In this case, the recorded file is saved to disk but does not automatically appear in WaveLab after recording. If you want to perform more recordings after the first, click the Record button and record again.
• Activate the option “Confirm name of markers to drop” in the record settings dialog. In this case, a dialog 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.
8 Metering
Introduction WaveLab offers very detailed and versatile metering, allowing you to monitor level, pan, phase, spectrum and more during playback, on audio input and even during file rendering. This chapter describes how to display, set up and use the various meters. Selecting what to monitor On the lower part of the Analysis menu, you will find different monitor modes for the meters. You select a monitor mode either from the menu, or by clicking the corresponding button on the Meters control bar.
Monitor edit-cursor position This mode is only available for Wave windows. When this is selected, the meters will be static, showing the levels and other values for the audio at the position of the Wave Cursor, in stop mode. This allows you to analyse a certain position in an audio file, in real time. The Master Section settings are not taken into account in this mode. Analyse selection Again, this mode is only available for Wave windows.
Multi-channel metering As previously mentioned, WaveLab features 8 audio channels internally that can be routed to inputs and outputs on a multi i/o audio card. The Audio Montage supports various surround channel configurations using up to 6 channels (see “Multichannel operation in the Montage” on page 506 for more information). WaveLab can display multiple meters so when working with multiple channels in the Audio Montage, each channel can be metered.
The meters There are seven different meters in WaveLab, each with its separate window. The meters are opened and closed from the Analysis menu (or by clicking the buttons on the Meters control bar). • To close all open meter windows, click the Close Meters button on the Meters control bar. 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).
• The VU (Volume Unit) meters measure the average loudness (RMS) of each channel. These meters have a built-in inertia, evening out loudness variations over a user-defined time span. If you are monitoring playback or audio input, you will also note two vertical lines following each VU meter bar, seemingly “trying to reach” the current RMS value. These lines indicate the average of the most recent minimum RMS values (left line) and the average of the most recent maximum RMS values (right line).
• If you are monitoring real-time audio (playback or input), the maximum balance difference values (peak and loudness) for each channel are displayed numerically to the left and right of the meter bars. Resetting the meters You can reset the level and pan 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.
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 background, marks (scale units) and grid lines. Global range This is where you specify the low and high end of the displayed level range.
Setting Description Panning Meter In this section, you can turn the pan meter on or off, change the colors used for the pan meter bars and adjust the dB range of the pan meter. 3. If you want to store your settings for later use (or assign them to a preset), select “Save as…” from the pop-up menu at the bottom of the dialog, and specify a name for the preset in the file dialog that appears. 4.
Maximizers being one of the main reasons). The trouble with this practice is that it renders average loudness levels that are very close to the maximum peak levels which drastically reduces the available “headroom” or dynamic range. The difference between the average loudness and the peak level is often around 11 to 15dB in a dynamic high quality recording.
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. Phase Scope The Phase Scope is only relevant when monitoring stereo audio material.
• • • With a mono signal, the meter would show +1, indicating that both channels are perfectly in phase. Similarly, –1 indicates that the two channels are the same, but one is inverted. Generally, for a “good” mix, the meter should show a value between 0 and +1. Unlike the main Phase “coil” meter, the Phase Correlation meter is also available in “Analyse Selection” mode, showing an average value for the selected range.
Spectrum analyser (FFT) The Spectrum Analyser uses FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) to display a continuous frequency graph, allowing for very precise and detailed realtime frequency analysis. • • • The current frequency spectrum will be shown as a red graph (by default). Spectrum “peaks” (recent maximum values) will be shown as a purple graph. All colors can be adjusted in the Settings dialog as described below. By clicking the camera icon, you can take a snapshot of the current spectrum.
Making settings You can adjust the behavior and display of the meters as desired, and assign up to five sets of Spectrum Analysis settings to the Preset buttons, for instant access. Open the Settings dialog by selecting “Settings” from the Options pop-up menu or clicking the “tool” icon. The dialog has two tabs (see below).
• The Display tab contains settings for how the spectrum graph should be shown: Setting Description Frequency ruler range Determines the frequency range to be shown, at full-scale display. Note that the lowest frequency actually to be shown depends on the Analysis block size setting and the highest actual frequency depends on the sample rate (only frequencies up to about half the sample rate will be shown).
Selecting Spectrum Analyser 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.
As soon as you perform any kind of real-time processing on an audio file, the audio data will be treated at a much higher resolution (32 bit floating point), to allow for pristine audio quality. Examples of such processing include level adjustments, effects, mixing of two or more files, 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).
When to use the Bit Meter • To check whether dithering is necessary or not. As a rule, if you’re playing back or mixing down to 16 bits, and the Bit Meter shows that more than 16 bits are used, you should apply dithering. • To see the “actual” resolution of an audio file. For example, even though a file is in 24 bit format, only 16 bits may be used. Or, a 32 bit file may only use 24 bits (in this case, the “below” segment would not be lit).
Oscilloscope The Oscilloscope is a “microscope” version of the level meter, showing the area around the cursor position at large magnification. The Oscilloscope cannot be used in “Analyse Selection” mode. If you are analysing stereo audio, the Oscilloscope will normally show the separate levels of the two channels.
Waveform Scope This meter displays a real time waveform drawing of the audio signal being monitored. It can be useful when recording or rendering a file (if “Monitor File rendering” mode is active – see “Monitor file rendering” on page 157). Making settings Selecting “Settings” from the Options pop-up menu (or clicking the “tool” icon) will open the Waveform Scope settings dialog.
9 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.
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.
Level Normalizer This allows you to change the amplitude (volume) of the selection. The value is always related to the maximum level that can be obtained. The controls To find out exactly what each control in the dialog does, click the question mark icon in the dialog. Gain Change This also allows you to change the amplitude (volume) of the selection, just like the Level Normalizer.
Clipping This processor lets you do something that most other functions in WaveLab 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”).
Loudness Normalizer This processing tool allows you to specify the loudness of a file. Because it relates to loudness as opposed to maximum peak level, this tool works quite differently than the Level Normalizer. A typical application is to specify a level, e.g. -12dB, and the Loudness Normalizer will process the loudness to match this level. Like Gain Change, increasing the loudness to a certain value might introduce clipping, which is to be avoided.
The dialog contains the following options: Item Description Desired Loudness The loudness you desire to achieve. Positive and negative values can be set. Be aware that specifying high positive values might not be good practice, as this could require a gain which is beyond what the limiter can properly handle so distortion could occur.
Item Description Attempts/Analysis – If the Desired loudness requires peak limiting, this will also reduce the Desired precision loudness to some degree. This can’t be computed in advance and be automatically applied to the gain change, because the limiting is a complex process. Instead, several simulation passes are performed to find the best possible gain. This option lets you define the desired precision of the result.
Pan Normalizer The Pan Normalizer can ensure that both channels of a stereo file have the same level or loudness. You need to have a stereo selection in a stereo file to apply this process. • This process requires two passes (analysis and rendering). • The Pan Normalizer is also available in the Batch processor. The dialog contains the following options: Item Description Peak level The channel with the lowest peak level will be raised to match the peak level of the other channel.
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 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”.
• 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.
• 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 position, 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.
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. 2. Select “Extend to peaks” from the Select submenu on the Edit menu.
Level envelope 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.
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.
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: 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 fadeout 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
• • 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. 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.
Opening the dialog When you open the dialog, the following information about the selection is displayed: 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 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.
Additional settings Setting Description Quality There are three Quality settings, “Quick Process”, “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. Use DIRAC processor This is described separately below. Preserve pitch When this option is activated, the pitch of the audio material will not be affected when you apply Time stretch.
About the DIRAC processor The DIRAC (DIRAC Time Stretch/Pitch Shift technology, ©2005 Stephan M. Bernsee) engine is a very high quality time stretcher, perhaps the best available on the market today. It will produce the best quality results possible, but the trade-off is longer processing times. In WaveLab, you can use the DIRAC algorithm to process mono or stereo files with up to 96kHz sample rates.
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 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.
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.
About the DIRAC processor The DIRAC engine (DIRAC Time Stretch/Pitch Shift technology, ©2005 Stephan M. Bernsee) is a very high quality pitch shifter, perhaps the best available on the market today. It will produce the best quality results possible, but the trade off is longer processing times. In WaveLab, you can use the DIRAC algorithm to process files with up to 96kHz sample rates, but not over.
Pitch Quantize The purpose of this process is to automatically detect and correct the pitch (intonation) of an audio file. The input signal is quantized to discrete notes. Pitch quantize works best on recordings that have a single fundamental frequency, such as voice or single instruments. The dialog has the following parameters: • Reference frequency: defines the reference tuning (in Hz) for the pitch correction. Default is 440 Hz. • Tolerance: defines the tolerance for the pitch correction (in cents).
Pitch Bend This function utilizes a high quality pitch shifting engine that lets you create stunning effects, by gradually changing the pitch of a sound according to a set envelope curve. Range Specify the maximum range in semitones for the pitch change. When you change this value, the vertical ruler reflects the changes. You can rightclick or double-click in the dialog box to bring up a slider. Envelope In this window, you draw the curve that the pitch should follow.
Functions You can access these functions either from the Functions menu, or by clicking the corresponding icon: Option Description Deselect all points Select this option to deselect points (selected points are red, unselected points are yellow). Delete selected points All selected points will be deleted. Reset selected points All selected points will be set to position “0” (no pitch change). Reset whole envelope The envelope curve will be reset to its default shape (2 points and no pitch change).
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 adjusting the Semitones and Cents values. The maximum range is ±36 semitones (±3 octaves).
Additional controls Control Description Preserve level When this is activated, the resulting audio will have the same level as the original, even though a number of voices have been added. Create stereo wave 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.
EQ 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 shelving filter. High Shelf Frequency 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.
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.
• • Open the Audio Properties dialog from the Edit menu and make the desired settings (see “Editing audio properties” on page 127). 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 117). Sample rate conversion is always applied to the entire file. Any selection you have made is not used in any way for this operation.
3. Open the Effect Morphing dialog from the Edit menu. The dialog consists of a waveform display (that shows the current selection) with an envelope curve (currently a straight line) in the middle. By adding points to the envelope, you can create a curve that is used for the morphing process, see “Setting the Envelope” on page 214. 4. Make sure that “Unprocessed selection” is selected in the dialog. The current processed selection can now be mixed with an unprocessed version of the same selection.
This can be done by positioning the two envelope points like in the picture below. • If you now click “Apply”, the processing will create a perfectly linear transition between the processed and unprocessed audio.
• The clipboard could also be a copy from another wave file, but the clipboard size and the selection size must match. Setting the Envelope By adding points to the envelope curve you can create an envelope curve that governs how the two audio ranges are mixed over the time line. 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.
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 plug-in and the active audio range is edited. The plug-in window is non-modal, hence you can work in WaveLab without closing the plug-in. Go to http://www.algorithmix.com/en/renovator.htm for more info.
WAVELAB 9 – 216 Off-line processing
10 Master Section
Introduction The Master Section is the heart of WaveLab’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: • • When playing back an audio file in a Wave window. When playing back an Audio 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, click the Master Section button on the Window controller bar or press [Ctrl]-[F9]. Indicates that an effect is activated. The Effects pane allows you to add and manage effect processors. See “The Effects pane” on page 225. The Master Level pane. This is where you adjust the final output level. See “The Master level pane” on page 222.
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, leaving 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 red 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.
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 Effects Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot 3 Note that the signal passes through the effects in series (from top to bottom) – reordering the effect slots affects the signal path. Slot 8 Master Level Master Section meters 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/Pan 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.
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.
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. • If the Mono button is activated, the red 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 Effects pane WaveLab allows you to insert up to eight effect plug-ins in series (plus an additional, post-master fader plug-in, normally used for dithering, see “The Dithering pane” on page 231). Three plug-in formats are supported in the Master Section: • • WaveLab-specific plug-ins, included with the program. This also includes a submenu; “ASIO”, which by default contains the Audio Input (see “Audio Input” on page 251) and External Gear (see “Using External effects” on page 252) plugins.
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 753), 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.
• You can change the order of the slots (and thus the order 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.
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.
Working with effect processor presets With WaveLab 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”. • To access the presets for an effect, click the Preset button in its control panel window.
About the effect plug-ins supplied with WaveLab Included with WaveLab 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.
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’s internal dithering algorithm, Apogee’s renowned UV22HR 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.
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).
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. The available parameters are different for the internal algorithm and the UV22 algorithms: Internal dithering Internal dithering must be used when rendering multichannel Montages, see “Dithering and multichannel Montages” on page 526.
UV22 Dithering The UV22 is a dithering plug-in based on an algorithm developed by Apogee. The UV22 is mainly included for backwards compatability, so that WaveLab Master Section presets saved in earlier WaveLab versions can be loaded successsfully. Option Description Normal Try this first, it is the most “all-round” type. Low This applies a lower level of dither noise. Autoblack When this is activated, the dither noise is gated (muted) during silent passages in the material.
Option Description Low This applies a lower level of dither noise. Autoblack When this is activated, the dither noise is gated (muted) during silent passages in the material. Bit resolution You use the buttons 8, 16, 20 or 24 to select the intended bit resolution for the final audio.
Master Section presets 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.
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 Master 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.
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.
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 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.
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 Montages, see “Mixing down – The Render function” on page 527). 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 in the Main view. 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 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).
You can of course create unique names for the Region markers manually, but it is much quicker to do it automatically. You can do this in two ways: • Use the Batch Renaming tool. This allows you to define numerous options for renaming markers. See “Markers” on page 311. • Use Auto Split to generate regions with markers (although this would have to be done when the Marker regions are created). Auto Split gives you the option of adding numbers to each created marker region name.
• The Priority setting lets you specify how fast the file should be processed. Relax The file is processed in the background, but priority is given to audio playback Background and to your continued work on other files. This makes WaveLab as responsive as possible, but slows down processing. Background The file is processed in the background but with a lower priority given to your continued work on other files. This makes processing faster but the program less responsive.
Smart bypass This function is available from the Tools menu. The main reason for Smart bypass that processing audio often changes the level or loudness of the signal. When comparing the processed signal with the original signal, your ears will be sensitive to this loudness change, which may in turn affect your judgement. If you need to compare the sound of the effect independently from the loudness change, a level correction is required.
Basic operation Smart bypass works as follows: 1. Open the “Smart bypass” dialog from the Tools menu. When the dialog opens, it monitors the processed audio (the output of the Master Section) by default. 2. The three Play options allow you select what to monitor; the original (unprocessed) audio, the processed audio plus level correction or the processed audio. 3. You can select between three modes of level correction: Match Peaks, Match loudness (RMS) or Custom correction.
Dialog items The Smart Bypass dialog contains the following items: Item Description Play – Original audio This monitors the unprocessed signal at the Master Section input. Play – Processed audio + level correction This monitors the signal at the Master Section output plus the applied level correction. To listen to the corrected level requires that you have clicked the “Update gains” button first. Play – Processed audio This monitors the signal at the Master Section output without level correction.
The Monitor window This window allows you to monitor the ongoing processes, check how hard your computer’s CPU is working with various tasks, and more. To open this window, select “Monitor” from the Specialized Windows submenu on the View menu or click the Monitor button on the Window controller bar. The Monitor button The window has three displays, selected by clicking the corresponding tab at the bottom of the window.
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 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. Suspend/Resume All Halts/starts processing of all waves.
The Performance display The Performance display provides an overview of the processing power currently being used. • • • • The yellow lines refer to the power used for providing input to the Master Section, either reading waves from disk or Audio Input. 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.
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).
Audio Input The Audio Input is a special Master Section plug-in that allows you to render a signal coming in to a sound card’s input(s) together with any Master Section effects. This signal can be anything your sound card accepts, for example a feed from a mixer, a tape recorder or a microphone. An ASIO driver is required to use Audio Input. You set it up as follows: The first step is to designate which ASIO inputs should be used. This is done in the Preferences–Audio device tab: 1.
6. Click the Render button. A dialog appears allowing you to select a name, an audio format and a location for the file to be rendered. 7. When you click OK, recording (or rendering) starts, recording the external input from the output of the Master Section, including all real-time processing. You can monitor the recording as it happens. 8. Click Stop on the transport to stop the recording/rendering.
To use the External gear plug-in, proceed as follows: The first step is to designate which ASIO channels should be used. 1. Open the Preferences–Audio device tab: 2. Click the “Connections…” button to open the ASIO Audio Connections dialog. 3.
WAVELAB 10 – 254 Master Section
11 Spectrum Editor
Introduction The Spectrum editor is powerful audio restoration and processing tool set, using high quality linear-phase filters to process a spectrum selection both in the time and in the frequency domain. There are two main operational modes: • Surgical processing (offline processing). This is intended for audio restoration purposes applied to short time ranges. See “Surgical processing” on page 262. • Master Section processing.
There are two ways to select Spectrum display mode: • By clicking the arrow button in the lower right corner of the main view, and selecting “Spectrum” from the pop-up menu that appears. • By selecting the Spectrum selection tool in the Tools control bar. This automatically switches the display mode to Spectrum in the main view and also opens the Spectrum editor dialog.
The Spectrum display is a “spectrogram”, where each vertical line represents the frequency spectrum at the corresponding time location. The bottom of the display corresponds to the lower frequencies while the upper part of the display represents the higher frequencies.
About the Spectrum options The Spectrum options dialog allows you to define how the frequency spectrum should be displayed. • You open the dialog by clicking the arrow button in the lower right corner of the main view, and selecting “Spectrum options…” from the pop-up menu. The dialog contains the following items: Option Description Style Use this to specify whether the Spectrum should be displayed in color or in one of two grayscale modes.
Defining a region All Spectrum editing functions are applied to (or from, if Master Section processing is used) a selected region. A region set in the Spectrum editor contains a time range (horizontal axis) and a frequency range (vertical axis). Before you start, it is a good idea to decide where in the file’s time range you would like to apply Spectrum editing. Then set it up so that the view is zoomed in on this range, and maybe also define this range with markers.
• If you point the mouse cursor inside a set region, a pop-up appears showing the currently set frequency range in Hz and the time range in seconds/ milliseconds for the current region. To apply Surgical processing, the region length must not exceed 10 seconds. • To deselect a region, right-click in the window and select “Deselect” from the speed menu. • A selected region can be moved in any direction by click-dragging the region manually.
Surgical processing Surgical processing can be used to process short regions (up to 10 seconds) offline. This type of processing is mainly used to reduce, remove or replace unwanted sound artefacts in the audio material, which can be done with great precision. As with all Spectrum editor operations, you first have to define a time/frequency region. Once a region has been set, you can select one of the two Surgical processing modes. These are as follows: • Filtering operations. These are described below.
Common filtering parameters There are two pop-up menus in the “Filtering operations” section; the upper selects the type of filter processing to be performed, and the lower selects a filter type (only available for some of the filter operations). Additionally, you can specify the Gain of the filtering (i.e. the attenuation level) as well as the Filter steepness. Filter steepness determines how sharply or quickly frequencies above or below a certain point are attenuated.
Damp This is used to attenuate the level of a region. The Gain parameter specifies the level of the attenuation (although less commonly used it is also possible to set positive gain values, i.e. to boost the frequencies in the region). Three filter types are available to perform the damping: • Pass-band filter All frequencies in the region are equally attenuated. • Low-pass filter Higher frequencies in the region will be attenuated more.
Fade out This can be used with any of the three filter types (Pass-band/Low-pass/ High-pass). It gradually filters the frequencies in the region along the time axis (from nothing at the left edge of the region, to maximum allowed by the gain parameter at the right edge), useful for gradually removing frequencies from a region. Fade in This works like Fade out but inversed.
• You can also do the same in the frequency domain; have the Source and Destination regions in the same time line position, but in different frequency ranges. This could be used to mask a spurious sound artefact with few harmonics, by copying the audio placed a bit “lower” or “higher” in the frequency range. Note that when copying between different frequency regions pitch shifting takes place.
3. Click the “Show” button in the Source section if the Source region isn’t currently shown. If the region is active but outside of the current view you can right-click to bring up the speed menu and select “Jump to selected region”. 4. Click the “Mark” button in the Destination section of the dialog. Now an exact copy of the source region has been selected as the Destination region. 5. Now you can move the Destination region to where you wish to copy the Source region to.
From here, you can select one of two Copy methods, using the pop-up menu above the Copy button. • “Copy exactly” will, as the name implies, copy the Source region exactly as it is. • “Copy ambience” copies an average of the source frequencies, and produces a blurring of the original dynamics and pitch variation information. This mode can be useful as the copied region will appear more “transparent”, whereas the “Exact copy” might cause a “repetition” effect.
Master Section processing Another application of the Spectrum editor is Master Section processing. This allows for frequency selective processing. A selected region’s frequency spectrum can be routed to the Master Section where you can choose to process it separately from the non-selected frequency spectrum. The signal is split so that one part (region spectrum or non-selected spectrum) is sent to the plug-ins, while the other part can be mixed with this processed signal, after the Master Section output.
To apply Master Section processing, proceed as follows: 1. Select the Spectrum selection tool and define a region using the normal methods. The selected region should preferably be longer than one second. The frequency spectrum of the region will be used to filter the sound. Note that if you intend to use the Render function, the selected region time range is what will be rendered – see “Rendering the Master Section processing” on page 271. 2.
Rendering the Master Section processing The selected region’s time range determines the range that will be rendered. If you wish to apply the filtering to the whole file, you should use the “Select whole file length” option from the speed menu. • If you click Render in the Master Section with the Spectrum selection tool selected, the rendering will take place without the Rendering preferences dialog opening. It will “process in place” the selection according to the settings in the Spectrum editor dialog.
Item Description Move region upwards Moves the selection up to start after its current end on the frequency axis. Move region downwards Moves the selection down to end before its current start on the frequency axis. Move region upwards 1 octave Moves the selection up by 1 octave on the frequency axis. Move region downwards 1 octave Moves the selection down by 1 octave on the frequency axis. Select until start of file Extends the region selection to the start of the file.
12 Batch processing
Introduction Batch processing is an extension of the Master Section Render function (see “Rendering” on page 239). The big difference is that the Batch Processor can work on any number of files, and process different files with different settings. However, it also allows you to do a few other things that are not available with the Render function: • • • • • Have any number of processors applied. Use plug-ins not available in the Master Section, see “About the off-line processors” on page 287.
DC Remover –> Denoiser –> Normalizer (first instance) –> Compressor –> Normalizer (second instance) –> MPEG Compression Of these effects, the DC Remover and the Normalizer(s) are Multi Pass effects. This means that the signal needs to pass each of these effects more than once – in this case twice, first for the effect to analyse the signal (gathering data for the processing) and then again for the actual processing.
During pass three, the signal is processed by the DC Remover, the first Normalizer, the Denoiser and Compressor and is analysed by the second Normalizer. Again, nothing is saved to disk, the only purpose of this pass is to gather information about how much normalization will be required. Pass 4: = disk domain = RAM Read file DC Remover Normalizer Denoiser Compressor Normalizer Transfer Process Process Process Process Process MPEG Encod- Write file Process Transfer Time for pass four.
Overview of the Window The Batch Processor window The window is divided into four tabs: The Input tab This is used to set up the files to process. Here you use various tools and functions to assemble lists of files and documents. From the Input tab you can also open the process list, which allows you to specify exactly what type of processing should be performed on the files.
The Input tab – Assembling a list of files The functions described in this section are also available on a speed menu (accessed by right-clicking in the file list). Creating batches You are not only able to process one batch of files, but many. Each batch contains a number of files, and all the files in a batch will be processed identically. However, each batch can use a totally different set of processors. • To create a batch, click the button “Create batch folder” at the top of the list.
Renaming and setting attributes for a batch To rename a batch, proceed as follows: 1. Select the batch in the list and click on the name icon (the “A”). Alternatively you can hold down [Alt] and double click directly on the batch. 2. Enter the desired name in the dialog. Entering a number instead of a name has a special meaning. This will change the name of the batch to the default name “Batch X”, where X is the number you typed. All the other batches with default names will be renumbered accordingly. 3.
Note that this also works with documents in open Basic Audio CDs and Audio Montages. This way you can add and batch process all files that “belong” to a Basic Audio CD or an Audio Montage. The document button… …brings up the document pop-up menu. Open documents are represented by blue and white miniature window icons. An open document A file on disk You cannot process files that have never been saved (“Untitled” files).
Adding files via Drag and Drop • You can add files from the Windows Explorer or My Computer windows. Drag the file icon and drop it on the batch. • You can add an open Wave document, by using the drag icon on the title bar and dropping it on a batch. Adding all files in a folder To add all files in a folder (and in all its subfolders), proceed as follows: 1. Click the Add folder button. The Add folder button. 2. In the list that appears, select the desired folder and click Open. 3.
About “Allow duplicate file names” When this option on the Extra pop-up menu is activated, the same file can be added to several batches, and hence be processed several times. The only restriction is that each “instance” of the file must be set to create a file with a name and/or location that is different from the other “instances” of the same file. This is done by using path variables, as described in the section “Using path variables” on page 293.
Changing file order within a batch The order of files within a batch is usually of no particular importance (they will all get processed in the same way), but when you set up a batch with many files, it might make things easier if you can organize things the way you want it: • • • You can move a file up and down within the batch by using the arrow buttons. You can drag and drop files within a batch to change the order.
Resetting file status To reset the status of a file to the “green circle” status described above, click on the symbol to the left of the file. To reset the status of all files, select “Reset status of all files” from the Extra pop-up menu. Opening files There are three ways to open a source file in a Wave window: • • • Double click on it in the list. Select it and click the “Open window” button (to the right of the Play button). Drag it and drop it on an empty section of the WaveLab program window.
Validating the list There might be occasions where it is not certain the file list really matches the contents of the hard disk. For example, a file might have been deleted from the disk since you last updated the list. Also, you might add files in formats that WaveLab can’t handle. • When you select “Validate list” from the Extra menu, the program will scan the list and check that all files really exist in the specified locations and that their formats are valid.
About the Processor List The Processor List has two tabs, one is the main tab and the second is for managing presets (see “Presets” on page 65). The Processors tab This tab is divided into two columns: • • The left column (Sequence) displays a list of processing that will be applied to the batch. When you first open the dialog, this list is probably empty, because you haven’t assigned any processors to it yet.
• • The Process List Presets folder contains a list of presets created in this dialog. As with the Master Section Presets, this can represent a combination of a number of processors. This allows you to easily re-use combinations of processors. The Plug-ins folder contains folders and lists of the processors in the program, to some extent the same list as in the Master Section.
Other considerations • • Off-line processors might not have presets. Off-line processors that require extra processing “passes”, slightly increase the overall processing time. The included off-line processors • • • • • • • • • • DC Remover. This removes any DC Offset in the file (see “Eliminate DC Offset” on page 195). This would normally be inserted at the beginning of the processing list, preparing the file for processing, so to speak. Normalizer.
Ultra-pass processors can be freely combined with other types of processors. For example you can use both the Meta Normalizer and a regular Normalizer in the same batch. You may also combine ultra-pass plug-ins with multi-pass plug-ins. An ultra-pass plug-in requires two processing passes.
To remedy this, you can insert the Normalizer at the end of the signal chain. The Normalizer will not only raise levels, but also lower them as required so that the signal peaks exactly at the specified value just before it is converted to a file. This is useful to do even when “Only if Clipping” is not activated. However, if you only want the Normalizer to be applied when clipping should otherwise occur, activate “Only if Clipping”.
• If you use the “+” button or drop below the existing list, the processor will be added at the end of the list. You can also do this by double clicking the processor in the list to the right. • If you drag and drop on another symbol, it will be added just before that processor in the list. If you create an “impossible” combination of effects, for example feed a mono output into a processor that only accepts stereo input, you will get an error message when you try to process.
Closing the Processor List window Once you have finished with all the settings, click OK to confirm the settings and close the dialog or Cancel to close it without saving any changes. The Output tab – Settings for created files This tab allows you to specify where the created files are to be located, in what format they should be, and other related options.
Setting up a simple destination folder There are two ways to specify a folder for all created files: • • Type in a path (file location) on the Destination folder line. Click the folder icon just beside the destination folder line, browse your way to a folder and select it. Using path variables If you need more advanced options, for example if you need to store different batches in different folders, you need to use the path variables, available on the pop-up to the right of the folder icon.
The available variables have the following functions: Variable Function Example Batch Name Creates a folder with the name of the batch, as specified on the Input tab (see “Setting up file locations and names” on page 292). If you have a group called MyAudioFiles, and the Destination file reads “c:\\” the files will be stored in a folder called “MyAudioFiles”, located in the root of the C drive.
• • If you enter “d:\NewFolder\, the file will be stored as: “d:\NewFolder\Folder3\Sound.wav”. If instead you enter “”, the new file will be: “c:\Banana\Orange\Sound.wav”. Using file name prefixes and suffixes For the file names created, you can use the fields “File name prefix” and “File name suffix” to add text to the beginning and/or the end of the original name. • You can type in any text, which will then be added at the beginning/end of the file name.
Creating zip archives You can automatically create a zip archive of the created files. A zip archive is a file which contains other files, in a compressed format. The compression is non-lossy, which means that when you “un-zip” the files, you get exactly what you had when you created the archive – the information is not changed in any way. Zip files are often used for archiving purposes and when sending files to other people, for example via the Internet.
Creating backups and automatically deleting source files If you want the program to create backups of any files that would otherwise be overwritten as a result of the procedure, activate the “Create backups” options. When this is activated, the program will make a copy of the file before processing. It will also change the first letter in the extension of the copy to “~”. For example “myfile.wav” will be backed up as “myfile.~av”.
Selecting an Output Format • Click the large button to open the Audio File Format dialog in which you can select the desired output format and make settings for it. For details about various file formats, see “Supported file formats” on page 113. For detailed information about the Audio File Format dialog, please click the question mark icon in the dialog. The Audio File Format dialog.
Scheduling The Schedule tab is used for various options related to the performance of the batch processing: On start of batch process This is where you instruct WaveLab what to do just before starting the batch operation: Option Description Stop playback Stops playback to free up some processing power. Open Monitor window Opens the Monitor window (see “The Monitor window” on page 247). On batch process completion This is where you select how WaveLab should behave after processing all files.
On start of file process This is where you select how WaveLab should behave when processing each file. There is only one option here: “Minimize wave window”. If this is activated and the document is currently open in a window, WaveLab will minimize this before the processing starts.
Running and stopping the batch(es) Once all settings are made, all you have to do to start the batch is to click Run. The files get processed, much like when you click Render in the Master Section, see “Rendering” on page 239. You can stop processing in two ways: • • By clicking the Stop button in the Batch Processing dialog. By right clicking in the Monitor window, see “Process menu” on page 248. Zip archiving won’t stop until the current file has been processed.
WAVELAB 12 – 302 Batch processing
13 Batch file encoding
Basic procedure WaveLab 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’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).
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.
WAVELAB 13 – 306 Batch file encoding
14 Batch renaming
Introduction WaveLab features a powerful set of procedures to convert, remove, format, import, and insert text. This allows you to batch rename file names according to user specified rules. When dealing with large projects, it can be most useful to have the option of applying specific names to all referenced files, markers and clips that belong to the same project. Batch renaming can be used for the following operations: • To rename files. • To rename clips in Audio Montages.
To open the Rename dialog, select “Batch file renaming…” from the Tools menu. This is the first page of the dialog, where you define which files to rename. • The first step is to define the folder in which the files to rename are located. This is the top item in the dialog where you can type in a location or navigate to the desired folder.
Clips When you rename clips, the Montage that you invoke Batch renaming from will be updated with the new clip names. Select “Batch clip renaming…” from the Clips tab – Functions menu to open the Rename dialog. This is the first page of the dialog, where you define which clips to rename. The dialog page contains the following items: Option Description All clips This will apply the renaming to all clips in the Montage.
Markers You can rename markers of any type both for audio files and for Montages. • For Montages, select “Batch marker renaming” from the Marker tab – Functions menu. • For audio files, “Batch marker renaming” is available from the Marker speed menu (right-click the time ruler). The options are the same in both cases: Option Description All Markers This will apply the renaming to all markers in the Montage.
Renaming operations Basics When you have set up what files/clips/markers to rename, click “Next” in the Rename dialog to open the second page. Here you can define an unlimited number of operations to perform on a name. This allows you to transform an existing name or create a new one from scratch. In the “Operations” section of the dialog, you set up and add operations to perform. 1. To add a new operation, click the “+” button. This creates a “Insert nothing” operation, as a place to start. 2.
Each operation is associated with specific parameters. When you select a new operation of a certain category, the available options on the Type pop-up change. Depending on the selected operation new parameters may appear below the pop-ups. Each operation is explained later in this chapter. 3. You can continue to add as many operations as you like which will be added to the list in the top right corner of the dialog. • Operations are executed in the order they appear in the list.
Range parameters A common concept to all the operations, is “where in the name” the operation is executed. The range relates to the name that will be processed by the current operation. If the first operation adds a counter, the range of the second operation (if any), can be different. For example, if you want to remove certain characters, you have to define “where” in the name this should take place. This is set using the “Range” parameters.
Range: From/To When “Other” is selected, the parameters in the From/To sections become available. The following parameters are available in the “From” section: • Start – The start of the text. • Character position – This allows you to set a number starting from 0 and upwards to perform an operation on a fixed position in the text.
Operations The following operations are available from the two pop-ups in the Operations section of the dialog. The upper pop-up selects the category, the lower the type. Below, all the operation types available for each category are listed. Remove category • All – This operation removes all characters in the selected range. This can be useful as a start operation if you want to create a new name from scratch. • Spaces – All space characters are removed in the selected range.
• Specific character to text – The selected range is searched for a given character, and all occurrences of this character are replaced by a specified text. Specify the character to replace in the left text field. In the “Replacement” text field you specify what the removed character will be replaced with; this can be a single character or a text string. • Normalize number with zeros – The selected range has to contain a number. This number is then padded with zeros at the left side. E.g.
• Pair of characters around text – The selected range will be preceded by a specific character, and followed by another character. Useful e.g. to put parentheses around a part. • Space around text – Inserts a space character before and after the selected range. • Space after specific characters – You specify a list of characters, then WaveLab will search for these characters in the selected range and insert a space after each one it finds.
• Find exact text – Replacing only happens if the selected range exactly matches a word in the table. As an example, let’s say you have a series of drum samples where the term “Darksnare” is the common part of the name, and you would like to change all these to “Ambientsnare”. If you have specified “Dark” as a match and “Ambient” as the replacement, it would work fine if “Find anywhere in text” was selected, but not if “Find exact text” was specified.
• Bit rate – This will insert the bit rate in the name(s) according to the selected Range. You can select various ways to express the current bit rate from the Format pop-up. You can also insert a prefix and suffix in the corresponding fields. • VBR – If the audio file is compressed using a variable bit rate method the text “VBR” is inserted in the name. You can also insert a prefix and suffix in the corresponding fields. • File length – A time value is inserted in case of an audio file.
• File header: Genre –If the audio file is associated with Genre information (meta-data, such as ID3), it is inserted. You can also insert a prefix and suffix. • Time line position (for clips and markers only) – This allows you to insert the time line position. The time format is the same as the one defined for the time ruler of the window where the clips/markers are located. You can also insert a prefix and suffix.
Common expressions A regular expression is a formula composed of characters that have special meanings (called “operators”). Other characters are just plain letters and numbers that are searched for. The search engine browses the target text one character at a time and stops as soon as it finds a sequence of characters that matches the regular expression. Searches are not casesensitive. Note that there are various versions of regular expressions.
Menu item Character not in range Operator Description [^] A circumflex located at the first position in a bracket is a complement operator. In other words, all characters match but those included in the bracket. Example: [^E] means any character but E. / A slash before a character means that this character is treated literally, not as an operator anymore. 0 or 1 match (1 if possible) ? Matches 0 or 1 time the preceding expression.
Menu item End of text Operator Description $ Put this sign to specify that the sought-after text MUST be located at the end of the text. Any match not located at the end of the text is ignored. The Shortcuts submenu on the Regular Expression pop-up menu contains the following options: Menu item Operator Description Any digit /d Special code to symbolize any digit, as [0-9]. Any non-digit /D Special code to symbolize any non-digit, as [^0-9].
Menu item Description Last expression in parentheses This searches for the last string enclosed in parentheses. 1st/2nd/3rd expression in brackets. This searches for the first, second or third string enclosed in brackets, respectively. Last expression in brackets This searches for the last string enclosed in brackets.
WAVELAB 14 – 326 Batch renaming
15 Markers
Introduction 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. Define CD tracks according to 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.
The various marker types The following marker types are available: Marker type Description Generic This is mainly used for locating certain important 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 153). Temporary As Generic, but not saved with the file. CD Track Start, End and Splice These denote where CD tracks start and end.
About importing and saving loop markers There are a few points to be aware of when importing files with loops into WaveLab. 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 stores loop points as markers separately for each file, in “.MRK” files.
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. • The markers dropped this way are generic. Creating a marker from “stop mode” 1.
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, 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 153.
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. 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.
Editing, converting and naming markers The New Marker window can also 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].
• To lock the position of a marker so that it can’t be moved, activate the Lock Position option. • If the marker is a loop end marker you can change the number of loop repetitions by unchecking Infinite and specifying your own number of loops. • You can also use the Batch Renaming function to rename markers – see “Batch renaming” on page 307. There are also two ways to convert several markers to another type in one go: • By using the “Convert marker type” dialog – see below.
• For wave files, the dialog is opened by right-clicking the time ruler and selecting “Convert marker type…” from the menu. • For Montages, the dialog is opened from the Marker tab : Functions menu. The dialog contains the following items: Marker type Description From Selects which marker type to convert. To Selects which marker type to convert to. Conditions pop-up Here you can optionally specify text conditions for each of the three marker conversions.
Deleting markers When you delete one marker in a marker pair, the other marker will also be deleted. Deleting one marker from the Wave window 1. To delete a marker in the Wave window, click with the right mouse button on the head of marker you want to delete/rename. 2. Select Delete. Alternatively you can drag the marker out of the window. Deleting in the marker list 1. Hold down [Ctrl] and double click in the ruler. The wave markers window appears. 2.
Operations involving markers Setting the wave cursor to a marker position To move the wave cursor to a certain marker, do one of the following: • Double click on the marker triangle. This is probably the most convenient option if the marker is currently visible in the window. This even works during playback! • Open the marker list and select one of the markers on it. This is probably the most convenient option if the marker is outside the current view. • Activate “Magnetize bounds” on the Options menu.
You can extend the selection to consecutive markers, by continuing to drag to the left/right. To select all audio between any two markers, double click just to the right of the leftmost one, hold down [Shift] and double click just to the left of the rightmost one. Make this selection by double clicking as above… …then press [Shift] and double click to the left of the rightmost marker… …to select all audio between the leftmost and rightmost markers.
3. Make sure the marker line and the drag line appear on top of each other, then release the mouse button. If you point at a marker when using drag and drop, the audio will be inserted there. Creating CD tracks All operations related to CD markers are described in the section “Preparing a Basic Audio CD” on page 347.
16 Using Auto Split
Introduction Auto Split is a powerful function that allows you to automatically split audio files according to certain specified rules.
• On the second page you select the type of splitting you wish to perform: Option Description Split according to markers This will split the file(s) at specific marker positions. If you select this, the next page allows you to select which marker type should govern where splitting will occur. Split at specific intervals This will split the file(s) at specific time intervals. If you select this, the next page allows you to specify this time interval (and thus the duration of each region).
Example 1 – Splitting samples Here’s one application of Auto Split: Let’s say you are working with a sampler (hardware based or software, e.g. Steinberg’s HALion). You have made a long recording of separate notes of an instrument that you wish to cut up into separate samples and transmit to the sampler: 1. Open the audio file in a Wave window and select Auto Split from the Tools menu. 2. On the first page, specify that the “Wave in active window” should be processed, and click Next.
Example 2 – Converting marker type Another example of Auto Split does not involve any actual splitting of the file. Instead we illustrate how you can use Auto Split to convert all markers of one type to another. Proceed as follows: 1. Open the audio file containing the markers you wish to convert in a Wave window and select Auto Split from the Tools menu. 2. On the first page, specify that the “Wave in active window” should be processed, and click Next.
About the “Learn regions from text file” option You can split an audio file according to a description of regions stored in a text file. This works as follows: • The text file must be placed in the same folder as the audio file, with the same name, and with an extension that you specify in the WaveLab dialog (e.g. “txt” or “xml”). Each region is described by a name, a start position and end position (or a region length). The text file is a series of such descriptions.
17 Preparing a Basic Audio CD
Creating, opening and saving Basic Audio CDs Basic Audio CD was the first implementation of CD burning in WaveLab. The Audio Montage has since added many new features for CD creation, but this original concept (Basic Audio CD) still represents a simple and effective way to create a CD. The Basic Audio CD allows you to burn real “red book compatible” CDs. It is in this window that you assemble the files you want to appear on the CD, and make settings for them.
About the Basic Audio CD window When a Basic Audio CD is active, a new menu called “CD” appears. You can also open this menu from the top left corner of the Basic Audio CD window. The CD menu, here invoked from the main menu bar. • • You can have several Basic Audio CD windows open at the same time. The Basic Audio CD is merely a list of the files (or file segments), it does not contain the actual files themselves. This means that changes you make to the files will be reflected in the list as well.
Adding files to a Basic Audio CD What audio file formats can be used? You can add any type of file to a Basic Audio CD. However, when it is time to burn the CD, the files in the list must meet the following specifications: • • • 44100 Hz (44.1kHz). Mono, dual-mono or stereo. 8, 16, 20 or 24 bit resolution. The files will be converted to 16-bit stereo on the fly, while the CD gets burned.
By dragging a waveform selection If you already have a Wave window open, you can drag and drop selections from it to the track list. 1. Make a selection. There are numerous ways of making selections. Let us just mention here the possibility to double click between two markers to select all audio between them. 2. Position the mouse pointer over the waveform, inside the selection area, and drag and drop in the track List. The selection appears as a track.
By dragging or copying and pasting between Basic Audio CDs If you have several Basic Audio CDs open, you can drag and drop between them. 1. Point at a track item in a list. 2. Press the mouse button and drag and drop the track item into another list. You can also use Cut, Copy and Paste to achieve the same thing: 1. Select an item in one track list. 2. Select Cut or Copy from the Edit menu. 3. Select another Basic Audio CD. 4. Select Paste from the Edit menu.
Setting the order of the tracks on the CD Once you have all the files you need in the Basic Audio CD you might want to set the order in which they will appear on the CD. Determining the current order 1. Pull down the CD menu and select “Sort by Track Order”. 2. Check the numbering on the side of the list, it is now consecutive and the list reflects the order of the tracks on the CD. The track order Changing the order using drag and drop 1.
Managing list columns There are a couple of changes you can make to your track columns: • • • You can change the width of each column, by dragging the dividing lines between the headings left/right. You can hide/show each column by clicking with the right mouse button on a heading, and selecting from the menu that appears. You can click on the Title header to switch between three modes that show various amounts of details about the files to which the tracks belong.
“Unfolding” a track Just as in the Explorer and other Windows programs, you can unfold a track, to reveal additional settings. This can be done either by clicking the “+” and “-” symbols or by selecting the track and using the [+] and [-] keys on the numeric key pad. An “unfolded” track What information is available about a track? This is a representation of the marker that indicates the start of the track.
Opening CD tracks for wave editing There are several ways to open a Basic Audio CD item for editing in a Wave window: • Double click on the Start time field. This opens the Wave window and selects the entire track. If you double clicked on a sub-index marker or on a track end marker, the Wave cursor is moved there. Otherwise the cursor is moved to the track start marker. • Drag and drop a track item, a track start marker or a Pause item onto the WaveLab background (outside all document windows).
About the relation between the track list and CD markers CD markers appear in the audio files. They define the start, end points and sub-index points for tracks in the track list. To learn about the various marker types, open the Edit marker dialog (select “New Marker” from the time ruler menu) and click the question mark icon in the dialog for details. The following illustration shows which items correspond to which in the track List vs. the Wave window.
Working with CD markers You edit and add CD markers using any of the following methods: • By adjusting positions of existing CD markers. This is done by dragging, as with any marker. • By converting existing “Generic” or “Temporary” markers into CD type markers. This is done by right-clicking on a marker and selecting “Edit marker”. The “Edit Marker” dialog • By adding markers on the fly, and then converting them into CD markers.
About relations between markers in a file To understand how CD markers relate to the items in the Basic Audio CD, please read the following: • • • • • • • • A track in the Basic Audio CD is defined by a track start or track splice marker in the actual audio file! Delete the track start/splice marker, and the track item vanishes from the list! Also, edit the track start or end position, and the change is reflected in all Basic Audio CDs that include this track.
Adjusting pauses Each track has a pause setting. This pause will be played before the beginning of the track. • To change the length of the pause, double click on the value (the dark red digits). As usual, you can right click on the numbers (after double clicking) to set the value using sliders. If you press [Ctrl] while setting the length of a pause, all tracks will get the same pause length. • Don’t confuse seconds with frames; 00:00.02 is 2 frames (almost nothing) while 00:02.
Checking the total length of the CD The total length of the CD is displayed at the bottom of the Basic Audio CD window. Playing files in the track list There are several ways to play back a file in a Basic Audio CD. • Click with the right mouse button in the track column for an item (any type of marker will work), and select from the menu items. The items should be self explanatory.
Creating a disc image There might be situations where you want to “freeze” an entire Basic Audio CD, without actually burning a CD. This is done with the “Save as CD image” command. 1. Set up the track list so that it is exactly as you want it. 2. Select “Save as CD image” from the CD menu. 3. Find a directory for the files (we recommend that you create a new directory, since the “image” is made up of three different files), and type in a name. 4. Click OK.
Exporting audio files from a track list There are situations where you might want to save the items in a Basic Audio CD as audio files on your hard disk (e.g. for archiving or when you use the Basic Audio CD as a general play list for preparations of files for other purposes). You can either save the tracks as separate files or as one single audio file. As separate files To save the files in a Basic Audio CD as separate files, proceed as follows: 1.
As one file To turn the entire Basic Audio CD into one long file, proceed as follows: 1. Set up the track list so that it is exactly as you want it. 2. Select “Join all tracks into one virtual file” from the CD menu. 3. Fill out the other options in the dialog. Click the question mark icon in the dialog for details. 4. Click OK. The new file appears in a Wave window. 5. Save the file, like any other wave file.
18 About the DVD-Audio format
Background information With its unique ability to create and burn DVD-Audio compatible discs, WaveLab is a major step forward in bringing this versatile audio format to a wider consumer market. DVD-Audio offers high resolution and multi-channel audio plus extra content such as still images and text. DVD-Audio is likely to become the standard media for audio in the future.
What can a DVD-Audio project contain? The DVD-A specification allows for three main content groups: • Audio content DVD-Audio allows for audio files in a variety of channel configurations and resolutions, e.g. high resolution stereo and multichannel (surround) formats with up to 6 channels. Each group (i.e. Montage) can have different channel configurations and audio resolution settings. See “Audio format considerations” on page 369 for details regarding audio formats.
Data structure of a DVD-Audio disc The contents of a DVD-Audio project are stored in a folder named AUDIO_TS (Audio Title Set), which includes all audio, still picture, text and visual menu data. The AUDIO_TS contents are created when you render a DVD-Audio project, and are data files in various special formats readable by the DVD-A player. These cannot be opened or edited in WaveLab.
Audio format considerations There are two main considerations when planning a DVD-Audio project: • The total size of the album. A single album cannot contain more data than 4.7 GB (using a standard single layer DVD). In the table below you can see the maximum recording time on a single sided, single layer DVD for various formats.
Types of DVD players There are three basic types of DVD players: • DVD-Audio player. This could either be an audio-only player (AOP), or a player capable of displaying visual menus, text and still images. • DVD-Video player. This is referred to as a “V-Player” (Video Player), and is capable only of playing back video contents contained in the VIDEO_TS folder. • Universal DVD-Audio/Video player. This is capable of playing back DVD-Audio data, displaying menus, text and still images.
19 The Audio Montage
Introduction The Audio Montage is a multichannel and multi-track non-destructive editing environment, which allows you to arrange, edit, play back and record audio clips on multiple tracks and channels. Features include both track- and clip-based effects, volume and pan automation, wide-ranging fade and crossfade functions and synchronization to MIDI Time Code. Multichannel support makes it possible to create surround mixes that can be burned to DVD-Audio compatible discs.
The Audio Montage window The Edit view selected in the upper pane Tracks Clips The Track View About the two panes and the views The Audio Montage window is divided into two “panes”. The lower pane always shows the tracks and the clips, while the upper pane shows one of 12 views, as listed below. • You can resize the upper and lower panes by dragging the divider between the panes up or down.
The following views are available: View Key Description Edit E This is where you configure how many audio channels you wish to use in the Montage (see “Multichannel operation in the Montage” on page 506), and where you select one of two basic operational modes; CD or DVD-A (from the Mode menu). This is also where you find various options for zooming, editing, fading, selecting, etc.
• If the Montage window is too narrow to show all tabs, two arrow buttons are displayed in the upper right corner of the window. Use these to “move” the row of tabs so that you can see and click the one you want. About naming Most of the views contain one or several menus. To make it clear which menu is meant in each case, we use the following syntax: • X view : Y menu For example, “Edit view : Options menu” means the Options menu in the Edit view.
Info line symbols The following symbols are used in the info line (the symbols for [Shift], [Ctrl] and [Alt] may differ depending on the language selected for WaveLab): Symbol Description Indicates that you can right-click to display a speed menu. The name of the speed menu is displayed after the M symbol. Indicates what happens if you single click. Indicates what happens if you double click. This means that you can [Ctrl]-click for an additional function. Press [Ctrl] for more information.
The ruler At the top of the Track View in the Audio Montage window, there is a ruler, similar to that in the Wave window. To change the ruler format, right-click in the ruler and make a selection from the pop-up menu that appears. Selecting Meter format on the ruler pop-up menu • • • Depending on the selected format, you can make detailed display settings by selecting “Time format…” from this pop-up menu.
Assembling the Montage Creating a new Montage 1. Pull down the File menu and open the New submenu. 2. Select the “Audio Montage…” item. The Sample rate dialog appears. 3. Specify the preferred sample rate. The audio files that you want to use in the Montage must have this sample rate. If you plan to burn a CD from the Audio Montage, you have to select the 44.1 kHz sample rate. 4. Click OK. A new Audio Montage window appears, containing one stereo track.
• You can create a Montage from a Wave file with the Auto Split function. See “The Auto Split dialog” on page 342. • By opening a Wave file and selecting “Create Audio Montage from Wave” on the Edit menu. This option is also available in the Open – Wave dialog (File menu). • By importing an AES-31 project file.
Handling tracks Creating and managing tracks is done in the area to the left of the tracks in the Track View (from now on called the Track Control area). In the middle of this area is a button with the number of the track. Clicking this button brings up the track pop-up menu, which contains most of the track functions.
Selecting an output for an audio track This relates to multichannel operation – see “Assigning tracks to output channels” on page 510. Moving tracks To move a track up or down in the Track View, proceed as follows: 1. Click on the track number button for the track that you want to move. The track pop-up menu appears. 2. Select “Move track up” or “Move track down”. Deleting tracks To remove unwanted tracks, proceed as follows: 1. Click on the track number button for the track that you want to delete.
Folding tracks To save screen space, you can fold tracks that you don’t need to have visible. This is done by clicking the arrow button at the top left corner of the Track Control area. Click on the arrow… …to fold the track. To unfold a folded track, just click on the button again, or double click anywhere in the folded track. Half height tracks Another way to save screen space is to bring up the track pop-up menu for a track and selecting “Half height”.
A clip is created, named after the original audio file. You can change the name of clips in the Audio Montage, as described in the section “The columns” on page 439. • This method can also be used for dragging selection ranges (see “Selection ranges” on page 413) from another (or the same) Montage. The dragged range will become a separate clip. • If you want to drag the whole audio file from the Wave window to the Audio Montage, you don’t need to make a selection first.
Once you have added the desired clips from an audio file, you don’t need to have the original Wave window open. Should you need to edit the original (source) audio file, you can access it from the clip speed menu, as described in the section “Editing source files” on page 442 (any editing done to the source audio file is immediately reflected in all clips referring to the file). By dragging from the Files view This way, you can add clips without having Wave windows open: 1.
3. Select the audio file containing the regions in the middle pane. Now any defined CD/DVD Track, Loop, Mute or Region Start/End markers in the audio file are shown in the right pane. 4. Now you can drag any region into the Montage. When you drop the region, a pop-up menu appears, allowing you to select one of the Insert options – see “The Insert options” on page 388. You can only drag one region at a time using this method. By importing files 1.
By copying clips from another Montage If you have more than one Montage open, you can copy clips from one Montage to another. This can be done either by using drag and drop (from the clip list or the Track View) or by using Copy and Paste. You can also use this method to copy clips within the same Montage. When dragging or selecting clips in the Track View, you need to click at the appropriate mouse zone, as explained in the section “About the mouse zones (audio tracks only)” on page 408.
Loading saved clips As usual, you need to select a stereo track for stereo clips and a mono track for mono clips. 1. In the Montage, place the cursor where you would like to insert the clip(s). 2. Right-click the target track and select “Insert clip file(s)…” from the clip speed menu. You can also select this from the Clips view : File menu. 3. In the file dialog, locate and select the clip(s) you want to load. 4. Click Open. The clip(s) are inserted on the selected track.
The Insert options Single clip When you add a single clip to the Montage (by pasting, importing from disk or using drag and drop), a pop-up menu appears. By selecting one of the menu items, you specify how the clip should be inserted, whether existing clips should be affected or not, etc. Option Description Add/Mix The clip is inserted without affecting any clips that already exist on the destination track.
Option Description Replace selected range Only available if there is a selection range on the destination track. The clip with the selection range will be split at the selection range edges, the inserted clip will replace the range and the section to the right of the range is moved to the left or right (depending on the length of the inserted clip vs. the length of the selection range), so that there is no gap after the inserted clip.
Multiple clips When you add several audio clips to the Montage (by importing from disk or using drag and drop), the Insert audio files dialog appears. In this dialog you can: • • • • • Select files in the list by clicking on them. Change the order of the files by clicking the green arrow buttons or by using drag and drop in the list. Add files to the list by clicking the green plus sign. Remove files from the list by clicking the red cross sign. Specify how the clips should be inserted.
When you insert audio clips, regardless of whether it is a single clip or multiple clips, the following options are taken into account: • • • • Create default fades in new clips (see “Create default fades in new clips” on page 459). Snap to waveform when crossfading (see “Additional crossfade options” on page 468). Create optimized crossfade when snapping to other clip (see “Moving and snapping to another clip” on page 417).
Zooming and navigating Horizontal and vertical zoom controls The zoom “levers” in the upper and lower right corners of the Montage window work just like in the Wave windows. Note that changing the vertical zoom does not affect the height of the tracks. Rather, it affects the vertical magnification of the waveforms within each (audio) clip.
• Click on the small Magnifying Glass icon to “zoom out” – decrease the height of the tracks. This is the same as displaying one track more. When all tracks are visible, this icon will be greyed out. Consequentially, if the Montage only contains one track, both Magnifying Glass icons will be greyed out. • You can zoom in on a single track, making it fill the window. This is done by clicking the numbered button to the left of the track to bring up the track pop-up menu, and selecting “Zoom”.
Zooming in on a single audio clip If you want to study an audio clip in detail, you can zoom in on it so that it fills up the track display: 1. Point at the audio clip. Make sure you don’t aim at an envelope curve. 2. Click with the right mouse button. The clip speed menu appears, containing various clip-based functions and settings. 3. Select “Zoom”, and from the submenu that appears, “Whole Clip”. The Track View zooms in on the clip.
• You can drag the Track View rectangle to view other sections of the Audio Montage. • Clicking on one of the clip boxes outside the Track View rectangle will make the Track View zoom in horizontally on that clip. The number of tracks shown will not change. • Double clicking on one of the clip boxes in the Overview will make the Track View zoom in horizontally and vertically on that clip.
Using snapshots To make it easy to quickly move between different views and zoom levels, you can capture view settings as snapshots, and apply these at any time. This is done in the Snapshots view: The Snapshots view A snapshot contains the following settings: • • • • The horizontal and vertical magnification. The section (horizontal and vertical) of the Montage currently shown in the Track View. The Montage cursor position. The current selection range (if any).
Editing snapshots in the list You manage the snapshot list and edit the settings using the standard WaveLab list editing techniques: • • • • • Hide and show columns using the columns pop-up menu (accessed by clicking the arrow button to the left of the list columns). Reorder or resize columns by dragging in the headings. Sort the snapshots by clicking in a column heading. Rename a snapshot by double clicking on its name and typing. Edit other values by using regular value editing techniques.
Undoing view and position changes There is a separate “Undo history” for zoom, view and position changes in the Audio Montage. This allows you to undo one or several changes, in the following way: • To undo the latest change to the view, click the green left arrow to the left of the Track View ruler (or press [7] on the numeric keypad). You can repeat this as long as there is any change to undo (as long as the green left arrow is lit). This Undo history includes changes to zoom, view and cursor position.
Playing back Playback in the Audio Montage works in much the same way as in the Wave windows. However, there are some extra things to note: • Audio tracks are normally routed through the Master Section. This allows you to add global effects to the Audio Montage or use the Render function to create a mixdown audio file, separate audio files in case of a multichannel Montage or an intermediary Basic Audio CD (see “Mixing down – The Render function” on page 527).
Mute and solo You can mute or solo tracks in the Montage by using the corresponding buttons in the Track Control area: Solo • • • Mute Note that a track is muted when the green button is dark. Note that a track is soloed when the Solo button is blue (lit). The Solo buttons are exclusive, that is, solo can only be activated for one track at a time. However, you can manually unmute other tracks when Solo is activated, if you want to listen to a combination of tracks.
The track activity indicator The track activity indicator The track activity indicator is located on the right side of the Track Control area. This shows the volume level for audio tracks. It is not intended to give exact level readings but rather to provide an overview of which tracks are currently playing back audio, and at what approximate level. About the track gain faders The track gain faders are located to the left of the track activity indicator in the Track Control area.
Playing back individual clips and selections When editing and rearranging the Audio Montage, it can be useful to audition the individual clips and selections. This is done using the clip speed menu: 1. Right-click on the clip you want to play back (make sure you don’t click on the envelope curve, as this will open another speed menu – see “Hiding/ Showing volume envelope curves” on page 447). The clip speed menu appears.
2. Select one of the “Play” items. “Play clip” plays back the clip you clicked on. “Play clip selection” plays back the current selection range only (this is only available if you have made a selection in the clip – see “Selection ranges” on page 413). “Play (with Pre-roll)” plays back the clip you clicked on, starting slightly before the clip. The Pre-roll time is set with the “Playback pre-roll time” parameter in the Preferences–CD Burning tab.
Using the Shuttle function As described in the section “Using the Jog/Shuttle function” on page 143, the Shuttle function can be viewed as playing back with a continuous control for tape speed and direction. This works in the same way in the Audio Montage as in the Wave windows: 1. Activate the Jog/Shuttle button on the Transport bar (or press [F10]). A vertical line is displayed in the middle of the Audio Montage window and the pointer takes on the shape of a speaker. 2.
3. Click and drag to the left or right to drag the audio past the playback point. The audio is played back, forwards (if you drag the audio to the left) or backwards (if you drag to the right), at the speed with which you drag. Remember to deactivate the Jog/Shuttle button on the Transport bar when finished (by clicking the button, pressing [F10] or using Stop).
Recording If you have an audio card with multiple inputs and an ASIO driver you can record up to 8 channels simultaneously. For a description on how to set up and record multiple channels, see “Multichannel recording” on page 521. It is possible to record audio and have it appear directly as a clip in the Audio Montage. There are several ways to do this: By using the track pop-up menu 1. Move the Montage cursor to the position where you want the recorded clip to appear. 2.
By using the Record button 1. Select a track by clicking in its Track Control area. 2. If you like, activate playback. 3. Click the Record button on the Transport bar or press [*] on the numeric keypad. The Record dialog appears. 4. Make sure the checkbox “Add to selected track of Montage” is activated. 5. Proceed as when recording into a Wave window.
About monitoring the recorded signal WaveLab in itself does not handle monitoring (routing the input signal back to the output) during recording. If you want to hear the signal you are recording, there are two ways to achieve this: • Use an external mixer. Normally, you connect your audio input sources (and the audio card’s outputs) to the mixer’s inputs, connect the mixer’s main outs to the monitoring equipment and use a send or bus to send the desired channels to the audio card’s inputs for recording.
As you see, some mouse zones have the same default functionality. You can change this if you like, using the Mouse zones submenu on the Edit view : Options menu. • When you move the pointer over a mouse zone, the info line indicates the corresponding action(s). As described in the section “Info line symbols” on page 376, this also indicates whether you can perform additional functions by holding down modifier keys.
Option Description Start of Audio Montage The start of the Audio Montage. Clip’s cue-point A position within a clip that you set using the clip speed menu (see “Using cue points” on page 428). Clip’s head The start of a clip. Clip’s tail The end of a clip. Time units The time units displayed in the ruler (the same as the positions of the grid lines when the time grid is activated). The coarseness of these units is determined by horizontal magnification.
• A label is displayed, indicating what the clip snaps to. To deactivate Snap, click the icon again or press [N]. Selecting clips To select a clip (for copying, deletion, etc.), click in the mouse zone to which “Select/Move clip” is assigned (by default the bottom clip area). Selected clips are normally displayed in a different color. You can edit this color, as described in the section “Defining custom colors” on page 740. • You can select multiple clips by [Ctrl]-clicking.
• If you hold down [Ctrl] and [Shift], you can click and drag a selection rectangle to select several clips on several tracks. All clips touched or enclosed by the rectangle are selected. When you hold down [Ctrl] and [Shift], the cursor takes on the shape of a “selection arrow”. Using the Select menu The Edit view : Select menu holds several items for selecting clips: Option Description Select all clips Selects all clips in the Montage.
Option Description Select all clips at right of cursor (selected track) Selects all clips that start to the right of the Montage cursor, on the selected track. Select all clips at right of cursor (all tracks) Selects all clips that start to the right of the Montage cursor, on all tracks. Inverse Selection Deselects all currently selected clips and selects all other clips in the Montage. Deselect clips Deselects the currently selected clips.
• • • You can open a Wave window with the range selected in the source audio file, by dragging the selection range to the WaveLab desktop. You can play back the selection range only, either the whole Montage or just the clip with the selection range (see “Playing back individual clips and selections” on page 402). You can have the playback loop within the selection, by activating the loop and selecting the “Loop Selection” mode on the Transport bar.
Moving clips To move a clip, proceed as follows: 1. If you want to move more than one clip, you need to select these clips first. 2. Position the pointer over the clip, in the mouse zone to which you have assigned the “Select/Move clip” function (by default the lower clip area). The pointer takes on the shape of a “four-way arrow”. 3. Click and drag the clip(s) in any direction. When you are moving the clip(s), the info line displays the current start position of the clip you are dragging.
Moving with auto-grouping There are four options on the Edit view : Options menu that affect the result when you move clips horizontally: Track auto-grouping, Global autogrouping, Clip auto-grouping (same track) and Clip auto-grouping (all tracks).
…all clips that are “connected” vertically or horizontally will also be moved. Moving and snapping to another clip If you line up clips so that one clip ends exactly where the next one starts (for example by using Magnetic bounds), the waveforms at the intersection point will probably not “match”. Instead, there could be an abrupt “jump” in level, which can give rise to audio artefacts such as pops and clicks.
About overlapping clips You can move clips so that they overlap each other on the same track. Please note: • The tracks in the Audio Montage are polyphonic, which means that each track can play back several overlapping clips at the same time. Overlapping clips will be transparent, allowing you to see the underlying clips and their waveforms. • • To select an overlapped (underlying) clip, double click in the mouse zone to which “Select/Move clip” is assigned (by default the bottom clip area).
Duplicating clips To make a copy of a clip, proceed as follows: 1. If you want to copy more than one clip, you need to select these clips first. 2. Position the pointer over the clip, in the mouse zone to which you have assigned the “Drag/Copy clip” function (by default the top clip area). 3. Click and drag the clip(s) in any direction. While you are dragging the clip(s), a dotted line indicates where the first of the copied clips will end up.
Repeating clips 1. If you don’t know the exact number of copies (clones) needed, but know roughly where you want the last clip in the row to be positioned, move the Montage cursor there. 2. Right-click on the clip to bring up the clip speed menu. 3. Select “Repeat clip…”. The Repeat clip dialog appears. 4. Either select the “Count” option and specify an exact number of clones, or select the “Repeat until cursor” option. 5.
Dragging selections to create new clips If you have made a selection range in a clip, you can copy this to a new clip, in the following way: 1. Create the selection range, see “Selection ranges” on page 413. If the selection range covers more than one clip, only the section belonging to the focused clip will be copied! 2. Position the pointer over the selection, in the mouse zone to which you have assigned the “Select range” function (by default the upper clip area). 3.
Resizing clips In this context, “resizing” usually means moving the start and end points of a clip, so that more or less of the original audio file is “revealed”. However, in the Audio Montage there are two ways of doing this: with the audio source “static” or “tied”. These two methods are explained below. As with other clip operations, the mouse zones determine which function is used, and the pointer changes shape to indicate the current function.
Resize clips (tied audio source) When you resize a clip using this method, the audio source is “tied” to the edge you are moving. This means that the audio is “scrolled” at the other edge of the clip, as in the picture below. 1. Point at the left or right edge of the clip, and press [Ctrl]. 2. Click and drag to the right or left. The start and end positions and length of the clip are displayed on the info line while you are dragging. In this example, the right edge of the clip is moved to the right.
Resizing by trimming If you need to remove unnecessary material at the beginning and end of a clip, this can be quickly done by trimming: 1. Make a selection range within the clip (see “Selection ranges” on page 413), encompassing the audio material you want to keep in the clip. 2. Right-click to open the clip speed menu. 3. Select Trim to selection. The clip is resized to contain only the selected audio.
Moving a clip with the audio source fixed This is the opposite of sliding the audio: this function moves the clip in the Montage, but the audio source remains fixed in position: 1. Position the pointer over the clip, in the mouse zone to which you have assigned the “Select/Move clip” function (by default the lower or bottom clip area). 2. Press [Shift] and [Alt]. The pointer takes on the shape of a box with arrows. 3.
• If the options “Create default fades in new clips” is activated on the Edit view : Fade menu, a crossfade is automatically created between the resulting left and right clip. • You can also split a clip by setting the Montage cursor and selecting “Split at Cursor” from the clip speed menu, or by pressing [S] on the computer keyboard (in which case the focused clip is split).
Erasing Selecting “Erase selection” removes the selected range, resulting in two clips with a gap between them. • If “Create default fades in new clips” is activated on the Edit view : Fade menu, a default fade-in is created for the right clip, and a default fade-out for the left clip. Deleting clips There are two principal ways to delete a clip: • Right-click on the clip to bring up the clip speed menu, and select “Delete clip”. • Select it, and press [Backspace].
Unlocking a locked clip There are three ways to unlock a locked clip: • • • • Click on the clip, and click “Yes” when asked whether you want to remove the lock. Uncheck the checkbox in the Lock column in the Clips view (see “The columns” on page 439). Deactivate the Lock item on the clip speed menu. To lock or unlock several clips in one go, select the clips and select “Lock/Unlock all selected clips” from the Edit view : Select menu.
To set the cue point for a clip, proceed as follows: 1. If you want to set the cue point at an arbitrary position, move the Montage cursor to that position. This may be within the clip or outside it. 2. Right-click on the clip to bring up the clip speed menu. 3. Open the Cue point submenu. 4. Select one of the functions on the submenu: Option Description Set at cursor Sets the cue point at the current Montage cursor position.
Nudging The Audio Montage window has a special function for making fine adjustments, or “nudging”. The Nudge function is not restricted to the position of clips; it can be applied to a number of objects and properties in the Track View. Basic procedure 1. If necessary, select the object(s) you want to nudge. For example, if you want to adjust the position of a clip, or any property such as left/right edge, fade-in/fade-out length, etc., you need to select the clip. 2.
4. Click the Nudge icons to nudge the selected element, or use the computer keys [F11] (Nudge –) or [F12] (Nudge +). Each time you click the icon or press the corresponding key, the element will be nudged by a defined amount (see below). The Nudge icons. The tool tips for the icons indicate which element is currently selected for nudging. • By holding down modifier keys when you click the icon or press the key, you can nudge the element by smaller or larger amounts.
The nudgable elements The following elements and properties can be nudged: • Clip position. This moves all selected clips. If the option “Snap to waveform when crossfading” is activated on the Edit view : Fade menu, and the focused clip (if any, see “About selected and focused clips” on page 413) is moved to the left so that it overlaps another clip, the nudged clip will be time-adjusted slightly to match the waveform in the left clip.
• Volume of focused clip. Adjusts the volume of the focused clip, in steps according to the Level setting in the Impulse value dialog. • Volume of all selected clips. As above, but affects all selected clips. • Synchro offset (SMPTE). This is used when synchronizing WaveLab to external equipment. See “Nudging sync offset” on page 654.
• The “patch” crossfades, for example when you want to replace a section of audio, and want this to be done as transparently as possible, without any audible discontinuity in the resulting audio. In these cases, it is necessary to make the crossfades as short as possible. These types of crossfades are best created in the Zoom view. The Zoom view helps you create very short crossfades, automatically matching the phase of the two clips, hence minimizing harmonic cancellations.
5. If necessary, you can move or resize the right clip in the Zoom view. Resizing is done exactly as in the Track View, with the audio source “static” or “tied” (see “Resizing clips” on page 422). Moving is done by clicking and dragging anywhere within the clip (the mouse zones within the clip are not used in the Zoom view). 6. Select a search range from the Zoom view : Options menu. This determines how far into the clips the program will scan when searching for the best possible phase match.
Editing in the Clips view When the Clips view is selected, all currently used clips (including pictures, text or video clips if used) are displayed in a list in the upper pane. Each clip in the Track View has a corresponding entry in the clip list. Clips can also be dragged from the clip list into the Montage. The list also allows you to edit the clips in various ways. In fact, virtually all clip editing functions available in the Track View are also available in the clip list.
Moving columns It is possible to rearrange the order of the columns by click-dragging a column heading. A vertical line is shown in the clip list to indicate where the column will be inserted when you release the mouse button. Resizing columns You can freely adjust the width of columns by positioning the mouse pointer on the edge of the column, and click-dragging the divider.
Re-ordering clips in the Montage by drag and drop This feature allows you to reorder clips in the Montage, in a way that is only possible from the clip list. As an example, let’s assume that we have edited the “Welcome” wave file (included with WaveLab) so that the words “Welcome” “to Steinberg’s” and “WaveLab” are instead contained in three separate clips. In this example the clips are all on the same track, but they do not have to be. Proceed as follows: 1.
The columns Editing in the clip list allows for very precise adjustments. There are three ways you can edit values in the clip list columns (and in other Montage lists): • • • By typing in the value. By using sliders or pop-ups. By using the spin controls. For details, see “Setting values” on page 62.
About the Pregap column options There are three options on the Clips view : Functions menu that determine what is displayed in the Pregap column: • Show global pre-gaps. If this is activated, the Pregap Column displays the length of the gap (if any) between the start of a clip and the end of the previous clip, on any track. In other words, it shows the gap between the two clips, regardless of whether they are on the same or on different tracks. • Show pre-gaps by track.
Managing clips and source files There are several functions to help you check and manage the relationship between the clips and their source audio files: The Files view The Files view has two “subviews”, Audio Montage and System (selectable by clicking the vertical tabs to the left of the view).
Editing source files Editing the Montage may require that you process or edit the actual audio files referenced by the clips. This is done in the following way: 1. Right-click on the clip to bring up the clip speed menu. 2. Select Edit from the Source submenu. A Wave window opens, showing the referenced source audio file with a selection corresponding to the clip. 3. Edit the file as desired, save it and return to the Audio Montage.
Cloning and substituting source files If you want to edit the source file of a clip, without the risk of affecting any other clips, you should use the function “Clone and substitute” on the Source submenu on the clip speed menu. This creates a copy of the audio source file, and makes the clip reference to this new file. As a result you can edit the source file without affecting other clips or the original audio file.
If the option “Use existing folders when possible” is activated, the cloned audio file will be stored in the same folder as the original file (provided that the original file has ever been saved). Note that this is not always desirable; if you are working with large audio files and have two or more hard disks, you should consider having the “implicit” folder on a different hard disk from that of your regular audio folder. This will make cloning files twice as fast.
Renaming files and clips You can rename source files and have all open Montages that reference the audio files automatically be updated. You can also freely rename clips from within a Montage and the current Montage will be updated accordingly. You can either use the Rename dialog (see “Renaming files and documents (Rename)” on page 121) or the Batch Rename function (see “Batch renaming” on page 307).
Graphic display of envelope curves The envelope curve indicates at a glance if points, fade-ins or fade-outs have been defined. In addition to the curve, changes in the volume envelope are by default also reflected in the waveform itself. If you do not want this feature you can deselect the “Map waveforms to volume” item on the Edit view : Options menu. A defined volume envelope curve with “Map waveforms to volume” activated.
Hiding/Showing volume envelope curves All clips display volume envelopes by default. There are two ways you can hide the envelope curve for a clip. Method 1: • Bring up the clip speed menu and deactivate the option “Fade/Level” on the “Show Envelope” submenu. The volume envelope is hidden, but still active. To show the volume envelope, activate the option again. Method 2: • Bring up the envelope speed menu and select “Hide”. The volume envelope is hidden, but still active.
Mono/stereo envelopes It is possible to display two volume envelope curves for stereo clips, allowing you to control the volume separately for the left and right channels. Proceed as follows: 1. Right-click on an envelope curve to open the envelope speed menu. 2. Select “Convert to stereo envelope” from the menu. The clip now displays two volume envelope curves. 3. To convert back to a mono envelope, repeat step 1 and select “Convert to mono envelope” from the menu.
Selecting envelope points The following sections apply to both volume and fade envelope points. In other words, you can select, deselect and move both sustain and fade envelope points. Clicking on an envelope point selects it (it becomes red). You can also select several envelope points. The following rules apply: • • • [Shift]-click (on a point) to select all points between a previously selected point and the current point. [Ctrl]-click (on a point) to select non-contiguous points in the envelope curve.
• [Shift]-clicking on the envelope curve and dragging it left or right will select (and move) the two nearest points to the right and left respectively. You are constrained to horizontal movement using this method. This method is useful when working with “Duck according to other track” (see “Duck according to other track” on page 453) since it allows you to quickly adjust the position of duck regions. • Clicking and dragging the envelope curve up or down selects (and moves) all points.
Copying envelopes It is possible to copy an envelope curve and paste it onto another clip. Proceed as follows: 1. Open the envelope speed menu for the curve you wish to copy, and select “Clipboard” on the menu. A submenu appears. 2. Select “Copy envelope” on the submenu. The curve is copied to the clipboard and the speed menu closes. 3. Open the envelope speed menu for the clip to which you want to apply the curve and select “Paste envelope” from the Clipboard submenu.
Envelope smoothing If this item is ticked on the envelope speed menu, the resulting envelope curve angles will be rounded instead of angular. This produces smoother, more natural envelope curves. It can be used while drawing the envelope curve, or applied to an existing curve. Envelope smoothing off Envelope smoothing on Creating envelope presets It is possible to create envelope presets which you can later recall and apply to other clips. Proceed as follows: 1.
Volume envelope presets can only be applied to volume envelopes. Nonvolume envelope presets (such as pan and effect presets) can be applied to any other non-volume envelope, but not to volume envelopes. Envelope edit-lock If this item is ticked on the envelope speed menu, the volume envelope curve points are hidden and cannot be edited with the mouse. You can however drag the whole curve up or down.
The clips that cause ducking must be located completely inside the time range of the clip to which ducking is applied. If the clip(s) that cause ducking contain silent passages, ducking will not work properly. These clips have to be edited so that each phrase is a separate clip without any silence. This is because it is not the signal level that activates the ducking, but the clip itself. When “Duck according to other track” is performed it is applied to one clip at a time.
2. Open the envelope speed menu for the clip containing the music, and select “Duck according to other track…”. The Ducking options dialog opens. The Ducking options dialog 3. Click the appropriate “Previous track” or “Next track” radio button in the “Clips to follow” section (according to whether the voice-over track is above or below the music track in the Montage). For now, we will use the default settings for the other dialog options. 4. Click “OK”.
The following parameters can be set in the Ducking options dialog: Parameter Description Fall Duration The time it takes for the level to fall when ducking starts. Rise Duration The time it takes for the level to rise to the original level after ducking ends. Gap before Clip (Fall) The time between the end of the Fall region and the start of the voice clip. Gap before Clip (Rise) The time between the end of the voice clip and the start of the Rise region.
Using fades and crossfades in the Montage There are a number of different options to choose from when creating and editing fades and crossfades in the Montage. These are described in the following sections. Creating fades As mentioned earlier, by default all clips display a fade-in and a fade-out junction point. These can be dragged horizontally to create a fade-in or fade-out for a clip. You can add envelope points to a fade just as with volume envelopes. To create a fade, proceed as follows: 1.
Fade Options Using fade-in/out smoothing If either or both of these items are ticked on the envelope speed menu, the resulting corresponding fade curve angles will be rounded instead of angular. This produces smoother, more natural fade curves. It can be used while drawing the fade curve, or applied to an existing curve. Fade-in/out presets It is possible to create fade presets which you can recall and apply at will.
To apply the default fade-in time use the following method: 1. Open the envelope speed menu for the clip to which you want to apply the default fade-in length, and select “Default Fade-in”. 2. Select “Apply default fade time” from the submenu. The fade-in time is now set to the defined default value. To apply the default fade-in shape to an existing non-default fade shape, use the following method: 1.
Copying fades It is possible to copy a fade-in (or fade-out) and paste it onto another clip. Proceed as follows: 1. Open the envelope speed menu by right-clicking on the fade you wish to copy, then select “Clipboard” on the menu. A submenu appears. 2. Select “Copy fade-in” (or fade-out) on the submenu. The curve is copied to the clipboard and the speed menu closes. 3.
The following curve types can be selected (in these examples fade-in curves are used – the corresponding fade-out curves would of course display the mirror image): Fade-in curve type Description Linear This is the factory default fade curve. A straight line between two points. Sinus This produces a fade-in curve that starts out moderately fast but planes out towards the end. This curve type will provide a constant power crossfade (see “Power compensation” on page 464).
Using crossfades A crossfade is a gradual fade between two clips, where one is faded in and the other faded out. Crossfades in the Montage are created automatically when clip edges overlap. To create an automatic crossfade, proceed as follows: For automatic crossfading to work, the items “Enable automatic fade-in changes” and “Enable automatic fade-out changes” must be ticked (default setting) on the envelope speed menu for the clip to which you want to apply the crossfade.
Crossfade options The following crossfade options on the Edit view : Fade menu determine how automatic crossfades will be created in the Montage: • No Automatic crossfading. If this is activated, no automatic crossfading will be performed. • Automatic crossfading – free overlaps. If this is activated, automatic crossfades are created when a clip overlaps the edge of another clip on the same track, and the length of the overlap determines the length of the crossfade.
About the crossfade compensation attributes On the fade-in and fade-out ROM presets submenus, you can find an item called “Pure shape” along with three “compensation” items: Menu item Description Pure shape The pure mathematical curve shape is used. This is the default setting when any fade-in/out ROM preset is selected. Amplitude compensation If this is selected for a fade-in (or fade-out) curve in a crossfade, the summed fade-in and fade-out amplitudes will be the same all along the crossfade region.
• Press [Ctrl] and move left and right to “slide” the cross-fade region while keeping its length. Changing the crossfade time (left), and sliding the crossfade region (right). • Please note that for these tow functions to work, the mouse pointer must not be positioned on an envelope curve point inside the crossfade region. If the mouse pointer is positioned on an envelope point, this point was the priority and you cannot change the crossfade time nor slide the crossfade region.
Note that the above only applies if the unmoved clip’s fade-out length is set to zero. • If both clips have different defined fade curves at their adjacent edges when creating a crossfade, this will create an asymmetrical crossfade, based on the defined fade curves. Dragging the right clip so that it overlaps the left clip… …creates a crossfade based on the already defined fades.
Crossfading with fade constrained overlaps On the Edit view : Fade menu and amongst the crossfade icons, you can find two items; “Automatic crossfading – fade-in constrained overlaps” and “Automatic crossfading – fade-out constrained overlaps”. These items allow you to create crossfades and resize clips simultaneously. The length of a defined fade-in or fade-out will constrain the maximum length of the overlap (and hence the crossfade) to the set fade length.
6. Separate the two clips again so that there is no overlap, and that they are in the same left/right position relative to each other as before. 7. Now drag the left clip to the right so that it overlaps the other clip, and continue dragging to the right. Again, the right edge of the left clip will be progressively resized as you drag the clip further to the right. 8.
• Snap to fade-in/out when snapping to other clip If this option is activated, and you move a clip so that its start snaps to the end of another clip, a crossfade is automatically created, like with the previous option. In this case however, the length of the crossfade will be the fade-in length of the right clip. If this is zero, the fade-out length of the left clip is used as basis instead.
About pan modes The four pan modes all relate to the fact that without power compensation, the power of the sum of the channels will drop by about 3 dB if a signal is panned hard left or right, compared to the same signal being panned center. You should experiment with the modes to see which fits best in a given situation. Proceed as follows: 1. Open the pan envelope speed menu by right-clicking the pan envelope curve. 2. Select “Pan mode” on the menu. A submenu opens.
• • The cloned audio file will have the same name as the original, but with the suffix “_#X”, where X is a number. The cloned audio file will be stored in the folder specified in the “Implicit folder” dialog on the Edit view : Options menu (see “Cloning and substituting source files” on page 443). Note that since the new cloned audio file contains exactly the audio range used by the clip, it is not possible to lengthen the clip by resizing it after the Transform operation.
3. Select “Time-stretch to cursor” from the Transform submenu. The Time Stretching dialog appears. This is the same dialog as when time stretching wave files, but the fields for stretch factor/time/tempo are greyed out (since these are determined by the cursor position). 4. Make settings for Quality, Audio Quantize and Preserve pitch, see “Time Stretch” on page 196. 5. Click OK. The clip is stretched (or shortened) so that it ends exactly at the Montage cursor.
Pitch shift This function uses WaveLab’s (or DIRAC’s) pitch correction algorithm to change the pitch of the clip: 1. Right-click on the clip to bring up the clip speed menu. 2. Select “Pitch shift” from the Transform submenu. The Pitch Correction dialog appears. 3. Specify the desired amount of pitch shift. As with time stretch, small changes usually give better results. 4. Specify a Length Compensation value. If you set this parameter to 100, the length of the clip will not be affected.
Adding effects to tracks and clips The Montage supports VST effect plug-ins, both for individual clips and for tracks. The main difference between clip and track effects is: • • Clip effects affect individual clips only. Track effects affect all clips on a track. The standard WaveLab and DirectX plug-ins cannot be used as clip or track effects in the Montage, but VST versions of several standard WaveLab effects are provided, as well as several of the standard Cubase VST effects.
Adding a clip effect slot To add an effect to a clip, proceed as follows: 1. Open the clip speed menu by right-clicking the clip. 2. Select “Add effect slot…” from the menu. A slot is created and a dialog box opens where various settings relating to that slot can be made. Leave the dialog open for now. Adding a track effect slot To add an effect to a track, proceed as follows: 1. Click on the “Add effect slot” button in the Track Control area.
If a clip effect has been added, the number [1] is displayed before the clip name. This is to indicate that one active effect slot is used for that clip. For track effects, the number of active effect slots currently used is shown in the “Add effect slot” button. You can add effects during playback. However, if you add an effect with a latency larger than zero (displayed to the right in the Effect dialog, see “Latency” on page 479), you should stop and restart playback to avoid timing discrepancies.
Effect type: Insert or Split Mode? Clip and track effects can be configured either as Insert or Send effects. This is done using the “Split mode” setting in the Effect dialog (see “The Effect dialog” on page 478). • When Split mode is deactivated for an effect, it is treated as an insert effect. This means the whole clip signal is routed through the effect. Typical insert effects would be compressors, auto panners or distortion units, etc.
The Effect dialog The Effect dialog When an effect is selected, the left part of the Effect dialog contains the parameters for the effect. The right part of the dialog contains a number of options and functions that are common (although some settings may be disabled depending on the effect type, as explained above).
The dialog contains the following common elements: Dialog item Description Send level slider This controls the send level for the chosen effect. Only available when Split mode is selected. Latency Certain effect plug-ins that have to analyze the sound before passing it on, will introduce a latency (delay) in the audio path. WaveLab automatically compensates for this delay with regard to other tracks.
Copying effect settings to another clip or track You can copy both the effect type and its settings and paste them into another clip/track. Proceed as follows: 1. Select the effect you want to copy the settings from. 2. Select “Copy” from the Functions menu in the Effect dialog. 3.
Rearranging the order of the effect slots The Function menu items “Move up” and “Move down” allow you to rearrange the order of the effect slots. The effect order in a chain determines to a certain degree how the effects will affect each other. If you have selected to use compression and reverb for example, the order decides whether compression affects the clip signal only (compressor used as Effect 1), or both the clip signal and the reverb signal (compressor used as Effect 2).
About the “Upper Track” output option On the track pop-up menu you will find two items: “Route to Master Section and upper track” and “Route to upper track only”. These items are related to the fact that WaveLab can host plug-ins that modulate audio with other audio (clip effects only). As an example of this, a plug-in called “Ducker” is included with the program. This is used for lowering the volume of one signal, whenever another signal is present.
Managing effects in the Plug-ins view The Plug-ins view allows you to overview and manage plug-in effects used in a Montage. The view is divided into two panes: Right pane • The right pane shows all plug-in slots currently used for either the focused track or the focused clip. Which is shown is selected by clicking the “C” button (focused clip) or the “T” button (focused track) or by selecting the respective item on the Options menu. • There are two columns; Plug-in chain and Preset.
If you right-click on an effect in the Plug-in chain column, a pop-up opens with the following options: Option Description Find in plug-in tree When you select this option, the lift pane displays the clip/track which uses this effect. Edit… This opens the Effect dialog for the corresponding effect. Copy This will copy the effect and its settings. Paste This allows you to paste in the copied effect in another slot. Remove This removes the current effect from the slot.
If you right-click on the plugin name, a pop-up opens with the following options: Option Description Remove from all clips and tracks that use it This removes all instances of this plugin in the Audio Montage. Replace with clipboard If a plug-in has previously been copied into the clipboard, it will be in all clips and tracks used to replace the selected plug-in (in all clips and tracks).
To load a saved plug-in chain, proceed as follows: 1. Select the track or clip you wish to apply it to. Plug-in chains can only be applied to the clip with selection focus (red name label). 2. If you wish to apply the chain to the focused clip, select “Show plugins of focused clip” (on the Options menu or click the “C” button). If you wish to apply the chain to the selected track, click the “Show plugins of focused track” (“T” button). E.g.
The Meta Normalizer dialog The Meta Normalizer settings dialog Selecting the Meta Normalizer from the Edit view : Special menu opens a dialog where you can set up various options before applying the processing. The dialog is divided into two pages; “Settings” and “Schedule”, which you can switch between by clicking on the appropriate tab at the top of the dialog.
The following options are available in the Meta Normalizer dialog: Option Description Equalize Clip Volume Selecting this will process all clips in the Montage according to the highest possible level or loudness found amongst the clips, so that they will all play back at equal levels. Equalize peak level Select this option if you want to use peak levels as a basis for determining what is considered “equal level” when executing Equalize Clip Volume.
Groups In many situations, it is useful to work with several clips as one entity. This is easily done by grouping them in the Groups view. A group selected in the Groups view. The clips in the selected group are automatically selected in the Track View. Grouping clips 1. Select the clips you want to group. 2. Click the Groups tab to select the Groups view. 3. Select “Group selected Clips…” from the Groups view : Grouping menu, or click the Group icon. 4.
Adding clips to an existing group If you already have a group, and want to add one or several clips to that group, this is done in the following way: 1. Select the clips you want to add. 2. In the Groups view, select “Group selected Clips” from the Grouping menu, or click the corresponding icon. 3. In the dialog that appears, select the group to which you want to add the clips. 4. Click OK. The clips are added to the group.
Group options There are a couple of options in the Groups view that affect how groups are handled: • You can temporarily “turn off” a group by deactivating the checkbox to the left of a group in the list. When the group is deactivated this way, you can move individual clips in the group, as if they were not grouped. • If the option “A mouse click selects a group” is activated on the Groups view : Options menu, selecting a clip in the Track View automatically selects all clips in the same group.
Using markers in the Montage Separate markers are provided for use in the Montage. Markers are used in the Montage in much the same way as in the source Wave windows. See “Markers” on page 327 for details regarding marker types and the basic functionality of markers. It is also possible to view the markers of a clip’s source audio file, by activating the option “Show source’s ruler and markers” on the clip speed menu.
Importing markers When you use the option “Create Audio Montage from Wave” on the Edit menu to create a new Montage from an open wave file, you can choose to import any existing markers in the file so that they will be present in the Montage as well. This is done by activating the option “Translate markers” in the Wave to Audio Montage dialog. This dialog lets you specify a number of options for how the wave file should be inserted into the new Montage.
Converting markers You can convert any type of marker to another marker type. This is done in the “Convert marker type” dialog, which is opened from the Markers view : Functions menu. See “The Convert marker type dialog” on page 335. Renaming markers You can use the Batch Rename dialog to rename multiple markers. See “Markers” on page 311. Editing in the markers list view Clicking on the Marker tab opens the Markers view in the upper pane of the Montage.
About locking marker positions to clips As described in the table above, you can lock markers to clips by selecting one of the Functions menu items “Make current marker relative to start of focused clip”, “Make current marker relative to end of focused clip” or “Make current marker relative to audio of focused clip”. If selected, the marker will remain in the same position relative to the clip start (or end) even if the clip is moved in the Montage or is resized.
Undo/Redo and History The Audio Montage has a separate Undo/Redo list, independent from the Undo/Redo of Wave windows. If you have several Montages, each window has its own Undo history. Undoing and redoing commands in the Audio Montage is done as in the Wave windows (by using the Edit menu, or by pressing [Ctrl]-[Z] or [F3] for Undo, and [Shift]-[Ctrl]-[Z] or [F4] for Redo).
History view Functions On the History menu in the History view, the following functions and options are available: Option Description Undo last operation This is the same as the Undo command on the Edit menu. You can also undo the last operation by clicking the green arrow icon above the list (or in the main control bar). Undo until selected operation This is only available if you have selected an operation in the History list.
File handling in the Audio Montage Saving the Montage You save the Montage using the Save or Save As commands on the File menu. Audio Montage files have the extension “.mon”. A couple of things to note: • The Montage files do not contain any audio data in themselves. Rather, they contain references to audio files. This means that you must make sure not to delete, move or rename any audio files referenced by Montages.
Saving a Montage template Once you have set up the Audio Montage window the way you want it, you can save it as a template. The template file contains all settings and options in the Montage, but no clips. Next time you create a new Audio Montage (by selecting New Audio Montage on the File menu), the template file is used as a basis for the new Montage. This allows you to create a custom track layout and other settings, once and for all.
Cloning Montages There are two ways to make a “clone” of an Audio Montage: “Quick cloning”, in which the new clips will reference to the original audio files, and “Full cloning”, in which the actual audio files are cloned as well, creating a new “self-contained” Montage. Quick cloning This method is useful if you want to create several versions of the Montage, for example experimenting with variations.
Proceed as follows: 1. Select “Full cloning (recreate audio files)…”, either from the Edit view : Special menu or from the Save special submenu on the File menu. A dialog appears. 2. Specify a path and file name for the Audio Montage clone. If you specify a folder that doesn’t exist, it will automatically be created. The cloned audio file(s) will be stored in the same folder as the Audio Montage clone. 3.
Option Description Split files to remove unused ranges Unused ranges in the files are removed, but instead of concatenating the used sections of a file (as with the previous option), the file is split when a range is removed. Create exactly one file per clip Every clip in the Montage clone will reference to a unique file, containing only the audio used in the clip. The files will be named after the clips, with the addition of a number if several clips have the same name.
Backing up Montages The Audio Montage has a special backup mechanism, which allows you to maintain previous versions of saved Montages, and have the Audio Montage automatically saved. It works in the following way: • Each time you save the Audio Montage, the previously saved version is copied to the subfolder “Backup.mon” (in the same folder as the Audio Montage file). This backup folder is automatically created by WaveLab.
4. Activate the Auto save checkbox if you want WaveLab to automatically save the Montage. Use the value field to the right to specify how often the automatic save should be done (every 5 to every 120 minutes). 5. Click OK to close the dialog. Opening the previous version The “Open previous version” function on the History view : Backup menu works as follows: • If there are no unsaved changes in the Audio Montage, the most recent backup file is opened in a new window.
Playing back a video clip Video clips are displayed as clips on the video track, with thumbnails representing the frames in the film. If you start playback, the video is played back in the Track view for the video track. Viewing video clips in the Video view You can also view the film in the upper Montage pane if you select the Video view. Here you can set a number of view options: • To view the video in full screen mode, press [Shift]+[A]. Use this same command to reset the view.
The Video view Options menu There are two items on the Video view : Options menu: • Play video in track (at cursor). If this is ticked, the video frames will play back in the Track view at the cursor position. If this is off, the frames will be displayed as non-animated thumbnail images. • No video playback in track when this tab is open. If both options are ticked, the frames will be displayed as non-animated thumbnail images when the Video view is selected, but otherwise play back.
The ASIO Audio Connections dialog You also need to specify how WaveLab’s 8 internal input/output channels are connected to your audio card. This is done in the ASIO Audio connections dialog, which is opened by clicking the “Connections” button in the Preferences–Audio device tab. • The 7 Surround channels are the available surround speaker channels.
Selecting a channel configuration You can configure the number of channels to use for each Montage. All multichannel (i.e. more than two channels) configurations except 8 channel mode are surround formats, and are internally assigned to surround channels in WaveLab as described previously. The are two operational modes you can use for multichannel work in WaveLab: • Using a surround configuration. To access the surround configurations, you must first select DVD-Audio mode on the Edit view : Mode menu.
Which configuration you should select depends on a number of factors: • The number of outputs available on your audio card. If you only have 4 outputs on your card, you can only use surround formats with 4 or less channels. • Whether or not you intend to mix the Montage to a surround format. If not, select normal stereo operation or 8 channel mode which is non-surround oriented, see “About the 8 channel mode” on page 520. • The intended use of the final surround mix.
About the “Disable redundant modes” menu option This is activated by default. On the Edit view : Mode menu you have probably noticed that some of the surround configurations are greyed out. You may also have noticed that in all surround configurations there is a slash “/” between some of the channels.
1. To open the dialog, click in the area just below the track pop-up menu button for an audio track. Click here… …to open the Audio dispatching dialog. Which channels are available in the Audio dispatching dialog depends on the selected channel configuration, and whether the track is mono or stereo. In the picture above a 6 channel (5.1) configuration has been selected, and the Audio dispatching dialog was opened for a stereo track.
Surround panning As described above, you can route any Montage track directly to a surround channel (or to a combination of surround channels) using the Audio dispatching dialog. However, you may also want to position a track freely in the surround image. This is done using the Surround Pan function. In this example, we assume that you have set up a Montage in 5.1 surround format and that you want to use the Surround Pan for a stereo track: 1.
3. Click OK to close the dialog. A surround pan indicator appears in the Track Control area. This is shown whenever a track is routed to a combination of surround channels. 4. Try clicking and dragging in the surround pan display. As you see, dragging moves the blue dot – the position of the left (top) audio channel in the surround image. The red dot (the position of the right (bottom) audio channel) is automatically mirrored horizontally.
• In the graphic display, the positions of the left/right audio channels are shown as small squares. The proportional signal levels from the individual speakers are indicated by colored lines from the speakers to the center of display. • The graphic display shows the surround imaging of either the left/top (blue) channel or the right/bottom (red) channel – the color of the speaker lines shows which channel is selected for viewing and editing.
7. If needed, adjust the settings to the left. These are: • Setting Description Center This determines how center source signals should be reproduced by the front speakers. With a value of 100%, the center speaker will provide the center source. With a value of 0%, the center source will be provided by the ghost image created by the left and right speakers. Other values will produce a mix between these two methods.
Using LFE The LFE (Low Frequency Effects) channel should typically be used with great care – in many cases you don’t need to activate this at all for a track. If the LFE channel is activated in the Audio dispatching dialog, the following settings are available: • Low pass filtering. When this checkbox is activated in the Audio dispatching dialog, a 12dB/octave low pass filter will be applied to the LFE signal, so that only the low frequency content is let through.
Using the Surround Pan window You can use the Surround Pan window to “program” each envelope point – this makes it easy to set up automated surround panning for a clip. Here’s an example. Let’s say that we want the signal to start at the front center position, then move to the left rear speaker and finally move to the right rear speaker. Proceed as follows: 1. Set up a track for surround panning by activating the desired surround channels in the Audio dispatching dialog. 2.
7. Use the Surround Pan window to position the sound as desired. In our example, the panning should start in the front center position – drag the position square to the top middle of the display (or right-click in the display and select the “Front Center” preset). 8. Select the next envelope point in the clip and set the surround panning to the left rear speaker (move the position square to the lower left corner of the display). 9.
10. Select “Surround Pan (Front <-> Rear)” from the Show envelope submenu for the clip. The Front-Rear surround envelope curve looks like this: 11. Play back the clip. You should hear the sound move from center front to left rear to right rear. • To create more complex surround panning, add more envelope points and program these in the same way.
About the “Import Surround audio file” option This import option allows you to import multichannel interleaved files in the 5.1 format. This works as follows: 1. Open the Edit view : Mode menu and select the “6 channels” configuration. 2. Set the cursor where you want the imported files to be inserted and rightclick in an empty area for an audio track to open the Montage Insert speed menu. 3. Select “Import surround audio file” from the menu.
Multichannel recording • For a general description of Montage recording, see “Recording” on page 406. You can record up to 8 channels simultaneously in the Montage. Preparations To set up for multichannel recording, proceed as follows: 1. First you have to set up how the inputs on your audio card are connected to WaveLab’s internal channels. This is done in the ASIO Audio connections dialog – see “The ASIO Audio Connections dialog” on page 507. 2.
4. On the “Channels” pop-up in the Audio File Format dialog either select the Multi Stereo/Mono or the Multi Mono option. Multi Stereo/Mono will produce single stereo or mono files, depending on the activated channels in the Recording channels dialog. The channels are logically grouped as pairs (1-2, 3-4, etc.), and this governs the mono/stereo status of the recorded files and the tracks they will end up on.
ASIO Instant playback switching This tool (opened from the Tools menu) allows you to switch ASIO outputs. You can also use this tool to compare clips (routed to different outputs in the Montage) via one selected output pair. You can for example use it to instantly switch between up to four different “takes” of a performance, or to switch between versions of the same clip (using different processing or effects) lined up on different tracks in the Montage for comparison purposes. Proceed as follows: 1.
• If you activate “Solo mode” only one track/output will be heard at a time so you will switch instantly between the selected tracks/outputs. Please note that the muting is not reflected in the Master Section. • If you activate both “Solo mode” and “Redirect to the selected output pair” you will redirect all tracks/clips to the output pair selected with the Output radio buttons, regardless of the routing in the Montage.
• Green faders indicate mono channels. The Master Section with a 6 channel (5.1) configuration selected. Stereo output channel faders are linked by default, but you can make independent settings for the left/right channels if you click the Unlink button. The Stereo button If you have selected a multichannel/surround format, a “Stereo” button appears in the Master Level pane. When activated, you will monitor a stereo mix of the Master Section outputs.
Master effects and multichannel Montages Master effects for a multichannel Montage are handled in the same way as when working in stereo mode (see “The Effects pane” on page 225). However, there are a few things to note: • Not all of WaveLab’s Master effects are compatible with multichannel operation. Supported effects are: Peak Master, Puncher, Leveler Multi, Noise Gate, EQ-1 and Silence.
Mixing down – The Render function The Render function in the Master Section allows you to “mix down” the whole Montage (or sections of it) to a single audio file, or to several files in case of a multichannel Montage (see “Rendering to multiple files or multichannel files” on page 530).
5. Click the Render button in the Master Section window. The Rendering preferences dialog appears. 6. Use the radio buttons in the Source section to specify what you want to include in the created file. The Time Selection and Selected Clips options will only be available if you made a selection range or selected clips, respectively (in step 2 and 3 above). • The Regions option will only be available if there are start/end region markers (Track/Loop/Region markers) in the Montage.
Option Description Do fade-in/out at boundaries “Do fade-in/out at boundaries” is selectable when “Regions” is activated. In this case, the generated files get a short fade-in at the start, and a short fade-out at the end. The fade time and shape is set in the “Default fade/crossfade” section in the Preferences–Wave edit tab. The fade processor is located after the master fader, and before the post-master/dither slot. This allows the signal to benefit from dithering, if used.
10. Close the Audio File Format dialog when you are done. 11. Click the Schedule tab to make settings for Priority, Start and Completion actions (see “Options on the Schedule tab” on page 242). 12. Click OK to create the file(s). Rendering to multiple files or multichannel files If you have selected the “Create specific file” option in the Render dialog, you can make numerous settings in the Audio File Format dialog before rendering.
Preparing the Audio Montage for CD/DVDAudio burning See “Background information” on page 366 for a general description of the DVD-Audio format. The descriptions in this section cover preparations for both CD and DVDAudio burning, as the basic procedures are almost identical. The term CD/DVD used there thus applies to options in both the CD and DVD-A view unless otherwise stated.
4. Select “CD/DVD Wizard…” from the Functions menu (or click the “magic wand” icon). The CD/DVD Wizard dialog appears. This contains a number of settings that help you automate the CD/DVD creation. 5. Activate the option “Generate CD/DVD Track Markers” and activate the desired sub-options. These options are: • Create markers at clip boundaries This causes the CD/DVD Wizard to add CD or DVD track start and end markers at the beginning and end of all non-overlapping clips.
6. If you like, activate the option “Adjust pause before tracks”. This automatically adjusts the pause before each track, either to a fixed value (as specified in the Set time value box) or to the number of whole seconds closest to each current pause in the Montage. If you want to adjust the pauses between tracks but don’t want the start time of the first track in the Montage to change, be sure to activate “Don’t change first pause”.
13. If the Check gave a warning message, make manual adjustments and repeat the Check procedure until the list is OK. You may get warning messages for several reasons, including: • • • • • • You have CD tracks that are shorter than 4 seconds, or DVD tracks shorter than 1 second. The pause before the first CD track is shorter than 2 seconds. There are clips (or sections of clips) outside the CD or DVD tracks.
Proceed as follows: 1. Place the CD/DVD track end marker of the first track at the position where the music ends, but before the applause section. 2. If necessary, place the CD/DVD track start marker of the following track at the position where the music starts. 3. Activate the “Audio in pauses” mode from the CD/DVD-A view : Options menu, or by clicking the corresponding icon on the icon bar. Placing a clip before track 1 To create a “hidden” CD/DVD track before track 1, proceed as follows: 1.
Editing the CD/DVD-A view list Once you have prepared a CD track list as described previously, you can go ahead and write the CD. For DVD-Audio you first need to make some settings in the DVD-Audio options dialog (see “The DVD-Audio options dialog” on page 537) before adding the Montage to a DVD-Audio project (see “Creating and opening a DVD-Audio project” on page 552).
Setting a new ATS will mute the audio in the DVD-A player for up to two seconds. Therefore you should never set a new ATS at a gapless track transition or for Audio in Pause transitions! About the “DM” column in the DVD-A view list “DM” stands for Down Mixing. If you tick this column for a track using a surround format, a “smart” stereo down mix will automatically be created according to the settings made in the DVD-Audio options dialog, see below.
An alternative solution is to use Stereo Down Mixing tables. This means that you can specify how each surround channel should be represented in the stereo mix by supplying gain coefficients. When the DVD-Audio is played back on stereo equipment, the surround channels are combined to stereo – but they are “mixed” according to the coefficients you have specified.
• You can also use the Preset pop-up menu to store and recall Down Mixing table presets. • You can check the results of your Down Mixing settings by selecting the desired table in the “DM” column in the DVD-A view (see “About the “DM” column in the DVD-A view list” on page 537), activating the Stereo button in the Master Section (see “The Stereo button” on page 525) and playing back. Checking transitions between tracks On the CD/DVD-A view : Functions menu there is an item named “Edit playback times…”.
Render selected CD/DVD track It is possible to render a selected CD/DVD track as an audio file. This feature is reserved for stereo audio montages. The rendered file can replace the existing clips that make the CD/DVD track, or can be placed on a free track or on a new track. For details, click the question mark icon in this dialog. About the two CD write methods The final phase of CD creation can be done in two ways: • By burning directly from the CD view in the Montage.
5. Click OK. Now, the whole Montage is rendered to an CD image file, with a corresponding cue sheet. A new Audio Montage is created, which will play back as the original Montage and have all its features (but refer to the ready-processed CD image file instead). Now you can proceed with burning the CD as described in the next chapter. • It is also possible to create a Basic Audio CD from the Render dialog. This will also separate the processing and the CD burning and thus conserve processing power.
Generating the Audio CD report An Audio CD report should be generated when an Audio Montage is fully prepared and ready for CD burning (or after having already done so). Proceed as follows to generate a preview of the Audio CD report template: 1. Open the Audio Montage you wish to create a report for. 2. Click the CD tab and select “Generate/Print Audio CD report” from the Functions menu. A dialog opens.
Editing the Audio CD report Editing user variables To enter personal data for the user editable variables, or to add new variables, you use the “Edit text variables” dialog, located on the CD view : Functions menu, see “Defining user variables” on page 614. Editing CD Text CD Text is included on the actual CD, and can be displayed by some CD players. It can also be included in the Audio CD report, allowing you to specify titles, performers, composers and more for the whole CD and for each track.
• Each element entry consists of a path to a RTF file. One exception is the Logo, which should point to the location of an image file. The image will be embedded in the final RTF file. • To use another RTF file for an element, click the folder icon and browse to the new RTF file. You could for example have created different versions of the various RTF files, or a client could bring his own RTF files, etc. • To remove an element from the Audio CD report, delete the path to its RTF file.
In this example, we’ve opened the file “Header1.rtf”. As you can see, this is the personal information that was shown under the logo in the preview CD report template. The entries are written exactly as in the “Edit Variables” dialog; a title followed by a variable name enclosed with “%” characters. • All text in the RTF documents apart from the code inside the percentage marks will be shown in the report.
Using DVD-A picture and text tracks DVD-A picture and text tracks can be added to Montages that are to be burned to DVD. These track types have no functionality in WaveLab itself, other than offering the ability to place text and pictures along the time line which will be shown together with the audio when the final DVD-A is played back in a compatible player connected to a video display. • DVD-Audio text and picture tracks are created from the track pop-up menu, just like other track types.
Adding real time text to a DVD-A text track 1. Set the cursor at the position where you want the real time text to appear. 2. Right-click in an empty area on a text track and select “Insert text”. This opens the Real time text dialog. In this dialog you type in a text to be displayed at that time position. You can specify a time position for the text relative to the start of the track, and the duration the text is to be shown. Click the question mark icon in the dialog for details.
Exporting AES-31 files Proceed as follows to export an Audio Montage as an AES31 file: 1. Select “Export as AES-31 file…” from the Save Special submenu on the File menu. 2. Select a name and location for the new file and click Save. At this point, the AES-31 Export options dialog appears. This dialog lets you specify a number of options for the AES-31 file to be exported. Click the question mark icon in the dialog for details. 3.
For the various CD track markers, for example, the codes to use are the following: Marker type Code Example marker name CD track start [t-start] “So it begins [t-start]” CD track end [t-end] “The end [t-end] of the road” CD track splice [t-splice] Intermission [t-splice] CD track index [t-index] [t-index] Hello • You must use Nuendo 2.0 or later if you want to create specially named markers that will be interpreted as WaveLab markers.
WAVELAB 19 – 550 The Audio Montage
20 DVD-Audio projects
Creating and opening a DVD-Audio project How to make preparations in the Montage for DVD-Audio is described in the Audio Montage chapter. The DVD-Audio project is where you assemble the Montages you want to appear on the DVD before finally rendering the contents to the AUDIO_TS folder. It is also from here you can reach the “Main settings” dialog, where you make general settings for the final DVD.
Adding Montages to a DVD-Audio project A DVD-Audio project consists of one or several (up to 9) Audio Montage(s). Each Montage corresponds to a group (which can be named) in the DVDAudio project. Using Add Audio Montage This item is used to add Audio Montages to the DVD-Audio project. 1. Select “Add Audio Montage” on the Functions menu, or click the green “+” icon. 2. In the File dialog that appears, select one or several Montage files. A DVD-Audio project can contain up to 9 Montages (groups). 3.
The DVD-Audio project window Montages in the DVD-Audio project window The DVD-Audio project window contains 8 columns that show information about Montages in the project. Apart from the entries in the Group Name column, you cannot edit any of the information shown in this window: Column Description Group Name If you double-click on the name you can enter a new name for the group (by default the group name will be taken from the name of the Montage).
• If the tracks in a given Montage contain DVD start and end markers, these are used to define the number of tracks, the length and the size in the list. If the tracks in a given Montage do not contain any markers, the Tracks, Time and Size columns will display a zero value. • In the top right corner of the window the total number of tracks and the length and size of all Montages in the DVD-Audio project are shown. • You can have several DVD-Audio project windows open at the same time.
The Main settings dialog The Main settings dialog is opened either by clicking the Settings icon or by selecting “Settings…” from the Functions menu. In this dialog you can make various settings relating to what is to be included on the final DVD. The dialog contains the following items: Item Description Volume ID/Number of volumes These items allow you to specify disk information. E.g.
Item Description Include still picture tracks If this is activated, any pictures placed on a DVD-A picture track will be displayed in a compatible DVD player – see “Using DVD-A picture and text tracks” on page 546. Include static text If this is checked, static text included on the DVD-A will be displayed in a compatible DVD player.
Default still picture and picture effects As described in the section “Using DVD-A picture and text tracks” on page 546, an Audio Montage can contain picture tracks. Still pictures placed on such a track will be burnt onto a DVD-A disc and displayed when the DVD-A is played back in a player that is able to read and show still pictures in a connected video display.
You design and generate visual menus with the help of two dialogs available in the DVD-Audio project window: The “Main settings” dialog and the “Menu generation” dialog. These are accessed either from the Functions menu, or by clicking the corresponding icon in the toolbar. Click here to open the “Main settings” dialog. Click here to open the “Menu generation” dialog. To create a DVD-A visual menu, proceed as follows: 1.
4. Next, click the Edit menus icon in the toolbar, or select “Edit menus…” from the Functions menu. This opens the Menu generation dialog. This dialog lets you design every aspect of the visual menu and also test it, with or without audio playback. It is dominated by a display of what the menu will look like. It is possible to navigate in the display, just as you would with a remote control when the DVD-A disc is used in a DVD-A compatible player.
Copy/Paste These buttons let you apply the same settings quickly from one track menu to another. Just make all the desired settings for one track menu and click “Copy”. Then select another track menu and click “Paste”. All the settings in the first menu will then be applied to the second. Add menu for groups If this is activated, there will be group menus available for editing. If not, there will be only track menus.
Name/index/time menu This drop-down menu is only available when you have selected Group names or Track names from the Elements menu. It lets you decide whether the groups and tracks should be displayed by name only, or using different combinations of name, index (group/track number) and time (group/track length). Format This button is only available when you have selected to display group names and track names by a combination of name, index and time.
Layout menu The items on this menu allow you to specify the desired basic layout of the visual menu. For album title, group names and navigation buttons, you can choose the alignment for the text – left side, centered or right side. For track names, you can select the number of columns and their alignment. Vertical spacing This allows you to adjust the vertical spacing between the selected type of elements. For a track list, this is the space between each track name.
Color settings (Normal, Selection, Action) All elements except album titles and group names in a visual menu can have three states: Normal (unselected), selected (touched by the cursor) and active (when the command is carried out – e.g. starting playback of a selected track). The three colored squares allow you to select which color the selected element should have in each of these states. Click the colored squares and select a color from the standard color picker dialog that appears.
Show safety area If you activate this option, an outline of the safety area will be visible. The safety area is the part of the display area that is guaranteed to be visible when the menu is displayed on a regular TV set. Visual menus, pictures, etc. on DVD-A are usually set up on a computer monitor, and the display area, resolution and aspect ratio of computer monitors are different from those of TV sets. The safety area therefore consists of about 80% of the pixels shown on a computer monitor.
Background picture/color The radio buttons “Picture” and “Color” directly below the display let you decide whether to use a picture as background for the menu, or whether the menu should be filled with a color of your choice. • If you select “Picture” you get access to the folder button to the right. Use this to browse for the picture you want to use as background. WaveLab supports the picture formats jpg/jpeg and bmp.
When you first open this dialog it contains a main folder with a number of subfolders inside it. These items are all automatically generated and have to be edited outside of this dialog. Folders and subfolders are opened by double-clicking them. On the pop-up menu at the top of the dialog you will find a multitude of text options divided into various categories. You use the dialog in the following way: 1. First select an appropriate text option heading from the pop-up menu.
Final preparations When you have made all necessary preparations in the DVD-Audio project it is time to move on to the (next to) final process! Using the Check function Before rendering the DVD-Audio project, you should use the Check function. This will automatically check all Montages in the project and display a detailed warning if the project does not comply with the DVD-Audio standard. • Select “Check all” from the Functions menu or click the “glasses” icon.
Rendering the DVD-Audio project Before burning the DVD you have to render all the contents of the DVDAudio project to an AUDIO_TS folder. This folder is automatically added to a Data CD/DVD project, from where you can start the actual burning process. 1. Select “Create…” from the Functions menu or click the red disc icon. The DVD-Audio creation dialog appears. In this dialog you can set the following options: Option Description Test This will create a report about the contents of the DVDAudio project.
The contents of the DVD-Audio project are now rendered according to your settings. When the rendering process is finished, a Data DVD/CD project is automatically opened, containing a AUDIO_TS folder and an (empty) VIDEO_TS folder. From here you can do one of the following: • • Burn the DVD without adding any additional data or a VIDEO_TS folder. Add data and/or a VIDEO_TS folder (authored in another application). This is described in the section “Data CD/DVD Projects” on page 583.
21 Burning an audio CD
Introduction For a description of how to create a DVD-Audio disc, see “Creating a DVDAudio compatible disc” on page 589. This chapter describes the basic CD burning process, as well as some general reference information about the CD format. It does not, however, describe the necessary preparations for creating a CD from a basic audio CD or an Audio Montage. In other words, this chapter assumes that the respective preparations have been completed, and that you are ready to execute the actual CD burning.
Testing a basic audio CD before burning There are two ways to check a CD before burning: Check The “Check” command on the CD menu scans through the basic audio CD and checks that the settings conform to the CD standard. For Montages this command is on the Functions menu (CD tab selected). This command does not access the CD-R recorder in any way, it only checks the setting in the list against a set of rules. These rules are described in the help for the Check menu item.
Writing a CD Once you have set up the basic audio CD or Montage, we suggest the following work order for burning the CD. These steps are not mandatory though, just a recommendation. Please observe the precautions indicated in the Troubleshooting chapter in the online documentation before writing your first CD! 1. Listen through the CD once more, from the basic audio CD window or from the Montage, to check that all starts, ends and transitions are OK. 2.
CD-Extra support When writing an audio CD as described above, it is possible to prepare it for CD-Extra support. CD-Extra is comparable to Mixed Mode CDs in that both of these formats allow for the writing of both audio and data on a single CD. However, unlike Mixed Mode CDs, the audio on CD-Extra CDs is placed on the first track(s) of the CD and the data follows subsequently.
Validating an audio CD after burning With a few easy steps, you can verify that an audio CD created from an Audio Montage was burnt correctly on CD – i.e. you can check what was burnt and compare it to what should have been burnt to see if there are any discrepancies. Of course, you can also do this as a test before the final burning process.
8. Select “Compare Audio CD images…” from the Tools menu. The “Compare CD-images / cue-sheets” dialog opens. 9. Click the folder buttons to the right of the two text fields to open the cue sheets you created in step 3 and step 7 above, respectively. The cue sheet you created in step 3 describes the contents of the CD as it should have been burnt, and the cue sheet created in step 7 describes the CD as it was burnt. 10. Click “Compare”.
Red Book CD is not a real file format Those of you who are computer literate might know about file formats. Please note that Red Book CD is not a real file format. All the audio on the CD is stored in one big chunk, one file if you will. This is different from hard disks, for example, where each file is stored separately. Understanding the fact that all the audio is in fact one long stream of digital data is something that will probably help you better understand the limitations of the format.
But frames aren’t the smallest block of data on a CD. There is also something called “small frames”. A small frame is a container of 588 bits. 98 small frames together make up one regular frame. In each small frame there is actually only room for six stereo samples, which means that a lot of space is left for data other than the actual audio. There is information for encoding, laser synchronization, error correction and the PQ data (so called because it is stored in the “P” and “Q” bits).
UPC/EAN codes UPC stands for “Universal Product Code”. Some CD/DVD-R units allow you to specify this code, which is a thirteen-digit catalog number for the disc. Also known as EAN. Pre-emphasis Pre-emphasis works by boosting (or pre-emphasizing) high frequencies before burning the CD, and cutting (de-emphasizing) them when playing back. The theoretical result of this is that the desired audio is returned to normal sound, but any other high frequency content (noise) in the recording is reduced.
Cube-Tec International GmbH, in conjunction with Steinberg, provide such a solution as an addition to WaveLab. The product is called DDPSolution.
WAVELAB 21 – 582 Burning an audio CD
22 Data CD/DVD Projects
Introduction A Data CD/DVD project is an environment that can be used to compile and write a data only CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, Mixed Mode CDs and mixed data/DVD-Audio discs (although this is only possible when a Data CD/ DVD project has been automatically created from a DVD-Audio project, see “Creating a DVD-Audio compatible disc” on page 589). • • • Data discs exclusively contain computer data. This can be files of any type.
Creating a new Data CD/DVD Project For DVD, creating a new Data CD/DVD project as described below will enable you to create a data only DVD-ROM disc. To create any type of DVDAudio compatible disc, you have to first render a DVD-Audio project, see “Creating a DVD-Audio compatible disc” on page 589. Creating a new Data CD/DVD project for data discs or Mixed Mode CDs To create a new Data CD/DVD project, select “Data CD/DVD” from the New submenu on the File menu. A new Data CD/DVD window appears.
Source window settings You can decide how files and folders are displayed in the source window (as icons, as a list, etc.) by selecting one of the items on the Source menu (or by clicking the corresponding icon) on the source window toolbar. To help navigating, you can use the functions “Up one level” and “Recent paths”. The latter (only available as an icon on the toolbar) displays a menu listing all recently used paths, allowing you to quickly go back to any of the listed folders.
Destination window settings View settings Use the Destination menu to adjust how files and folders are displayed in the destination window, just like in the source window. Getting size information At the bottom of the Data CD/DVD window, a ruler shows you the current and the maximum size of the project.
The CD/DVD menu The CD/DVD menu contains items for preparing and writing the disc: Function Description Disk Label… Opens a dialog where you can name the CD/DVD to be recorded. CD/DVD Info… Displays the total number of files as well as the total file size on the CD/ DVD to be recorded. Add photo viewer to CD/DVD… This opens a dialog where you can select to add a simple photo viewing application to CDs/DVDs that contain photo images. The viewer application is called ImageViewer.
Creating a Mixed Mode CD To create a Mixed Mode CD (i.e. a CD with both audio and data), proceed as follows: 1. Select the “root” of the CD in the left destination window pane. 2. Select “Add Audio Track Folder” from the Destination window Edit menu. An Audio Track Folder item appears in the destination window. This cannot be moved or removed. 3. Drag any audio files you want included as audio tracks from the source window to the audio track folder.
The Write dialog for the Data CD/DVD When you select “Write CD/DVD…” on the Destination window’s CD/ DVD menu, you will first be asked for a name for the CD or DVD to be created. After entering a name and clicking OK, the “Write virtual Disc” dialog appears. Here you can make all the necessary settings for the CD or DVD to be recorded. • If you burn a DVD-Audio to a DVD-RW that already contains data, you will be asked if you want to create a new session.
Item Description Closing method Here you can select a closing method. If you are adding the data portion to a CD-Extra CD, you must select “Close CD” (see “CD-Extra support” on page 575). Simulation Here you define if and how a simulation should be performed before the actual writing process. Simulating the writing process lets you find out whether the writing process will be successful, or if problems might occur.
WAVELAB 22 – 592 Data CD/DVD Projects
23 Importing audio CD/DVD tracks
Importing audio CD tracks into WaveLab WaveLab provides the ability to read audio tracks from regular CDs. This makes a digital copy of the audio from the CD directly into an audio file on your hard disk. Although WaveLab supports a large number of CD drives, there are some restrictions you should be aware of: • There are a number of different, not very well standardized protocols for retrieving audio from a CD-ROM/CD-R drive.
• By default, the tracks will be named “Track XX”, where XX is a number starting at 01. You can adjust the auto numbering scheme by right-clicking in the list and selecting an option from the pop-up menu that appears. This pop-up menu also contains some additional functions for saving individual tracks directly as files, appending a track to the current Montage, etc. The “Import Audio CD Tracks” dialog 6.
8. If required, you can select one file and click Play. This will play the beginning of the track so that you can check it out. • If you notice that playback starts too late into the track – i.e. a small part of the beginning of the track is “cut out”, you can specify a pre-roll value to ensure that the entire beginning of the track is read.
File format – Converting CD track(s) to other formats The extracted audio files are saved in WAV (Wave) format by default. You can, however, directly save files in other audio formats by clicking the button at the bottom of the dialog to open the Audio File Format dialog, and select the desired file format from the Type menu. Among the formats available are the following compressed audio formats: MP3, MP2, WMA and Ogg Vorbis.
Convert to Basic Audio CD The “Convert to Basic Audio CD” function is similar to Convert to Montage (Standard mode), but a Basic Audio CD is created instead. Convert to CD-Image / cue-sheet This will convert all tracks, all index (and sub-index) markers and pauses exactly, as well as CD-Text, ISRC and UPC codes. A CD-Image file with a corresponding cue sheet is created.
Importing DVD-Audio tracks into WaveLab WaveLab provides the ability to read audio tracks from DVD-A discs. This creates a digital copy of the audio from the DVD-A directly into an audio file on your hard disk. The main uses for this function are: • Recovering audio tracks from DVD-A discs you have generated and burnt onto DVD via WaveLab’s DVD-Audio project window (see “Creating and opening a DVD-Audio project” on page 552).
4. Use the Destination folder menu below to select a destination folder for the file(s) to be imported. You can either type in the folder name and path directly or click the folder button to browse for a folder. The files will be saved with the name that appears in the visual menu. Note that you can rename a file later – after clicking “Save” (see below). 5. Next, click the Analyse button. The DVD-A (on DVD or hard disk) is now analysed and the dialog is updated to display the contents of the DVD-A.
8. The next step is to decide which audio tracks you want to import. This can be done in one of three ways: • Select the option “Retrieve selected tracks” to the top right, and then select as many tracks as you wish from the visual menu. You can use [Ctrl] or [Shift] to make multiple selections, or use the Select All button. It’s possible to select tracks from several groups this way, as long as you keep pressing [Ctrl] or [Shift] when selecting groups and tracks.
11. Optionally, activate “Create peak file”. When this is activated, a peak file is created for each track as they are saved to disk. A peak file is a small file with the extension “.gpk” automatically created by WaveLab each time a file is modified or opened in WaveLab (if it hasn’t been previously). The peak file contains information about the waveform, and determines how it is drawn in the wave window. With this option activated, the importing of the tracks will take slightly longer.
24 Creating labels
Introduction The Label Editor allows you to design and print custom labels for your CD and DVD-Audio projects. You can design separate layouts for front, inside, back and disk labels. Both text information and a wide range of image file formats can be imported and edited in various ways. For DVD-Audio projects, you can create labels from within the Audio Montage, or you need to start the Label Editor and create them from scratch.
3. A dialog appears, allowing you to select a template for your project. To the right in the dialog there is a list of available templates, divided into three groups “Audio”, “Data” and “Audio + Data”. By clicking on the corresponding tab the available templates for the selected project type are shown in the list. To the left in the dialog, preview images of the front, back and the disk labels are shown. 4. Select a template, and click OK. The Label Editor window opens, displaying the CD case front label.
Using the Label Editor Overview The Label Editor always displays one of the three available views or pages: the front, back or disk case label. You switch between these pages by selecting the corresponding tabs below the toolbar. The layout is completely independent for each page. • Please note that the front label can be either single- or double-sided. This option is set in the Page Layout dialog on the Printing menu.
Basic object handling in the Label Editor The Label Editor tools Insert circle Insert line Insert image Insert box with text Insert track list Zoom object Print label Selection tool Zoom in/out Tools can be selected in three ways: • • • From the Tools menu By clicking the corresponding icon on the toolbar By right-clicking in the background area (not an object), and selecting from the speed menu that appears The following tools are available: Tool Description Selection tool Used to select, resiz
Selecting objects Click an object with the Selection tool to select it. • • • Selected objects are indicated by a dotted outline, and square “handles”, which can be used to scale the size of the object. To select several objects, hold down [Shift] or [Ctrl] and click. Selected objects can be de-selected by [Shift]-clicking. When several objects are selected, one of the objects will always have “focus”. The focus is indicated by red handles on this particular object.
Inserting new objects Inserting new objects is done by selecting the corresponding tool, and clicking and dragging in the layout. When you release the mouse button, a dialog appears, allowing you to define basic properties for the inserted object. Note that this does not apply to image objects, where instead a standard file dialog appears. • The Edit Properties dialog is also selectable from the Objects menu and by right-clicking objects and selecting from the speed menu.
• By selecting “Edit Position and Size…” from the Objects (or context) menu and adjusting the position numerically in the dialog that appears. Note that this adjusts the position of the object with focus. You specify the position from the left side and the top of the layout frame, in cm/mm. Click “Apply” to apply the position change without closing the dialog. About the grid, rulers and magnetize options On the Options menu, you will find two items, “Show Grid” and “Show Rulers”.
The Objects menu The Objects menu can be selected from the toolbar, or opened by rightclicking an object (speed menu). The items on the Objects menu are greyed out if no object is selected. If one object is selected, the following Object menu items are available: Item Description Edit properties… See “About the Edit Properties dialog” on page 610. Edit position and size… See “Positioning objects” on page 609.
If several objects are selected when opening the Objects menu, the following additional items are available: Item Description Apply same properties as focused object This item allows you to apply properties from the focused object to all of the selected objects of the same type. Space evenly horizontally This distributes the selected objects horizontally, using the top center handle as a guide.
• Saved label sets (with the extension *.lab) contain all the layout work performed in the Label Editor. It is, however, not dynamic. This means that if you have added to or changed the CD Project, Audio Montage, etc. in any way after saving a label set, these changes will not be reflected in the saved label set, unless you save it as a user template (see below).
Defining user variables If you have reached this section via a cross-reference from the CD report section in the Audio Montage chapter, please note that the information applies equally to CD reports, although the text is written specifically for labels. Apart from the auto-generated data such as media information, date and time, etc., you can define a number of user editable variables that are local to the project you are working on.
3. To define a value for a default variable, for example copyright or personal information, double-click in the Current Value column for the relevant description. A text box opens where you can type in the relevant information. 4. Click OK when done. Creating new variables You can create new variables and define values for them. The new variable will automatically be put in the currently selected folder (or in the folder with a currently selected variable). Proceed as follows: 1.
Exporting text variables in ASCII This option opens the current text variables as an ASCII text document in a tabulated format, suitable for editing in a spreadsheet application such as Excel. Where this menu item is located depends on the type of project; for Audio Montages and Backup Plans it is on the Functions menu, and for CD Projects it is on the CD menu.
Printing Printing is done independently for the three label types. However, there are two settings that are global for all three label types: 1. Pull down the Options pop-up menu and select “Preferences”. The “Label editor preferences” dialog appears. 2. Use the “Printing” checkboxes to determine whether the frames around the labels should be printed, and whether cut markers should be printed (making it easier to cut out the labels from the printed paper). Now, you are ready to print: 3.
WAVELAB 24 – 618 Creating labels
25 Analysis
Global analysis Introduction What does the “Global analysis” dialog do? This dialog allows you to perform advanced analysis on your audio to find certain areas with specified properties. It can be used to find problem areas (glitches, distortion), etc., or to check general information such as the pitch of a sound. How does it work? When you analyse a section of an audio file, the program scans it and extracts overall information which it displays in the dialog.
General operations Opening the “Global analysis” dialog 1. Make a selection in the wave file that you want to process. This selection can be of any length and in one or both channels. If you want to analyse the entire file, hit [Ctrl]-[A]. If “Process whole file if no selection exists” is activated in the Preferences - Wave edit tab, the whole file will be processed automatically if no selection has been made in 2. Select “Global analysis…” from the Analysis menu.
Setting parameters and performing the analysis 1. Set up the parameters. On most of the tabs, you will find settings determining exactly how the analysis should be performed. For example, on the Peaks tab there are two parameters: • • “Maximum number…” allows you to set an upper limit for the number of peaks reported. For example, if you set this to “10”, the program will only report the ten highest peaks in the file. “Minimum time…” allows you to specify the minimum interval between two peaks found.
4. Click on the button that currently displays this value. The value displayed is for the “hot point” with the highest/lowest value. In our example, you would click the button in the lower right corner. Click here to browse the minimum levels for the right channel. 5. Check the “Number of hot points” value at the bottom of the dialog. It displays how many positions in the file the analysis found.
Creating markers If you like you can add markers at the “hot points”: 1. Select a property and channel for which you want to add markers. You will add markers for the same property as you are currently browsing, so this selection is done with the value buttons, as described above. Since you are always browsing one channel at a time in a stereo file, markers can be added for only one channel at a time. 2. Click the “Create markers…” button.
The Peaks tab This is used to find peak values in the audio, that is, single samples with very high values. Parameters There are two report parameters: • • “Maximum number…” allows you to put restrictions on how many points will be reported. For example, setting this to “1” will make the program report only the highest peak (or one of the peaks with the highest value – if there are several with the same value). “Minimum time…” lets you set things up so that the points don’t occur too close.
The Loudness tab This finds loud and weak sections in a more “intelligent” manner than the Peaks tab. The theory behind this is that there might be a single sample with a high or low value somewhere, but this may not necessarily mean that this section is perceived as loud/weak. To find sections that the ear perceives as significant in volume, you must look at a longer section of audio. To do this you measure a consecutive section of samples and then average their value.
Result The Result fields show you the following values: Option Description Maximum and Minimum The level of the highest and lowest points in the analysed section. Average The overall loudness of the whole analysed section. Around Cursor The loudness at the wave cursor position at the time of the analysis. The Pitch tab The Pitch tab shows the values from WaveLab’s extremely accurate pitch detection algorithm. This can be used for pitch shifting, for example, to get one sound in tune with another.
Usage guidelines • • • • • • The result is an average value for the whole selection. The method only works on monophonic material (not on chords or harmonies). The algorithm assumes the analysed section has a reasonably stable pitch. The material must be relatively well isolated from other sounds. It is preferable to analyse the sustain portion of a sound, rather than the attack. The pitch is usually not “stable” during the attack.
The Errors tab This tab actually reports two totally separate things: • Glitches These are disruptions in the audio. Glitches may occur after problematic digital transfers, after careless editing, etc. They manifest themselves as “clicks” or “pops” in the audio. • Clipping A digital system has a finite number of levels that it can represent properly. When a sound has been recorded at too high a level or when digital processing has raised the level past what the system can handle, hard clipping occurs.
Glitch parameters • • “Threshold” is a value for setting how drastic a change in level has to be reported as a glitch. The higher this value, the less sensitive the detection. “Sensitivity” is a length value. It represents the length of time that the waveform must exceed the threshold to be reported as a glitch. The higher this value, the less sensitive the detection. It is not 100% certain that the points found by the algorithm are real glitches.
Audio error detection and correction This function can be used to detect and remove all sorts of click noise, including digital clicks. You can also restore damaged portions of an audio file by using waveform replacement. Several detection and restoration methods are available. You can detect, mark and name, jump to, play back and remove individual audio errors. Selecting a detection method Proceed as follows: 1. In WaveLab, open the file you wish to process. 2.
Depending on which method you have selected, different detection parameters are available: Parameter Description Threshold The lower the value you set for this detection threshold, the smaller or softer clicks are detected. Detection This parameter lets you set the lower limit of the analysed frequency range. Available for the Click Detection 1 and 2 methods. Detection width This is used to set the width of the analysed frequency range. Only available when using the Click Detection 2 method.
1. Click on the “Detect all errors” button to start the search for all detectable errors. WaveLab will now search the complete file and insert a pair of markers for each found error. Here, WaveLab has detected an error in the waveform. 2. In the Restoration method pop-up menu, select one of the available options. A description of what the selected method does is displayed below the pop-up. The Restoration method pop-up menu. 3. Click on the “Correct all errors” button.
Correcting individual errors You can of course also detect and correct individual errors, using different detection methods and parameter settings for each error, if necessary. This is especially useful in cases that can’t be solved easily. 1. Open a file and select “Audio error detection and correction…” from the Analysis menu. The “Audio error detection and correction” dialog opens. 2. Select a Detection method as described earlier. 3. Click the “Detect next error” button.
Options In this section of the dialog you can activate the “Auto-play” function, which automatically plays back each error that is found. With the “Pre-roll time” and “Post-roll time” options you can define how much of the audio file before and after the error is to be played back. You also have the option to automatically set green markers encompassing the corrected errors.
Find the corresponding functions in the presets pop-up menu at the bottom right of the dialog. The presets pop-up menu • To store the settings temporarily (in the computer’s RAM), select one of the options on the Store temporarily submenu. • To save the settings as a preset, select “Save as…” on the presets popup menu and specify a file name and location for the preset. The Audio Range dialog Click on the “Range” button at the top right of the dialog to open the Audio Range dialog.
Audio file comparer This utility allows you to compare two files and create a file that contains the difference between the two, a “delta file”. This is useful for example to: • • • See the effect of using an equalizer by comparing the file before and after. The delta file will show what was added. Check the noise added by a processor, again by comparing. Compare two digitally recorded files to check for dropouts. Proceed as follows: 1. Make sure that the two documents you want to compare are open. 2.
3D Frequency Analysis This function allows you to view a wave file in the frequency domain rather than in the time domain. Although a wave display (time domain) tells you a lot about where one sound starts or ends in a file, for example, it doesn’t say anything about the timbral contents of the file. A frequency graph (frequency domain) does. The graph used in WaveLab is actually something often referred to as an FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) plot. Creating the graph 1.
5. Click OK to close the dialog. 6. Select 3D Frequency analysis from the Analysis menu. The wave is analysed and the graph opens in a new window. The frequency graph shows you how the different frequency components vary over time. A high “mountain” means that this frequency is very prominent at that particular time. Adjusting the view There are a number of settings you can make that affect the way the graph is displayed. 1.
6. Click the Perspective tab. 7. Decide from which point of view you want to examine the graph (use the “freq/time” figure as a directional guide). 8. Decide whether you want a linear or exponential amplitude display. The Wave window’s level rulers use a linear display, so this is a natural choice to start with. 9. Again, if you so desire, click Redraw. Working with multiple views If you wish you can view the same graph in several windows, but with different style and perspective settings.
Loudness distribution tool This analysis tool measures the most frequent loudness found in an audio file (this is different from average loudness). The graphic peaks found by the analysis represent these values. The following parameters can be set: Parameter Description Resolution Loudness is the average audio volume computed over a given period. This parameter represents this period. Smaller time values are more suited for sections with abrupt changes in level, like drum hits.
WAVELAB 25 – 642 Analysis
26 Generating signals
Audio Signal Generator This utility allows you to synthesize audio documents from scratch. The resulting documents can then be used for a number of purposes: • • • • For testing the specifications of audio equipment. For measurements of various kinds, including calibrating tape recorders. For testing signal processing methods. For educational purposes. The Audio Signal Generator is not intended for synthesizing musical sounds.
Proceed as follows: 1. Select the Audio Signal Generator option on the Tools menu. 2. Decide on a number of layers, by setting the “Number of layers” parameter at the bottom of the dialog. You can always change this value at a later stage if required. 3. Select one of the layers, using the “Edit layer” parameter. 4. Decide if you want to make changes for both or just one of the channels in this layer, by using the “Edit channel(s)” pop-up. 5.
DTMF Generator DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency – or Touch Tone) is a way of generating signals by combining two sine waves with variable frequencies, used in telephone systems. The numbers you press generate sine waves of different frequencies, and these signals are then decoded at the central telephone office to actually identify which numbers you press. The DTMF Generator does just this – it allows you to generate an audio file with the sounds you hear when pressing the different keys on a telephone.
5. Select a bit resolution and a sample rate for the file to be created. When you click the button, the Audio Properties dialog (see “Editing audio properties” on page 127) opens to let you make settings for the audio file. 6. If you wish, you can save the settings you make as a preset. You can create presets for settings in the dialog, for quick recall. 7. When the settings are to your satisfaction, click Generate. The file is generated and opens up in a new window.
WAVELAB 26 – 648 Generating signals
27 Synchronizing WaveLab to external devices
Introduction It is possible to synchronize the audio playback in WaveLab to incoming MIDI Time Code (MTC), or via the ASIO Positioning Protocol (for sample accurate sync). • For MTC sync to be possible, you need to have a MIDI Interface installed and working! • For sync to ASIO Positioning Protocol, you need compatible audio hardware with a built-in time code reader. See “Sync to ASIO Positioning Protocol (APP)” on page 656.
It is worth noting that without using a word clock based system, it is possible to synchronize WaveLab with another device for a shorter period of time. Exactly how long depends on a number of factors, such as the overall stability of the system (using an ADAT as master will provide higher stability than using an analog tape machine for example) and the length of the audio files played by WaveLab, etc.
If the time code in the master device is offset (so that playback starts at a time position other than zero), you need to compensate for this in WaveLab by setting the SMPTE Offset parameter to the same value: 5. If the SMPTE Offset is positive, click the [+] button next to the SMPTE Offset parameter. If it is negative, click the [–] button. 6. Set the SMPTE Offset parameter to the time position when you want playback to start.
2. Select “Sync from MIDI Time Code” from the pop-up menu. The button changes shape to a MIDI symbol, indicating that WaveLab is in MTC Sync mode. Sync mode selected • You can also activate Sync mode by pressing [Shift]+[F9] on the computer keyboard. WaveLab is now expecting MIDI Time Code, and will start playback when the master device is started. If the MIDI Time Code stops, WaveLab will stop playback but remain in Sync mode.
Nudging sync offset This is only possible when playing back an Audio Montage. For general information about nudging, see “Nudging” on page 430. For various reasons, you may find that there is a slight constant offset between the master and the slave during synchronized playback. This is adjusted with the time correction parameter in the Preferences–Sync tab. However, trying to guess the correct time correction value in Stop mode can be a time consuming process.
These values are fixed, and are not affected by the current setting in the Nudge Impulse Value dialog. 5. Repeat the nudging procedure until you find the optimum setting (no audible offset between master and slave). 6. Stop playback. Now, your adjustments are added to the current SMPTE Offset and/or time correction settings in the Preferences dialog, so that next time you start playback, the two devices will be in sync.
Sync to ASIO Positioning Protocol (APP) In order to take advantage of the ASIO Positioning Protocol, your audio hardware must be suitably equipped and the functionality must be included in the ASIO driver for the hardware. Hardware and software requirements for APP • Your computer audio hardware must support all the functionality required for the ASIO Positioning Protocol. That is, it must be able to read the digital audio and the corresponding positional information from the external device.
28 Using samplers and creating loops
Introduction This chapter describes various operations related to samplers. WaveLab has the ability to communicate with most audio samplers on the market, making it possible to receive and transmit audio. Connected to this functionality is the possibility to create good loops. Looping is a common technique used in samplers to simulate the infinite (or at least very long) sustain of many instrumental sounds. WaveLab has tools for creating smooth loops, even for the most complex types of sounds.
Generic SMDI SMDI is the SCSI version of SDS. Since it uses SCSI as a carrier, it is much faster. However, it doesn’t have very much additional functionality; again samples are identified via numbers rather than names. Recommendation: Use SMDI if you want fast communication, have the necessary computer equipment and a sampler that supports it. However, if your sampler supports some proprietary type of SCSI communication, this is preferred to SMDI.
Which communication methods does my sampler support? • • • To find out whether a sampler supports generic SDS or SMDI, check its documentation or contact the manufacturer. To find out whether it has a specific communication protocol that is also implemented in WaveLab, select “Sampler configurations…” from the Sampling menu, click on the Settings tab, pull down the top pop-up and check whether your particular model is on the list.
Setting up your sampler(s) The following text assumes you have made all connections as described in the installation chapter. Proceed as follows: Making the basic settings 1. Make sure the sampler is turned on. If you use SCSI it must have been turned on when you booted the computer. 2. Select “Sampler configurations…” from the Sampling menu. The “Sampler configurations” dialog 3. Click on the Settings tab. 4. Select the desired communications protocol from the menu.
5. If the sampler is connected via SCSI, pull down the SCSI Unit pop-up and select the instrument you want to communicate with. If the instrument can’t be found on this menu, there is something wrong with your SCSI connection. Go back and check the instructions in the section “SCSI connections” on page 31. The SCSI Unit pop-up If you ever change the SCSI ID for the sampler, you need to update the preset. Otherwise, sampler communication won’t work. 6.
Transmitting samples 1. If needed, open the sample in a Wave window and trim it to the desired length. Since samplers are RAM based, this may limit the amount of data you can transmit. 2. Add one or two loops as desired (see “Basic looping” on page 669). 3. Pull down the Sampling menu and select “Transmit…”. 4. Select the target sampler from the Target menu. This menu lists all samplers for which you have created presets.
Receiving samples 1. Pull down the Sampling menu and select “Receive…”. 2. Select the desired sampler from the Target menu. As with Transmit, this menu lists the samplers for which you have created presets. 3. If the protocol used for this sampler identifies samples by number, use the “Sample number” setting to specify which sample to retrieve. 4. If the sampler uses names and/or banks, click the Refresh button to get a list of the current memory contents in the sampler.
The Transmit Back feature A common working procedure would be to receive a sample from the sampler, process it in WaveLab and then transmit it back to the sampler. The “Transmit Back” feature facilitates this. It is a variation on the Transmit function. The difference is that it automatically sends the sample to the same memory location from which it originally came, without presenting any dialog. Proceed as follows: 1. Receive a sample from the sampler (see “Receiving samples” on page 664). 2.
Using WaveLab with Steinberg HALion If you are the lucky owner of Steinberg’s HALion software sampler, you can use WaveLab as your sample editor. You can add samples by dragging audio file selections from WaveLab onto the HALion Key Zone Editor or by using copy and paste. It is also possible to transfer multiple samples from WaveLab to HALion in one go, using the following procedure: 1. Open and set up the audio files in WaveLab.
Editing sample attributes The “Sample attributes” dialog. This menu item on the Sampling menu allows you to make settings for a sample. They do not process the sample in any way, they just give it properties that the receiving sampler may or may not take advantage of. See “About the various communication methods” on page 658. Setting Description Name The name the sample will have in the sampler. If the sample is an already named file, the name is displayed here, but you can change it if you wish.
Setting Description Detect from audio selection If you click this button, WaveLab will analyse the sample and determine its pitch and amount of detune. For this to work properly, the sample must be of such a nature that it is possible to clearly detect a pitch (it won’t work properly with chords and drum loops for example). Musical notation/ MIDI note number These radio buttons let you choose whether to display the different key values in the dialog with the key’s pitch or the key’s MIDI note number.
Basic looping Instrumental sounds in samplers rely heavily on looping. Looping a sound allows you to repeat a section of the sample indefinitely, to create a sustain of unlimited length. An example of this would be an organ sound. Without looping you will only be able to play notes as long as the original recording. With looping, notes can be of any length. Finding a good loop point takes a bit of practice. Here is some advice: • • • • • • There are only two types of loops: very long and very short.
Here is a brief description on how to create a basic loop: 1. Make a selection that corresponds to the area you want looped. If you like, you can play back with “Loop selection” activated on the Transport bar and adjust the selection during playback. 2. Bring up the Marker toolbar. 3. Click on the loop marker icons (the green ones). The selection is now enclosed by loop markers. 4. Make sure that “Loop as marked” is activated on the Transport bar.
Using the Crossfade Looper What is the Crossfade Looper? The Crossfade Looper is a special tool for creating “seamless” loops. It allows you to “nudge” the loop points while at the same time providing visual feedback of the “join” between the start and end point. The Crossfade Looper can also automatically find loop points for you, by scanning the area of the waveform that is in the current loop points’ vicinity. You can specify parameters for how “finicky” the program should be when suggesting loop points.
Moving the loop points “manually” Let’s assume you have set up a basic loop that you are happy with, except for glitches or “bumps” at the turning point. You can then use the Crossfade Looper to move the points manually, in small steps, to eliminate the glitch. This is actually technically no different from moving the loop points in the wave display, but the features of this dialog makes it much easier to find good loop points, since the display gives you visual feedback as you go along.
Using the auto-find feature If desired, you can have the program search for good loop points automatically. This is technically no different from adjusting the loop points yourself, only that the program uses pattern matching algorithms to suggest loop points for you. Let’s say that you want to let the program find a better start point for the loop. You first set up a start and end loop marker, to get a basic loop, as described above.
Searching 1. Set up the search parameters. 2. Click on one of the buttons in between the “nudge” buttons. Each time you click, the program scans from the current point (forwards or backwards, depending on which button you clicked) until it finds a point that matches. It then stops. If you wish you can stop at any time by clicking the right mouse button, by using the Stop button on the status bar or by hitting [Esc]. The program will then jump back to the best match found so far. 3.
To recall a stored candidate, select “Restore candidate” from the pop-up menu, and then select the desired memory location from the submenu. The points are now recalled and the loop points in the wave are moved to the positions stored in the memory location. • To compare several candidates, you can for example have playback going, select them one after the other, and listen to the difference. Once you have found your candidate, you can select OK to exit this window or proceed to crossfading.
Setting up 1. While still at the “Loop points” tab (in the Crossfade Looper dialog), try to create as good a loop as you can. 2. Click on the Crossfade tab. 3. Make sure the Crossfade check box is activated. There is a corresponding check box on the Post-Crossfade tab. This lets you choose if regular crossfading and/or post-crossfading will be performed when you click Apply later. The Crossfade tab with crossfading activated. 4.
Applying and checking the crossfade When you click Apply, the sound is processed. If you have playback going, repeating the loop you will hear the change take effect after a short while. • You can check the crossfade visually by opening the “Loop points” tab and activating “Display processed signal” on the options pop-up menu. When this is activated, the display will show the waveform as it looks when crossfaded. When the option is deactivated, the display will show the waveform as it originally was.
If you intend to use the sound in your sampler in such a way that the area after the loop is never played, you don’t need to worry about this feature at all! Some samplers don’t even allow you to play the area after the loop. However, if you do intend to use the area after the loop it is very important to have post-crossfade activated! The post-crossfade looks at the part of the waveform that occurs just after the loop start and processes a certain area beginning at the end of the loop.
Using the Loop Tone Equalizer The Loop Tone Equalizer is a function for looping those un-loopable sounds, for example sounds that constantly decay in level or continuously change in timbre. The Loop Tone Equalizer applies drastic processing to the sound that evens out changes in level and timbral characteristics, before and during the loop. It does this by using one of the following two methods: • Slice mixing A number of slices is specified for the looped section.
To use the Loop Tone Equalizer, proceed as follows: 1. Set up a basic loop of the length you desire. This will probably not be a very good loop. If it was you wouldn’t need to use the Loop Tone Equalizer. 2. Select Loop Tone Equalizer from the Sampling menu and click on the Loop Tone Equalizer tab. 3. Make sure that either slice mixing or chorus smoothing is activated and make the desired settings. For slice mixing, you need to determine the number of slices.
Do not move the loop points after performing the processing! The waveform has been processed specifically for the current loop settings! About the end of the loop – Post-crossfading After using the Loop Tone Equalizer, the transition from the end of the loop to the end of the file in many cases won’t be very natural. This can be fixed as follows: 1. Close the Loop Tone Equalizer and open the Crossfade Looper. 2. Click on the Crossfade tab and deactivate the Crossfade option (the check box). 3.
WAVELAB 28 – 682 Using samplers and creating loops
29 Audio Databases
What is an Audio Database and why do I need it? Audio Databases are collections of audio files. However, an Audio Database doesn’t really contain the actual files, rather it contains instructions on where the files are, what they are called, etc. The files in an Audio Database can be located on any of the media connected to your computer, e.g. hard disks, removable disks, CD-ROM disks and even floppies.
Creating and opening Audio Databases Creating an empty Audio Database There are two ways to create a new empty Audio Database: • Pull down the File menu, select New, and from the menu that appears, select Audio Database, or… • Click on the New icon on the control bar, and select Audio Database from the menu that appears. Either way, a dialog appears, allowing you to specify a name and location for the new Audio Database.
Window overview and adjustments Location Pane Category Pane Categories Volumes (drives) that contain audio files Folders that contain audio files File List File attribute columns About the panes The Audio Database window is divided into the Location Pane, the Category Pane and the File List. Their sizes can be adjusted, see “Panes” on page 51. • • • • The Location pane shows volumes, folders and subfolders as on your hard disks.
Adding files to the Audio Database There are several ways to add files to a Database: Using Add 1. Select Add from the Audio Database menu. You can also press the right mouse button in the Location pane and select Add from the menu that appears. 2. Select all files you want to open (for example using [Shift] and [Ctrl]) and click Open. The files appear in the List. Also, folders are added to the Location pane. These correspond to the real folders that the files are in, on the disk.
For example it might have to… • • • have a name containing the text “piano” be in stereo be smaller than one megabyte. You can of course set up any of the tabs so that all files meet the criteria in this particular tab. For example you can add files based only on their naming or only on their format. 4. If at some point you need to reset the settings in all three tabs to default values, click Reset. 5. Once all the criteria are set up, click Scan to actually search the disk for files.
• To search for multiple text strings, separate words with spaces on the Query line. The result depends on the “Search mode” options: Option Description Normal The entire text on the line is used as one “string”. Files that contain this text will be “found”. AND If there are several words, separated by spaces, only files that contain all the words will be “found”. OR If there are several words separated by spaces, files that contain any of these words will be “found”.
The Format tab This allows you to add files based on the file format. You may activate multiple options in each section in order to add files of different categories (e.g. both mono and stereo files). Background information on the different attributes in this dialog can be found in the section “Editing attributes and getting information” on page 127.
This tab allows you to specify two things: • • Whether the “Modified” date of the file should be included in the search criteria. Whether the size of the file should be included in the search criteria. Using presets You can create presets for this dialog, just as with processing. See “Presets” on page 65. Adding more files You can keep on using the Add and Scan folder options as many times as you wish.
Limitations • • • Windows puts a limitation on how many files can actually be shown in the File List at one time (roughly 1500). Normally you don’t want too many files in the list anyway, since it only makes it harder to organize them and some Audio Database operations will take longer to finish. Use the “Maximum size of result list” setting in the Preferences–Audio Database tab to set a limit on how many files will be added in one go.
Displaying all the files in the Audio Database Later you will learn more about how to decide which files get displayed in the File List, but for now if you just want to display all files in the Audio Database, proceed as follows: 1. Select Global Find from the Audio Database menu, and click the Preset tab. 2. Select the “All audio files” preset and click Load. 3. Click Search.
Finding out where files are located If you want to find out in which folder a certain file is located, right-click it in the list and select “Show folders” from the menu that appears (or press [Alt] and click on the file name or wave icon in the list). Either way, the folder is highlighted in the Location pane (as is the file’s category – see “Checking to which category a file belongs” on page 701).
Other file operations Setting properties To set the properties of one or more files, select the file(s), right-click anywhere in the list except on a file name, and select “Properties…” from the menu that appears. The Properties dialog • Please note that you can assign the same keyword(s) and comments to several files in one go, by selecting them and then selecting Properties. Name This is the file’s regular name including the file type extension.
Keywords This allows you to specify characteristics for the file that you can use later in a search operation. This feature works in addition to the category feature. It can be thought of as a more advanced extension to the category function. If you find that using categories serves all your needs for classification of the files, you do not need to use this feature. To add keywords to the file(s), type in each keyword, separated by semicolons (“;”) or commas (“,”).
Rename If you want to rename the file, proceed as follows. 1. Right-click on the file and select “Rename…” from the pop-up menu. If the file is not on any of the disks currently “in the computer”, you will be prompted for the required disk. 2. Type in the new name and press [Return]. Do not specify an extension, only the actual file name. If you need to modify the extension, use the Properties dialog, see “Setting properties” on page 695.
Import file attributes This function, available on the Database main menu, allows you to import keywords and comments from a text file. Let’s say you have a CD full of audio files and a text file describing these files. You would first scan the CD to reference all the audio files. You can then use this function to import the related attributes. This function can also be used if you need to migrate a database with a different format to WaveLab. When you first select this function the Find dialog appears.
Working with categories Categories allow you to organize your files according to type or context rather than names or location on the hard disk. For example, this allows you to display all bass drums on all your hard disks, removables and CD-ROMs with one simple click! About the category folder list The Category pane contains a number of folder symbols. These all represent categories and subcategories.
Displaying all files that belong to a certain category To display the files that belong to a certain category, click on the category name (note that you should click on the folder name, not on the folder symbol). Click on a category name to have the File List show the files in that category. • To display all files not in any category, right-click in the Category pane and select “Find unregistered items” from the pop-up menu.
Checking to which category a file belongs If you want to find out to which category a certain file belongs, right-click it in the list and select “Show folders” from the menu that appears (or press [Alt] and click on the file name or wave icon in the list). Either way, the category is highlighted in the Category pane (if no category folder is highlighted, the file doesn’t belong to any category). The selected file belongs to this category.
Location operations The folders in the Location Pane mirror the way the files are organized on your disk(s). However, what you see is not really the folders on your disks. For one thing, only the folders that actually contain files that are in this Audio Database are displayed. Furthermore you can rename the folders in this list without actually renaming the folders on your disk(s).
Syncing to folder The Sync to folder feature lets you make sure that the content of a volume folder in the Audio Database matches the corresponding hard disk volume. The operation affects the specified volume folder and all its subfolders. 1. In the folder list, right-click the volume folder you want to update, and select “Sync to folder…” from the pop-up menu. The Find dialog appears, see “Using Scan folder” on page 687. 2.
• To completely turn off the filtering, open the Global Filter dialog, click the Reset button and click OK. Finding files WaveLab’s Find feature allows you to find all files in the Audio Database that match certain criteria. Please note that the Find function only searches among files already added to the Database (which is different from how Scan folder works, see “Using Scan folder” on page 687).
Changing the default categories and keywords To change the category hierarchy and keyword lists that appear in new Audio Databases, proceed as follows: 1. Make copies of the files “categ.txt” and “keywords.txt”. These are located in the WaveLab program folder, in the Presets–Misc subfolder. You might for example name the copies “categ.bak” and “keywords.bak”. 2. Launch a regular text editor. One of those included with Windows will work fine. 3. To Edit the categories, open the file “categ.txt”.
WAVELAB 29 – 706 Audio Databases
30 Workspaces
What are Workspaces? Workspaces allow you to collect files that somehow belong together, for example all files used in a song, all files used for one commercial, etc. Furthermore, Workspaces allow you to organize those files into “folders” (here called groups) in any structure you like.
Creating and opening Workspaces When you open a Workspace or create a new one, all open files are closed. Creating an empty Workspace There are two ways to create a new empty Workspace: • Pull down the File menu, select New, and from the menu that appears, select Workspace, or… • Click on the New icon on the control bar, and select Workspace from the menu that appears. Either way a file dialog opens, where you can select a location for naming and saving the new Workspace.
Creating, renaming and deleting groups Creating You can create new groups as you see fit: Right-click on the group in which you want to create a new group, and select “New group” from the pop-up menu that appears. Enter a name for the group and click OK. Renaming To rename an existing group, right-click it and select Rename from the pop-up menu. Removing To delete a group and remove all files within it from the Workspace, rightclick it and select Remove, and click OK in the dialog that appears.
Renaming files To rename a file, right-click it and select Rename from the pop-up menu. This means the file on disk is actually renamed, just as if you had changed the name in the Windows Explorer. Removing files To delete a file from a group, right-click it and select Remove.
WAVELAB 30 – 712 Workspaces
31 Using WaveLab for backup
Background WaveLab features very versatile and powerful functions for backing up all kinds of files and folders. Here’s a brief rundown of the features: • • • • • • You can back up directly to CD or to standard media. When backing up to CD, you can create archives that span several CDs, if necessary. The archives created by the backup function are ZIP files, compatible with other ZIP extraction applications.
Creating a Backup Plan The Backup Plan is where you specify which folders and files should be backup, and make additional settings for how the backup should be performed. • To create a new Backup Plan, open the File menu and select Backup Plan from the New submenu. An untitled Backup Plan window appears. Defining which files should be backed up The contents of the Backup Plan are defined by filters.
Below is a step-by-step procedure showing how to set up filters – please read the filtering rules as well (see “Filtering rules” on page 717). 1. Make sure the “Definition” tab is selected at the top of the window. The other tab, “Preview”, is described in the section “Using the Preview function” on page 721. 2. In the directory view to the left, select a folder containing elements you want to back up. The files in the selected folder are listed in the two panes to the right. 3.
This far, filtering has only been applied to specific folders and files, but you can also specify that certain file types should be excluded (or included) in the backup: 6. To exclude a certain file type from backup, specify its file name extension by typing into the Patterns field above the “Exclude” list. This function is available when the “Include: All files” option is activated. Note that you should use the wildcard character * to indicate that all files with a certain extension should be excluded.
• If you use the “Exclude: All files” option, this automatically applies to all subfolders (for which no separate filters are defined). In other words, when “Exclude: All files” is used, the “Also applies to subfolders” option is automatically activated. • If you define a filter for a folder, any “inherited” filter from a parent folder is automatically overridden (both for that folder and for its subfolders).
Editing the filters in textual form Sometimes it can be preferable to view and edit the filter definitions as text. This is done by selecting “Edit filters in text form” from the Functions pop-up menu (or by clicking the “T” icon). In the dialog that appears, you can view each defined filter separately, and edit the settings: • • • • Use the scrollbar in the upper right corner to step between the available filters. The path of the folder for the currently displayed filter is shown to the left.
• If you have renamed or reordered folders on your hard disk since creating the Backup Plan, you can click the “Find and replace in all paths” button to update the Backup Plan. In the Search and Replace dialog that appears, enter the previous (no longer valid) path name in the Find field and the new, correct path in the Replace field and click OK.
Using filter presets Included with the program are some presets with common filtering options. To use one of these, select “Explore presets” from the Patterns pop-up menu, and open one of the preset files from the window that appears. Importing filters from another Backup Plan If you have saved other Backup Plans (see “Saving your Backup Plan” on page 724), you can incorporate their filters into the current Backup Plan.
The items on the Preview pop-up menu (and the corresponding icons to the right) have the following functionality: Option Description Generate file list Generates a list of files to be backed up, in text format. The list is opened in the default text editor (e.g. Notepad), allowing you to save it or print it. Display source paths When this is selected, the Preview window shows the files according to their original hierarchy on your hard disk (from the drive root down).
Performing the backup Simulating Before you actually execute the backup, you may want to run a simulation. This allows you to check the exact size of the archive (useful if you’re uncertain whether it will fit on a single CD). It’s also useful to see that all backup files can be properly accessed by the program. Simulation is the same as the actual backup, but without saving. This means the process will take virtually the same time. Proceed as follows: 1.
Saving your Backup Plan If you intend to execute the same backup more than once, you should save your Backup Plan. This is done by selecting “Save as” or “Save” from the File menu as usual. Backup Plan files have the file extension “.bkp”. To open a saved Backup Plan, use the “Open Backup Plan” item on the File menu. The Externalize and Internalize functions A saved Backup Plan contains a list of all folders for which a filter is defined, and the specifics for each filter.
Performing the backup from a command line It’s possible to launch WaveLab, have it execute a given Backup Plan and (optionally) quit afterwards, by entering a command line. The syntax for this is: “program path” “backup plan path” -a [-q] For example: “WaveLab.exe” “c:\my backup plan.bkp” -a [-q] Note: • • The optional -q switch tells the program to quit after successfully executing the backup.
Making file extraction settings 1. Select “Settings” from the Functions pop-up menu (or click the corresponding icon to the right). The File Extraction Settings dialog appears. 2. Use the radio buttons in the “Extract what” section to determine whether only the selected files, all files or some specific files should be extracted. The “Specific files” option allows you to e.g. extract files of a certain type only (by typing “*.xxx”, where “xxx” is the file name extension of the file type). 3.
Previewing Selecting Preview from the Functions menu (or clicking the eye icon) activates the Preview mode. In this mode, some additional information is shown in the Archive window: • • The Preview column shows the path of the files (the locations in which they will be extracted, taking the file extraction settings into account). The Destination column shows whether there are files of the same name in the destination folders, and whether these are older, newer or have the same date as the archived files.
Other functions Render as data CD/DVD By selecting this item from the Functions menu, you create a new data CD/DVD Project with the contents of the current Backup Plan. This allows you to rearrange the contents of the CD/DVD, write multiple CD/DVD copies, etc. Create Labels and Edit Text Variables These items on the Functions menu allow you to create CD labels for your backup CDs. Read more about creating labels in the chapter “Creating labels” on page 603.
32 Customizing
What is customizing? When we talk about customizing, we mean making settings so that the program behaves and looks the way you want it to! Preferences In the Preferences dialog on the Options menu you will find a number of settings for tailoring the look and behavior of the program. The settings are collected on tabs. To get a description of the Preferences settings of a particular tab, click the question mark icon.
Creating startup preferences To make sure the program starts with the same preference settings each time you launch it, proceed as follows: 1. Set up all preferences as desired and make sure “Save preferences on exit” is activated. 2. Quit the program. 3. Launch the program again, and deactivate “Save preferences on exit”. Now you can change the preferences for this session, but the settings you had when you last quit will be the ones you get next time you launch the program.
Work folders The Work folders are usually set up after installing WaveLab, as the folders specified for temporary files have an important bearing on WaveLab’s overall performance. See “Temporary files” on page 28 for a description of how to set up these folders. Document folders For each WaveLab document type, you can specify paths to open and save folders (given that the document can be saved). This is done in the following way: 1. Click on the plus sign for a document type in the tree list.
Saving the window layout If “Open last window layout on startup”, on the Preferences–General tab is activated, the program will open in exactly the same state as it was when you last quit (with the option activated). The snapshots, and even the document windows you had open (and their “layout”) will automatically be reopened. You can use this to create a startup “layout” that will always appear when you launch WaveLab: 1. Set up all windows as desired. 2.
Styling WaveLab – Wave windows It’s possible to “style” the Wave windows to your liking, by adjusting colors (of waveforms, background, cursor lines, etc.) and changing the look of the ruler and other window details. This can be done in two ways: • By changing the default style. This is the style that is normally used when you open or record an audio file in a Wave window. • By having the program assign different styles to different Waves, according to specific conditions.
Setting up style conditions In the Audio Window Styles dialog, there are 15 additional style “slots” (apart from the default style), some of which already hold pre-defined styles to use or overwrite, as you see fit. For each of these styles, you can specify that it should be applied to all Wave windows with audio files that meet certain criteria, called conditions: 1. Open the Audio Window Styles dialog from the View menu. 2. Select one of the style slots.
The following settings are available: Setting Description File extension Here you can specify files of certain types, by entering their file extensions (e.g. mp3 or wav). Separate several extensions with a blank space or comma. Name Allows you to specify keywords in the file names. For example, by entering the keyword “bass”, all files with “bass” in the name can be shown with a separate style. Separate keywords with a blank space or comma.
Waveform elements To change the waveform elements, right-click on a waveform (in the overview or in the main display), select Elements and then select the desired item from the submenu that appears. Note that you make separate settings for the main waveform display, the overview and for the two channels in a stereo file! Which section you make settings for depends on where you click. Item Description Time Ruler Specifies whether or not the display should have a time ruler.
If you prefer a single background color (or if you need to speed up display redraws, typically with slower graphic cards), you can turn this feature off by activating “Do not use gradient backgrounds” in the Preferences–Environment tab. The background color will then be a 50/50 mix of the top and bottom color. Again, when changing colors for the waveform images, you make separate settings for the main waveform display, the overview and for the two channels in a stereo file, depending on where you click.
Styling WaveLab – Audio Montage windows Using custom colors You can create and assign different color schemes to different clips, tracks or groups to make it easier to find your way through the Montage: • To assign a color scheme to a track, open the Track menu and select a color scheme from the Color submenu. The selected color scheme is used for all current clips on the track, as well as for clips you add later on. However, note that this color selection is overridden by the group and clip colors.
Defining custom colors You can redefine all colors on the Color pop-up menus, as well as the colors for various other elements in the Audio Montage. This is done in the Audio Montage Colors dialog, using the following procedure: There are many items of different color displayed in a Montage. If you redefine colors, be careful not to choose colors which cause some elements to “disappear” (e.g. black marker lines on a black background). 1. Pull down the View menu and select “Audio Montage colors…”.
• If you are editing a clip color element, you can make separate color settings for the left and right sides of stereo clips. If you want the same color for the left and right sides, you must make sure that the checkbox Edit Left/Right is activated (it is by default). When this is activated, settings for the left side of a clip are automatically “mirrored” on the right side, and vice versa. • If you activate the Link sliders checkbox, you can adjust all three sliders at once, by moving one of them.
Automatic coloring – Setting up conditions When you have defined a custom color scheme, you have the option of automatically applying this to any files you add to the Montage that match certain conditions. Select a custom color scheme in the Audio Montage Colors dialog and click the Conditions button to bring up the “Style condition” dialog. Here you can set up which conditions must be matched for a clip to automatically get the selected custom color scheme.
The following color elements are available: Option Description Background top/bot- The background colors of the clip (unselected, selected and selectom (normal/selected/ tion range, respectively). The resulting display backgrounds will be selected range) gradient “fades” from the top colors to the bottom colors (this can be turned off in the Preferences–Environment tab, as described in the section “Colors” on page 737. Waveform (normal/ selected/sel.
Miscellaneous colors This section of the Items list in the dialog contains color settings for other elements in the Track View: Option Description Background top/bottom The background colors of the Track View. Background (selected The background colors in selected ranges. range) top/bottom Cursor The color of the Montage cursor. Note that because of the blinking Cursor, the selected colors will appear in inverse video in the Montage. Marker The color of the marker lines in the Montage.
Window layouts are managed in the Window Layouts dialog on the View menu. The procedures are the same as when handling regular presets (for detailed descriptions, see “Presets” on page 65): • To create a new window layout, set up the display as you want it (see the list above) and use the Window Layout dialog to name and add the new layout. • To modify an existing window layout, set up the display as you want it, select the window layout in the dialog and click the Update button.
Creating a Favorites menu The Favorites item on the File menu allows you to assemble a list of files that you want to be able to open quickly – a library if you will. • • • • To add a file to the list, make sure its window is active and select “Add current document” from the Favorites-Functions submenu. To open a file from the list, select it. To clear the whole list, select Clear List from the Favorites–Functions submenu.
Key sequences and MIDI commands are listed and managed in the “Keyboard/MIDI Commands” dialog, opened from the Options menu.
About the list of operations The main part of this dialog is occupied by the list of available operations that can be called up via key sequences and/or MIDI commands. You can choose to view this list in one of two ways, with the “Sort” buttons in the upper right corner of the dialog: • • “Sort by Command” organizes the operations in folders, in groupings that relate to various sections in the program.
Defining key sequences 1. Select the operation for which you want to create a key sequence. 2. Click the “Key Sequence…” button. 3. If you want to clear the current key sequence, click Clear. 4. Make sure “Catch mode” is active. 5. 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. 6.
Defining MIDI Commands Before you can use MIDI commands you have to select the MIDI interface for incoming messages from the “Input for MIDI commands” pop-up. 1. Select the operation for which you want to define a MIDI command. 2. Click the “MIDI Event…” button. 3. If you want to clear the current MIDI command, click Clear. 4. Send the MIDI event from your controller. Press the key or button you wish to use on your MIDI controller and the MIDI command will be set for the operation.
Setting enable options Once the key sequence has been defined, you may want to set the Enable Options for the operation. This is done by selecting from the pop-up in the middle column: Option Description Enabled all the time This key sequence is always active. Enabled if active window… This key sequence can be used for all windows, except the ones added to the “Exclude Windows” lists, described below.
Using key sequences/MIDI commands To use a key sequence or MIDI command, press the keys/buttons specified in the dialog, and the corresponding operation is performed. Key sequences/MIDI commands can only be executed after you have closed the Key Commands dialog. About some special key commands There are some key commands that might require an explanation: Command Description Set focus on this key command group This allows you to re-use key commands for certain groups.
Organizing plug-in processors Introduction You may find that you need to organize your processors into sensible groups. Why? Well, a host of plug-ins are included with the program, and additional ones can be added. If you have Cubase installed on the computer, even more appear in WaveLab. Also, sometimes when you install a package of DirectX plug-ins you get effects that are of no relevance to WaveLab (or even to audio) and therefore just clutter menus.
Groups In the Master Section folder in the list, you will find subfolders, representing groups of plug-ins. By organizing your plug-ins into folders, you arrange the way they appear on menus in the program. How you organize your effects is of course up to you, but initially, they are categorized according to their technical “type”, regular WaveLab plug-ins in one folder, VST plug-ins in another, DirectX plug-ins in yet another, etc.
Working with groups The Master Section plug-ins can be organized into groups. This is done by adding subfolders to the Master Section folder and then dragging Plug-in icons into these folders. When you then select from plug-in menus or display lists of plug-ins, the organization you have created will be reflected in the menu/list. Here, a “Dynamics” group has been created, which then appears in the Master Section. • To create a group, click the New Group button, enter a name and press [Return].
Handling VST plug-ins If you have VST plug-ins installed on your computer that you don’t need in WaveLab, you can tell the program to ignore these on launch. This is done in the Preferences–VST dialog. It is possible to exclude single VST plug-ins, entire folders and subfolders containing VST plug-ins, and the “Shared VST Plug-ins” folder (if present on your system). The methods for doing this are all described below.
Note the following: • • • If VST plug-ins you want to exclude reside in one or several subfolders inside a main folder, you don’t have to list all the subfolders. Excluding the main folder will also automatically exclude its subfolders. It’s not necessary to type in the entire path to a folder you want to exclude (e.g. C:\plug-ins\reverb).
Excluding all plug-ins If you wish, you can temporarily exclude all plug-ins so that none will be available in WaveLab: • Press and hold [Ctrl]+[Shift] when launching WaveLab. This will disable the Master Section and prevent all plug-ins from being loaded. This can be useful for troubleshooting purposes – i.e. to determine whether the loading of one or more plug-ins is causing problems. • If you wish to have access to the plug-ins again, activate the Master Section.
33 Plug-in Processor Reference
About WaveLab plug-ins These plug-ins use WaveLab’s own plug-in format, and cannot be used with other applications. Note: • As a rule, WaveLab specific plug-ins can only be used in the Master Section (not as track or clip effects in the Audio Montage). However, some WaveLab effects are also included as VST plug-ins, available as track or clip effects in Audio Montages. This is indicated for each effect below. • WaveLab specific plug-ins can also be used in the batch processor.
Chorus The Chorus plug-in (only available in the Master Section) is a classic stereo chorus based on a sweeping delay, with the following parameters: Parameter Description Delay (0.1~60ms) Use this parameter to specify the basic time delay for the chorused signal with respect to the “dry” signal. The higher the value, the more prominent the effect. Low settings (up to 7ms) create flanger-like effects.
Crystal Resampler The Crystal Resampler plug-in (only available in the Master Section) is a professional sample rate converter providing exceptional transparency and preservation of the frequency content: Parameter Description Sample Rate (6 384 kHz) This defines the output sample rate while the input sample rate is determined by the sample rate of the active audio file or Audio Montage. Quality (Preview (fast), Standard, High, Ultra (slow)) This defines the quality of the algorithm which is used.
EQ-1 EQ-1 is available both as a VST and a WaveLab plug-in. It can be used as a clip or track effect in the Audio Montage, or as a global effect in the Master Section (including multichannel configurations). This is a three-band equalizer with high and low shelving filters and a full parametric mid-frequency band. You can turn off each band separately by clicking the corresponding button, making it easy to compare the signal with and without EQ.
Leveler & Leveler Multi This plug-in is available both as a VST and a WaveLab plug-in. It can be used as a clip or track effect in the Audio Montage, or as a global effect in the Master Section. Leveler Multi is adapted to handle multichannel configurations and can be used to change the level of all channels in the Master Section. This “effect” simply reduces or boosts the signal level. This is useful for matching levels between effects.
Peak Master This plug-in is available both as a VST and a WaveLab plug-in. It can be used as a clip effect in the Audio Montage, or as a global effect in the Master Section (including multichannel configurations). This plug-in provides a safe and transparent way of boosting the perceived loudness of audio material. By limiting transients and simultaneously raising the general level by compression, the Peak Master will increase the subjective loudness of the signal without risk of distortion inducing peaks.
ReSampler The Resampler (only available in the Master Section) plays back the file at another sample rate. This is similar to the Convert Sample Rate function. However, since the ReSampler processor operates in real time, it lets you play back files at a certain sample rate, regardless of which rate they were recorded at. Please note that if your files already match the card’s sample rate, you do not need to use this processor at all.
Silence The Silence plug-in (only available in the Master Section) lets you add silent portions at the start and/or end of a file. This can be useful for example in conjunction with effects such as reverb and delay which produce audio “tails” – i.e. the sound of the effect lingers after the end of the file – since the sound of the effect would otherwise be muted at the end of the file.
VST Plug-ins About VST Plug-ins These plug-ins use Steinberg’s widely adapted VST plug-in format. As a rule, VST plug-ins can be used by any VST-compatible application, although some plug-ins may still be limited to use with certain programs. Note: • VST Plug-ins can be used in the Master Section (but not for multichannel configurations) or as track or clip effects in the Audio Montage. The only exception to this is the “Ducker” effect, which can only be used as a clip effect.
Choirus2 Choirus2 is a chorus effect, used for making the sound “warmer”, etc. It has the following parameters: Parameter Description Time Use this parameter to specify the basic time delay for the chorused signal with respect to the “dry” signal. The higher the value, the more prominent the effect. Low settings create flanger-like effects, medium settings provides classic chorus while higher settings are mainly for special effects.
CleanComp CleanComp is a simple compressor that allows you to limit loud sounds, while at the same time boosting the overall loudness of the audio material. Parameter Description Ceiling (0dB~-24) This setting determines the maximum level at the CleanComp outputs. Softness (-5~5) This parameter affects the way CleanComp operates. A high setting will maximize the perceived loudness effect but can in some cases result in a slight harshness of the sound.
The whole Declicking process can be visually monitored in the Input and Output displays of the DeClicker window (showing the incoming audio and the processed - DeClicked - audio, respectively). This helps you to adjust the parameters. Furthermore, if you activate the Audition button, only the removed material will be heard (and shown in the Output display). Make sure that no low-pass filter has been applied to your audio material before you edit it with DeClicker. This may affect the detection of clicks.
Parameter Description Mode Which Mode to select depends on the source material. Standard mode is suitable for a wide variety of source material - try this option first. Vintage mode is suitable for restoring “antique” recordings (with limited high frequency content), while Modern mode is best suited for contemporary recordings with a wide frequency range (putting greater emphasis on distinguishing clicks from other strong impulses in the audio material).
The figure below shows the signal flow: Noise Reduction Level Noise Floor Ambient Analysis Input Ambience Transient Analysis Noise Reduction Output The solid line represents the actual audio signal, while the dotted lines represent control signals The signal is continuously analyzed by the first module in the chain, to estimate the noise floor at any given time. This is sufficient when the noise level is constant or modulates slowly.
• The light green line. This is simply a graphic representation of the Offset parameter. The light green Offset line should be adjusted so that it appears as close above the yellow noise floor graph as possible. The dark green spectrum plot is there to help you fine-tune the Offset setting, so that only the noise is removed, not parts of the signal (ideally, the light green line should be between the yellow line and the spectrum plot).
Using the A/B setups With the A/B buttons you can make instantaneous switches between two different DeNoiser setups, allowing you to quickly try out and compare different configurations. You can also use this feature for separate settings for two different sections of an audio recording. Proceed as follows: 1. Make the settings you want for setup A. 2. Click on [Store] and then on the [A] button. 3. Make the settings you want for setup B. 4. Click on [Store] and then on the [B] button.
Parameter Description Hold Time When the modulating signal falls below the set threshold, this setting determines how long the level will stay reduced before it starts rising to normal level again. Rise Time Controls how long it takes for the reduced level to rise to normal level when the modulating signal falls below the set threshold (after the Hold time). Mix Mode If this is activated, the Ducker will output a mix of the two tracks.
MultiBand Compressor This is a high-quality multi-band compressor, especially suited for professional mastering. It will split the signal into up to five frequency bands, and process each band with its own freely adjustable compressor characteristic. The MultiBand Compressor window is divided into two main sections: the Frequency Band editor and the Characteristic display. You can specify the level, bandwidth and compressor characteristics for each band by using the various controls.
The Characteristic display By adding breakpoints and drawing curves you set the compressor characteristic. Before you start using the Characteristic display, you have to select the frequency band you want to process. This is done in the Frequency Band editor by clicking in the area inside the frequency band. A selected band is highlighted for editing both in the Frequency Band editor and the Characteristic display.
NaturalVerb NaturalVerb is a high-quality reverb that adds ambience, or room-quality, to the sound. In addition to the standard size and decay parameters, NaturalVerb also features low- and high-pass filters, plus a gate for gated reverb effects. To change the parameters, either drag the sliders up and down, or click in a slider area to set the slider. If you hold down [Shift], you can change the parameters with a higher degree of precision.
Parameter Description Stereo Mix This parameter is used for balancing the reverb signal between the left and right channel inputs to the NaturalVerb. The value range is 0-100%. A setting of 0 means that the reverb signals for both channels are completely independent of each other (default), while a setting of 100 means that the reverb signals for both channels are equally mixed with each other (50/50).
Q Q is a high-quality 4-band parametric stereo equalizer with two fully parametric midrange bands. The low and high bands can act as either standard shelving filters or fixed-gain high/low-cut filters. Making settings 1. Click the corresponding On button below the EQ curve display to activate any or all of the Low, Mid 1, Mid 2 or High equalizer bands. When a band is activated, a corresponding EQ point appears in the EQ curve display. 2. Set the parameters for an activated EQ band.
Parameter Description Mid 2 Width (0.05-5.00 Octaves) This sets the width of the Mid 2 band, in octaves. The lower this value, the “narrower” the bandwidth. High Freq (200-20000Hz) This sets the frequency of the High band. High Gain (+/-20dB) This sets the amount of cut/boost for the High band. High Cut If this button is activated for the High band, it will act as a High Cut filter. The Gain parameter will be fixed. Output (+/- 20dB) This parameter allows you to adjust the overall output level.
• • The second harmonic is a signal at twice the frequency (one octave) above the basic frequency (the fundamental). The 3rd harmonic is three times the fundamental (one octave and a fifth above it). The reasons for limiting the processor to these two frequencies are; firstly, higher harmonics are most often perceived as “too high”, and secondly, their amplitude normally doesn’t follow that of the fundamental in a natural way.
Parameter Description Gain This adjusts the level of the signal just before it reaches the harmonic generators. As you increase this, you will most probably have to lower the Input setting to avoid clipping. 2nd This sets the level of the 2nd harmonics in the mix. 3rd This sets the level of the 3rd harmonics in the mix. Mix The Mix parameter adjusts the balance between the unprocessed signal and the added harmonics. Int.
Parameter Description Volume L The output level of the left channel delay. Volume R The output level of the right channel delay. StereoExpander The StereoExpander plug-in narrows or enlarges the stereo width of an existing stereo signal. There is only one parameter, the horizontal stereo effect slider. Setting this to a value of -100% produces two equal output channels (the original stereo image is lost). Values between -99 and -1 correspond to a narrower stereo image.
Voice Attenuator This plug-in can be used to remove lead vocals from a recording, to produce a “karaoke” effect. The principle concept is based on the fact that vocals are usually mixed to center position in the stereo field, and that the human voice occupies a limited area of the frequency spectrum. Note, however, that it is nearly impossible to remove a vocal completely, without using very complex processing beyond the scope of this plug-in.
The following processors are available on the VST Dynamics panel (click an item in the list for more information about the corresponding processor): • • • • • “AutoGate” on page 787 “AutoLevel” on page 789 “Compress” on page 789 “SoftClip” on page 790 “Limit” on page 790 AutoGate Gating, or noise gating, is a method of dynamic processing that silences audio signals below a certain set threshold level. As soon as the signal level exceeds the set threshold, the gate opens to let the signal through.
Trigger Frequency Range AutoGate has a feature that allows the gate to be triggered only by signals within a specified frequency range. This is a most useful feature because it lets you filter out parts of the signal that might otherwise trigger the gate in places you don’t want it to, thus allowing more control over the gate function. The Trigger Frequency Range function is controlled using the control in the upper part of the AutoGate panel, and the slider located below it.
AutoLevel AutoLevel reduces signal level differences in audio material. It can be used to process recordings where the level unintentionally varies. It will boost low levels and attenuate high level audio signals. Only levels above the set threshold will be processed, so low level noise or rumble will not be boosted.
Parameter Description Release Sets the amount of time it takes for the gain to return to its original level when the signal drops below the Threshold level. If the “Auto” button is activated, Compress will automatically find an optimum release setting, that varies depending on the audio program material. MakeUp Gain This parameter is used to compensate for output gain loss, caused by compression. SoftClip SoftClip is designed to ensure that the output level never exceeds 0dB, like a limiter.
34 Sampler Details
SDS - Generic Sample Dump Standard Sampler Operating system required: Latest available. MIDI: Required. SCSI: N/A. Loops: One. SMDI (Standard SCSI transfer) Sampler Operating system required: Latest available. MIDI: N/A. SCSI: Required. Loops: One.
Akai S1000/1100 including PB models Sampler Operating system required: 4.30 or later. MIDI: Required. Also supports SDS. SCSI: Not supported. Loops: One. Akai S2000/S2800/S3000/S3200, including all “i”, CD, and “XL” derivatives etc. Sampler Operating system required: 1.50 or later. MIDI: Required. Also supports SDS. SCSI: Not supported. Loops: One.
Ensoniq, EPS, EPS16+, ASR-10, ASR-88 Sampler Operating system required: EPS: 2.40 ASR-10: 2.53 Other: the latest MIDI: Required. Also supports SDS. SCSI: Not supported. Loops: One. E-mu Esi-32 Sampler Operating system required: 2.10 or later MIDI: Not supported, unless you use SDS. SCSI: Required for sampler specific protocol, also supports SMDI. Loops: One.
E-mu EIV, e64 and other samplers running the EOS operating system Sampler Operating system required: 2.50 or later MIDI: Not supported, unless you use SDS. SCSI: Required for sampler specific protocol, also supports SMDI. Loops: One. Kurzweil K2000 and K2500 Sampler Operating system required: K2000, 3.01 or later, K2500, 2.13 or later MIDI: Required, unless you use SMDI. Also supports SDS. SCSI: Optional, also supports SMDI. Loops: One.
Roland S-760 Sampler Operating system required: 2.17 or later MIDI: Required. Also supports SDS. SCSI: Not supported. Loops: Two.
35 Troubleshooting
General problems Can't create a temporary file • • Please check which drive is specified for your temporary files (in the Edit Folders dialog). You cannot use a CD-ROM disk or a write protected drive for your temporary files. Is the drive full? Please select a drive with as much free space as possible.
Problems with opening files The file doesn't appear in the Open dialog. • • Does the file have the right extension? Select “All files (*.*)” from the pop-up in the Open dialog and check again. Is the drive on which the file resides currently accessible? If you use removable hard disks or CD-ROMs, make sure the right disk is in the drive.
Problems with saving files Can't save • • • • • • Is the volume on which you are trying to save write protected? For example, you cannot save anything on a CD-ROM. Is there enough space on the drive? Is the drive to which the file was last saved currently accessible? If you use removable hard disks or CD-ROMs, make sure the right disk is in the drive. Are you trying to overwrite another file with the same name? If so, is that file write protected? If it is, it can't be overwritten.
There is too much noise in my recordings • • • • Have you adjusted your recording levels properly? Is the source connected to the proper input? Have you specified 8 bits as the bit resolution for the recording? Try 16 bits instead. Keep in mind that microphones provided with sound cards are very low quality. The mixer can't be “created” • • Have you specified your audio card in the Preferences dialog? A mixer can't be created if “Microsoft Sound Mapper” is selected.
Editing problems After editing I get clicks and pops • Are you making “splices” in the middle of an audio section? If you do, we recommend that you make all cuts at zero crossings, to avoid clicks and pops. After crossfading, I get distortion • If both sections play at full level during the crossfade, it is possible that clipping will occur (although it is unlikely). If this happens, undo the crossfade, lower the gain of both sections (by 3 or 6 dB for example) and try again.
Troubleshooting and precautions The following sections provide information concerning Sampler communication problems, problems relating to CD/DVD burning, hardware devices, precautions for trouble-free CD writing as well as hardware and setup issues. Please note that Steinberg cannot make any guarantees about the validity of your recorded audio CDs. Sampler communication problems General precautions • • • Not all samplers require or even support MIDI transfers.
• For SCSI, check termination, SCSI card driver versions and everything else related to the SCSI setup. Problems and solutions General instructions The following text is written for problems relating to CD burning, but applies to DVD as well. • • • • If you run into problems, the first thing to check is your hardware and software setup. To isolate the problem, you could try using other CD burning software (for example a program supplied with the CD-R unit).
Questions and Answers • I have problems with a Phillips CDD-2000 unit. If you have a real Phillips drive or a drive that contains this Phillips mechanism, you must make sure that the firmware version is 1.25 or later. A firmware update can be found at http://www.philips.com/sv/pcaddon. • I have other problems writing a CD and/or importing CD audio tracks. Well of course there could be many reasons for this. Check the “Day to day precautions for trouble free CD writing” section below.
Day to day precautions for trouble free CD writing The most important thing to remember is that CD writing is a real-time operation where a laser burns depressions into the surface of the CD. This is done at a speed which cannot be slowed down or interrupted. Any interruption will most likely be fatal, rendering the CD-R disk useless. For these reasons you should make sure your system does not interrupt the CD-R writing once it's under way.
Hardware and setup issues CD-R Drivers • • • If you have previously installed another CD-R software product, you may run into driver conflicts. Normally this should not happen since WaveLab has built-in drivers that are loaded as needed, and which usually override any other installed drivers. However, if you do have problems writing to CD-R, this is a point to check.
Links and sources for more information • A general CD-R site that might be of interest: http://www.osta.org/technology/ cdqa.
36 Key commands
File handling Key Command Function [Ctrl]-[O] Open wave file [Alt]-[Enter] Open wave file information window [Shift]+[O] Open Recently used Wave Files selection box [Ctrl]-[F2] Open Audio Montage [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[O] Open Recently used Wave Files selection box [Ctrl]-[S] Save current document [Shift]-[S] Save current document under new name and/or in a new location [Ctrl]-[Shift]-[S] Save all currently open documents [Ctrl]-[N] Create new wave [Ctrl]-[W] Close current document (and all it
Zooming Main View Key Command Function [G] Zoom in horizontally [Arrow up] Zoom in horizontally (or Zoom out if Cubase compatibility is enabled) [H] Zoom out horizontally [Arrow down] Zoom out horizontally (or Zoom in if Cubase compatibility is enabled) [Ctrl]-[Arrow up] Zoom in horizontally to maximum zoom factor [Ctrl]-[Arrow down] Zoom out horizontally to display the entire wave or montage or [J] [Shift]-[G] or [Shift]-[Arrow up] Zoom in vertically (or Zoom out if Cubase compatibility is ena
Playback and cursor position Numeric keypad Key Command Function [Enter] Play (from current position) [0] Stop / Move to selection start / Move to beginning [1] Move cursor to selection start [2] Move cursor to selection end [4] Move cursor to previous marker [5] Move cursor to next marker [.
Cursor keys Key Command Function [Arrow left] Move cursor one pixel to the left [Arrow right] Move cursor one pixel to the right [Ctrl]-[Arrow right] Move cursor 1/10 of the window width to the right (or left if Cubase compatibility is enabled) [Ctrl]-[Arrow left] Move cursor 1/10 of the window width to the left (or right if Cubase compatibility is enabled) [Ctrl]-[Page Up] Move cursor one window width to the left (or right if Cubase compatibility is enabled) [Ctrl]-[Page Down] Move cursor one
Key Command Function [Shift]-[Page Down] 20 pixels to the right (or left if Cubase compatibility is enabled) [Ctrl]+[Shift][Page Up] One window width to the left (or right if Cubase compatibility is enabled) [Ctrl]+[Shift][Page Down] One window width to the right (or left if Cubase compatibility is enabled) Making selections The following commands always create a new selection: Key Command Function [Shift]-[Home] From cursor to start [Shift]-[End] From cursor to end [Ctrl]-[A] Select all “One
Editing and Recording General Key Command Function [Shift]-[A] Open Wave Attributes dialog [Ctrl]-[U] Open Audio Properties dialog Cut and Paste Key Command Function [Ctrl]-[X] Cut [Ctrl]-[C] Copy [Ctrl]-[V] Paste [Ctrl]+[Shift]-[V] Paste Append Delete and Silence Key Command Function [Backspace] or [Del] Delete current selection [Ctrl]-[Space bar] Silence current selection (Fast mute) [Ctrl]+[Shift][Space] Insert silence [Ctrl]-[Backspace] Trim (to selection) [Ctrl]+[Del] Smooth de
When Record dialog is open Key Command Function [Ctrl]-[M] Drop generic marker [Ctrl]-[L] Drop generic region start marker [Ctrl]-[R] Drop generic region end marker [Ctrl]-[P] Pause [Ctrl]-[Enter] Record [Ctrl]-[0] (Numeric keypad) Stop record [Ctrl]-[Y] Reset meters Undo and Redo Key Command Function [Ctrl]-[Z] Undo [F3] Undo [Ctrl]+[Shift]-[Z] Redo [F4] Redo WAVELAB 36 – 816 Key commands
Processing Key Command Function [N] Level Normalizer [Shift]+[M] Loudness Normalizer [Shift]+[P] Pan Normalizer [Ctrl]-[G] Change gain [D] Dynamics [V] Level envelope [Ctrl]-[D] Easy Fade [Ctrl]-[F] Fade in/out [X] Crossfade [Ctrl]-[R] Reverse [R] Waveform Restorer [T] Time stretch [P] Pitch Correction [Ctrl]-[Q] EQ [B] Pitch Bend Markers Key Command Function [Ctrl]-[M] Open marker list [Insert] Drop new marker at cursor position (for example during playback) [Ctrl]-[In
Database Key Command Function [Insert] Add file to database [Ctrl]-[D] Scan folder [Ctrl]-[F] Global Search [Ctrl]-[G] Global Filter Miscellaneous Key Command Function [F2] Open Rename dialog [Alt]-[Ctrl]-[M] Maximize Wave or Montage window width [W] View Window layouts [Ctrl]-[F9] Show/hide Master Section [Ctrl]-[F10] Show/hide Monitor window [Ctrl]-[P] Open Preferences dialog [M] Magnetize Bounds on/off [Z] Zero crossing on/off [7] (Numeric keypad) Undo zoom/view/position chang
Index
A B Accelerators 68 ACM 126 Adding files to Databases 687 AES-31 files Import and export 547 Analyse selection 157 Append 105 Archives 725 ASIO driver 25 ASIO Instant playback switching About 523 ASIO Positioning Protocol (APP) 656 ATS column (Montage) About 536 Audio card Checking 22 Settings 25 Audio CD format 577 Audio CD report 541 Audio CD track import 594 Audio file comparer 637 Audio files See “Wave files” Audio formats DVD-Audio project 368 Audio in pauses 534 Audio Input plug-in 251 Audio Montage
C Calibrating printer 616 Categories (Database) 699 CD format specification 577 CD images Comparing 576 Creating with cue sheet 540 From Basic Audio CD 362 Importing as Montage 378 Writing to Exabyte tape 580 CD recorders Disc-At-Once 580 Installing 30 Selecting 572 CD track markers Audio Montage 329 Basic Audio CD 358 CD track sub-index markers 329 CD view (Montage) 531 CD/DVD Project About 584 From Backup Plan 728 CD/DVD Wizard dialog 532 CD-Extra 575 Change Gain 178 Channel configuration (Montage) Select
Convert sample rate 210 Converting marker type 345 Copy 101 Copy to new window 109 Copying wave selections 99 Create optimized crossfade when snapping to other clip 468 Crossfade 192 Crossfade Looper 671 Crossfades (Montage) About 462 Constrained overlaps 467 Editing 464 Options 463 Power/Amplitude compensation 464 Crystal Resampler (Plug-in) 762 Cue Points 428 Cursor Appearance 737 Moving to marker 338 Scroll to 86 Setting position 89 Status bar 79 Cut 103 D Damp 264 Data CD/DVD Creating 585 Writing 590 D
DVD-Audio Bit resolution on DVD 537 DVD-Audio options dialog About 537 DVD-Audio project Adding Montages 553 Audio formats 368 Creating 552 Deleting Montages 555 Groups 366 Rendering 569 Setting group order 555 DVD-Audio track import 599 Dynamics 184 E Easy Fade 191 Echo (Plug-in) 762 Edit Folders dialog 731 Edit Overview (Montage) 394 Edit playback times 539 Effect Morphing 211 Effects About 225 Installing 230 Mute 228 Presets 229 Removing 226 Reordering 226 Selecting 226 Effects (Montage) Copying setting
Folder editing 731 Frames (CD) 578 Freedb 596 Freeze all meters 156 Frequency Analysis, 3D 638 Full cloning 500 G Gating 184 Generic markers 329 Global Analysis Errors 629 Extra 628 Introduction 620 Loudness 626 Operations 621 Peaks 625 Pitch 627 Global auto-grouping 391 Global envelope lock 453 Global filter 703 Groups DVD-Audio project 366 Montage 489 Plug-ins 755 Workspaces 710 H Hard disk requirements 17 Harmonization 207 Help 46 Hidden CD tracks Creating 534 Hi-fi Chorus 208 History 496 I Implicit f
Label sets About 612 Opening 613 Printing 616 Saving 613 Saving as user template 613 Templates 604 Layouts Saving 733 Window layouts 744 Level envelope 189 Level Processing (Dynamics) 184 Level selections 98 Level/Pan Meter 159 Leveler 764 Leveler Multi 764 Limiting 184 List of open files dialog 50 Locating files 694 Locking Clips 427 Envelopes 453 Loop markers 329, 340, 669 Loop Tone Equalizer 679 Looping 137, 340, 669 Loudness distribution 641 Loudness Envelope display mode Using 129 Loudness Normalizer 1
MIDI Connecting samplers with 31 Installation (Windows) 31 MIDI Time Code 650 Mix (Option) 105 Mixed Mode CD Creating 589 Mixed Mode CD/DVD About 584 MME/WDM Driver 26 Monitor audio input 156 Monitor edit-cursor position 157 Monitor file rendering 157 Monitor playback 156 Monitor window Performance display 249 Progress display 247 Timecode display 655 Mono Master Section button 224 Mono to Stereo 109 Montage See “Audio Montage” Mouse zones 408 Mouse zooming 83 Move cursor to 89 Moving wave selections 103 MP
Paste Append 105 Copying wave selections 101 Mix 105 Moving wave selections 103 Overwrite 105 Prepend 105 Peak Master 765 Pencil tool 112 Percent (Level unit) 61 Phase Invert 195 Phase Scope 165 Photo viewer 588 Pitch Bend 205 Pitch Correction 201 Pitch Shift (Montage) 473 Play (Transport bar) 135 Play selection 141 Play tool 140 Playback Browser 140 Playback position display 250 Playback speed 138 Playback starter marker 329 Playing Clips 402 Database 694 Montage 399 One channel in stereo file 140 Play too
Redo (Montage) 496 Refresh selection analysis 157 Region markers About 329 Marking takes during recording 153 Release audio hardware 134 Remember active window’s layout 745 Rename dialog Range parameters 314 Renaming Clips 310 Renaming files 308 Renaming files and documents 121 Render selected CD/DVD track 540 Rendering Audio Montage 527 Wave windows 239 Rendering (Montage) WMA 5.1 and 7.
Shuttle Montage window 404 Via MIDI Pitch bend 144 Wave window 143 ShuttlePro 145 Signal Generator 644 Silence 109 Silence (Plug-in) 767 Size ruler (CD/DVD Project) 587 Skip 137 Skip muted regions 340 Sliders 62 Smart bypass 244 Smooth Delete 106 Snap (Montage) 410 Snap to fade-in/out when snapping to other clip 469 Snap to time units 97 Snap to waveform when crossfading 468 Snap to zero crossing 95, 96 Snapshots Montage 396 Wave window 87 Solo (Montage) 400 Source audio files (Montage) 441 Speaker tool 140
Tracer application 33 Track auto-grouping 391 Track effects Adding 475 Track gain faders About 401 Tracks (Montage) About 372 Handling 380 Output routing 482 Transform clips 470 Transmit back (sample) 665 Transmit samples 663 Transport bar 135 Trim 106 U Undo Clearing 48 Introduction 47 Limiting 47 Processing 176 Undo (Montage) History view 496 View changes 398 UPC/EAN codes 580 Use Master Section 218 UV22 234 UV22HR 234 V Values (Setting) 62 Variables About 604 Editing 614 Video track (Montage) About 504
Z Zero crossings 95 Zero level axis 737 Zip archives Backup 725 Batch processing 296 Zoom controls 81 Zoom menu 84 Zoom view 433 Zooming About 80 Auto zoom for overview 85 Magnifying Glass 81 Montage 392 Mouse zooming 83 Using the keyboard 84 Using the menu 84 Zoom selection 84 Index WAVELAB 831
