Steinberg WaveLab 7 Operation Manual

							5.5 Specific tool windows 117
Related topics
Playback speed
Recording Dialog
Command bars
5.5 Specific tool windows
Specific tool windows are windows that are specific to the current Workspace. They can
perform useful tasks in the active Workspace.
They can be docked and un-docked, and saved in your custom layouts.
Audio File Workspace specific tool windows
The following specific tool windows are available within the Audio File Workspace:
Basic Audio CD
Error detection and correction
File Browser
Marker Window
Master Project
Metadata window
Sample attributes
Scripting window (Audio File Workspace)
Spectrum editor
5.5.1 Basic Audio CD
This specific tool window allows you to burn basic "Red Book compatible" audio CDs. You
create your audio CD by adding Audio Files to create a list of tracks. Each track contains
a reference to the external Audio File. This means that you can save your Basic Audio CD
layout as its own session and continue editing individual tracks, for example. Once you are
happy with your CD layout you can choose to check the cd for conformity to the Red Book
standard,
burn the CD or export it to the Audio Montage Workspace to edit further. You
can also choose to consolidate the Audio Files in the CD into a single Audio File with track
markers.
Adding tracks to your audio CD
To create tracks in your audio CD:
ˆ Drag Audio Files directly - drag Audio Files directly from your computer's file browser
into the window. You can also drag Audio Files from the Audio File Workspace by their
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tab or document icon. This creates CD track markers at the file edges, quantized on
CD frame boundaries.
ˆ Drag an audio selection - dragging a selection (rather than a whole file) into the
basic audio CD creates a CD track with markers at the edges, but quantized on CD
frame boundaries, not necessarily exactly on the exact position of the selection edges.
ˆ Browse for Audio Files - selectFile>Add track(s)... from the Basic Audio CD
menu. You can then select Audio Files to insert in your CD.
Once you have added your tracks, information about each track is displayed. Each track also
has its marker information nested within it. To access this information click on the left most
arrow icon to expand the track view.
Using the track list
Once you have added a number of tracks to your audio CD you can use the track list to:
ˆ Audition playback - you can audition each track, with or without pre-roll, by clicking
on the leftmost icons. Click on
in the "audition" column to play the track from that
track's start marker with a pre-roll. Click on the right hand button to playback the track
exactly from the start marker position. You will notice a progress display appears at the
bottom of the window to show you the playback position/time and track number. You
can also start playback with or without a pre-roll from the tracks start or end markers
using the same controls. If the markers are not visible click on the track expand arrow
to reveal the track's markers.
ˆ Edit a track's start pause time - for all tracks except the first one you can adjust
the pause duration before the track begins playing. If the pause checkbox is not visible
click on the track expand arrow to reveal the track's markers and pause time setting.
Double click in the cell to edit the value.
ˆ Add ISRC code - add an ISRC code for a track by
Select-clicking on the field under
the ISRC column.
ˆ Edit a track name - by
Select-clicking on the name in the list. This also renames the
track's start marker labels.
ˆ Add a comment - add a comment to each track by
Select-clicking to edit its value.
ˆ Editing track times - you cannot edit track start and end times directly in the track
listing. Instead, open the tracks accompanying Audio File via Edit>Edit Audio and
adjust the track start and track end marker locations in the main waveform display. The
start and end times will update accordingly.
Completing your Audio CD
In addition to editing via the track window you can also set overall CD settings via the
Basic
Audio CD Settings
dialog. You can use this dialog to add UPC/EAN codes and adjust
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pauses and silences in your CD. The Master Section is never used to process the signal to
burn, unlike in the montage. This is why playback through the Master Section is an option
that is off by default.
When you are happy with your CD layout or you wish to further refine it further you can:
ˆ Check CD conformity - before burning your CD you can first check its Red Book
conformity by choosing Edit>Check CD conformity .
ˆ Write audio CD - choose to burn the CD using the
Write Audio CD dialog.
ˆ Convert to Audio Montage - convert the CD layout into an audio montage for
further editing by choosing Edit>Convert to Audio Montage
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
Authoring CDs and DVDs
Basic Audio CD Settings
Write Audio CD
Select-clicking
5.5.2 Error detection and correction
This specific tool window allows you to search for unwanted clicks and digital artifacts in an
Audio File. Several detection and restoration methods are available. You can detect, mark
and name, jump to, play back and remove individual audio errors.
The settings for error detection and correction are organized within the following groups of
controls:
ˆ Detection tab - choose the method used to detect any errors. Each different method
has its own settings to determine when it will detect an error. Click Detection 1 and 2
will search for clicks in certain frequency ranges while Digital Click Detection looks for
clicks that are caused by clicks typical to digital errors.
ˆ Correction tab - specify the method used to correct any errors.
ˆ Search Area tab - specify the range of audio you wish to search for errors.
ˆ Options tab - this provides a range of preferences for playing back, viewing, and
marking any errors found.
ˆ Browse & Correct panel - step through your defined search region detecting each
error in turn. You can choose to correct any errors or mark them for later correction.
There are controls to skip between error markers and make fine adjustments to the
selection. You can also automatically detect and correct all marked errors in the search
region.
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Strategies to detect and correct errors
There are several strategies that you can employ when detecting and correcting errors:
ˆ Define an audio selection where you have identified an error, then click "Correct", or
"Mark for subsequent correction".
ˆ Use the function "Detect next error" to let WaveLab automatically find the next error,
and then click "Correct", or "Mark for subsequent correction".
ˆ Use the function "Detect all errors" to let WaveLab automatically find all errors in the
predefined range. Then browse the marked errors, removing or adjusting each audio
range in turn, and click "Correct" to correct any specific errors, or you can use the
option "Correct all".
You can access this dialog by choosing Workspace>Specific tool windows >Error
Correction .
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
Marker types
5.5.3 File Browser
This dialog allows you to browse files directly from within WaveLab rather than using your
operating system's file browser.
It provides you with all the standard browsing functions (such as List and Icon views)as well
as additional controls to audition Audio Files and any marker defined regions.You can use
it to open or insert an entire file or a specific region of a file by dragging and releasing the
file in the location you wish to insert the file. In the Audio Montage Workspace you can also
choose to only view certain types of WaveLab specific files. The File Browser can be very
useful in speeding up the process of auditioning a long list of sound files. It can also be used
to drag to windows such as Data CD/DVD, including dragging folders.
The playback functions
Play file
Once you have selected a file in the File Browser list, you can audition it by
clicking Play in the File Browser's toolbar. Click again to stop.
Auto-play
You can also have files play back automatically as soon as they are selected.
To do this, activate Auto-Play mode.
Tip: To audition a long list of Audio Files, enable Auto-play and use the UP and DOWN
cursor keys to step through each Audio File in quick succession.
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Opening and inserting a file or region
Once you have chosen a file you wish to open, double-click it to open the file in the current
Workspace. You can also open it by dragging it onto an empty tabbed group, or onto the
tab bar of a tabbed group.
You can also drag the file over a wave view to insertit at a given point. When you drag a file
over a wave view, a beam is displayed so as to clearly display the insertion point.
When browsing Audio Files, the file browser also has a region panel. When you select an
Audio File, its related regions are listed in this panel. You can then drag the region from
the list, to insert only that part of the audio. Double-clicking on a region has the effect of
opening the file in the Workspace and selecting that region. You can access this dialog via
Workspace >Specific tool windows >File Browser .
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
Specific tool windows
5.5.4 Marker Window
The marker window is a specific tool window that allows you to create, edit and use markers
while working on an audio waveform.
From the Functions menu you can also access useful functions to
convert marker types ,
rename multiple markers and
export the marker list as text .
The Marker list
The marker window contains a list of any markers placed in the currently active file along
with their corresponding details. Click on a column header to sort the list in ascending or
descending order based on the values in that column. You can also use the Filter menu to
toggle which types of markers are displayed in the list.
From this list of markers you can use the fields, controls and menus to:
ˆ Create a new marker at the playback head position - click on a marker icon (at
the top of the window) or choose a marker type from the Insert menu to drop a marker
at the current playhead location.
ˆ Create a pair of markers from a selection - make a selection in the waveform and
then click on a pair of marker icons (at the top of the window) or choose a "Create
region" command from the Insert menu to drop a pair of markers at either side of the
current selection.
ˆ Start playback - It is possible to start playback at the selected marker position, with
or without pre-roll, by clicking on the leftmost icons. Click on
in the "audition"
column to play the wave from that marker position with a pre-roll. Click on the right
hand button to play the wave exactly from the marker position.
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ˆ Change marker types - You can change a marker type by (left) clicking on its icon
and choosing another marker type from the pop-up list that appears.
ˆ Edit a marker's name/time/comments - double click in a cell to edit a value (to
align the marker to an exact time, for instance). You can edit the name of the marker,
its time position and any comments.
ˆ Lock a marker's position - select the checkbox to lock the marker. This prevents it
from being accidentally dragged to a new position in the Waveform window.
For more information on using markers see
Markers . For details on the different marker
types and their uses see
Marker types . Note that there are more marker features available in
the Montage version compared to the Audio File version. See "Using markers in the Audio
Montage Workspace" in
Markers for more details.
You can access this specific tool window within the Audio Files and Audio Montage
Workspaces via Workspace>Specific tool windows >Markers .
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
Specific tool windows
Markers
Marker types
Convert marker type
Text format
5.5.5 Metadata window
This specific tool window displays any Meta-data tags belonging to the currently active file.
This usually consists of a set of tags that describe the audio contents. For example it might
include the title of the track, the author, and the date it was created. This data will vary
depending on the file type, and not all file types store this information so it may be blank. To
edit the file's meta-data tags click anywhere in the window. This will open the corresponding
file attributes dialog.
You can access this dialog in the Audio File Workspace via Workspace>Specific tool
windows >Meta-Data .
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
Specific tool windows
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5.5.6 Sample attributes
This dialog allows you to define settings for an audio sample before loading it into a hardware
or software sampler.
The settings do not process the sample in any way, they just give the file properties that the
receiving sampler can use. This includes information about the pitch of the sample (which
can be detected automatically by WaveLab), the key range that the sample should span, and
the velocity range to occupy. For WAV and AIFF files, this information is stored in the file's
header.
By default, there are no sample attributes in an Audio File. Therefore you must explicitly create
this information by clicking on the "Create" button first. This dialog is useful if your sampler
can take advantage of these additional tags. If supported by your sampler, it can save you
time by allowing you to both edit and define a samples properties from within WaveLab.
You can access this dialog via Workspace>Specific tool windows >Sample At-
tributes... .
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
5.5.7 Scripting window (Audio File Workspace)
This window allows you to write and execute scripts in the Audio File Workspace.
The inbuilt text editor helps you when writing scripts by highlighting the different parts of
the script with colors, making it more readable. A script can also be written in another text
editor, and loaded via the File menu. To run a script, from within the script window choose
Functions >Execute script .
For a general description of scripting, see
Scripting . For an overview of the scripting lan-
guage, see
ECMAScript Reference .
You can access this dialog from the Audio File Workspace via Workspace>Specific tool
windows >Script .
Note: To view trace or log messages when executing scripts that contain the logWin-
dow() function, ensure that the
Log window is visible and that it's warning filter buttons -
are selected.
For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
Scripting
ECMAScript Reference
Log window
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5.5.8 Spectrum editor
This specific tool window allows you to select and perform operations on an Audio File via
its audio spectrum.
It uses high quality linear-phase filters to process a spectrum selection both in the time do-
main and in the frequency domain. This can be useful for advanced audio restoration tasks
like removing noise from a specific source in a recording, for example.
Making and editing selections
Spectrum editing can only be performed when a waveform is first displayed in Spectrum
display mode and when a spectrum selection is defined. To activate the Spectrum editor,
click on the Spectrum edit tool
in the command bar (or viaWorkspace>Specific tool
windows >Spectrum Editor ). This displays the Spectrogram if this is not already the case
(see
The Spectrum display ).
To select a region, point and drag to define a rectangle. The region selection defines a time
and a specific frequency range. This allows you to edit and process audio both in the time
domain and in a specific frequency domain, as opposed to standard wave editing which
always operates in the full frequency domain.
Notes on spectrum selections:
ˆ When defining a region in a stereo file, a "mirrored" region is automatically created in
the other channel. To define a region in only one channel, press [Shift]while drawing
the region.
ˆ Once you have a region selected, if you place your mouse cursor inside the region,
a pop-up appears showing the currently set frequency range (Hz) and the time range
(seconds/milliseconds) for the selection.
ˆ A selected region can be moved in any direction by clicking and dragging the region
with the cursor.
ˆ If you press [Shift]whilst dragging a region, it only moves horizontally thus retaining
your selected frequency range. If you press [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift] the region
only moves vertically thus retaining the selected time range.
ˆ You can resize a region by placing the mouse cursor at the edges of the region (so that
a double-arrow appears) and then clicking and dragging.
ˆ To remove a region that you have drawn, click anywhere else on the waveform and it
disappears.
ˆ If you have defined a region as a Source or Target, it can be selected at any time to
create a new selection using the same dimensions.
Spectrum editor functions
The Spectrum Editor has the following parts:
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ˆ Selection - use this part to refine and define your selection(s). You can expand se-
lections, shift selections around and define a source and target region for performing
copy operations.
ˆ Operations - use this part to perform copying, filtering and processing operations.
For copying operations, you require both a source and a target region to have been
defined using the Selection tab. You can choose which method to copy audio between
the Source and Target regions. You can also choose to apply processing to a single
spectrum region using a variety of different modes. See
Spectrum Processing Modes
for information on each mode type.
ˆ Master Section - use this part to process and route selected spectral audio regions
through the Master Section and its effects plug-ins. This allows for frequency-selective
processing. A selected region's frequency spectrum can be routed to the Master Sec-
tion where you can choose to process it separately from the non-selected frequency
spectrum. The signal is split so that one part (region spectrum or non-selected spec-
trum) is sent to the plug-ins, while the other part can be mixed with this processed
signal, after the Master Section output.
Using the Spectrum editor
You can use the Spectrum editor in two main operational modes:
Region copying and filtering (Operations tab)
This is mainly intended for audio restoration applied over brief time ranges. Selections can
be copied, pasted, and filtered. This type of processing is mainly used to reduce, remove
or replace unwanted sound artifacts in the audio material, and can be carried out with great
precision. This could be useful for example, to replace part of a live recording that contains
an unwanted noise (such as a mobile phone ring tone), with a copy of a similar region of the
spectrum that only contains a "clean" signal. In general, the spectral Copy/Paste combination
gives the best results, given that the source and destination regions are properly choosen.
Master Section processing (Master Section tab)
This allows you to process a specific frequency range via the Master Section. The selected
or non-selected regions of the spectrum can be processed differently. You can also employ
a number of filters (Bandpass/Low-pass/High-pass) to further refine the particular range of
frequencies to be affected by any Master Section effects.
A selected spectrum region can either be:
ˆ Processed separately by the Master Section plug-ins. The non-selected spectrum can
either be bypassed or sent to the Master Section.
ˆ Bypassed. This removes the selected spectrum region from the Audio File. The non-
selected spectrum can either be routed to the Master Section input or the Master Sec-
tion output.
ˆ Sent to Master Section output. The non-selected spectrum can either be bypassed
or sent to the Master Section input. If the latter is selected, it will be mixed with the
selected spectrum region at the Master Section output.
You can access this window by choosing Workspace>Specific tool windows >Spec-
trum Editor .
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For an explanation of each parameter and interface feature, click on , or the 'What's this?'
question mark icon. For more information see
Getting Help
Related topics
The Spectrum display
Spectrum Processing Modes
Spectrogram options
Spectrometer
5.5.8.1 Spectrum Processing Modes
When applying processing to a spectrum region in the
Spectrum Editor you can use a variety
of different modes:
Damp
This is used to attenuate the level of a region. The Gain parameter specifies the level of the
attenuation (it is also possible to set positive gain values, i.e. to boost the frequencies in the
region). Three filter types are available to perform the damping:
ˆ Bandpass filter: All frequencies in the region are equally attenuated.
ˆ Low-pass filter: Higher frequencies in the region will be more attenuated.
ˆ High-pass filter: Lower frequencies in the region will be more attenuated.
For the Low- and High-pass filters, a low Filter steepness setting is normally used (around 6
to 18dB).
Blur peaks
This filter operation analyzes the region to find the frequencies with the highest level. The
level of these frequencies will be attenuated (or boosted) according to the set Gain value. If
the gain is negative, these frequencies will be "blurred" and disappear in the mix as a whole.
The purpose of the filter is to mask the loudest frequencies (e.g. it could be used to eliminate
a sudden burst of pitched but unwanted sound in the audio material, like acoustic feedback).
This mode works best with the Infinite steepness setting, which is automatically selected
when Blur peaks is used. You can, however, freely set any Filter steepness setting. The filter
type options are not available when this mode is selected.
Dispersion
This is a special filter that "smears" the dynamics and pitch of the region, without changing
the actual frequency content. This works best on lower frequencies, to mask the identity of
a signal without changing the frequency spectrum.
This mode works best with the Infinite steepness setting, which is automatically selected
when Dispersion is used. You can, however, freely set any Filter steepness setting. The filter
type options are not available when this mode is selected. Dispersion can also be used to
create special effects as it warps the sound in an unique way.
Fade Out
This can be used with any of the three filter types (Bandpass/Low-pass/High-pass). It grad-
ually filters the frequencies in the region along the time axis (from nothing at the left edge of
WaveLab 7