Page 2: Steinberg WaveLab Pro 11

Push The Envelope

This release also adds automation envelopes for any parameter within a VST 3 plug‑in that is applied at clip level. Right‑clicking on any parameter in such a plug‑in produces a pop‑up menu allowing you to add an automation envelope for that parameter. This worked perfectly with all the Steinberg VST 3 plug‑ins I tried and for some third‑party plug‑ins.

Automation envelopes can now be created for any VST 3 plug‑in inserted on a Clip and envelope management is provided by the new Automation/Envelope panel within the Inspector.

To support this new functionality, a dedicated Automation Envelope panel has been added within the Inspector. This allows you to toggle the envelope visibility between any of the clip’s active envelopes (one envelope is visible at any time) and you can also bypass an envelope. Equally, for those third‑party plug‑ins that didn’t want to produce the pop‑up menu mentioned above, you can add a target parameter within this panel. Envelope editing is very straightforward in terms of adding, deleting or moving nodes and the toolset includes some useful options of editing multiple nodes and envelope smoothing.

If your workflow involves the Audio Montage for assembling clips for an album/CD project, these new clip‑based automation options are going to make it much easier to finesse the details of each clip to produce a coherent sound for the entire project. I suspect this may be a feature that Steinberg will continue to develop but, even in this first iteration, it is very nicely implemented and simple to use.

We Have You Surrounded

WaveLab Pro 11 delivers some significant improvements for working with surround/Ambisonics multichannel audio formats in both the Audio Editor and the Audio Montage. In the Audio Editor, multichannel interleaved files up to a 22.2 format can be opened, edited and saved. And, given the flexible output routing options that are also provided (including the MixConvert and AmbiDecoder plug‑ins already mentioned), you can still work with these multichannel formats even if you only have a stereo monitoring system available.

Within the Audio Montage, multichannel files are automatically organised into mono or stereo ‘clusters’ (for example, in a 5.1 surround format, the L+R and Lr+Rr are each stereo clusters while the LFE and C channels are each mono clusters). Each cluster has its own mute/solo controls and various editing tasks can easily be performed on individual clusters.

Whether in the Audio Editor or Audio Montage, the selection tools for editing tasks are very flexible, allowing you to select ranges on individual channels, individual clusters, or multiple clusters. These selection options also operate within the Audio Editor’s Spectrogram view for spectral editing tasks. Equally, once a selection range has been made, it can be moved or resized. These are impressive enhancements and will undoubtedly improve the workflow for anyone handling multichannel surround formats for film audio or specialist music projects.

On The Buses

WaveLab Pro 11 introduces two new features that essentially bring audio busing to the Audio Montage; Track Groups and Track Lanes. In the first of these, Tracks can be assigned to a Group and there is a new Tracks Group dialogue to help manage the process of creating Groups and editing which Tracks belong to which Group or remain outside of a Group. A Track can only belong to a single Group at any one time but it is easy to move Tracks between Groups. Groups can be colour‑coded as a visual aid in project management, but the key feature is the ability to adjust gain, mute/solo a specific Group, and to apply an effects chain at the Group level. A new Group panel is now available in the Inspector to toggle between Groups and to build whatever Group‑level processing chain you might require.

Beneath the Group level, stereo, mono or reference tracks can now be divided into up to eight Track Lanes. Lanes can be added and removed and Clips placed on Lanes, moved and/or copied between Lanes and Lanes have individual mute/solo buttons. You can also convert Lanes into Tracks and Tracks into Lanes, with various options for taking any applied effects plug‑ins with the conversion. Clips can be overlapped between Lanes (effectively layering sounds as you might for sound design) and you can also swap Clips between Lanes to perform track comping tasks. Effects applied at the Track level are applied to all Clips on all Lanes within the Track. However, plug‑ins can also be added to individual Clips within the Lanes system, in effect providing a further level of ‘busing’

.The combination of the new Track Groups (shown here) and Track Lane systems create some considerable audio routing flexibility for WaveLab projects.

Clearly, these new Track Group and Track Lane systems open up some fairly complex audio routing options and I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface of what might be possible during the review period. At either level — Groups or Lanes — the obvious application is in the preparation of audio stems (for example, separate stems for dialogue, music and sound effects in film/TV audio production). However, you might also use it for preparing/processing drum, bass, guitar and vocal stems if a client requires that level of control for a subsequent mixing task. Equally, you can imagine mastering tasks where these new features would be very useful.

Best Of The Rest

While the improvements outlined so far perhaps represent my personal highlights of the Pro 11 release, there is a considerable list of further additional enhancements. Indeed, there are too many to include them all here, but a few deserve at least a mention. For example, the Audio Montage now has a streamlined audio ducking feature, allowing you to ‘duck’ a target track based upon the audio signal of other tracks. In addition, under the hood, processing within the Audio Montage is now optimised for multicore support producing both smoother operation and faster rendering.

Other improvements include more Insert slots within the Master Section, a new Start‑Up Assistant dialogue with more options, the option to add comments within the Marker Creation dialogue, more options when importing audio into WaveLab, and a range of new options/settings when rendering from the Audio Montage (some of these related to the new Group Tracks and Track Lane’s features).

For my money at least, in Pro 11, Steinberg have made the best even better.

Wave Hello?

Throughout the review period, WaveLab Pro 11 ran flawlessly on my host system. As with SpectraLayers Pro over the last couple of years, Steinberg appear to have also given WaveLab some serious love. Speaking as a regular WaveLab user, it’s great to see that level of commitment to the product.

So, should you buy it? Well, for new users coming to Pro for the first time, there is a hefty price tag and undoubtedly something of a learning curve. However, for those working in a commercial context, where time is money, it’s difficult not to conclude that WaveLab Pro 11 is a hugely powerful, and very flexible, platform for editing audio; Pro fully deserves its ‘pro’ label.

For existing users, even those already on WaveLab Pro 10, given the plethora of new and genuinely useful improvements in the feature set, the upgrade would seem to represent excellent value for money. This will, of course, depend upon exactly which of the new features might benefit your individual workflow but, as someone who spends most of his WaveLab time within the Audio Montage, I think the upgrade falls into the ‘no‑brainer’ category. I can imagine those regularly working with multichannel formats will have similar feelings.

Whichever way you look at it, Steinberg have packed a lot of new stuff into WaveLab Pro 11. This is an impressive update with a bumper load of new features and improvements. Is WaveLab Pro 11 for you? Well, you can find out for yourself as Steinberg have a free 30‑day trial version available for download from their website. I’ve always felt WaveLab was the best audio editor available — that’s why I’m a longstanding user — but, for my money at least, in Pro 11, Steinberg have made the best even better.