IMPORTANT FEATURES REQUEST For Wavelab 10

IMPORTANT FEATURES REQUEST For Wavelab 10

  • ability to group the tracks, it’s an absolute necessity for stem mastering.

For instance, I need the original track to compare with a group of tracks.
And I need to sum tracks in a group then treat the group with FX, not affecting the OUT.
The new effect architecture in a montage would be clip > track > group > Out

  • comparison A/B between (new) groups in the montage, this without any silence gap when A/B ing (or any distracting sound blip or artifact)

  • group solo function

  • ability to sidechain whatever plugin VST3 from one track to another or even to one (future) group.
    Funny to see that actual true sidechain plugin in the wavelab 9.5 is the same one from wavelab 4 or older…) still using the old quad channel trick…

  • ability to make automations on track effects during all the montage project like cubase

  • ability to sync files automatically

  • automatic silence detection on each file start and ability to impose a pre-programmed pregap time.
    Exemple : mix files have various starting points with sometimes lot of silence on the beggining.
    I need each file go get 100 ms of pregap. Sensitivity threshold must goes to -144 dB to take account of 24 bit non-dithered files silence gaps.
    Automatic intelligent detection more effective. Current version doesn’t work most of the time (unusable).

  • added functions for vinyl or cassette mastering (ability to use sides for naming the tracks, for example, LP1 : A1, A2, A3, etc to B6 LP2 : C1 to D5, etc for naming the tracks)

  • ability to open several AUX OUTs in order to send the sound of GROUPS to a 3d party analyzer, in order to compare frequency curves between original mix and master in real time

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  • ability to send start, stop, pause, silence start, silence end, etc, logic 1/0 signals out to any kind of serial interface in order to drive automatically a vinyl cutting lathe

  • ability to customize completely CD (or vinyl / cassette) report. Spreadshit are ugly and unreadable, the software should be able to get optimized spreadsheets that can countain 20 songs in one page.

We are waiting for serious evolution for Wavelab 10 ! With those functions, wavelab 10 could reach the professionnal grade for mastering, which we are waiting for so long.

Thanks to send a confirmation that my request have been transmitted to the wavelab crew.

Frédéric WOFF / Definitive Mastering Studios, France, Bretagne

PS: f needed, I can send explainations in french language.

Some GREAT ideas however many of them seem to be very specific to what you are using WL for and if they were all implemented would, IMHO, make WL too bloated if there were not a way to turn them off for people who are not specifically doing what you are currently doing. Things like serial control for a lathe is a bit over the top for most people using WL. The one thing that everyone seems to want is automation on the montage tracks for effects. Maybe PG will implement some of these in WL10. Keep on suggesting.

FWIW, WaveLab already has a good solution for this. In my experience, cutting engineers for vinyl and cassette duplicators strongly prefer 1 file per side instead of a file for each song that must be assembled in some way. This way there is no chance for extra space to be added or things to get out of sequence, and if they use the right software, they can see the WaveLab embedded track markers in the continuous files per side.

In the WaveLab montage, you can use “CD Track Groups” to determine where side A ends and is side B starts (and there is support for double/triple LP etc), and then render a continuous WAV for each side. The bonus is that you can use the Audio CD Report to generate an accurate PQ report for each side so they know where the tracks start and end and these times are accurate for side B and higher because the report for side B and higher starts at 0:00 again just like the file.

This is one of the big reasons I could not use anything besides WaveLab to assemble my masters. So many great features.

I do agree that the current PDF PQ reports that I use, mostly for vinyl are too bloated. You should easily be able to fit a full album (and then some) on one single page but the way it is laid out now, there is so much wasted space and even just one vinyl side (usually 5 to 7 songs) can often take up more than one page which is not ideal. A full album is always two or three pages.

It needs to be refreshed to be more compact and effective.

When I do a normal mastering project and use my analog chain, I always carefully trim up the heads and tails and I have a way to program in 200ms of digital black silence before the first sound of the song.

This is great because then when I create the track ID markers in the WaveLab montage, the CD Track Splice Markers are placed at the start of each file which gives me a nice buffer/pregap between the marker and the first audio.

When I am mastering 100% digital in the WaveLab montage, I simply do the trimming directly in the montage to get rid of any noise and make the clips have a tight clean start.

After I run the CD wizard to create the CD Track Splice Markers placed at the start of each clip, I can run the “Move Multiple Markers” option to back up the markers by any amount of milliseconds to create this buffer/pregap.

It’s not fully automatic but I personally like to make sure my heads and tails are fully clean and then after you do that, it’s really fast/simple to do this.

Yes, we really need a way to send a variety of things to an alternate output path, PRE FX.

The ultimate would be sending clips to an alternate output without any clip/track/montage/master section so we can A/B the before and after on our monitor controller/mastering console. Ability to do this with montage tracks and other things would also be welcomed.

This is a significant reason why I prefer to use REAPER for my initial processing via plugins and analog gear. It can do pretty much all of this.

Thank you for your answer. Nevertheless I don’t think many of my ideas are very specific (except serial control) to what I am using wavelab for.
I’m a professionnal mastering engineer as many other users, and I - rather WE need adequate and powerful tools to make our job properly.
People which are heavily involved in mastering and quality process, who are also working with stems will have all the same wills.

As Wavelab PRO 9.5 is supposed to be a professionnal mastering software, this is what we expect for. In some aspects, I like very much the software, but it still seems to me (and mastering friends) incomplete for the tasks we need to do. I think wavelab LE and wavelab pro should be more differenciated, and wavelab pro should be more professionnally orientated. On a lot of cases I’m working on, I encounter limitations in the sofware which causes circumvention, compromizes and finally time consuption to get the right result we are supposed to get easily on such specialized software. With only 3/4 of the suggestions I gave, this would rank wavelab as number 1 for mastering task. I suggest steinberg not to look only for the mass market, but to look also for specialists in the domain.

After all, it is called “wavelab PRO” so we are waiting for a real professionnal product which cares about professionals needs for easier work in complex / advanced tasks in audio mastering domain. I think it’s better to put budget to go further in the software itself to get powerful and flexible architecture than adding some extra plugins for the mass which will never satisfy pros. Professionnals want flexibility and high degree of customization. Most of the pros are using third-party plugins which are especially developped for best results in their orientation. But the software itself must be first of all flexible in routing and powerful in its own special domain - mastering - here.


I don’t think having the ability to group tracks should be considerated as something “special” (this is a basic thing that every DAW can do !!). Getting this into wavelab will make it far more powerful even with its specificities of plugin management. Same remark for extended routing, which is an absolute basic thing for any professionnal audio product…
And getting a readable, fully customizable and aesthetic cuesheet wouldn’t be the least of a mastering-said software ?
Syncing files together and help for standardising the beggining of the files shouldn’t be an obstacle either for a pro-orientated software…
Same remark for sidechaining which is a basic but efficient trick known for years by whatever serious or creative mastering engineers. Why should we have to turn to CUBASE OR NUENDO to get the ability to use sidechaining functionnality of VST3s, knowing VST3 exists since 2011 !! VST3 are also needed in mastering domain…Funny to recall that VST3 was conceived by…Steinberg !

WE, professionnals, and not only me, are waiting for a serious step further in terms of improvment and development of the software for advanced tasks. A real mastering software dedicated for PROS.

If you want further suggestions I have another bunch to submit…But let’s solve those first, they are prioritary !!

Whatever, thanks for listening your customers and thanks in advance for all the research and development team which are working hard, for sure. Wavelab was a nice little software in the nineteies, which turns to be a quite good software today - but incomplete for serious mastering tasks. Now we want Wavelab new formula to be the best of all softs in mastering domain :slight_smile:

Best regards,

Frédéric WOFF / Definitive Mastering Studios, France, Bretagne

Although this lacks a lot of what WL can do it also has some very nice features that maybe PG and his staff should look at before WL10 comes out ( I really like the cursor that can be moved and thereby playback audio and the multitrack setup.) I looked at this a couple of years ago and it was no where near as nice. I will not be leaving WL but this has some “interesting” features that could be incorporated with WL.
See Acoustica | Digital Audio Editor Just a suggestion!

I would like to be sure that my requests have been transmitted to Philippe Goutier and / or the wavelab crew. How to be sure of this ?

I am presently in vacations for a couple of days, but i am following this thread with interest.

Philippe

I m new to wavelab, but a steinberg user (Dorico and Cubase).
For me to very interesting features would be:
a) four point editing
b) deep crossfade editor
I know they are offen requested in classical editing, but in mac world there is (almost) nothing and this could fulfill the market lack :slight_smile:
Alessandro.

The multitrack facilities in Acon’s Acoustica barely hint at what can be done in WaveLab (and like WaveLab are limited to eight channels). I have also found it extremely unreliable, losing contact with my audio devices with no apparent prompting.

:confused: What is a ‘deep crossfade editor’? Please clarify.

From the context, I think this is probably referring to the fade/crossfade detail that SADiE and the old Sonic had. This was thought to be an important tool in, for example, classical music projects (along with ‘destination cut/paste’).

Personally, I haven’t ever found the fade functions in WL limiting and the most useful functions are pretty much incorporated in WL now anyway (I stand to be corrected on this by current users of those other apps which I am not).

I don’t like to make comparisons because every software has his strenghts and weekness, but i m thinking to the detailed editing features in crossfade that i can do, for example, in Sadie or Sequoia.

On the other hand i know that these features are usefull only, perhaps, for classical editing.
But actual intergration between cubase and wavelab and future integration between dorico and cubase are for me a very important plus.

Alessandro.

Been using the product for two weeks and have never had any problem with reliability or losing contact with my RME card. Might be system related. I am using an RME card and Windows 7 pro what are you using?

I think I understand what you mean, but like Paul above I’m not a user of that software so can’t really comment on how wavelab compares.

One thing I think is helpful in Wavelab is the ability to be able to zoom to the fade curve by clicking on ‘zoom to fade range’ in the fade ribbon. This along with the other functions in the fade ribbon and envelope points gives some pretty sophisticated control of the fade curves which you can see in fine detail.

One thing I think is helpful in Wavelab is the ability to be able to zoom to the fade curve by clicking on ‘zoom to fade range’ in the fade ribbon. This along with the other functions in the fade ribbon and envelope points gives some pretty sophisticated control of the fade curves which you can see in fine detail.

And worth mentioning: the Wave Matching Tool Window, which I think is pretty unique to WaveLab to create phased-sync xfades.

PG, I’ve always admired this capability in Wavelab and could see it’s possible use in a “crossfade editor” context, but I’ve never really found it useful in most current day needs until it can automaticallY sync across 2 tracks as well. I think that’s what FreeW is asking for (automatic sync) and it’s already there, but not totally useful the way it currently works to sync match clips for editing on one track only. Especially from a visual standpoint it needs to work across 2 (and more) tracks to automatically time align multiple versions across multiple tracks. If the automatic match search range could be made somewhat longer, and it could accurately time align all multiple takes across multiple tracks, I think that’s what FreeW is asking for, and would certainly be useful for me.

It’s not just classical. It’s how I learned to put together pop albums in Sonic HD (precursor to Soundblade). 3 and 4 point source-destination editing with a comprehensive crossfade editor. Both features currently in Sadie, Sequoia, Pyramix, and Soundblade only, afaik (maybe Sonoma too, I’m not sure). Also afaik, both features were a necessity in a pro mastering app to be considered for use in (most) of the biggest mastering houses for many years.

I’ve gotten used to the editing in Wavelab and don’t really miss it that much, but I think it’s still important to many people.