The biggest ever release for audio mastering

With close to 80 new features and improvements, WaveLab 12 is the biggest ever release for audio mastering and editing. The best choice for world-class mastering facilities, music studios, and ambitious hobbyists alike, WaveLab 12’s array of state-of-the-art tools has something for everyone working with music and sound.

An Unmatched Editing Experience

ARA plug-in

You can now use WaveLab within another DAW, thanks to WaveLab’s powerful Audio Editor now being available as an ARA plug-in. Allowing you to directly edit your audio files with WaveLab 12’s advanced editing features from within your favorite DAW: Cubase 13, Nuendo 13, Reaper 7, and Studio One 6.5 have all been fully approved for seamless compatibility.

  • Pro

Rainbow waveform

You can now visualize audio waveforms in multiple colors, which highlight the spectral content. Fully customizable coloration assists with the instant recognition of specific audio features.

  • Pro
  • Elements

Automatic transient markers

This feature offers optional visual guidance which aids with snapping audio selection to transient and release points, streamlining the editing process. You can also use the tab key for swift navigation forwards and backwards across transient points, speeding up your workflow.

  • Pro

No limits to audio exchange with other applications

Seamlessly transfer any audio range, with or without effects, from WaveLab to any other application, without any limits or restrictions. The new drag and drop and copy/paste functions help to radically streamline your workflow across diverse platforms, even when using the ARA extension.

  • Pro
  • Elements

Extended copy and paste functionality

You can now optionally associate all standard editing actions with a crossfade option, enabling smooth transitions throughout the editing process.

  • Pro
  • Elements

Automatic waveform zoom to peaks

You can automatically zoom to the peaks of the waveform’s visible part. As you scroll/zoom horizontally into a quiet section, the waveform expands to fill the vertical zoom.

  • Pro

Synchronized audio file and montage navigation

This provides the option to synchronize scrolling and zooming across selected audio files and/or montages, providing a convenient way to visually compare different versions.

  • Pro
  • Elements

Keep Your Loudness In Check

Loudness analysis and reporting

You can now generate personalized reports detailing all aspects of loudness and peak levels within your audio files and montages. Focusing on ensuring your work adheres to specific loudness standards, these reports will prove valuable to both pre-mastering assessments and post-mastering quality assurance.

  • Pro

Visual analysis

Explore the spectral details of your audio files and montages in minute detail with this wide range of visual analysis tools. Serving as an asset to both seasoned sound engineers, budding audio enthusiasts and providing assistance for audio engineers, these visual aids will help you to increase understanding of the impact of audio processing on loudness.

  • Pro

New Loudness Meta Normalizer functions

The Audio Montage meta normalizer has been enhanced with three new functions: to set the active clip's loudness and shift others; to peak normalize the predominant clip and shift others; plus normalizing the peak level.

  • Pro

Loudness matching

Match the loudness of reference tracks to the Audio Montage output and vice versa, for instant, accurate A/B comparisons between mastered audio and reference sources.

  • Pro

Enhanced Workflow And Productivity

New Startup Assistant

Kickstart your projects with the new Startup Assistant. Featuring a web display panel, it streamlines your access to essential resources and updates from the moment you start WaveLab 12.

  • Pro
  • Elements

Enhanced project structure

WaveLab’s project system has been redesigned for ease of use. Enjoy the convenience of backing up your entire project as a consolidated folder or a ZIP archive, containing all your files.

  • Pro

Audio Montage asset management

Simplify the organization of your audio montages with a revamped structure which operates from a central folder housing files and other folders. You can now back up an entire audio montage with all of its media files.

  • Pro

Sideline tracks

Tracks can now be hidden to declutter your screen space, while also freeing up CPU resources for other tracks. As well as enhancing your workflow, this acts as a safeguard, preserving the integrity of your clips by preventing any unintended alterations during editing.

  • Pro

Windows: New Steinberg built-in ASIO driver

If you do not have an ASIO driver on your PC, this driver provides access to the audio inputs and outputs provided by the Windows audio subsystem. It automatically performs sample rate conversion if the source audio file's sample rate differs from that of your device.

  • Pro
  • Elements

Naming scheme

There are now new filter option which allow you to generate new names from custom modifications of source names.

  • Pro

Be The Master Of Your Masters

New Null Test Track

WaveLab 12 introduces Null Test Tracks for the Audio Montage. A Null Track undergoes phase inversion of its signal before mixing with the Audio Montage output. This feature is primarily employed for a technique known as null testing or null difference, a widely adopted audio measurement method for quality assurance, troubleshooting and audio analysis.

  • Pro

Frequency band monitoring

You can apply a filter to isolate a specific frequency band while listening to both the Audio Montage output and the reference track. Choose from five customizable high-quality, linear-phase filters for instant A/B comparison, enabling you to monitor your mastering session's impact.

  • Pro

Speaker configurations with playback plug-ins

There is now the option to attach each of the eight speaker configurations to a playback plug-in chain preset. When a speaker configuration is selected, the associated plug-ins automatically replace any existing playback plug-ins.

  • Pro

Plug-in settings replicator

Instantly copy the current parameters of a given plug-in to one or more other instances of the same plug-in within the same audio montage.

  • Pro

Enhanced album wizard

The new album wizard provides ISRC generation enhancements as well as added options to adjust markers and preserve clip positions.

  • Pro

New plug-ins (Pro)

Black Valve

A very flexible compressor with a vintage tube sound, based on a classic analog device containing a tube pre-amp with compressor.

Even More New Features

WaveLab 12 includes many more new features and improvements, most of which have been requested by our long-term users. Whether you use WaveLab for audio editing, mastering, sound design, or batch processing, version 12 has something for everyone.

    Audio Montage

    WaveLab 12 allows you to replace the audio file of multiple clips at once.

    The redesigned alignment tool aligns two clips with minimal phase cancellation.

    You can sequentially play back the start and end points of all titles.

    Pre-gain and post-gain are available at each stage of the Audio Montage

    You can copy clips from one track to another without their associated plug-ins.

    Bulk activation and deactivation of audio montage plug-ins is available.

    There is a Safe Open mode for opening an audio montage without loading any of its plug-ins.

    A dB level ruler has been added to the Audio Montage.

    The render path can be stored with each audio montage.

    You can snap envelope points to anchors in the Audio Montage.

    The edit cursor can be moved to a chosen envelope point.

    You can navigate across envelope automation points.

      Audio Montage

      The level of a montage clip audio selection can be reduced with a single action.

      A new context info bar for some mouse actions allows users to customize them on the fly.

      Reference tracks can be included when using the ripple and auto grouping functions.

      An Audio Montage plug-in warm-up option has been added to help some plug-ins be more stable with montage clips.

      A time grid option for clips is available.

      Recording can be stopped at a selected marker in the Audio Montage.

      Clip side cues have a visibility option.

      Text report options have been improved.

      Plug-in captions are color-coded, based on the plugin's position in the signal path.

      You can bulk randomize the colorization of clips.

      The marker / clip / audio file list export features enhanced options.

      A “bypass all” option has been added to the plug-in menu in the track header.

      There is a shortcut to activate the clip located at the edit/playback cursor.

        Audio Editor

        When using the Gain process, a crossfade can be located within or outside the audio selection with a smooth transition.

        The Spectrogram and Wavelet views can show the audio waveform as a semi-transparent overlay.

        A time grid option has been added.

        The Spectrogram setting dialog has been updated.

        You can tailor the appearance of the playback cursor and adjust the edit cursor blink rate.

        While selecting an audio range, you can zoom in or out with a simple mouse movement.

        Audio selections can be quickly quantized to the time ruler.

        An audio loudness representation can be overlaid onto all waveform views, providing a comprehensive visual analysis of the audio dynamics.

        Auto-play in the Spectrum Editor can play back selected areas automatically after each edit.

          Productivity

          Over a thousand tooltips have been added across all windows.

          An option to ignore all VST 2 plug-ins has been added.

          A second instance of the timecode window can be displayed.

          A “refresh folder content” button has been added to the file browser.

          A ‘reveal in explorer’ option has been added to the render option menu.

          Fileless documents can have colored tab names.

          Plug-in menus feature an insert option.

          A custom sample block unit has been added to the time ruler.

          Markers can be imported from CSV files.

            Batch Processor

            RMS and Digital Silence report have been added to the Audio Analyzer batch plug-in.

            The Master Section plug-in chain can be added to the current batch processor.

            You can drag and drop a plug-in from the Master Section to a batch process.

            The Loudness Meta Normalizer and Meta Leveler plug-ins have been improved.

              Content Creation

              Opus audio file format import / export.

              There is an option to display mouse activity and modifier keys in real time for screenshots and screen recording.

              YouTube and Spotify-compatible chapter files can be created from markers embedded within audio files and montages.