User Manual

WAVELAB
10 – 218 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 hard-
ware (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.
Note that the Master Section effects are global for all clips and tracks in a Montage, as op-
posed to the individual clip or track effects.
• When using the Render function with any of the above.
The Render function writes the outputs of the Master Section to a file on disk, allowing you
to apply Master Section processing to a Wave or mix down a Montage to an audio file. In
case of a multichannel Montage, several files can be created, one for each channel in the
selected configuration. See “Rendering” on page 239.
• When using the Audio Input plug-in.
See “Audio Input” on page 251.
About the Master Section in multichannel mode
If you are working in a Montage in multichannel mode, the Master Section
looks and works slightly differently. See “Multichannel configurations in
the Master Section” on page 524. However, the basic procedures are the
same as described on the following pages.
About the “Use Master Section” option
If you don’t need the Master Section at all, you can turn it off completely
by deactivating the Use Master Section setting on the Options menu. This
will save processor power, but makes the following sections of the pro-
gram unavailable:
• The Master Section window, including processors and dithering.
• The Audio input and External Gear plug-ins.
• Several functions of the Monitor window.
• The Batch Processor.
• Audio CD Burning from the Audio Montage.