wavelab 8 split/normailze help

Hi guys,

I wanted to find out if wavelab 8 can do a function I need,

I have read the manual and found the auto split function half of what I need,

For example,

I track some single snare hits in 1 audio file say 50 hits, I can use the auto split to drop say temp markers on the original audio file without splitting it,

however is there a way to normalise each section (between 1 temp marker to another) for the whole file?

What im trying to say is can wavelab normalise all sections that are in the single file with a single function?

from my understanding normalise will work for the whole file/or selected section however I would like to know if normalise can work in the manner described above.

hello is there any input on this?

I would really love to find out how to achieve the above, or a method to achieve the same results, however I want to keep it within a single audio file.

In the render dialog, you can process all regions in one operation using plugins. But normalizing is not possible.
This is a very unusual operation you want to do.

What exactly do you want to achieve? It sounds like a simple compressor would bring each of the 50 snare hits to a more uniform level if that’s what you want…

Hi guys, thank you for the response,

yes I do want to render the files with a compressor, however im using outboard and wish to feed my compressor a uniform level, by being able to normalize all regions and not using any say software compressor/limiter, I can set up my compressor to compress exactly how I want across each of the hits I have tracked by having a uniform peak level.

I know this sounds very unusual but this is a sound design request, I would love wavelab to be able to normalize between markers, so that each hit is say at -1db then I can send to a outboard compressor/chain.

Is this a viable feature request?

As a sound designer I would love to hear if the above will be possible in the future as I very much want to buy wavelab for sound editing and design processes however I would really love the above to aide in my workflow.

I think you can do it if you do the auto-split in the montage (focused clip “edit” tab), and actually do the splits into clips (split at silences). Then you can use the Loudness Meta Normalizer (tools menu) on the clips, and render the whole thing to a new file. Seems to work unless I’m missing something.

But I can see that would mess up your timeline because it removes the silences. So what you’d have to do is:
Autosplit silence to region markers only (not split).
Delete region end markers.
Convert remaining region start markers to generic markers.
Check position of first and last marker.
Autosplit again clip splitting at generic markers (not silence).
That should retain your timeline.

But the metanormalizer normalizes clips relatively to others, not independantly. Hence that does not fit the bill.
This being said, from the audio point of view, the original idea does not feel very good imho. For instance, what about the transitions between the normalized parts and the rest?
You should rather try a loudness maximizer, aka peak limiter.

Hi PG & Bob

PG not sure if your statement applied to bob or me, however, the transitions of my intended purpose will be perfectly intact as between each marker would be the actual transient and tail of said audio source, being able to normalize in one swoop between each marker would save me considerable amounts of time, compared to selecting between said markers and normalizing.

Remember this purpose is for sound design I am not trying to normalize parts of a song etc, I want to normalize sounds I tracked in the studio so I can send a uniform peak level to my outboard chain while keeping my recording in 1 file,

I do not wish to use any limiter of any sort and keep the audio away from processes that will effect its sound, I do not mind about the noise floor raising due to being normalized but I do not wish for any plugin limiter/compressor artifacts before I send to my outboard gear.

autosplit is 50% of what I need, as that would lay markers down to separate each sound “hit” from within the file and from my current understanding I would have to select each section after and hit normalize, doing this say 50 times for a single audio file is a repetitive task and wastes a lot of time, imagine I had to do 100 audio files with 50 hits in each file that’s 5000 times doing the same task and my suggestion could possibly save at least 10-100 hours worth of mousing around and normalizing.

The only other option I see is what bob has suggested but it gets confusing and not being a user of wavelab hard for me to picture how it would work.

you suggest a loudness maximizer / peak limiter browsing the W8 manual can you provide some information as to how i can achieve the results I desire with your alternative solution?

PG, unless I’m reading the original request wrong, it sounds like needsomehelp wants all of the snare hits to be at the same volume level. Whether he peak normalizes the whole file louder in the first place is up to him, but I’m reading it as a relative rms normalization between each snare hit after that, not independent peak normalize for each hit, which may or may not give the same volume. Needsomehelp, please tell me if I’ve got this wrong.

Auto-splitting each snare hit into a separate clip and using the meta-normalizer should make all the clips (snare hits) equal volume. I think that would accomplsh what is wanted, and is probably worth a try. (Unless snare hits are too short to loudness normalize).

But as you said PG, it could also be done with the Steinberg/Dynamics/Maximizer plugin on the track, and turn up Optimize.

My auto-split method sounds complicated, but it’s pretty easy after the first time. (Also, rather than deleting all the region end marks as I said, you could just convert them to “temp” marks. Then they wouldn’t be included in the splits because the splits would only be done at the “generic” marks.) (“convert markers” is in the markers tab functions menu).

metanormalize:
Burn a disc with Steinberg Wavelab 7 - YouTube (0:00-1:20)
WaveLab Audio CD Creation - YouTube (2:05-3:40)