Steinberg WaveLab 3 Operation Manual

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On the Options menu you will also find an option called “Stop after play-
back 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.
Playing the selection only
There are several ways to play the selected part of the wave only:
• Press the right mouse button in the Overview or the Main view and select  Play 
Selection from the menu that appears.
• Hold down [Ctrl] and click on the Play button.
• Press [F6].
If you hold down [Shift] and press [F6], the selection will be played back repeatedly (looped).
• Drag and drop the selection on the Play button on the Transport.
• Use the Audio Range dialog (see below).
Using the Audio Range dialog
The Audio Range dialog
This dialog is opened by selecting “Edit” from the Select submenu on the 
Edit menu, and allows you to define an audio range to play back in great 
detail.  
						

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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:
•In the Options section of the dialog, the audio range to be processed can 
be set more precisely. You must first set a FROM position, then set a spe-
cific length in seconds in the Options section. For this to work, the “Spec-
ify length” option must be activated.
•Using the “Snap to zero-crossing” function, you can make sure that the 
start and end of the selected range snap to a zero-crossing of the wave-
form.
This prevents click noise that could otherwise occur when start and end are played back. 
•The “Channels” pop-up menu lets you select which channel(s) should be 
played back.
•The “Play duration” option is used to set the desired playback length.
Note that this overrides the set “From” or “To” selection range. If the audio range is set to 
play to “End of selection”, the selection is 4 seconds long and the Play duration is set to 2 
seconds, only the last 2 seconds before the end will play back.
Play to The range before the set position is played back.
Play from The range after the set position is played back.
Play once The set range is played back once.
Play looped The set range is played back as a loop until you click on the Stop 
button that becomes visible during playback. 
						

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Using the Jog/Shuttle function
The Jog/Shuttle function allows you to play back audio forwards or back-
wards, 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 re ducing the 
window size (this will reduce CPU usage proportionally).
Jog
This can be viewed as dragging the audio past a “playback point”, much 
like dragging a reel-to-reel tape past the playback head:
1.Zoom in so that you can get a good visual feedback.
2.Click the Jog/Shuttle button on the Transport bar or press [F10].
A vertical line appears in the middle of the Wave window. This is the “playback point”.
3.Move the pointer to the upper half of the Wave window.
The pointer takes on the shape of a hand.
4.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.
The playback point  
						

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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.
Clicking to the left of the line will play the audio backwards and clicking to the right will play 
the audio forwards. The playback speed is determined by the distance from the line to the 
pointer, so that the further away from the line you move the pointer, the faster the playback.
5.Release the mouse button to stop playback.
6.Deactivate the Jog/Shuttle button on the Transport bar by executing any 
stop command when finished.
Using a MIDI pitch bend wheel to control  Shuttle
You can use MIDI pitch bend controller to control audio scrubbing (Shut-
tle). A MIDI interface has to be installed and working and a MIDI keyboard 
connected for this to function.
You set it up as follows:
1.Open the Key Commands dialog from the Options menu.
2.Make sure that the connected MIDI interface is selected on the “Input for 
MIDI commands” pop-up.
3.Activate the Shuttle/Pitch bend function by checking the box.
4.Set the Shuttle/Pitch bend channel to the MIDI channel you are transmit-
ting over.
5.Click OK to exit the dialog.
6.Activate “Enable MIDI commands” on the Options menu.
7.Press [F10] to activate Shuttle.
8.Now if you move the wheel you can control the playback speed and direc-
tion using the Pitch Bend wheel! 
						

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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 func-
tions 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.pref”, lo-
cated in the WaveLab/Tools folder.
If you want to use a ShuttlePro with WaveLab, proceed as follows:
1.
Copy the preferences file from the WaveLab/Tools folder to the ShuttlePro 
Settings folder.
By default, this is C:\Program Files\Contour ShuttlePro\Settings.
2.Open the ShuttlePro control panel in your ShuttlePro folder.
3.In the control panel, select “File – Import Settings” and select the “Wave-
Lab Shuttle Pro.pref” file.
4.Exit the ShuttlePro control panel.
You can now use the ShuttlePro with WaveLab.
Scrolling during playback
The “Scrolling during playback” submenu on the Options menu contains 
several options for how the view should be scrolled in Play mode:
• Note: the two last options require a fast computer and graphics card.
If you get dropouts during playback, please select another Scrolling mode.
These options do not apply to playback using the Play tool.
Option Description
Immobile view This disables scrolling completely.
View follows cursor In this mode, the waveform view will automatically change when the 
Wave cursor reaches the right side of the window during playback. 
Scroll wave (partial) In this mode, the waveform view is scrolled continuously, attempting 
to keep the Wave cursor in the middle of the view. However, if loop 
mode is activated and the loop range fits on the screen, no unneces-
sary scrolling takes place, allowing for a more stable view of the loop. 
The program will also “sense” the end of a file and stop scrolling 
when it is “in view”, rather than when the end is reached.
Scroll wave (always) In this mode, the waveform view is scrolled continuously, attempting 
to keep the Wave cursor in the middle of the screen.  
						

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Recording
For details on connections, recording levels, etc. please refer to the docu-
mentation 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 re-
cording level for the microphone input. This feature is often called AGC 
(Automatic Gain Control). For “professional” results we recommend that 
you deactivate this feature using the software that came with the card.
Please note that if you leave this feature activated, the Microphone input 
gain control in the Mixer (see later in this text) will have less effect on the 
recording level. 
						

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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. 
Temporary files are always wave files, while named files allow you to choose to record files 
in a number of different formats. Also note that if you plan to make a recording over several 
minutes we recommend that you record a named file.
• If you plan to record continuously for a long time, especially if it is a multi-
channel recording, you should consider using Wave 64 as the format.
Other formats can record files up to 2 GB, whereas the Wave 64 format allows you to 
record files of any size.  
						

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•Alternatively, if you have the “Support RF64 file format”option activated, 
the standard Wave file format switches automatically to the RF64 file for-
mat as soon as the file size exceeds 2 GB, without any performance loss 
or interruption. This is especially useful when recording very long ses-
sions 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. 
3.If you have selected one of the “Named File” options in the step above, 
type in the path to the desired destination for the file on the line below the 
pop-up or click the folder button and specify a file location.
If you activate the Auto number checkbox, a three-digit number will be added to the file 
name. Starting at the number you specify in the value field to the left of the checkbox, the 
Auto number will be increased in increments with each new recording, to prevent existing 
files from being overwritten.
4.Click the file format button at the top of the Record dialog, and decide on 
a recording format. WaveLab lets you record directly into a number of dif-
ferent formats (see “Supported file formats” on page 113 for details). 
In the Audio File Format dialog that appears, you can among other things choose the desired 
format, sample rate, number of channels to record (see “Multichannel recording” on page 
521) and bit resolution. Click the question mark icon in the respective dialog for details.
The Audio File Format dialog
If you choose a bit resolution not supported by your audio card, you will not 
be able to record.
5.Click OK to close the Audio File Format dialog.
6.Select an appropriate Input mode, depending on whether you want to 
record the audio card input or the Playback output:  
						

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• 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 con-
nected 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 “Re-
cording channels” dialog.
In this dialog you can select which input channels you want to record from. If you have an 
audio card with multiple inputs, you can record up to 8 channels simultaneously. See “Mul-
tichannel recording” on page 521 for information about multichannel recording.
•If you are using a MME/WDM driver and this mode is selected, you can 
click the button to the far right in this section of the dialog to access the 
audio card preferences (see “Audio card settings” on page 25).
• In “Playback output” mode, the program will record only what is being 
played back in WaveLab itself. 
This mode does not utilize your audio card or any Windows audio protocols. Instead, the 
audio from WaveLab is sent straight back into WaveLab and this input is then recorded. 
The typical use for this is:
Record what you are playing back, capturing any real-time volume or parameter changes 
you make during playback.
7.If needed, activate the desired recording options in the dialog.
There are also additional settings in a separate dialog, opened by clicking the Settings but-
ton. For details, click the question mark icon in the dialog.
At this point, you can start recording (see “Start recording!” on page 152) 
if you like. For details on the available recording options, click the ques-
tion mark icon in the respective dialog.
Recording settings presets
You can create and save different recording options and settings as pre-
sets for quick access by using the Preset menu in the Record dialog.
This way, you can set up options and settings for different specific record-
ing purposes and then quickly load the settings when the need arises.
See “Presets” on page 65 for information about creating, saving and 
loading presets in WaveLab. 
						

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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.
Exactly what controls will appear in the mixer depends on the card, but 
here are some possibilities:
• Master Gain (output-fader)
• Synth In (input-fader plus on/off check box)
• CD (input-fader plus on/off check box)
• Line (input-fader plus on/off check box)
• Mic (input-fader plus on/off check box)
In addition to the above, the card might have custom controls for monitor-
ing, etc., which cannot be accessed from the WaveLab mixer. Again, please 
use the application(s) included with the card.
Not all audio cards have a mixer application and can therefore not access 
the WaveLab mixer. This is especially true with digital I/O cards.