Steinberg WaveLab Essential 6 Operation Manual

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Data CD/DVD Projects
Destination window settings
View settings
Use the Destination menu to adjust how files and folders 
are displayed in the destination window, just like in the 
source window.
Getting size information
At the bottom of the Data CD/DVD window, a ruler shows 
you the current and the maximum size of the project. On 
the CD/DVD menu you can set the ruler to display either a 
CD scale or a DVD scale, as well as define the actual 
available space of the destination media you intend to use 
(see “Define media size…” on page 141). Holding the 
mouse pointer over the ruler brings up a pop-up tip, show-
ing you the exact size of the project, and a dotted, vertical 
red line in the ruler shows you the maximum available 
space on the destination media. This allows you to quickly 
assess the used and remaining space for the project.
You can also select “Properties” from the Destination win-
dow Edit menu, to get in
formation about the number of 
files on the CD/DVD and their total size.
Editing the CD/DVD contents
You can move items between folders on the CD/DVD by 
using drag and drop, just like you drag them from the 
source window to add them. There are also various op-
tions on the Edit menu for adjusting the contents of the 
CD/DVD to be created:
To add a new folder (within the selected folder), select 
“New Folder”.
See “Creating a Mixed Mode CD” on page 142 for a description of the 
“Add Audio Track Folder” function.
To rename the selected folder, select “Rename” from 
the menu and type in a new name.
To remove the selected file or folder from the Data CD/
DVD, select “Remove”.
If a folder was selected, this and all its contents will be removed. Note 
that this only removes files from the Data CD/DVD, not from the hard 
disk.
To open the selected file or folder, select “Open”.
There is also an “Open in WaveLab Essential” item, for opening audio 
files and other documents in WaveLab Essential.
The CD/DVD menu
The CD/DVD menu contains items for preparing and writ-
ing the disc:
Function Description
Disk Label… Opens a dialog where you can name the CD/DVD 
to be recorded.
CD/DVD  Info… Displays the total number of files as well as the total 
file size on the CD/DVD to be recorded.
Add photo viewer
to CD/DVD…This opens a dialog where you can select to add a 
simple photo viewing application to CDs/DVDs that 
contain photo images. The viewer application is 
called ImageViewer.exe and is added to the root of 
the CD/DVD. It can only be used to visualize the 
photos on the CD/DVD. Note that the CD/DVD 
does not need to exclusively contain photos.
Write CD/DVD… Opens a dialog from where you can start recording 
the data or Mixed Mode CD (see below).
Save as  ISO Image… An ISO image is a file that holds the entire contents 
of a data CD or DVD (files and folders).
Create Label set… This allows you to create labels for your CDs. See 
“Selecting a template” on page 148 for more infor-
mation.
Edit text variables… Opens a dialog where you can edit and create text 
variables as used for CD labels (see “Defining user 
variables” on page 152).
Export text variables in 
ASCII…This saves the current text variables as an ASCII 
text document in a tabulated format, suitable for ed-
iting in a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft 
Excel.
CD Scale/DVD Scale These items allow you to select whether the ruler at 
the bottom of the Data CD/DVD window should 
display a CD scale or a DVD scale, showing the 
available amount of storage space. Since a DVD 
can hold considerably more data than a CD, you 
should for proper reference select the appropriate 
option depending on which kind of media the mate-
rial you are compiling is intended to end up.
Define media size… Opens a dialog in which you can specify the avail-
able storage space of the destination media. If you 
for instance are using a DVD disc that can hold 
more data than the “standard” 4 700 MB, you can 
specify how much it can hold, to get a correct visual 
reference of the available space when preparing 
the DVD. 
						

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Data CD/DVD Projects
Creating a Mixed Mode CD
To create a Mixed Mode CD (i.e. a CD with both audio 
and data), proceed as follows:
1.Select the “root” of the CD in the left destination win-
dow pane.
2.Select “Add Audio Track Folder” from the Destination 
window Edit menu.
An Audio Track Folder item appears in the destination window. This can-
not be moved or removed.
3.Drag any audio files you want included as audio tracks 
from the source window to the audio track folder.
The Write dialog for the Data CD/
DVD
When you select “Write CD/DVD…” on the Destination 
window’s CD/DVD menu, you will first be asked for a 
name for the CD or DVD to be created. After entering a 
name and clicking OK, the “Write virtual Disc” dialog ap-
pears. Here you can make all the necessary settings for 
the CD or DVD to be recorded. 
Item Description
Write The CD/DVD writing process is started.
Close The dialog is closed.
Settings This opens a dialog where you can make settings 
for your CD/DVD recorder. The content of this dia-
log depends on the recorder used.
Disc Info If a writable disc is in the CD/DVD recorder, you 
can use this option to get information about its size 
and available space. 
Write speed Here you can select a write speed supported by 
your recorder.
Write method Here you can select a Write method supported by 
your CD recorder. If you are adding the data por-
tion to a CD-Extra CD, you must select “Track At 
Once” (see “CD-Extra support” on page 136). For 
DVD, there are no write method options.
Closing method Here you can select a closing method. If you are 
adding the data portion to a CD-Extra CD, you 
must select “Close CD” (see “CD-Extra support” 
on page 136).
Simulation Here you define if and how a simulation should be 
performed before the actual writing process. Simu-
lating the writing process lets you find out whether 
the writing process will be successful, or if prob-
lems might occur. 
Write to hard
disk firstIf this function is active (ticked), the writing pro-
gram first writes an image file onto your hard disk 
(which must have enough free space to hold the 
file). An image file has the advantage that the data 
to be recorded doesn’t have to be converted into 
CD format during burning, as this is done when the 
image file is created. The actual burning (record-
ing) procedure will therefore be faster and per-
formed with greater reliability and less risk of 
malfunction.
Default Click on this button to save the current dialog set-
tings as default. The next time you open the dialog, 
they will automatically be set.
Advanced If you click the “Advanced” button, the dialog is ex-
tended downwards and you get access to five 
tabs. These let you make a number of additional 
settings for the writing process. 
!Note that at the end of the DVD burning process it 
can take up to 15 minutes to close the DVD. Please 
be patient.
Item Description 
						

							16
Importing audio CD tracks 
						

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Importing audio CD tracks
Importing audio CD tracks into 
WaveLab Essential
WaveLab Essential provides the ability to read audio 
tracks from regular CDs. 
This makes a digital copy of the 
audio from the CD directly into an 
audio file on your hard 
disk.
Although WaveLab Essential supports a large number of 
CD drives, there are some restrictions you should be 
aware of:
ÖThere are a number of different, not very well stan-
dardized protocols for retrieving audio from a CD-ROM/
CD-R drive.
WaveLab Essential tries to support as many of these methods as possi-
ble, but there are no guarantees it will work with any particular drive. 
Some brands that reportedly use the same method still have slightly dif-
ferent implementations which might cause problems.
ÖPlease observe and respect any copyright notices on 
the CDs from which you are reading tracks!
To import CD tracks, proceed as follows:
1.Insert the CD into the CD-ROM/CD-R unit.
2.Pull down the Tools menu and select “Import Audio 
CD tracks”.
3.Select the drive from which you want to read from the 
pop-up menu at the top of the dialog.
4.Select a read speed from the pop-up menu just be-
side this.
5.If necessary, click Refresh so that the list of tracks is 
updated.
The window now lists the tracks on the CD, plus some information about 
each track. Please note that the Copy Protection and Pre-emphasis col-
umns are for information only, you cannot change these settings.
By default, the tracks will be named “Track XX”, where 
XX is a number starting at 01. You can adjust the auto 
numbering scheme by right-clicking in the list and select-
ing an option from the pop-up menu that appears.
This pop-up menu also contains some additional functions for saving in-
dividual tracks directly as files, appending a track to the current Montage, 
etc.
The “Import Audio CD Tracks” dialog
6.Click on the Folder button at the bottom of the dialog 
to select a destination folder for the file(s).
The files will be saved with the name that is shown in the track list. To re-
name a file, double click on it in the track list and type the desired name.
7.If you want to import to a format other than Wave, click 
on the file format button at the bottom of the dialog and 
select the desired format from the Audio File Format dia-
log that appears.
See “Supported file formats” on page 49 for information about the avail-
able file formats.
!The tracks must have unique names if you want to 
import them all. If two or more files have the same 
name, a warning dialog will appear when the second 
one is imported, allowing you to either cancel the op-
eration or to replace the first file saved with that 
name. 
						

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Importing audio CD tracks
8.If required, you can select one file and click Play.
This will play the beginning of the track so that you can check it out.
ÖIf you notice that playback starts too late into the track 
– i.e. a small part of the beginning of the track is “cut out”, 
you can specify a pre-roll value to ensure that the entire 
beginning of the track is read.
This is done by selecting the option “Define reading of audio before and 
after CD track…” on the Options menu, and entering the desired pre-roll 
value in the dialog that appears. You can also specify a post-roll value to 
ensure that the entire end of the track is read. The technical reason be-
hind this is that it’s not possible to locate, or position, to anything closer 
than a frame – a block of data on a CD. Thus, if there is data in the middle 
of a frame, you might have to specify a pre-roll or post-roll so that the 
whole frame is read. See “About frames, positions, small frames and bits” 
on page 137 for more information.
9.Select as many tracks as you wish from the list.
You can use [Ctrl] and [Shift] to make multiple selections, or use the Se-
lect All button.
You can also “drag and drop” one or more CD tracks 
onto WaveLab Essential’s desktop or into an Audio CD 
Montage to save them.
In the latter case, you can drop them in the CD view track list or directly 
into the track pane. For this to work, the item “Enable Drag and Drop to 
Audio CD Montages” must be activated on the Options pop-up menu.
10.If you have only selected one file, you can import just a 
part of the track by adjusting the start and end/length val-
ues.
The bar graph shows the part of the track that will be imported.
11.Click the Save button.
The track(s) are retrieved. Optionally, each is opened in its own window. 
This is specified in the progress indication menu that appears during im-
porting.
About the Freedb function
You need to be connected to the Internet to use the 
Freedb function.
Clicking the Freedb button opens a pop-up menu where 
you can use some functions provided by Freedb to get in-
formation about your CDs. Freedb maintains a worldwide 
database of CD information.
 When an audio CD is inserted, you can query the database to 
get the track names of this CD, and more.
 If the CD is not yet recorded in the database, you have the op-
tion to become 
a participant by describing the CD and submit-
ting your description to the da
tabase. Find more information on 
this at www.freedb.org.
File format – Converting CD track(s) to other formats
The extracted audio files are saved in WAV (Wave) format 
by default. You can, however, directly save files in other 
audio formats by clicking the button at the bottom of the 
dialog to open the Audio File Format dialog, and select the 
desired file format from the Type menu.
Among the formats available are the following com-
pressed audio formats: MP3, MP2, WMA and Ogg Vor-
bis.
When any of these formats is selected, you can click the 
Encoding field and select “Edit…” from the pop-up to 
open the corresponding Encoding dialog, where you can 
specify the bit rate and other attributes of the file to be 
created.
CD reading method
In rare cases, the default method of extracting audio sam-
ples from a drive does not work. In such cases you can 
change the extraction method used by selecting the “CD 
reading method” item on the Options pop-up menu. This 
opens a dialog with several optional audio extraction 
methods.
ÖDo not change the settings if you are not having prob-
lems!
About Ultra-Safe mode
Sometimes a small bit of a CD track is not properly re-
trieved (this depends on the quality of your CD drive). This 
can result in unpleasant clicks and pops. To solve this is-
sue, you can activate the ultra-safe mode on the Options 
pop-up menu. When activated, each CD track is read sev-
eral times until the exact same result is found (check sums 
are used).
Convert to Montage
The “Convert to Montage” function can convert a CD to 
an Audio CD Montage. Once you have converted to a 
montage, you can reorder tracks, remove some tracks or 
add new tracks. You can use this function to create mixed 
compilations of CDs. 
						

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Importing audio CD tracks
Notes
 Note that importing audio CD tracks is technically more com-
plicated than reading files from a CD-ROM or hard disk, be-
cause audio sectors can be hard to detect. Some CDs which 
do not conform completely to the CD standard may cause 
problems.
 There are several other functions on the Options pop-up 
menu.
 If you import a CD track with Emphasis, and later want to use 
this on a CD of your own, remember to activate Emphasis for 
that track in the CD view of the Audio CD Montage. 
						

							17
Creating labels 
						

							148
Creating labels
Introduction
The Label Editor allows you to design and print custom la-
bels for your CD and DVD projects. You can design sepa-
rate layouts for front, inside, back and disk labels. Both 
text information and a wide 
range of image file formats can 
be imported and edited in various ways.
About variables and templates
Every Data CD/DVD Project, Audio CD Montage or Im-
port Audio CD Tracks session has a default set of “vari-
ables”, text that consists of a short code string plus a 
value. Variables provide information about a project, such 
as track titles, personal data, etc. There are two types of 
variables: factory and user editable.
Factory variables automatically provide information based 
on the contents of a project, and user editable variables 
can be customized to 
suit the current project.
Templates are ready-made layouts that will use the infor-
mation provided by the variables.
You can freely customize the properties of a template lay-
out by using the Label Editor. Add new images or other 
objects, delete or edit existing objects, etc.
Selecting a template
The first thing you do before the Label Editor is opened is 
to select a template. As mentioned previously, templates 
provide some information based on the current project, 
and have ready-made layouts:
1.Open the project you wish to create labels for.
This can be a Data CD/DVD Project, an Audio CD Montage or an Import 
Audio CD Tracks session.
2.Select the “Create Label set…” menu item.
Where this menu item is located depends on the type of project; for Au-
dio CD Montages it is on the Functions menu, for Data CD/DVD it is on 
the CD/DVD menu, and for Import Audio CD Tracks it is on the Options 
menu.
3.A dialog appears, allowing you to select a template for 
your project.
To the right in the dialog there is a list of available templates, divided into 
three groups “Audio”, “Data” and “Audio + Data”. By clicking on the cor-
responding tab the available templates for the selected project type are 
shown in the list. To the left in the dialog, preview images of the front, 
back and the disk labels are shown.
4.Select a template, and click OK.
The Label Editor window opens, displaying the CD case front label.
If you do not wish to use a template at all you can select 
“Void” in this dialog.
This will open the Label Editor with totally empty labels, allowing you to 
build your own labels from scratch by adding objects, specifying back-
grounds, etc.
You can also save user templates.
See “Saving a label set as a user template” on page 152.
Using the Label Editor
Overview
The Label Editor always displays one of the three available 
views or pages: the front, back or disk case label. You 
switch between these pages by selecting the correspond-
ing tabs below the toolbar. The layout is completely inde-
pendent for each page.
ÖPlease note that the front label can be either single- or 
double-sided. 
This option is set in the Page Layout dialog on the Printing menu. 
						

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Creating labels
The Label Editor window displays a frame with the cur-
rently selected label (front, back or disk) layout. Layouts 
are made up of editable objects – images, text boxes, lines 
or circles. You can also select either an image or color as 
background for the layout as a whole.
Basic object handling in the Label Editor
The Label Editor tools
Tools can be selected in three ways:
 From the Tools menu
 By clicking the corresponding icon on the toolbar
 By right-clicking in the background area (not an object), and 
selecting from the speed menu that appears
The following tools are available:
Selecting objects
Click an object with the Selection tool to select it. 
 Selected objects are indicated by a dotted outline, and square 
“handles”, which can be used to scale the size of the object. 
 To select several objects, hold down [Shift] or [Ctrl] and click. 
Selected objects can be de-selected by [Shift]-clicking.

When several objects are selected, one of the objects will al-
ways have “focus”.
 The focus is indicated by red handles on 
this particular object. You can move the focus to any of the se-
lected objects by [Ctrl]-clicking.
Two objects selected, with the upper having the focus.
Front/back/disk layout buttonsHorizontal and vertical rulers
Text box objectCircle object
Toolbar
Selection toolZoom objectInsert track list
Insert box 
with textInsert circleInsert line
Insert image
Print labelZoom in/out
Tool Description
Selection tool Used to select, resize or move objects.
Zoom Object & 
Zoom In/OutThis is used to zoom in on a selected ob-
ject, keeping it in view. The Zoom In/Out 
zooms the layout as a whole in or out. You 
can go back to normal magnification (1:1) 
by selecting “Zoom 100%” from the Op-
tions menu.
Insert track list This will produce an automatically gener-
ated track list, based on the tracks belong-
ing to the current project.
Insert box with text Creates a text box object.
Insert Circle This will insert a circle or ellipse object.
Insert Line This will insert line objects.
Insert Image This will insert an image.
Set background color…
(menu only)Allows you to define a color for the back-
ground of the layout.
Set background image… 
(menu only)Allows you to define an image for the back-
ground of the layout. 
						

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Creating labels
Resizing objects
If you click on a handle of a selected object, the pointer 
changes to a double arrow, indicating that you can resize 
the object by dragging. Images or circle objects will be 
scaled, whereas dragging the handles of text box objects 
will resize the size of the box, not the text itself.
ÖYou can also right-click an object and select “Edit Po-
sition and Size…” from the speed menu.
A dialog appears, allowing you to edit size (width and height) numerically, 
in cm/mm.
Inserting new objects
Inserting new objects is done by selecting the corre-
sponding tool, and clicking and dragging in the layout. 
When you release the mouse button, a dialog appears, al-
lowing you to define basic properties for the inserted ob-
ject. Note that this does not apply to image objects, where 
instead a standard file dialog appears.
ÖThe Edit Properties dialog is also selectable from the 
Objects menu and by right-clicking objects and selecting 
from the speed menu.
See “About the Edit Properties dialog” on page 151 for a description of 
the items available in the Edit Properties dialogs.
Inserting a text box object
Deleting objects
To delete objects, select them and use the [Delete] key.
Copy/move object
If you manually move an object with the right mouse but-
ton pressed, a small pop-up menu appears when you re-
lease the button allowing you to either select to copy the 
object to the new position or to move it there.
Positioning objects
There are several methods you can use to position ob-
jects:
 Manually – by dragging objects using the Selection tool. 
 Automatically in relation to the layout frame. You can have an 
object centered (horizontally or vertically) by right-clicking it 
and selecting the corresponding item from the speed menu.
 Automatically in relation to other selected objects (see “The 
Objects menu” on page 151).
 By selecting “Edit Position and Size…” from the Objects (or 
context) menu and adjusting the position numerically in the di-
alog that appears. Note that this adjusts the position of the 
object with focus.
You specify the position from the left side and the top of the layout 
frame, in cm/mm. Click “Apply” to apply the position change without 
closing the dialog.
About the grid, rulers and magnetize options
On the Options menu, you will find two items, “Show 
Grid” and “Show Rulers”. If these are ticked, the back-
ground of the layout will show a dotted grid, and also ver-
tical and horizontal rulers that show the current position of 
the mouse pointer. Both these items help you to position 
objects with fine precision in the layout. The grid spacing 
can be specified in the Preferences dialog on the Options 
menu.
You can also use magnetize so that objects will snap ei-
ther to grid positions, to other objects or to the frames lim-
its (or all three), by selecting the corresponding Options 
menu item.