Steinberg WaveLab 3 Operation Manual
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WAVELAB Analysis 25 – 631 Audio error detection and correction This function can be used to detect and remove all sorts of click noise, in- cluding digital clicks. You can also restore damaged portions of an audio file by using waveform replacement. Several detection and restoration methods are available. You can detect, mark and name, jump to, play back and remove individual audio errors. Selecting a detection method Proceed as follows: 1.In WaveLab, open the file you wish to process. 2.Open the “Audio error detection and correction” dialog by selecting “Au- dio error detection and correction” from the Analysis menu. 3.Select one of the detection methods available on the Detection method pop-up menu. The methods Click Detection 1 and 2 will search for clicks in certain frequency ranges and the method Digital Click Detection looks for clicks that are caused by a single sample.
WAVELAB 25 – 632 Analysis Depending on which method you have selected, different detection para- meters are available: The Detection method pop-up menu. When you have selected a Detection method there are two ways to con- tinue: selecting to detect all errors (see below) or selecting to detect indi- vidual errors (see “Correcting individual errors” on page 634). Automatic detection and correction You can let WaveLab automatically remove all click noise errors that it can detect. Parameter Description Threshold The lower the value you set for this detection threshold, the smaller or softer clicks are detected. Detection This parameter lets you set the lower limit of the analysed frequency range. Available for the Click Detection 1 and 2 methods. Detection width This is used to set the width of the analysed frequency range. Only available when using the Click Detection 2 method.
WAVELAB Analysis 25 – 633 1.Click on the “Detect all errors” button to start the search for all detectable errors. WaveLab will now search the complete file and insert a pair of markers for each found error. Here, WaveLab has detected an error in the waveform. 2.In the Restoration method pop-up menu, select one of the available op- tions. A description of what the selected method does is displayed below the pop-up. The Restoration method pop-up menu. 3.Click on the “Correct all errors” button. WaveLab will now automatically correct all errors it has detected.
WAVELAB 25 – 634 Analysis Correcting individual errors You can of course also detect and correct individual errors, using differ- ent detection methods and parameter settings for each error, if necessary. This is especially useful in cases that can’t be solved easily. 1.Open a file and select “Audio error detection and correction…” from the Analysis menu. The “Audio error detection and correction” dialog opens. 2.Select a Detection method as described earlier. 3.Click the “Detect next error” button. WaveLab will now analyse the audio file from the beginning, and stop at the first found error. 4.From here there are several options for how to proceed (some of the op- tions are only available after first selecting another option): Option Description Detect next error Starts the search for the next error, starting at the cursor position. Correct current error Restores the currently selected error using the selected restoration method. Undo Reverses the currently selected and corrected error to its previous uncorrected state. Mark for later restoration Assigns a pair of markers to the selected error. Unmark Deletes the markers of the currently selected error. Previous mark Jumps to the position of the previous marker pair. Next mark Jumps to the position of the next marker pair. Play region Starts audio playback of the currently selected error region.
WAVELAB Analysis 25 – 635 Options In this section of the dialog you can activate the “Auto-play” function, which automatically plays back each error that is found. With the “Pre-roll time” and “Post-roll time” options you can define how much of the audio file before and after the error is to be played back. You also have the option to automatically set green markers encompass- ing the corrected errors. Reset search position When you click on this button located at the top right of the “Audio error detection and correction” dialog you set the search start position back to the start of the audio file. Zoom in wave window If you click on this button located at the bottom of the dialog, the Wave window will display the detected error in high resolution (one sample equals one pixel on your screen). T he “Audio error detection and cor- rection” dialog will be “folded in” (i.e. only the dialog title bar will be visi- ble) so as not to obstruct the view. To display the entire dialog window again, double-click its title bar. Saving and loading Presets The current “Audio error detection and correction” dialog settings can be saved temporarily (in the computer’s RAM) or permanently as a Preset.
WAVELAB 25 – 636 Analysis Find the corresponding functions in the presets pop-up menu at the bot- tom right of the dialog. The presets pop-up menu •To store the settings temporarily (in the computer’s RAM), select one of the options on the Store temporarily submenu. •To save the settings as a preset, select “Save as…” on the presets pop- up menu and specify a file name and location for the preset. The Audio Range dialog Click on the “Range” button at the top right of the dialog to open the Au- dio Range dialog. Here you can define playback and selection ranges in great detail. The Audio Range dialog is described in the section “Using the Audio Range dialog” on page 141.
WAVELAB Analysis 25 – 637 Audio file comparer This utility allows you to compare two files and create a file that contains the difference between the two, a “delta file”. This is useful for example to: • See the effect of using an equalizer by comparing the file before and after. The delta file will show what was added. • Check the noise added by a processor, again by comparing. • Compare two digitally recorded files to check for dropouts. Proceed as follows: 1.Make sure that the two documents you want to compare are open. 2.Select “Audio file comparer…” from the Analysis menu. 3.Fill out the dialog box and click OK. Click the question mark icon in the dialog for details. Here’s a run down of the major possi- bilities: • The program can create a delta file, that is, a file that only contains the differences between the two files. This allows you to hear the difference between two files, for example to check what got lost when you applied data compression to a file. • The program can add markers at positions where differences are found. For this to make sense, the differences between the files must be small.
WAVELAB 25 – 638 Analysis 3D Frequency Analysis This function allows you to view a wave file in the frequency domain rather than in the time domain. Although a wave display (time domain) tells you a lot about where one sound starts or ends in a file, for example, it doesn’t say anything about the timbral contents of the file. A frequency graph (fre- quency domain) does. The graph used in WaveLab is actually something often referred to as an FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) plot. Creating the graph 1.Select the part of the file you want to analyse. If you select a stereo recording, a mix of the two channels will be analysed. The length of the selection affects the accuracy of the analysis. For short se- lections the result will be very detailed. For longer selections (over a minute or so) it will not give equally detailed results, since the harmonic content might vary “between the measure points”, which is then not shown in the display. You might for example make a separate analysis of the attack (be- ginning) of a sound, since the most drastic variations usually occur there. 2.Select “3D Frequency analysis options” from the Analysis menu and click on the Frequency tab. Adjust the settings if needed. These are the only settings that cannot be redone when the graph is already open. 3.If you only want to see a plot for a part of the frequency range, adjust the “From” and “To” values. The range must always span at least three octaves. 4.Decide if you want the frequency axis in the graph to be linear or logarith- mic. Logarithmic is often the most natural choice since each octave (doubling of the frequency) is then represented by an equal distance on the frequency axis.
WAVELAB Analysis 25 – 639 5.Click OK to close the dialog. 6.Select 3D Frequency analysis from the Analysis menu. The wave is analysed and the graph opens in a new window. The frequency graph shows you how the different frequency components vary over time. A high “mountain” means that this frequency is very promi- nent at that particular time. Adjusting the view There are a number of settings you can make that affect the way the graph is displayed. 1.Either select “3D Frequency analysis options…” from the Analysis menu, or double click directly on the graph. Click on the Style tab. 2.Decide whether you want the graph to be in color, grey scale or black and white. 3.Decide whether you want to use a change in color to represent the ampli- tude (the height of each mountain determines its color) or if you want it to represent frequency (the frequency spectrum is drawn in colors ranging from red to purple). 4.Decide on a background color (black or white). 5.To view the effect of your changes, click Redraw.
WAVELAB 25 – 640 Analysis 6.Click the Perspective tab. 7.Decide from which point of view you want to examine the graph (use the “freq/time” figure as a directional guide). 8.Decide whether you want a linear or exponential amplitude display. The Wave window’s level rulers use a linear display, so this is a natural choice to start with. 9.Again, if you so desire, click Redraw. Working with multiple views If you wish you can view the same graph in several windows, but with dif- ferent style and perspective settings. This allows you to get a better view of an otherwise crowded graph. • To open a second view of the graph, drag-create a window, see “Working with multiple windows” on page 54. • To make settings for one of the windows, select it, open the “3D Frequency anal- ysis…” options dialog from the Analysis menu and proceed as described above. Examples of how the graph can be used The graph can be used for example for the following purposes: • To see how the frequency spectrum is distributed in a mix. • As a basis for EQ-ing, so that you know which frequencies to reduce or boost. • To see which parts of the audio spectrum a certain background noise occupies (for removing by filtering). • For educational purposes – these graphs tell you a lot about how different sounds are “built”.