Steinberg WaveLab 7 Operation Manual

							4.6 Offline processing 57
About Preset files
Each preset is stored as an individual file inside WaveLab's main presets folder. This makes
it easy to back them up or copy them to another computer. You can change the location of
this main Presets folder via Global Preferences>Setting location . You have the choice
of the following locations:
ˆ a standardized location that can be accessed by all users of the computer. That is, all
users will share the same settings.
ˆ a standardized location accessed by the current user (the default). That is, each user
has his/her own private settings.
ˆ any specific location of your choice. This allows you to customize it for your own re-
quirements.
ˆ a location relative to the application. This allows you to use the application from an
USB dongle.
Default locations - By default the main Presets folder is found at:
ˆ Windows 7 -C:nUsers n[User Name] nAppData nRoaming nSteinberg nWaveLab
7 nPresets
ˆ Windows XP -C:nDocuments and Settings n[User Name] nApplication
Data nSteinberg nWaveLab 7 nPresets
ˆ Mac OS X -root/[User Name]/Library/Prefences/WaveLab 7/Presets/
You can also find this folder by using the "Open active settings folder" link in the preferences
pane. This opens your file browser to wherever the main Presets folder is currently located.
Inside this Presets folder each type of preset file has its own folder. For ex-
ample, all the presets for the Normalizer are stored within C:nUsers n[User
Name] nAppData nRoaming nSteinberg nWaveLab 7 nPresets nNormalizer non Windows
7. When you open the Normalizer dialog and choose a preset via the pop-up menu, the
files in this directory will appear as available presets. The reason each preset type has its
own dedicated folder is so that WaveLab can locate them automatically when you open the
preset pop-up menu.
You can organize your presets into sub-folders so they appear as sub-menus. This can be
useful if you wish to organize a lot of presets into your own categories. You can continue to
nest folders inside one another to build a standard tree structured menu system. Below is
an example of how this looks for a set of window layout presets:
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Related topics
Scripting
4.6.16 Rendering
To Render effects into a temporary or final file, you use the Render function (note that the
"Save" function from the File menu does not Render!). The Render function is part of the
Master Section and in other applications is sometimes referred to as "bouncing down" or
"mixing down".
Rendering a file "prints" all audible settings and effects that the audio is being routed through
in the Master section, to the resultant Audio File. This includes any plug-ins, the level of the
faders and any dithering you have set in the Master Section. In WaveLab you normally use
the Render function to:
ˆ Mix down a file in a Wave window to a new Audio File, complete with Master Section
effects, dithering and other settings.
ˆ Mix down a complete Audio Montage to an Audio File.
ˆ "Apply" all settings in the Master Section to a file in a Wave window.
When you render a file you can choose the format of the new Audio File and whether you
wish to create a new file or render the file in place. When the file is rendering you will
see a progress bar in the status bar.In WaveLab you can also view this Progress bar in the
Background tasks window (a shared tool window that can be set to float independently).This
allows you to monitor the progress of rendering, pause and if necessary cancel the rendering
process.
Rendering tips
When you are new to the rendering process in WaveLab there are a few things to note:
ˆ when rendering a file with the default option "Bypass Master Section on resulting Audio
File" selected in the
Render dialog , the Master Section will be bypassed completely
when the new file has finished rendering. If this option is notselected you will hear the
Master Section effects being played back on top of the newly rendered effects. You can
check if the Master Section has been bypassed by checking the status of the
"Play
through Master Section" button, which is located at the bottom right hand corner of the
status bar.
ˆ the Master Section's "Bypass" switch affects playback only. So even if you can't
hear effects when you are playing back your audio, any applied effects are still rendered.
ˆ the "Effect on/off" switch for each individual plug-in affects both playback and
Rendering.
ˆ if you are working with an Audio File/montage that contains lots of effects and/or tracks
and you experience playback problems, it can be useful to mix down a copy of your
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							4.7 Presets 59
montage/audio file to free up some processing power. You can then continue editing
the resultant file with the effects rendered. Remember to save a copy of your session
before doing this so you can go back and edit any levels or effects if you need to.
For more information about choosing settings when rendering see the
Render Wave window
and Render Montage window . For more information on applying effects see the Master
Section
.
Related topics
Render Wave window
Render Montage window
Master Section
Audio Plug-ins
4.7 Presets
WaveLab's powerful preset system allows you to create your own presets to store commonly
used settings. They are available every time you open WaveLab. Presets can be saved for
many parameters such as plug-in settings, Audio File Formats or File Attributes, for example.
You can access the Presets pop-up menu wherever you see one of these icons:
or .
Presets are saved as local files on your hard drive, allowing you to conveniently back-up or
copy them for use on another computer.They are also useful when used in conjunction with
batch conversions and Scripting .
Working with Presets
When working with Presets you save/edit and load them from their own pop-up menu. De-
pending on the context, the available functions sometimes vary but generally you can:
ˆ Save/Save As... - creates a new Preset file by saving the currently selected settings
to your hard disk.
ˆ Explore presets... - opens the folder where any existing Presets are stored. This
allows you to delete, duplicate and organize your settings into sub-folders using the
flexibility of the operating system's file browser.
ˆ Restore factory settings - restores the current settings to the factory default.
ˆ Preset list - select a Preset from the list of those currently available.
ˆ Store/restore temporary presets - when available, use the temporary slots provided
to save your settings for the duration of the session. This is useful if you want to quickly
test and compare different settings. Select the option "Store temporarily" and from the
submenu select the number under which you want to save (#1 - #5). To quickly load the
saved settings again, select the corresponding number from the "Restore" submenu.
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							60 WaveLab Concepts
ˆ Define shortcut for the current setting - when available, this allows you to assign a
shortcut to the current preset using either a key shortcut, keyword or via a MIDI trigger.
For example, if you have a preset to normalize audio at -0.1 dB and you assign it a
key shortcut then everytime you execute the shortcut, the preset is applied to the audio
selection, without the need to open the dialog.
VST-2 Presets
VST plug-ins have their own preset handling. When you click the preset button for this type
of effect the following options are available:
ˆ Load/Save Bank - this allows you to load and save complete sets of presets. The file
format is compatible with Cubase.
ˆ Load/Save Default Bank - this loads the default bank of presets, or saves the current
set of presets as the default bank.
ˆ Load/Save Effect - this loads or saves one preset at a time. The file format is again
compatible with Cubase.
ˆ Edit name of current program - allows you to define or edit the name for the currently
selected preset.
ˆ Preset list - select a Preset from the list of those currently available.
VST-3 plugins have a simplified list of options.
About Preset files
Each preset is stored as an individual file inside WaveLab's main presets folder. This makes
it easy to back them up or copy them to another computer. You can change the location of
this main Presets folder via Global Preferences>Setting location . You have the choice
of the following locations:
ˆ a standardized location that can be accessed by all users of the computer. That is, all
users will share the same settings.
ˆ a standardized location accessed by the current user (the default). That is, each user
has his/her own private settings.
ˆ any specific location of your choice. This allows you to customize it for your own re-
quirements.
ˆ a location relative to the application. This allows you to use the application from an
USB dongle.
Default locations - By default the main Presets folder is found at:
ˆ Windows 7 -C:nUsers n[User Name] nAppData nRoaming nSteinberg nWaveLab
7 nPresets
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							4.8 Rendering 61
ˆ Windows XP -C:nDocuments and Settings n[User Name] nApplication
Data nSteinberg nWaveLab 7 nPresets
ˆ Mac OS X -root/[User Name]/Library/Prefences/WaveLab 7/Presets/
You can also find this folder by using the "Open active settings folder" link in the preferences
pane. This opens your file browser to wherever the main Presets folder is currently located.
Inside this Presets folder each type of preset file has its own folder. For ex-
ample, all the presets for the Normalizer are stored within C:nUsers n[User
Name] nAppData nRoaming nSteinberg nWaveLab 7 nPresets nNormalizer non Windows
7. When you open the Normalizer dialog and choose a preset via the pop-up menu, the
files in this directory will appear as available presets. The reason each preset type has its
own dedicated folder is so that WaveLab can locate them automatically when you open the
preset pop-up menu.
You can organize your presets into sub-folders so they appear as sub-menus. This can be
useful if you wish to organize a lot of presets into your own categories. You can continue to
nest folders inside one another to build a standard tree structured menu system. Below is
an example of how this looks for a set of window layout presets:
Related topics
Scripting
4.8 Rendering
To Render effects into a temporary or final file, you use the Render function (note that the
"Save" function from the File menu does not Render!). The Render function is part of the
Master Section and in other applications is sometimes referred to as "bouncing down" or
"mixing down".
Rendering a file "prints" all audible settings and effects that the audio is being routed through
in the Master section, to the resultant Audio File. This includes any plug-ins, the level of the
faders and any dithering you have set in the Master Section. In WaveLab you normally use
the Render function to:
ˆ Mix down a file in a Wave window to a new Audio File, complete with Master Section
effects, dithering and other settings.
ˆ Mix down a complete Audio Montage to an Audio File.
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							62 WaveLab Concepts
ˆ "Apply" all settings in the Master Section to a file in a Wave window.
When you render a file you can choose the format of the new Audio File and whether you
wish to create a new file or render the file in place. When the file is rendering you will
see a progress bar in the status bar.In WaveLab you can also view this Progress bar in the
Background tasks window (a shared tool window that can be set to float independently).This
allows you to monitor the progress of rendering, pause and if necessary cancel the rendering
process.
Rendering tips
When you are new to the rendering process in WaveLab there are a few things to note:
ˆ when rendering a file with the default option "Bypass Master Section on resulting Audio
File" selected in the
Render dialog , the Master Section will be bypassed completely
when the new file has finished rendering. If this option is notselected you will hear the
Master Section effects being played back on top of the newly rendered effects. You can
check if the Master Section has been bypassed by checking the status of the
"Play
through Master Section" button, which is located at the bottom right hand corner of the
status bar.
ˆ the Master Section's "Bypass" switch affects playback only. So even if you can't
hear effects when you are playing back your audio, any applied effects are still rendered.
ˆ the "Effect on/off" switch for each individual plug-in affects both playback and
Rendering.
ˆ if you are working with an Audio File/montage that contains lots of effects and/or tracks
and you experience playback problems, it can be useful to mix down a copy of your
montage/audio file to free up some processing power. You can then continue editing
the resultant file with the effects rendered. Remember to save a copy of your session
before doing this so you can go back and edit any levels or effects if you need to.
For more information about choosing settings when rendering see the
Render Wave window
and Render Montage window . For more information on applying effects see the Master
Section
.
Related topics
Render Wave window
Render Montage window
Master Section
Audio Plug-ins
4.9 Scripting
WaveLab contains a powerful scripting language to help advanced users create their own
scripts to automate tasks. Using basic scripts can be useful for automating repetitive editing
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							4.9 Scripting 63
tasks such as trimming and cropping a file at specific times, for example. You can write
scripts that perform other basic editing commands, apply offline processing, place markers,
and display information about the active file. You can script commands to edit the active
Audio File or the active Audio Montage. If you have some experience of programming with
modern scripting languages you should have no problem writing utility scripts for WaveLab.
The WaveLab Scripting language is based on ECMAScript, with the addition of WaveLab
specific commands. If you have had any experience with Javascript, Jscript or Actionscript
the code syntax will be familiar to you as they are all based on ECMAScript too. If not, there
is a large amount of teaching and reference material available online. A Javascript reference
such as
www.w3schools.com for example, or a book like JavaScript: The Definitive
Guide
are good places to start.
To begin exploring the WaveLab specific functions available see
WaveLab Scripting Lan-
guage
. For a broader look at the complete subset of commands available see ECMAScript
Reference
.
Getting started
To write and execute a script:
1. Open the Script window in either the Audio File or Audio Montage Workspaces.
2. Type your script directly in the Script window or copy and paste it from an external text
editor.
3. Run the script by clicking Execute Scriptor selecting it from the Functions menu.
The script will run if there are no syntax errors. Any errors will appear in a dialog box to help
you debug them.
Tip: There are several free utility text editors that are context sensitive. This means that they
can color and highlight parts of your code to make it more readable. If you use one of these
for writing and editing your scripts, choose Javascript as the editing language and/or save
the file with a .js (Javascript) extension.
Using the Log window
It is a good idea to begin by writing some simple scripts that output some text to the Log
window. The Log window is part of the Control Window and can be accessed via Utilities
> Log . To output a simple text message:
1. Open the Log window.
2. Open an Audio File in the Audio File Workspace.
3. Copy and paste the following script into the Script window and try executing it.
//output the number of samples in the active wave as text in the log window.
logWindow.printInfo("This file has " + activeWave.size() + " samples");
Note: Any lines of a script that begin with two forward slashes // are comments, and are
ignored when the script is executed. For commenting multiple lines you can use the following
syntax:
/* This a long comment,
that wraps onto more than one line. */
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							64 WaveLab Concepts
Scripting window contexts
It is important to note that certain scripting commands are only available in the Audio File
Workspace and others only in the Audio Montage Workspace. Others are "global", meaning
you can use them in either Workspace. To begin exploring the WaveLab Scripting Language
in more detail see the
WaveLab Scripting Language .
A basic scripting example
Below is a basic scripting example which uses some WaveLab scripting functions to perform
some simple operations on an Audio File in the Audio File Workspace. The script first displays
information about the Audio File, fades in the start and fades out the end of the file, and then
adds ten markers at 1 second intervals. Examine it line by line and read the comments for
each operation to see how it works.
/* To run this script:- open an Audio File that is at least 10 seconds long
- open the Log window via the Utilities menu
- copy and paste this script into the Script window
- choose Functions > Execute Script */
//clear the log window
logWindow.clear();
//show some information about the active wave file in the log window
logWindow.printInfo("This wave file has " + activeWave.size() + " samples");
logWindow.printInfo("Its sample rate is " + activeWave.sampleRate());
logWindow.printInfo("It has " +activeWave.numChannels() + " channels");
//Work out how long the file is in seconds and round to a whole number
var lengthSecs = activeWave.size() / activeWave.sampleRate();
logWindow.printInfo("This wave file is " + lengthSecs + " seconds long");
//Select the first 10 seconds of the file
activeWave.select(0, 10 * activeWave.sampleRate());
//Trim the file to 10 seconds
activeWave.trim();
//select the first two seconds of the file and fade it in
activeWave.select(0, 2 * activeWave.sampleRate()); //sample rate multiplied by tw o = 2 seconds
activeWave.fadeIn(linear);
//select the last two seconds of the file and fade it out
activeWave.select(activeWave.size() - (2 * activeWave.sampleRate()), activeWave.s ize());
activeWave.fadeOut(linear);
//loop through 10 times and add a marker each second
for (i = 1; i 
						

							4.9 Scripting 65
activeWave.addMarker(generic, "Marker "+i, "A comment for marker "+i);
//write some information about the new marker
var cursorTimeSecs = nextCursorPosition/activeWave.sampleRate();
logWindow.printInfo("created a new marker at " + cursorTimeSecs + " seconds");
}
Related topics
WaveLab Scripting Language
ECMAScript Reference
Scripting window (Audio File Workspace)
Scripting window (Audio Montage Workspace)
Control Window
4.9.1 WaveLab Scripting Language
WaveLab's scripting language varies slightly between Workspaces. This Help entry briefly
introduces you to the commands that are available in each Workspace and to those that are
global.
Global Commands
These are scripting commands that are available in all scripting contexts.
logWindow
Object representing the Log window, where you can output messages to. If the log window
is not open, all functions are ignored (as they are not visible anyway).
Functions
printInfo(messageString) - Outputs an informal message to the Log window. The mes-
sage argument must be typed as a String - i.e. between inverted commas.
Example:
logWindow.printInfo("start");
printWarning(messageString) - Outputs a warning message to the Log window.
printError(messageString) - Outputs an error message to the Log window.
clear() - Clears the log window.
Example:
logWindow.clear();
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Audio File Scripting Commands
Objects
activeWave
Object representing the active Audio File.
Many functions make use of presets as an argument. For example, the normalize() function
accepts a preset as an argument:
activeWave.normalize("myPreset");
The advantage is that you don't need to specify many parameters in your scripts, instead you
can use the corresponding dialog to define the settings of a particular function, and then
save them as a preset file. Since each type of preset is unique, you don't need to specify a
full path name to the preset. Only specifying the preset name is enough, there is no need for
its extension. Since presets can also be stored in a sub-folder, you can use a relative path
name if necessary.
So if for example, you wanted to normalize a file using a preset you had defined in the Nor-
malize level dialog (and saved in a sub-folder as a preset), it would look like this:
activeWave.normalize("mySubFolder/myPreset");
All audio processing functions operate on the selected audio range. If there is no selection
the whole file range will be processed (if that editing option is selected in
Audio File editing
preferences
). If the cursor or selection is in one channel only, only that channel is processed.
In other words, it operates exactly the same as if you were applying a process from within a
dialog.
All positions and sizes are measured in sample units. If you wish to specify a time range in
another unit you will need to convert it from samples.
var twoSeconds = 2 * activeWave.sampleRate();
Functions
size() - Returns the number of samples in the Audio File.
sampleRate() - Returns the sample rate of the Audio File.
numChannels() - Returns the number of channels of the Audio File.
cursorPosition() - Returns the current cursor position (in samples).
setCursorPosition(pos) - Sets the current cursor position at a certain sample location.
selectionStart() - Returns the index of the first selected sample, or -1 if there is no selection.
selectionSize() - Returns the number of selected samples.
select(presetName) - Loads the audio range preset and applies its setting to the active
Audio File.
select(start, size) - Selects a number of samples, starting from a given position.
setCursorChannel(channel) - Sets the cursor position to a new channel, Use leftCh,
rightCh or allCh as arguments.
WaveLab 7