Steinberg WaveLab 3 Operation Manual

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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. However, not all Montage features (e.g. Audio in pauses and CD Text) are available 
in a Basic Audio CD. Therefore, use this for simple audio CDs only.
Creating an Audio CD report
Basic concept
An Audio CD report presents the contents of the current Audio Montage 
in text form, for printing.
Audio CD reports are based on a number of small documents in RTF for-
mat (Rich Text Format), one for each section in the report. These can be 
edited in any RTF-compatible application (e.g. WordPad), allowing you to 
change fonts and styles, set text justifications, add pictures, etc.
Furthermore, the RTF documents contain references to text variables, and 
these provide the actual information in the Audio CD report – track names, 
times, etc. When generating the report, the information provided by the 
variables will be presented according to the set style in the RTF documents. 
There are two types of variables, factory and user editable:
• Factory variables provide automatically generated information about a project 
such as number of tracks, track times, track names, etc. – based on the actual 
contents of the project. 
• User variables contain personal data such as company name and copyright infor-
mation, etc. – which is defined by the user.
Along with the variables, the Audio CD report can also include any CD 
Text you have specified in the Edit CD Text dialog (see “Edit CD-Text” on 
page 539). This is typically where you specify composers, performers, etc. 
						

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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). Pro-
ceed 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.
At this point, you can select one of three Audio CD report templates (or 
presets) from the pop-up menu; two of them will show “Absolute” times, 
where the timing is continuous from the beginning of the CD (i.e. from the 
start of the first pause), the third shows “Relative” times, where the timing 
is relative to the start of the first track, and the durations are given without 
pauses.
The first two represent the standard way of measuring track times in pro-
fessional use, such as for CD duplication plants, the third the way track 
times are normally listed on a CD cover.
3.Click OK to generate a preview image of the report.
This is the standard or template layout, which provides all of the relevant factory variable 
information.
4.You can now use the Print item on the Functions menu in the window to 
print the Audio CD report.
However, you probably want to edit the contents of the report first. Read on!  
						

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Editing the Audio CD report
Editing user variables
To enter personal data for the user editable variables, or to add new vari-
ables, 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. See “Edit CD-Text” on page 539 for details.
Editing the elements of the Audio CD report
You have complete control over what is shown in the Audio CD report. 
Proceed as follows:
1.Select “Generate/Print Audio CD report” from the CD view : Functions 
menu.
2.Click the “Edit…” button in the dialog.
This opens the Audio CD report edit dialog.
The main part of the dialog consists of “elements”; the RTF files that make 
up the CD report.  
						

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•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.
•At the bottom of the dialog you will find additional settings for the printout 
(page size and margins) as well as a Formats button (allowing you to edit 
the formats used for dates, times and numbering). 
You can also save the current Audio CD report as a preset, by selecting “Save as…” from 
the pop-up menu at the bottom of the dialog. 
Editing the RTF files
You can use the existing template RTF files as a starting point for creating 
custom CD reports, or create new RTF documents from scratch. Regard-
less of which, you may want to keep a copy of the original template RTF 
files, as a safety measure.
When you edit the RTF documents, it is recommended that you use WordPad 
(included with Windows) rather than Microsoft Word, as Word can sometimes 
automatically create “extra” information that cannot be translated correctly 
by WaveLab.
To open an RTF file for editing, proceed as follows:
1.In the Audio CD report edit dialog, click the arrow pop-up to the right of 
the element you want to edit.
2.On the pop-up menu that appears, select “Open containing folder”.
The folder containing the RTF file opens in a separate window.
3.Double click the RTF file (or drag it to the desired RTF editor program 
icon). 
						

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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.
This lets you change headings, orders and similar; you may for example 
want to use another term than “Engineer”, exclude the address or phone 
number fields, etc. You can also change the fonts, styles and justification 
for the text. 
Also, if you have added a new user variable in the Edit Variables dialog, or 
defined a variable that is not called upon in the RTF file, this variable has 
to be written into the RTF file (enclosed by % signs).
However, while it is perfectly possible to enter the actual information (e.g. 
the name of the project) directly in the RTF file and remove the correspond-
ing variable, this would require that you edited the RTF files each time you 
created a new Audio CD report. It is much better to set up the styling of 
your Audio CD report and its RTF files once and for all, and then only edit 
the variables and CD Text when you work with a new project. In short:
The RTF documents should be used for adjusting the appearance of the 
report, not for writing in variable values.   
						

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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 offer-
ing 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.
They are set to “Half height” by default to save screen space.
Adding pictures to a DVD-A picture track
You can add pictures using one of the following methods:
• By right clicking in an empty area on a picture track and selecting “Insert file(s)”.
A file dialog opens where you can locate the picture you wish to insert. The picture will be 
inserted at the cursor position.
• By using copy/paste.
Still picture properties dialog
When you have added a picture to a DVD-A picture track you can dou-
ble-click it to open the “Still picture properties” dialog. In this dialog you 
can amongst other things set the time position for the picture relative to 
the start of the track, and add effect transitions. Effect transitions allow 
you to set a start and end transition for the picture (e.g. a fade-in at the 
start and a dissolve at the end) as well as transition durations. Click the 
question mark icon in the dialog for details.
• It is also possible to specify a default still picture as well as default effect 
transitions to use. This is done in the DVD-Audio project’s Main Settings 
dialog, see “Default still picture and picture effects ” on page 558.
The default still picture will be displayed at the beginning of each Montage/group, unless 
the Montage contains a DVD-A picture track, in which case the picture(s) on the picture 
track will override the default picture. 
Note that there are certain limitations as to how many pictures can be used 
for a given group on a DVD-A. See “About the “ATS” column in the DVD-A 
view list” on page 536. 
						

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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.
Note that real-time text is a recent DVD-Audio feature. Before using it exten-
sively, you should see if your player supports it, or at least if it does not dis-
turb the playback operation.
Exporting and importing AES-31 files
The AES-31 standard is an open file interchange format, developed by 
the Audio Engineering Society as a means of overcoming format incom-
patibility issues between different audio hardware and software. It can be 
used for transferring projects via disk or network from one workstation to 
another, retaining time positions of events, fades, etc.
AES-31 uses the widely used Microsoft FAT32 file system with Broad-
cast Wave as the default audio file format. This means that an AES-31 file 
can be transferred to and used with any digital audio workstation that 
supports AES-31, regardless of the type of hardware and software used, 
as long as the workstation can read the FAT32 file system and Broadcast 
Wave files (or regular wave files). 
						

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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 num-
ber of options for the AES-31 file to be exported. Click the question mark icon in the dialog 
for details.
3.When you’ve made the desired settings in the AES-31 Export options dia-
log, click OK.
The montage is exported to an AES-31 file. The exported file will contain all audio track 
data, including audio file references.
The saved file will be an xml file (but with the extension “.adl”, for audio 
decision list) – this means you can open it in any text editor to check file 
references, etc.
Importing AES-31 files
Proceed as follows to import an AES-31 file into WaveLab:
1.Select “Import AES-31 project…” from the Open submenu on the File 
menu.
2.Navigate to the location of the AES-31 file (extension “.adl”), select it and 
click Open.
The AES-31 Import options dialog appears, allowing you to specify some import options. 
Click the question mark icon in the dialog for details.
3.When you’ve made the desired settings in the AES-31 Import options 
dialog, click OK.
The imported AES-31 file opens as a new, untitled Audio Montage containing all the audio 
tracks stored in the AES-31 file.
About importing AES-31 files created in Nuendo
By importing an AES-31 file, you can for example import a project created 
in Steinberg’s Nuendo into WaveLab.
In this case, it is possible to add specific codes to the names of markers 
in Nuendo to facilitate their conversion into WaveLab specific markers – 
i.e. if an AES-31 file exported from Nuendo is imported into WaveLab, the 
markers it contains will be interpreted as WaveLab markers upon import. 
						

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For the various CD track markers, for example, the codes to use are the 
following:
• You must use Nuendo 2.0 or later if you want to create specially named 
markers that will be interpreted as  WaveLab markers.
• In Nuendo, a marker track has to be created for the specially named markers.
• When importing AES-31 projects containing specially named markers, the 
marker codes (e.g. [t-end]) will not be displayed in  WaveLab.
XML Export/Import of Audio Montages
This is available on the Save special (Montage) submenu, and is solely 
intended for users familiar with XML. XML stands for “E Xtensible Markup 
Language” and is a markup language much like HTML. 
This feature can be useful, e.g. to change many file names used by the Au-
dio Montage (export then import). It could also be used to generate Audio 
Montages from scratch (or from a template), or to convert another DAW 
file format to WaveLab’s Audio Montage. Another application could be to 
compare two Audio Montages with a text file comparer.
There are many freeware XML editors available, but a simple text editor 
can also be used.
It is beyond the scope of this manual to provide details about how to edit 
XML files, however here’s some basic information:
• All strings are included in a CDATA section, in the UTF-8 format.
• All integer values are in simple textual form: 127 = “127”
• All float and double values are stored in Base64 format.
• Any binary data is stored in Base64 format.
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 
						

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