Steinberg WaveLab 3 Operation Manual

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Rearranging the order of the effect slots
The Function menu items “Move up” and “Move down” allow you to rear-
range 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 se-
lected to use compression and reverb for example, the order decides 
whether compression affects the clip signal only (compressor used as Ef-
fect 1), or both the clip signal and the reverb signal (compressor used as 
Effect 2). The rule is that any effect that follows a previous effect slot will 
process the previous effect(s) (or a mix of input/effect in case Split mode 
is used). Proceed as follows:
1.Open the effect dialog for the first effect in a chain consisting of at least 
two active effect slots.
2.Select the Function menu item “Move down”.
The effect dialog remains open and unchanged except that the previous Effect 1 slot now 
becomes Effect slot 2 and vice versa.
3.Now selecting “Move up” would return both effect slots to their original 
positions.
Repeating step two again would swap Effect slot 2 with slot 3 (if available), etc. Only rele-
vant menu items are selectable, you can’t select “Move down” for the last effect slot or 
“Move up” for the first effect slot.
• You can also reorder effect slots in the Plug-ins view.
See “Managing effects in the Plug-ins view” on page 483.
Using effect envelopes (clip effects only)
It is possible to automate the effect send level for split mode clip effects 
by using effect envelope curves. Proceed as follows:
1.Open the clip speed menu for a clip that has a split mode effect active.
2.Select “Show envelope” from the clip speed menu.
The clip’s split mode effects are now selectable from the “Show envelope” submenu.
3.Select the effect to which you want to add an effect envelope.
The effect envelope appears in the clip.
4.Editing the effect envelope is done using the same methods as for volume 
envelopes. 
						

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About the “Upper Track” output option
On the track pop-up menu you will find two items: “Route to Master Sec-
tion and upper track” and “Route to upper track only”. These items are re-
lated 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 vol-
ume of one signal, whenever another signal is present. A typical applica-
tion for the Ducker would be a music track with a commentary voice-over 
on another track; whenever the commentary voice is heard, the volume of 
the music track is lowered by a certain amount.
To set up for this example, proceed as follows:
1.Make sure the “voice-over” clip is on the track just below the “music track”.
2.Pull down the track pop-up menu for the “voice-over” track and select the 
option “Route to Master Section and upper track”.
This will route the sound of the “voice-over” track both to the Master Section and to the 
track above. In other situations, you may not want to hear the sound of the modulating track 
at all, in which case you would select “Route to upper track only” instead.
3.Add a new clip effect slot to the “music” clip, and select the Ducker plug-
in.
You have to use a clip effect for the Ducker effect to work.
4.Start playback.
Whenever the “voice-over” signal exceeds a certain level (the Ducker effect’s Threshold 
value), the level of the “music” clip will be lowered (by an amount set with the Damping pa-
rameter).
5.Adjust the Ducker effect parameters until you get the desired effect.
• A similar effect can be obtained using the “Duck according to other track” 
function (see “Duck according to other track” on page 453). The difference 
is that with the Ducker, it is the actual signal level that governs the ducking, 
while with the “Duck according to other track” function, it is the presence of 
a clip.
Therefore, the Ducker is the best choice if the modulating track (the “voice-over”) consists 
of long clips including silence, while the “Duck according to other track” function is best 
used when the modulating track holds a lot of short clips (without silence). 
						

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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.
The Plug-in chain column will show all plug-ins used by a clip or track as a chain according 
to the slots used. The Preset column will show the name of the preset used.
• Double-clicking an effect opens it for editing.
• You can also save and load plug-in chains – see “Saving and loading plug-in 
chains” on page 485.   
						

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If you right-click on an effect in the Plug-in chain column, a pop-up opens 
with the following options:
Left pane
•The left pane shows all the available plug-ins in a tree list. 
Used plug-ins have a plus sign beside the name. Clicking the plus sign allows you to see 
exactly which clips or tracks are currently using the corresponding effect, and which slot 
each effect uses. For clip effects you can also see the clip start time in brackets.
Option Description
Find in plug-in 
treeWhen 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. The slot itself will then read 
“Unused slot”. You can now either select a new effect for the slot or leave 
the slot unused.
Move up/down This allows you to reorder the plug-in chain.  
						

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If you right-click on the plugin name, a pop-up opens with the following 
options:
If you right-click on the the clip or track name in the tree, a pop-up opens 
with the following options:
•You can also drag and drop plug-ins from the left pane to a slot in the 
right pane.
You can either drag a plug-in, or a clip or track plug-in instance, i.e. the plug-in and its cur-
rent preset. You can replace a slot, or insert into an empty slot this way. To insert it in be-
tween two used slots press [Ctrl] and drag.
Saving and loading plug-in chains
You can save complete plug-in chains which can later be loaded:
•Select “Save plug-in chain…” from the Options menu in the right pane.
A file dialog opens where you can name the plug-in chain. Plug-in chains have the exten-
sion “.set”, and are by default stored in the Montage Plugin chains folder. 
Option Description
Remove from all clips 
and tracks that use itThis removes all instances of this plugin in the Audio Montage.
Replace with clipboard 
in all clips and tracks 
that use itIf a plug-in has previously been copied into the clipboard, it will be 
used to replace the selected plug-in (in all clips and tracks). This is 
useful if you want to replace a plug-in with another in the whole Mon-
tage, or if you want to update a plug-in to use different settings.
Add to selected clips This is an easy way to add a plug-in to all selected clips in one oper-
ation.
Option Description
Show plugin chainThis will display the plug-in chain that uses this plug-in in the right pane.
Edit… This opens the Effect dialog for the corresponding effect.
Zoom on this clip/
Make this track visibleThis will focus the Montage on the plugin host; either the clip or the 
track.
Copy This will copy the effect and its settings.
Paste This allows you to paste in the copied effect into another slot.
Remove This removes the current effect from the slot. The slot itself will then 
read “Unused slot”. You can now either select a new effect for the 
slot or leave the slot unused.
Add to selected clips This is an easy way to add a plug-in to all selected clips in one oper-
ation. 
						

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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. if a track is selected and a clip on this track (or any other track) has selection focus, this 
governs what the effect chain will be applied to, the track or the clip.
3.Select “Load plug-in chain…” from the Options menu.
The plug-in chain is loaded.
The Meta Normalizer
The Meta Normalizer, found on the Edit view : Special menu, is a special 
Montage version of the Batch plug-in processor with the same name that 
is also included with WaveLab. The basic functionality is similar but in-
stead of processing batched files, it processes clips. The processing is 
non destructive, i.e. it will not affect the source audio files. 
The Meta Normalizer operates in two or three passes. It first analyses the 
peak or RMS levels on all clips in the Montage. Then it processes the 
clips according to the highest possible level found amongst the clips, so 
that they will all play back at equal peak or RMS levels. This is achieved by 
automatically adjusting the clips “Gain” setting in the clip list. Note that 
the gain level of a clip can either be amplified or reduced. The two pur-
poses of the Meta Normalizer are to equalize the loudness between all 
clips (useful e.g. when producing a CD) and to ensure that the full mix-
down of the Montage will never clip. Depending on how much the levels 
differ between clips, there are a number of options available to ensure 
that the applied processing optimizes the levels without clipping.
The audio path in WaveLab uses 32 Bit floating point processing. You can 
therefore “overload” it, i.e. use levels above 0 dB, without running the risk of 
causing clipping in the signal path. The only section of the audio path that 
can introduce clipping is the output of the Master Section, and this can also 
be taken care of by the Meta Normalizer. 
						

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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 process-
ing. 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. In the Settings dialog you specify how the clips will be processed, 
and in the Schedule dialog you set up options related to the performance of 
the processing (which always happens in the background).
The options on the Settings tab in the Meta Normalizer dialog are listed 
on the next page.
•The Meta Normalizer’s Schedule settings are similar to those in the Batch 
Processing dialog (see “Scheduling” on page 299).
•When you have set up the Meta Normalizer dialog, click the “Process” 
button to activate processing.
Processing happens in the background. You can go on working in WaveLab during the 
processing, although not in the Montage being processed.  
						

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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 de-
termining what is considered “equal level” when executing Equal-
ize Clip Volume.
Equalize loudness 
(RMS)Select this option if you want to use RMS (Root Mean Square) 
levels as a basis for determining what is considered “equal level” 
when executing Equalize Clip Volume. RMS normally produces 
more natural results than using Peak levels, since this method is 
better at detecting the perceived “loudness” of a sound.
Global When this is activated, the RMS value is calculated over the 
whole clip. That is, the overall loudness of entire clips will be used 
as a basis for calculating the loudness.
Resolution 
(0 – 10 seconds)This option is only relevant if “Equalize Loudness (RMS)” has been 
selected and “Global” is deactivated. It is used to set the size of the 
audio sections that are analysed when calculating the loudness. 
The loudest section found will be used. The smaller this value, the 
more sensitive the method will be to peaks in the material.
Normalize Mix 
(Master Section Input) 
(-24 to 0 dB)If this is selected, the entire Montage mix will be normalized to a 
preset level at the Master Section input. The maximum level that 
can be used is 0 dB. Since there is no risk of clipping in the 32 bit 
internal audio path, you can usually turn off this feature.
Normalize Master Section 
Output 
(-24 to 0 dB)If this is selected, the entire mix will be normalized to a preset level 
at the Master Section output. The maximum level that can be used 
is 0 dB. This function is useful before you mix down or create a CD. 
Note that this function affects the output of the Master Section, 
which is “outside” the actual Montage. Therefore, the effect of this 
function is not saved when you save the Montage.
Exclude effects If this is selected, effects will not be taken into account when pro-
cessing with the Meta Normalizer.
Only selected clips If this is selected, only selected clips will be processed with the 
Meta Normalizer. 
						

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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.
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.Enter a name for the group in the dialog that appears and click OK.
The new group appears in the group list. All clips included in the group will also have the 
name of the group prepended to the clip names in the Track View.
This clip belongs to the group “Introduction”.
A group selected in 
the Groups view.
The clips in the se-
lected group are au-
tomatically selected 
in the Track View.    
						

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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.
• If you want to create a new empty group, to which you can add clips one at a time, 
start by selecting “Add empty Group” from the Groups view : Grouping menu.
This creates an empty group in the list, to which you can later add clips. 
• It is possible to create nested groups, by adding a group to another group.
This can be useful, since it allows you to deactivate the grouping for some subgroups only, 
as described below. For clips in nested groups, all group names are displayed before the 
clip name (separated by “:”)
• A clip cannot be part of more than one group.
If you add a clip to a group, it is automatically removed from any other group it is part of.
A nested group in the Groups view.
A clip belonging to the nested group.