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Changing values If you point at an edit field in a dialog, the wheel can be used to adjust the value. You have to point in the Master Section for this to work. 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 evi- dent when you start creating your own!
Clicking the button opens the Presets dialog which has the same items as described below. Depending on how presets are displayed in a certain dialog tab or menu they are handled slightly differently, but both cases are described below. Loading presets 1. Open the dialog you wish to use and click on its Presets tab or pull down its Presets menu.
Select the preset you want to use. Where applicable, click the Load button. Open the dialog you wish to use and set up the dialog as desired. Click on the Presets tab or pull down the Preset menu. 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. Where applicable, click the Add button. Modifying a preset 1. Load the preset you want to modify, as described above.
Make the desired settings in the dialog. Click the Update button or click the Save item. Deleting a preset 1. In the Presets tab, click on the preset you want to delete. Click the Delete button. Or… 1. From the Presets menu, select the option Explore presets. In the Explorer window that appears, select the preset file you want to de- lete and press [Delete].
Store temporarily and Restore Some dialogs also allow you to quickly save and load up to 5 presets with the Store temporarily and Restore menu items.
This is useful if you want to quickly test and compare different settings. To quickly load the saved settings again, select the corresponding num- ber from the Restore submenu. How presets are saved The presets are automatically saved when you quit the program. The next time you load the program, the presets are ready and waiting, just as you left them.
No matter which file you are working on, you still have access to all your presets. 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. Keyboard commands Windows normally does not allow you to select from menus and use key- board accelerators when a dialog box is the active window.
However, we have provided a few special key shortcuts for the most crucial commands:. 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.
Some abbreviations might need an explanation:. KP The numeric keypad. These are displayed with the different keys separated by comma signs. Additional shortcuts In addition to the above, there are key commands that are not listed on the menus or in this manual.
Check the Key Commands chapter in the online documentation for a full list. This is where you view, play back and edit individual audio files.
This chap- ter describes how to open and save audio files, how to perform wave edit- ing and how to handle the Wave window itself.
Creating new empty documents If you want to start with an empty file, for assembling material from other files for example, proceed as follows:. Using menus 1. Select New from the File menu, and Wave from the submenu that ap- pears. Or, right-click the New icon on the Standard Commands control bar.
Fill out the dialog that appears. By dragging This is only possible if the currently active window is a Wave window or if no document windows are open. Drag to make up a box in an empty free area of the WaveLab application window. This must be of a certain minimum size. If no window is open, the dialog box settings for units are used instead. About display options There are a number of options that govern how a window will look when it is first created.
These are all found on the Preferences—Wave edit tab. Using the Open dialog 1. Use the standard controls to locate and select the desired file. The file format pop-up allows you to only view files in a certain format and the buttons in the upper left half provide various views of the files on the disk. Click Open. The Wave appears in a new window.
The Recent Folders pop-up menu At the top of the dialog, you will find a pop-up menu which lists the most recently accessed folders. Select one to open it. The playback functions Once you have selected a file in the list you can audition it by clicking Play. Click again to Stop. You can also have files play back automatically as soon as they are se- lected. To do this, activate the Auto button. Opening multiple files As in many other Windows programs, you can select and open as many files as you wish.
The [Shift] key is used for making continuous selections and [Ctrl] is used for selecting any combination of files.
When you click Open the selected files will be opened, each in an individ- ual window. The Open in Audio Montage window option If you check this option at the bottom of the dialog, the file s you open will be placed in an automatically created new Audio Montage. Open the Preferences from the Options menu, and click the File tab. Select Open Wave from the File menu. Select the first file, hold down [Ctrl] and select the other. The two files are opened as one stereo file, with the file with the first name alphabetically becoming the left channel.
You can now work on the two files as if they were one. You can later save them as a stereo file or as two mono files.
Inserting a file into the current document You may have a file that you want to insert into an existing file. The two must have the same attributes e. Locate the document into which you want to add material, and make it ac- tive. If you want to add the file at some arbitrary position in the document rather than at the beginning or end , click to move the wave cursor to that position. Pull down the Edit menu and select Insert Audio File and then one of the options from the submenu that appears.
Select a file and click Open. The file is added. This works even if the application is running but minimized. This should be done using the Document button or from a Database window. Opening files from the desktop To open a file in WaveLab by double-clicking on it, you must have created an association between the file format and the WaveLab application. Using the Recent Files lists On the bottom of the File menu you will find one or several hierarchical menu items that allow you to open recently used document files.
Each sec- tion holds up to forty files this number can be set in the Preferences—En- vironment tab. Selecting an item on one of the submenus opens the corresponding file. 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 files can be shown this is set in the Preferences—Environment tab in the dialog. You can also navigate in the list using the keyboard a-z keys or the arrow keys as usual.
Clicking OK opens all selected files and closes the dialog. You can also double-click a file in the list to open it and close the dialog. The list is sorted alphabetically. See the respective chapters for details. 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. These can be hidden and displayed see the ruler and wave display speed menus.
Overview The overview is mainly used for navigating through long files. Since you can have different zoom factors in the two areas, the Overview can dis- play the entire wave while the Main view only shows you a short portion. This is the standard waveform display, as shown in the main picture. This displays the average loudness of an audio file, which can be useful in many circum- stances. You select which view is shown in each section from the pop-up to the left of the respective horizontal Zoom control.
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 on the Preferences—Environ- ment tab. If you click this value the window zooms in on the selected range. Sizing, moving and minimizing WaveLab uses standard Windows techniques for resizing, moving, maxi- mizing and minimizing windows. See your Windows documentation for details. Maximizing width Selecting the Maximize Width item on the View menu makes the window as big as the screen or any other factor permits.
The divider The divider between the Main view and the Overview can be dragged to change the view sizes. 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.
You can note this by checking the ruler on the left side. Exactly which section you see can be adjusted with the vertical scroll bars.
Again, check the ruler to see which part of the waveform is currently shown in the display. 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. Either way, the zoom factor on the status bar is updated continuously.
Using the Magnifying Glass tool The Magnifying Glass tool is used to specify any section of the waveform and have it occupy the entire window. This is just a momentary selection. As soon as you release [Ctrl] you get the previous tool back. Using the tool in the Main view 1. Press the mouse button with the pointer somewhere in the waveform. Drag left or right to make up a box, and then release the button. The area encompassed in the box now fills up the entire window.
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 drag- ging: 1. Position the mouse pointer over the ruler in the Main view.
Press the mouse button and drag up or down. The zoom factor changes continuously. This technique works very well in combination with the fact that you can move the song position by dragging horizontally in the ruler. By dragging in both directions, you can quickly find a certain position in the file and display it at the desired magnification factor.
Using mouse zooming to its full effect requires some practice — but it is worth the effort! The higher the value, the less sensitive the function. You might want to raise this value when you first try out the function. It provides the following options:.
Restore last zoom Brings back the last zoom factor set using this menu or the Magnifying Glass tool. Microscope Zooms in as far as possible, so that one sample occupies several pixels.
You can also click the selection range in brackets on the Status bar. Custom… This brings up a dialog that allows you to enter any zoom factor. Optimize vertical This changes the vertical zoom factor so that the peaks are clearly visi- zoom ble. This adjustment is done according to the section of the wave cur- rently visible in the window, not the whole file.
Using the keyboard A quick way to zoom the active Wave window is to use the arrow keys on the computer keyboard: Press [arrow up] or [arrow down] to zoom in or out respectively horizontally. Hold down [Shift] and use the arrow keys to zoom in or out vertically.
There are also additional key commands for zooming — check the Key Commands chapter in the online documentation for a full list. 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. If you then zoom in on the overview, the automatic zooming is deactivated until you zoom out all the way again. Which part of the file do I see? Furthermore, the range indicator moves while you drag the scroll bar han- dle.
This means that by observing the overview you can easily find posi- tions in the Main view when scrolling, even though the Main view might be zoomed in very closely. When you drag the scroll bar, the range indicator continuously shows you which part of the wave is shown in the Main view.
Scroll bars This is the most evident option. These work exactly as in any other Win- dows 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.
Centering the view vertically If you have zoomed in vertically, you might want to center the waveform view. To do so, double click in the level ruler. Clicking in the Overview If you click once in the Overview, the Main view is scrolled so that the po- sition where you clicked is shown on the left side of the window. The difference between the methods is that the main menu always affects the Main view, whereas the speed menus affect either view depending on where you clicked.
The following options are available on the menu:. 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. If you move back and forth between various positions in a file, or if you zoom in and out for detailed or overview editing, using snapshots will save you a lot of time.
Snapshots are created and managed on the Wave Snapshots control bar, opened from the View menu. Then click the camera icon on the Wave Snapshots control bar, followed by one of the numbers. The snapshot is now stored under that button. The fact that the snapshot is used is indicated by a red circle around the number. To recall a stored snapshot, simply click on its number on the Wave Snapshots control bar. The picture sequence below shows you how to do this: 1. Right-click the ruler to bring up this pop-up menu.
The ruler start position is moved. Open the Preferences—Wave edit tab. Set the Time Signature and Tempo to match the file. This might for example be the same value as that used by your MIDI sequencer.
Setting the wave cursor position Many operations, such as playback and selection depend on the current cursor position — for example, playback often starts at the cursor. The cur- rent cursor position is indicated by a vertical flashing line, both in the Main view and in the Overview. If you have a selection, click on the ruler, since clicking in the waveform deselects all.
For example, this can be to the zero crossing closest to a whole second on the time ruler. 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. You can also press [Shift] and click in the Wave window to make a selec- tion between the position of the wave cursor and the click position.
Selecting in stereo files If you are working on stereo material you can select either channel or both so that you can apply an operation to one channel only or to the entire stereo material. Which channel will be selected when you drag or [Shift]- click depends on where you position the mouse pointer, as indicated by the pointer shape:. Or, you can press [Tab] to move the selection between channels if there is no selection, [Tab] moves the cur- sor between channels.
Selection shortcuts There are a number of ways to quickly make certain selections for many options there is more than one method :. These options are useful if you are working with measures.
To get the selec- tion tool in the overview, hold down [Ctrl] and move the pointer into the overview. In this case you can extend or shrink the selection. In fact you can very well use this as a method: make a coarse selection with a lower zoom fac- tor, then zoom in and adjust the start and end in more detail. By dragging 1. Move the mouse pointer to the beginning or end of the selection. It turns into a double arrow.
If you click inside the first half of the selection, this will change the start point, if you click in- side the latter half, this will change the end point. If you also hold down [Ctrl] it is moved twenty pixels instead. Which end of the selection you change depends on which end of the se- lection the cursor is closest to.
Exactly how much one pixel represents depends on the zoom factor. Using the Select menu The Select submenu on the Edit menu has a number of options for ex- tending the selection to various points in the waveform.
For details, use the help item on the Edit menu. Moving the selection If the selection is the right length, but at the wrong position, you can move it: 1. Hold down [Ctrl] and [Shift].
See the example below. 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. Furthermore we recommend that joins are made with the splice points of the two waves heading from opposite directions to the zero crossing.
That is, one should be on its way up below the zero level axis , and the other should be on its way down above the zero level axis. WaveLab can help! But just making the selection start and end at zero crossings is not enough.
When you actually perform the editing operation cut and paste or drag- ging, for example you need to make sure the material is inserted at a zero crossing. Select Preferences from the Options menu.
Click on the Wave edit tab. Click the question mark icon in the respective dialog for details. Checking the effect of Snap to Zero crossing 1. Make a selection and observe how it is extended left and right. This allows you to easily make selections spanning a certain number of seconds for example. Hold down [Shift]. Move the mouse to the top or bottom of the selection box. The pointer changes into a vertical double arrow.
Make a regular selection, move the pointer to its top or bottom and hold down [Shift]…. If you then extend the selection time-wise, the level selection still remains the same. 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. When this is activated, both the selection start and end as well as the drop position will al- ways occur at zero crossings.
Make a selection. Point at the selection, press the mouse button and hold it down. Drag to a position outside the selection in the same file or to another Wave window. When you have the cursor over a valid area, the pointer will turn into a single or double waveform see below.
The status bar will show the exact position at which the selection will be inserted. 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.
Stereo Stereo The dragged audio is always inserted into both channels. Mono Stereo What happens depends on the vertical position in the destination window at which the drop is made. The selection can be inserted into only one of the channels, or the same material can be inserted into both channels.
The program will warn you if this is about to happen. While mixing sample rates can sometimes be used as an effect, it is most often not desired. You might go back later and undo this conversion if necessary. By using Copy and Paste 1. If you want to insert the audio, click once at some position in the same file or in another file. The wave cursor appears at that point. If you would rather replace a section of audio, select it.
In this case, the position of the cursor is of no relevance. 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.
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. Mono Stereo What happens depends on whether the wave cursor is in one channel or both. The Paste can either happen in one of the channels, or the same material can be in- serted into both channels.
By dragging This is just like drag copying see above. The only difference is that you hold down [Alt] and [Ctrl] while dragging to move audio. The material you dragged is removed from its original position and inserted where you drop it. By using Cut and Paste This is just like using Copy and Paste you can for example drag the se- lection to the Cut symbol on the Standard Commands control bar — see above.
The only difference is that when you select Cut, the audio is re- moved from the window. The material after the cut section will be moved to fill out the gap.
Please note that to completely undo a move between two files you must first undo the paste in the destination window and then undo the cut in the source window. Click on the selection with one of the Nudge tools depending on the di- rection 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 x, the selection will be moved samples. For example, when you nudge a selection to the right, silence will appear before the nudged section while audio to the right will be replaced by the nudged section.
This is different from moving by dragging. Repeating an audio selection To repeat a section of audio, proceed as follows: 1. Make a selection, select Cut or Copy and place a new insertion point, just as when performing a normal Cut or Copy see above. In the dialog that appears, enter the number of copies you desire up to , and click OK.
Overwrite This will overwrite data in the destination file, rather than moving data to make room for the inserted audio. If there is a selection, the pasted data will replace that selection, just as when making a reg- ular paste. Append This will add the pasted audio after the end of the file, just as if you had placed the wave cursor there and selected Paste.
Mix This will blend the two files into each other, starting at the selection if you have one or at the cursor position if there is no selection. A setting of 0 dB means the level will be unaffected. Smooth Delete This function is available from the Edit menu. Thus if the region to remove is milliseconds and the defined crossfade is 20 mil- liseconds, only milliseconds of audio will be removed. If the region is the end of the file, only a fade-out is performed. Make a selection that encompasses the range you wish to replace with si- lence.
This will open the Silence dialog — see below for descriptions of the options in the dialog. Insert silence If you intend to insert silence, proceed as follows: 1. Either make a selection that encompasses the range where you wish to insert the silence, or set the cursor where you want the inserted silence to begin. If this is unchecked, you can specify a silence length in the field below the checkbox.
You can specify the crossfade time. Ambience — This option allows you to select an audio file containing ambient Background noise noise, and use this as the source for the silence operation. See be- low. Gain This allows you to lower or raise the gain of the Background noise source file.
Mode The sets whether to Replace the selection or to Insert the silence at the cursor position. About the Ambience — Background noise option In certain situations, completely muting the sound True silence will pro- duce an undesirable result. This particularly applies to spoken word and field recordings, where a natural background ambience is often present. Using the Background noise feature you can insert ambience instead of silence which in such circumstances will produce a far more natural result.
Click the folder icon to open a standard file dialog where you can navigate to the source file for the Background noise. The file can be any length — if the si- lence region is longer than the file it will be looped. Turning selections into new documents If you want to turn a section of wave into a new document, proceed as fol- lows.
Drag the selection out of the window and onto an empty section of the WaveLab application window. The selection appears in a new window. You can also use this function to create stereo waves out of mono waves, see below. This can be done in two ways, by using menus or by dragging to a new file, as described below.
When the pointer is outside the window, hold down [Ctrl] and release the mouse button. By using menus 1. Make a mono selection. 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. Which method to use mainly depends on whether you want to convert the entire file or just a selection:.
Make a stereo selection. By using menus converting a selection 1. The selection appears in a new window, mixed down to mono. The resulting mono wave will contain the difference between the channels.
For example, this allows you to verify that a wave file really is a true stereo file rather than a mono file converted to stereo format. Open the stereo file. Since the mixing of the two channels when converting a stereo file to mono might often re- sult in the amplitude increasing to a point where clipping occurs, these two options can be useful to remedy such a situation.
Click OK and save the file. Open the file you just saved. Swapping channels in a stereo file You may move the material in the left channel to the right channel, and vice versa: 1. Make a selection across both channels. Only the material in the selected section will be swapped. 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.
Resolution values can be set in the Zoom pop-up menu. If you wish to redraw the waveform of both channels at once, press [Shift] on your computer keyboard during the drawing process. File handling of other document types e. Audio Montages is de- scribed 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. If you plan to load the files into any other PC program, Wave files are a safe bet. Wave If this is activated, the standard Wave file format switches automatically to the RF64 file format as soon as the file size ex- ceeds 2 GB, without any performance loss or interruption. This is espe- cially useful when recording very long sessions as there is no need to worry about file size limit apart from available disk space.
The major advantage of. WaveLab can both open and save files in this format. Therefore, make sure that you have enough free space on your hard disk when opening MPEG compressed files. With regard to file sizes the same applies as. By Quality. U-LAW This is an audio encoding and compression technique supported by.
The U. A-LAW This is an audio encoding and compression technique for telephony, us-. The EU telephone system uses A-law encoding for digitization. Files in. Ogg Vorbis Ogg Vorbis is a relatively new compressed file format that is open and. 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 de- coded and opened as an audio file. Note that these files are not com- pressed in any way, so they can get very large! Therefore, avoid creating and opening extremely large. Also note that when using 32 bit float files, the. This is because it is not possible to express a binary floating point value in textual decimal form without some precision loss.
Raw PCM files In this format, no information about bit resolution or sample rate is in-. If you open a file in this format, WaveLab will ask you to specify. About , and bit float files You do not need a or bit audio card to take advantage of the fact that WaveLab can handle and bit audio files.
For playback, WaveLab automat- ically adapts to whatever card you have installed. About temporary files As you work in WaveLab, temporary files used for Undo, etc.
You can decide whether these files should be in , or 32 bit format. This is done on the Preferences—File tab. The higher this value, the better the quality of the temporary file.
However, bit files are also twice as big as bit files and take longer to process. For example, if you have stored your peak files this is set in the Prefer- ences dialog in the same folder as your audio files, you may wish to erase the peak files so that the folder only contains audio files. Erasing peak files is safe, they will be recreated when needed. Select Erase peak files from the Tools menu. A dialog opens. In the upper field specify the folder with peak files to erase. This option lets you erase peak or other temp files created by other applications for example.
Please note that the files will be permanently erased not moved to the Recy- cle bin! Therefore use this option with caution! If for example you select Save As and specify a file name already used in that folder, the program will ask you if you want to back up the existing file first. Select Save as… on the File menu. If you wish to change other attributes of the file e.
This opens the Audio File Format dialog where you can specify the desired properties of the converted file. 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 detailed descriptions of the settings in the Audio File Format dialog, click the question mark icon in the dialog. If you change the sample rate, bit resolution and number of channels, the following operations are performed:. If you convert to 8 bits, the audio is auto- matically normalized. If the conversion is from stereo to mono, a mix of the two channels will be created clipping is prevented in the mixing process.
This opens additional settings dialogs, where you can specify various options such as bit rate and compression method, and also enter text tags for the file. About saving OSQ files OSQ Original Sound Quality is a lossless audio compression format, which can significantly reduce the audio file size without affecting the audio quality at all. The audio will play back exactly the same as in the original, uncompressed file. WAV , the audio will play back exactly the same. Save selection as This is a menu item on the Save Special submenu.
It works exactly as Save As, except that only the current selection is saved as a new file. Save selection as clip for Audio Montages This item is available from the Wave window speed menu when a selec- tion is active.
It allows you to save the current selection as a clip file which can be used in Audio Montages. Clip files can be used just like audio files in Montages but are not self-contained audio files.
Instead they contain a reference to the source audio file. A regular file dia- log is used as with Save As. They allow you to save each channel individually, into a separate file. A regular file dialog is used as with Save As. This menu item brings up a dialog that allows you to save some or all of the open documents, in one go. The list displays all open documents that currently contain unsaved changes.
Only the selected files will be saved. The file is restored to its previously saved state. Renaming files and documents Rename The Rename function is available from most WaveLab documents, not just Wave windows. The function is however of particular importance when renaming audio files. But WaveLab allows you to handle file renaming in an intelligent way so that all the documents that reference this renamed file are automatically updated!
For audio files, peak and marker files will also be renamed accordingly. Make sure all documents that reference this particular file are open. The Rename dialog opens. Change folder It is also possible to change the folder location of the file when re- naming. If Change folder is ticked, you can navigate to a new loca- tion. Note that this is only possible within the same drive partition. Keep as default path If you check this option, the same path will be selected the next time you open the dialog.
This is useful if you need to move several files successively. Extension pop-up The file extension can be changed, but only if corresponds to the original file format certain file formats can have different possible file extensions, e.
This function is available from the File menu and will delete the currently selected file or document from disk. Make sure the file or document you wish to delete is in focus. A dialog appears as a warning, allowing you to cancel or proceed with the operation.
Select whether to permanently delete the file or to move it to the Recycle bin by clicking the appropriate button in the Method section of the dialog. If the feature is activated and you save a file, the settings will be recreated exactly as you had them when later reloading the same file! Saving a Master Section preset with an audio file You can also store all Master Section settings used as part of the saved file.
When you reload the file, you can choose to recreate the Master Sec- tion effects exactly as they were when saved. To store Master Section effects as part of an audio file, proceed as follows: 1.
Make sure the effects and their settings are configured the way you wish to store them. The button will now be lit up in green, to indicate that the Master Section effects settings have been saved. The effects will be loaded exactly as saved. The number of formats you can export, depend on which ACM drivers you have installed on your computer. For more information, see www.
This means that once the file has been compressed, some information has been lost. This type of compression always results in some kind of audio degrada- tion, albeit in many cases a very small one.
The dialog that appears is a MediaTools dialog, not a WaveLab dialog. Select one of the formats from the pop-up in the middle and chose a set- ting for it from the pop-up below. The options which are available depend on the original format of the file, its sample rate, the number of channels, etc.
However, we have noted prob- lems with some ACM drivers. Even though a certain format can be selected, an error message appears when you try to save the file. If this happens, please use another encoding method. Click OK. A regular file dialog appears. Specify a name and location for the file, as with any Save operation.
This is normally not a problem, but something to be aware of when plan- ning for usage of files in other programs and on other computer platforms. There is no Undo for this item. If you save with a lower bit resolution, the file is permanently converted. You can enter information on either the Standard tab or the Broadcast Audio Extension tab. The information you enter here is added to the header of the file, and thereby labels it as either a Standard wave file or a Broadcast wave file.
A Broadcast wave file is essentially the same thing as a Standard wave file, the difference is what information the file headers can contain. A Timecode position is included in the file as well. This makes it possible to insert audio at pre- cise positions in other applications. By default, the Timecode position is set to the start position of the audio.
Information This item, on the File menu — Special submenu, brings up a dialog that displays basic information about a file. 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 loudness is an average level of the individ- ual levels of the samples RMS. As isolated peaks do not alter the per- ceived loudness of audio material very much, this display will represent the loudness of an audio file more accurately than the standard waveform display.
For instance, the more dips in the curve, the more dynamics in the audio material. 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. About the curves Up to four different curves can be shown simultaneously in the Loudness envelope display. These curves have different colors and represent the average loudness of the signal in different areas of the frequency spec- trum.
The curves can be shown individually or in any combination. The longer the time set here, the more the loudness variations are evened out in the envelope.
With shorter times, the en- velope will be more sensitive to individual peaks. This will produce a more evened out envelope curve. Envelope types This allows you to specify which envelope curves to display, and to set a frequency range for the filtered envelope curves. Main If checked, this curve is shown in black and displays the overall aver- age loudness of the audio. If unchecked this will not be shown. Low pass filter If checked, this curve is shown in red and displays the overall average loudness of the audio in the lower frequency area.
You can specify the frequency in the value field below the checkbox. Band pass filter If checked, this curve is shown in green and displays the overall aver- age loudness of the audio in the mid frequency area. You can specify the center frequency in the value field below the checkbox. High pass filter If checked, this curve is shown in blue and displays the overall aver- age loudness of the audio in the higher frequency area.
About the playback cursor position and appearance Great care has been taken to achieve synchronization between what you hear and what you see the wave cursor position in the wave during play- back. However, by nature, this precision depends to a large extent on the audio card and its driver. In case you run into problems you may want to adjust the settings on Preferences—Audio device tab.
The opposite is also true: if another application has grabbed the card, WaveLab will be unable to play. A second click will move the cursor to the start of current selection if any and if this is lo- cated before the last start position. If there is no selection, it will automatically move back to the place you started from. Setting the start point for playback The Start point button on the transport brings up a menu that allows you to specify where playback will start.
For detailed information about the options on this menu, use the help item at the bottom of the menu. If no selection is made, the entire wave is looped. About loop updating and short loops The loop points are updated continuously during playback, which means that if you change the loop start or end during playback, the loop changes. This is a great feature for auditioning selection points for rhythmic material! Please note that it takes some time for positions to be updated 0.
When this is activated, the loop starts over as soon as you adjust the se- lection or move a loop start marker. Also please note that WaveLab handles playback of extremely short loops without problems. However, the cursor position might not be updated correctly. Skipping sections during playback You can also have playback automatically jump past certain positions dur- ing playback. This way, you will be able to audition what the material would sound like with certain sections cut out, before the actual edits are made.
This selection is done from the menu invoked by clicking the Skip button on the Transport bar. Each separate open wave or montage can have its own playback speed setting if you wish, i. This function can be put to good use in a number of ways. For example, lowering the playback speed could be used for locating certain positions in the audio, to discern the nuances of a tricky section, for practicing an elaborate recording or as a special effect.
To set the playback speed, proceed as follows: 1. Click the red Playback Speed button on the Transport bar. The Playback Speed dialog appears. 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. For a detailed description of the options in the dialog, click the question mark icon in the dialog.
You can now select the saved preset from the pop-up menu on the Trans- port bar. When you have fin- ished playing, release [Alt]. Using the Play tool The Play tool allows you to play back from any position: 1. Point at the position where you want playback to start. If the wave is in stereo, move the pointer up or down to decide whether only one channel should be played back. Watch the cursor shape, it indicates what will be played back L, R or both. Press the mouse button.
Playback continues for as long as you keep the mouse button pressed, or until the wave ends. After playback has stopped, the cursor will be moved to the playback start position, making this a quick way to locate to certain positions in the audio.
Using the Playback Browser The Playback Browser feature helps you find a certain position in an audio file, by restarting playback repeatedly when you click or drag to move the wave cursor. Activate playback using the regular Play function, or select the Play tool.
Note that depending on your Preferences settings, Playback Browsing may only be avail- able for the Play tool. Click or drag in the ruler. These determine how much RAM memory is used for buffering when playing back. If you get playback problems such as dropouts or glitches, you should try to increase these values.
Click the question mark icon in the dialog for details. These determine how much RAM is used for buffering when recording. If you get dropouts in the recorded audio, you should try increasing these values. Governs the buffer size used when WaveLab is reading data from the hard disk. If you experience problems in a read intensive scenario such as playing back an Audio Montage with a lot of simultaneous clips , you should try changing this value.
The option is available since it may remedy problems on certain systems with slow disk drives. The latency in an audio system depends on the audio hardware, its drivers and their settings. However, please note:.
Here the important issues are optimum and stable playback and editing precision. Therefore, you should not try to reach the lowest possible latency figures when working with WaveLab. And again, should you get dropouts, crackles or glitches during playback, raise the Buffer Number setting on the Preferences—Audio device tab.
You also need to specify where WaveLab should store its temporary files. 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. The folder s should be on your fastest hard disk and you should make sure you have plenty of room available on that hard disk or partition.
Selecting one of the Temporary Folder items will show the current location where the temp files will be created in the Folder field to the right.
Either type in the path to the directory or you can browse the drives to locate and select the folder via a standard Windows file dialog. The peak file contains information about the waveform, and determines how it is drawn in the wave window. By default, peak files and view memory files are stored in the same folder as the related audio file.
Setting this to another folder on a different drive will also improve performance to a certain degree. Regardless of whether this folder is on a different drive or not you also get the advantage of not having the audio file folder cluttered with non-audio files if a separate folder is used. This folder can be specified from the Folders dialog, either directly or via the Preferences—Wave edit tab.
From here you can navigate to a new folder location to store the peak and view memory temp files. 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 CD recorders, the firmware you have must support Disk-at-Once mode!
In addition, running a unit with older firmware might for example prevent you from writing sub-index markers into the tracks. You might want to check that the recorder unit was actually found by the program. Proceed as follows:. Check that your recorder unit appears in the list to the left. For some samplers you will need both. Do not connect anything to the SCSI card until you have finished installation of the card and its drivers and have read the instructions below!
SCSI is a high speed electrical interface, primarily designed to connect hard disks and other peripherals to personal computers. SCSI is not a regular computer network so there are severe restrictions on how many devices you can have connected, cable lengths, etc. Improper SCSI handling may cause permanent damage to your equipment. Please, always follow the few but important golden rules of SCSI to insure yourself against damaged equipment:. The shorter they are, the better.
In the worst case, one of your SCSI devices may be physically damaged. If some device is not turned on, you may lose data. Make sure you have the latest operating system for your sampler. If in doubt, contact your dealer. Turn on the sampler and any connected external SCSI devices.
Let the sampler finish booting. Go back and check everything again. To make sure your sampler has really been installed properly on the SCSI bus, proceed as follows:.
The sampler should be listed here. This is done when you start using it for audio transfers, and involves a number of steps creating presets, making SysEx ID settings, etc. Among other things, this folder contains a small application called Tracer. This is a diagnostic tool that tracks and logs various procedures that WaveLab executes when it is launched, e.
Should you run into problems with WaveLab and need to contact technical support, you can use the Tracer application and pass on the information it displays to the technical support staff. This could be of great assistance since it might be possible to see exactly which operation caused a problem.
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.
Working with WaveLab, you will encounter a number of different windows that let you do different things. This is an overview of the main windows in the program. This is a Wave window, a graphical representation of an audio file. It consists of two parts — the lower is the Main view, and this is where you can perform various audio editing operations such as copying, cutting, pasting, moving, deleting, etc.
The upper part is the Overview and serves to let you easily navigate through long files. 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. After you have imported audio files as clips into an Audio Montage, you can arrange, edit and play back the clips.
You can also apply effects, fades and crossfades, surround panning and much more, and last but not least, you can directly create CDs or DVD-As. 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 window is divided into two panes; the upper is called the source window, and the lower is the destination window. You drag files from the source window to the destination window, in which you can rename, remove and move files before burning a CD or DVD.
This window is the Label Editor. You can create labels for both the front and back of a jewel case, as well as for the discs. WaveLab lets you back up all kinds of files and folders onto CD or standard media. This window lets you decide which files and folders should be backed up, and also allows you to make various settings for the backup procedure.
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.
This could be all of the audio files used in a single song for instance. This is a very important part of WaveLab, called the Master Section. It has a number of uses including:. When you open an audio file, it appears in a Wave window, in which you can edit it in various ways. Create an Audio Montage. You can also use the Render function in the Master Section to apply effects to a file. You do this with a function called batch processing.
Use the Record button on the Transport bar. The new file will appear in a Wave window, and can also be added as a new clip in a Montage. A DVD-Audio compatible disc can contain one or several up to 9 groups. A group corresponds to a Montage in WaveLab. This is done in the Label Editor.
WaveLab can communicate directly with a number of different sampler models. This is done from the Sampling menu. The above are just a few pointers to some of the fundamental functions in WaveLab. While using them, you will discover a multitude of other features and functions that let you make full use of the possibilities of this amazing program.
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. 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:. This PDF file contains all chapters of the printed manual plus additional sections describing plug-ins, sampler details, key commands, and troubleshooting procedures. If a window is active, you will get help on that window. If a dialog box is open, this dialog is described. You can:. The only limitation is the available hard disk space. You can also use the shortcuts [Ctrl]-[Z] or [F3] to undo. Many undo operations require no memory or disk space.
However, operations that modify actual wave data like time stretch, EQ, etc. These files are automatically deleted each time you close or save the related document. If you run out of hard disk space or if you are applying processing to extremely long sections of waves, you might want to put a limit on the Undo function applicable to Wave windows only :.
Change the Limit number to the desired value. A window appears informing you of how much RAM and hard disk space you will gain by this operation. Please note that this function works on one document at a time. It is only the undo buffer for the file in the active window that will be cleared.
Also note that it only applies to Wave windows. 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.
Any changes you have made will not be saved. WaveLab windows are minimized like any other, but there are also options for minimizing all Wave windows or all windows regardless of type, as with closing, see above , from the Window menu.
Selecting all files in the list and clicking Save Selected, ensures that all changes made to any and all files, are saved. A quick way to switch between the open document windows is to use the document switch bar. This dialog, opened from the View menu or by pressing [F5] , is useful when you are working with many open documents.
It shows all currently open WaveLab files and documents in a list. The dialog is non-modal and will automatically be updated if any window is closed or opened. Welcome to ManualMachine. We have sent a verification link to to complete your registration. Log In Sign Up. Forgot password? Enter your email address and check your inbox. Please check your email for further instructions. Enter a new password.
Wavelab - 6. Steinberg Wavelab - 6. All rights reserved. Your Steinberg Team.
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