A multifunctional program that has everything you need to mix podcasts, audiobooks, and commercials. Three stereo tracks are open for processing, on which you can place voice, padding and sound effects. The main advantages are the intuitive interface and the powerful set of built-in plugins that have become a separate asset of WaveLab. For example, Master Rig for mastering with five effects, which allows you to get a whole and elaborate mix of several tracks.
WaveLab audio editor – Steinberg released in 1995 and there was a time when it was designed to integrate with Cubase, for full audio processing. Nevertheless, the program has a number of specific features that set it apart from other editors of the same class, and since version 4.0 – it is several years ahead of its closest competitor – Sonic Foundry Sound Forge.
The editor’s interface is standard: the menu, the function buttons, the sound wave editing window (mono or stereo), and the effect-processor panel on the right. At the bottom are the signal analyzers. WaveLab supports 6 different analyzers, displaying in real time the characteristics of the input or output signal (the only exception is the “Bit Meter” indicator, which informs about the bit depth of the internal signal processing).
The “Master Section” panel plays an important role in the program, as you can understand from the name, it is designed for mastering your composition. In “Effects” you can select up to 8 VST or DirectX effects, in “Master” you can set the level of output signal, in “Dithering” – algorithm of bit-rate smoothing after internal signal processing. The changes will be made after pressing the “Render” button. All this distinguishes WaveLab from other editors and is more like working with studio equipment.
The same can be said about the built-in effects-all of them try to some extent to repeat the controls of the hardware effect processors (knobs, toggle switches, etc.). This approach is likely to be convenient and familiar to professionals, but a more flexible interface could have been implemented within a computer application.
If the interface of WaveLab is controversial, the functionality is probably indisputable. It supports digital audio up to 32 bit / 384 KHz, importing all common audio formats: WAV (PCM), MP3, OGG, AU, AIFF, WMA and the soundtracks of video files. Steinberg is especially proud of the OSQ (Original Sound Quality) format, which compresses digital sound without any loss in quality. WaveLab, like Adobe Audition, offers the user two basic digital sound editing capabilities: a “simple” processing of a mono or stereo recording (“Wave”) and a multitrack editor (“Audio Montage”). The stereo recording editing mode is standard for programs of such class.
Audio Montage is designed in its turn for multitrack editing of sound, mixing of records, creating multichannel compositions of DVD-Audio standard.