Steinberg Wavelab Elements 7 Manual

							Chapter 13
Glossary
A B C D E F G H I J
K L M N O P Q R S T
U V W X Y Z
A
ADPCM AES31 AIFF files Apple Lossless files ALAW files Aliasing Amplitude ASIO Attack
Audio montage
B
Bandwidth Bit depth Blu-ray Disk
C
CD Frame CD Pre-emphasis CD Text Chorus Clip Clipping Compression Cross fade
D
DAW DC Offset DDP files Decibel (dB) Dithering DVD-A
E
ECMAScript Ensoniq Paris files Equalization 
						

							174 Glossary
F
FFT Focused Clip Formant FTP Site
G
No entries available.
H
Headroom
I
ISO image ISRC
J
No entries available.
K
No entries available.
L
Loops Loudness
M
Markers Media Catalog Number MIDI MIDI Channels Mixing Mobile phone Audio Files MP2
files
MP3 files
N
Non-destructive editing Normalize NTSC
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							175
O
Ogg Vorbis files OSQ files
P
PAL/SECAM Pan Peak level Plug-ins Pre-roll and Post-roll Preset system Processor cores
Q
Quantization
R
Raw PCM files Red Book CD-DA Regular Expressions RF64 files RMS
S
Sample rate SMPTE timecode Sound Designer II files Spectrogram Sun/Java files
T
Tempo Text/Excel files
U
ULAW files UPC/EAN
V
No entries available.
W
WAV files WAV64 files Waveform Wet/Dry WMA files
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							176 Glossary
X
No entries available.
Y
No entries available.
Z
Zero crossing
13.1 ADPCM
ADPCM – Microsoft/Dialogic is an audio file format commonly used for games and tele-
phony applications that offers a lower bit rate than linear PCM and thus requires less storage
space/bandwidth.
The file extension is .vox or .adpcm
Glossary contents
13.2 AES31
The AES31 Standard is a non-proprietary audio file format developed by the Audio Engi-
neering Society Standards Committee (AESSC). Its aim is to allow a project to be moved to
another audio editing system with a minimum of fuss, and to reproduce the project (including
Edit Decision Lists and other assets) as accurately as possible.
AES31 does not have a 2GB file-size limit and can be read by PC and Mac platforms. The
standard uses a form of universal resource locator for accessing files on any platform or net-
work, together with a sample-accurate Audio Decision List: in/out points of the component
audio fies are defined in terms of hours:minutes:seconds:frames andsample count.
The file extension is .adl
Glossary contents
13.3 AIFF files
AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is the default uncompressed audio file format
used on the Macintosh.
AIFF was developed by Apple Inc. from IFF (Interchange File Format) which was in turn
developed by Electronic Arts. The audio data in AIFF is uncompressed PCM (Pulse Code
Modulation). A compressed variant, AIFF-C or AIFC, supports a number of compression
codecs. 8-, 16-, 20- or 24-bit resolutions are supported.
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							13.4 Apple Lossless files 177
Typical filename extensions are .aiff, .aif, .aifc, .snd.
Glossary contents
13.4 Apple Lossless files
ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for loss-
less data compression of digital audio. Also known as Apple Lossless and Apple Lossless
Encoder (ALE), ALAC audio data is stored within the MP4 container and uses the mathe-
matical technique of linear prediction to achieve a file size reduction between 60% to 40%,
depending on the audio content.
The Apple Lossless Encoder is part of Quicktime.
Typical filename extensions are .m4a and .alac.
Glossary contents
13.5 ALAW files
ALAW is an audio encoding and compression technique for telephony, using 8-bit resolution.
The EU telephone system uses A-law encoding for digitization.
Typical file extensions are .alaw, .vox
Glossary contents
13.6 Aliasing
Aliasing is a type of distortion caused during the analog-to-digital conversion process. If the
sampling rate is not at least double the frequency of the analog signal, spurious harmonics
and other artifacts may be created.
Careful filtering before the sampling stage can reduce this aliasing to a minimum.
Glossary contents
13.7 Amplitude
Amplitude is the height of a waveform above or below the zero line.
Glossary contents
13.8 ASIO
Audio Stream Input/Output (ASIO) is a computer device driver protocol for digital audio
specified by Steinberg, providing a low-latency and high fidelity interface between a software
application and a computer's soundcard.
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							178 Glossary
Glossary contents
13.9 Attack
Attack is the initial part of the sound. An attack is said to be fast when the maximum am-
plitude is reached very quickly (with percussive sounds from drums, guitar or piano, for ex-
ample). Orchestral strings generally have slow attack, where the volume increases more
slowly.
Glossary contents
13.10 Audio montage
An Audio Montage is a compilation of audio Clips composited together. In WaveLab Ele-
ments the Audio Montage Workspace allows you to compile and edit multiple Clips (refer-
ences to Audio Files on disk) on one or more tracks.
The resulting Audio Montage can include both track and Clip-based effects, volume and pan
automation, wide-ranging fade and cross fade functions.
Multichannel support makes it possible to create surround mixes that can be burned to DVD-
Audio compatible disks.
Glossary contents
13.11 Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the group of frequencies (expressed in Hertz or in musical octaves) that pass
through a device with a loss of less than 3dB.
Glossary contents
13.12 Bit depth
Bit depth is the number of bits used to represent a single sample. 8-, 16- and 24-bits are
common bit depths. Larger bit depths represent the sample more accurately and are less
noisy, but take up more space on the disk.
Glossary contents
13.13 Blu-ray Disk
Blu-ray Disk (BD or Blu-ray) is an optical disk storage medium designed to replace the
standard DVD format. The disk has the same physical dimensions as standard CDs and
DVDs, but the standard data storage capacity is 25GB (single layered), and 50GB (dual
layered disk).
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							13.14 CD Frame 179
The name "Blu-ray" derives from the 405 nanometer blue-violet laser used to read the disk
(standard DVDs use a 650nm red laser, CDs use 780nm). The shorter wavelength allows for
five or 10 times more data storage than a DVD although a recent development has pushed
the storage capacity to 500GB on a single disc by using 20 layers. In addition to optical
improvements, Blu-ray Disks feature improvements in data encoding that further increase
their capacity.
Data CD/DVD
Glossary contents
13.14 CD Frame
In a Red Book CD-DA, the time format is commonly measured in minutes, seconds and
frames (mm:ss:ff), where one "frame"corresponds to one sector, or 1/75th of a second of
stereo sound. In editing and audio extraction, the frame is the smallest addressable time
interval for an audio CD, so that track start and end positions can only be defined in steps of
1/75 second duration.
Red Book CD-DA
Glossary contents
13.15 CD Pre-emphasis
CD pre-emphasis refers to process designed to increase, within a band of frequencies, the
magnitude of some (usually higher) frequencies compared to the magnitude of other (usually
lower) frequencies in order to improve the overall signal-to-noise ratio. Pre-emphasis aims to
minimize the adverse effects of attenuation distortion or the saturation of recording media in
subsequent parts of the system. When carried out properly, pre-emphasis enables a received
signal to more closely resemble the original or desired signal and produces fewer bit errors.
Pre-emphasis is commonly used in telecommunications, digital audio recording, record cut-
ting and in FM broadcasting transmissions. The presence of pre-emphasis on a track is
sometimes indicated by a tick in the
column on theImport Audio CD dialog.
Import Audio CD
Glossary contents
13.16 CD Text
CD Text is an extension of the Red Book Compact Disc specifications standard for audio
CDs. The standard allows disc and track information (album name, song name and artist, for
example) to be embedded on a standards-compliant audio CD.
CD-Text information is usually stored in the lead-in area of the CD (where there is roughly
5KB of space available). Support for CD-Text is common, but not all CD players can display
it.
Red Book CD-DA
Glossary contents
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							180 Glossary
13.17 Chorus
Chorus is an time-based effect produced by combining the original signal with a number of
moving delays and pitch shifted copies, often panned across a stereo field.
Steinberg Chorus
Glossary contents
13.18 Clip
Clip A Clip contains a reference to a source Audio File on your hard disk, as well as start and
end positions in the file (allowing Clips to play back smaller sections of their source Audio
Files). Any number of Clips can reference the same source file.
Note that a Clip is a reference to the original source file and does not contain audio data.
Focused Clip versus Select Clips
It is important to note that there is a difference between a "focused" Clip and a "selected"
Clip. Some editing functions can only be executed on an individual Clip or "Focused Clip",
while others can be executed on multiple Clips or "Selected Clips".
ˆ Focused Clip - there can only ever be one or no Focused Clip at a time. The Focused
Clip's name is displayed in red. It's necessary to identify the Clip as focused because
there are certain functions that can only be executed on a single Clip. You use the
Focused Clip window to perform these functions.
ˆ Selected Clip - there can be many selected Clips. This allows you to edit multiple Clips
at the same time using functions such as copy, delete, move, etc. Selected Clips have
a different background color.
Glossary contents
13.19 Clipping
Clipping is a form of audio distortion that occurs when a signal is truncated because it
exceeds the capabilities of the amplifier circuit. On an oscilloscope, the audio peaks appear
sliced off.
To avoid clipping, reduce the system gain in or before the gain stage in which the clipping
occurs.
Steinberg Limiter
Glossary contents
13.20 Compression
Compression This dynamic process is used to smooth out any large transient peaks in an
audio signal that would otherwise cause distortion through clipping or otherwise overloading
the system. Levels are progressively attenuated as they approach maximum levels.
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							13.21 Cross fade 181
Steinberg Compressor
Glossary contents
13.21 Cross fade
Cross fade is mixing two audio signals by fading one out at the same time as fading the
other in.
Glossary contents
13.22 DAW
DAW A Digital Audio Workstation is a software and hardware system dedicated to recording,
editing and playing back digital audio tracks on hard disk.
Because of the computational demands of audio editing and mastering, DAWs are often
based on very highly specified PC or Macintosh computers, equipped with high-quality
sound cards, large amounts of RAM, fast (multi-)processors and large capacity high-
performance hard disks. In addition, they may also feature a noise suppressing enclosure
and a passive cooling system.
Glossary contents
13.23 DC Offset
DC offset occurs when hardware (such as a sound card) adds DC current to an audio
signal. The recorded waveform is not centered around the baseline (i.e. negative infinity).
WaveLab can correct a DC offset, which would otherwise artificially reduce the headroom
available during normalization processes.
Glossary contents
13.24 DDP files
DDP (Disk Description Protocol) is an industry format for submitting CD and DVDs to
replication facilities.
DVDs are usually submitted in DDP 2.0 format; this is also referred to as "Plant Direct"
(Sonic Solutions) and "DDPi" (Universal Music). A DDP file set for CD consists of: DDPID
(Mandatory), DDPMS (Mandatory), PQ
DESCR (Optional) and one or more Image.dat file(s)
(Mandatory).
CD-RWs, formatted as "Audio CDs" are really only suitable for content distribution, not disk
replication or publishing. The DDP format offers the much more robust CIRC error correction
and so protects both the audio data and its associated metadata.
The DDP image is a data file, and when burned to optical media, is a data disc. As such,
it has the full measure of CIRC error-correction to allow error-free copying of files on your
computer and across networks (including the internet). It’s also why you often need a DVD-R
WaveLab Elements 7 
						

							182 Glossary
to contain a DDP image of a CD, because the data redundancy is more robust in data form
than in streaming audio form.
Sending DDP files is "best practice" for disk replicators, who will upload the image file to
their network and burn a glass master directly from the image using specialist hardware/soft-
ware. CIRC error-correction will assure that the data matches the original, or it will stop the
process.
Glossary contents
13.25 Decibel (dB)
Decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit of measurement that expresses the size of a physical
quantity (usually sound pressure level, power or intensity) relative to a reference level.
Decibels are often used in matters of sound because the ear perceives loudness on a log-
arithmic scale. The equation dB = 20 x log(V1/V2) is often used by sound engineers com-
paring two values. Applying a gain of 3dB doubles the amplitude of a sound, and a gain of
-3dB halves the amplitude, and this is confirmed perceptually.
The decibel does not have a unit, since it expresses a ratio of two quantities with the same
unit of measurement.
Glossary contents
13.26 Dithering
Dithering is the technique of adding small quantities of noise to a signal to reduce the
audibility of low level distortion in a digital recording. A small amount of random noise is
added to the analog signal before the sampling stage, reducing the effect of "quantization
errors".
Note that dithering should always be applied after the output bus fader stage.
Quantization
Glossary contents
13.27 DVD-A
DVD-Audio (DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD.
Audio on a DVD-A disk can be stored in many different bit-depth, sampling rate and chan-
nel combinations - from 16-, 20- or 24-bit depth, at 44.1 to 96kHz sampling rates, in mono,
stereo and various surround channel combinations, including 5.1 channel surround. The sam-
pling rate may be as high as 192kHz for stereo channels, and different bit-depth/sampling
rate and channel combinations can be used on a single disk.
Glossary contents
WaveLab Elements 7