Steinberg Wavelab Le 8 Manual

							Operation Manual 
						

							Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Christina Kaboth, Insa Mingers, Sabine Pfeifer, 
Benjamin
 Schütte
This PDF provides improved access for vision-impaired users. Please note that due to the 
complexity and number of images in this document, it is not possible to include text descriptions 
of images.
The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a 
commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by 
this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media except 
as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication may be copied, 
reproduced, or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written 
permission by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. Registered licensees of the product 
described herein may print one copy of this document for their personal use.
All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective holders. For more 
information, please visit www.steinberg.net/trademarks.
© Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 2013.
All rights reserved.
Release Date: June 18, 2013 
						

							 3
Table of Contents
5Introduction
5The Help System
6About the Program Versions
7Typographical Conventions
7How You Can Reach Us
8Setting Up Your System
8Connecting Audio
8About Audio Cards and Background 
Playback
9About Latency
9Defining VST Audio Connections
13Remote Devices
19WaveLab LE Concepts
19General Editing Rules
20Basic Window Handling
22Selecting Audio
27Sliders
27Renaming Items in Tables
28File Browser
29Peak Files
30Program Overview
30Command Bars
31Status Bar
33Context Menus
34Time Ruler and Level Ruler
38Value Editing
39Drag Operations
41Undoing and Redoing
41Zooming
48Managing Tabs
49Presets
52Saving a Picture of the Active Window53File Operations
53Recently Used Files
53Save and Save As
56File Renaming
58Deleting Files
58Special Menu
59Temporary Files
59Work Folders vs. Document Folders
61Setting the Focus on the Current File
62About Workspaces
62Elements of a Workspace
63Audio Files Workspace
63Audio Montage Workspace
64Podcast Workspace
64Opening Files in a Workspace
64Organizing Workspace Windows
65About Tool Windows
68Playback
68
Transport Bar
73Playing Back Only One Channel
73Starting Playback From the Ruler
74Using the Play Tool
74Playback Scrubbing
75Scroll During Playback
76About Playback in the Audio Montage 
Workspace
77Audio File Editing
77Wave Window
81File Handling in the Audio Files 
Workspace
97Changing the Audio Properties
99Silence Generator Dialog 
						

							4
101Offline Processing
101Applying Processing
102Gain Dialog
102Normalize Level Dialog
104Fades in Audio Files
105Crossfades
106Inverting the Audio Phase
107Reversing Audio
107DC Offset
108Resample
109Audio Montage
109Basic Terminology
110Montage Window
112Signal Flow in the Audio Montage
112Creating a New Audio Montage
113Creating an Audio Montage from an 
Audio File
114Import Options for Audio Montages
115Missing Files in Audio Montage Dialog
116Assembling the Audio Montage
120Rearranging Clips
122Clip Editing
129Track Activity Indicator
129Envelopes for Clips
132Fades and Crossfades in the Audio 
Montage
136About Cloning Audio Montages
137Mixing Down - The Render Function
137Notes Window
138Recording
138Setting Up the Recording Dialog
139Dropping Markers During Recording
139Recording Dialog
143Master Section
144Master Section Window
151Rendering
155About Monitoring Background Tasks
155About Dropouts157Markers
157Marker Types
158Markers Window
160About Creating Markers
164Deleting Markers
165Moving Markers
165Navigating to Markers
165Hiding Markers of a Certain Type
166Renaming Markers
166About Selecting Markers
167Selecting the Audio Between Markers
168Binding Markers to Clips in the Audio 
Montage
168How Marker Information is Stored
169Importing Audio CD Tracks
169Import Audio CD Dialog
171Importing Audio CD Tracks
172Podcasts
173Podcast Workspace
176Creating a Podcast
176Setting Up a FTP for Podcast Publishing
177Publishing a Podcast
177FTP Site Dialog
179Checking the Podcast
180Customizing
180Customizing the Wave Window and the 
Montage Window
189About Customizing Shortcuts
193Configuring the Software
193About Global Preferences
196Audio File Editing Preferences Dialog
198Plug-in Reference
198Built-in Plug-ins
201Steinberg VST 3 Plug-ins
213Index 
						

							 5
Introduction
The Help System
The detailed help system of WaveLab LE makes it easy to look up 
interface features and get information from within the program.
Three main types of help are available:
• The help provides detailed information on the features and 
functionality of WaveLab LE. You can set bookmarks, and use the 
search function and index to quickly find information.
• “What’s This” tooltips give detailed information on the functionality 
of a specific user interface element.
• The status bar at the bottom of each workspace window gives 
detailed information on menu items when moving the mouse over 
an item.
• In the Audio Montage workspace, the status bar shows what kind 
of editing can be performed when using the mouse and modifier 
keys.
Accessing the Help System
There are several ways of accessing the help system.
•To open the WaveLab LE help, select Help > Contents.
• To open the manual in PDF format, browse to the installation 
folder. The documents are located in the Documentation folder.
• To show tooltips, move the mouse over an interface icon.
• To open the help for the active dialog, click the question mark icon 
on the title bar (Windows) or in the dialog (Mac OS) to show the 
Help button, and then click the Help button, or press [F1] 
(Windows) or [Command]-[?] (Mac OS). 
						

							Introduction
About the Program Versions
6
• To use the menu help, move the mouse over a menu item. The help 
text is displayed on the status bar at the bottom of the workspace 
window.
• To see information on what kind of editing can be performed when 
using the mouse and modifier keys in the audio montage window, 
move the mouse over the montage window. The help text is 
displayed on the status bar at the bottom of the workspace 
window.
• To activate/deactivate the help texts on the status bar, select 
Options (WaveLab menu on Mac) > Global preferences > 
Display tab, and in the Workspaces section, select Display 
status bar.
To open the “What’s This” help, you have the following possibilities:
• In any workspace, press [Shift]-[F1], and move the mouse over an 
interface item, or select Help > What is this?.
• In a dialog, select the question mark icon on any title bar 
(Windows) or in the dialog (Mac OS), and move the mouse over 
an interface item or a menu option.
• Some “What’s this” tooltips have a different background color to 
indicate that a dedicated help topic is available in the WaveLab LE 
help. Click the link in the tooltip to open the corresponding 
information in the help.
About the Program Versions
The documentation covers two different operating systems, Windows 
and Mac OS X. Some features and settings are specific to one of the 
operation systems.
This is clearly stated in the applicable cases. If nothing else is said, all 
descriptions and procedures in the documentation are valid for all 
WaveLab LE versions for both Windows and Mac OS X.
The screenshots are taken from the English Windows version of 
WaveLab LE. 
						

							Introduction
Typographical Conventions
7
Typographical Conventions
Many of the default key commands in WaveLab LE use modifier keys, 
some of which are different depending on the operating system. For 
example, the default key command for Undo is [Ctrl]-[Z] on Windows 
and [Command]-[Z] on Mac OS X.
When key commands with modifier keys are described in this manual, 
they are shown with the Windows modifier key first, in the following way:
• [Win modifier key]/[Mac modifier key]-[key]
For example, [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Z] means “press [Ctrl] on Windows or 
[Command] on Mac OS X, then press [Z]”.
Similarly, [Alt]/[Option]-[X] means “press [Alt] on Windows or [Option] 
on Mac OS X, then press [X]”.
NOTE
This manual often refers to right-clicking, for example, to open context 
menus. If you are using a Mac with a single-button mouse, hold down 
[Ctrl] and click.
How You Can Reach Us
On the Help menu in WaveLab LE, you find items linking to additional 
information.
The menu contains links to various Steinberg web pages. Selecting a 
menu item automatically launches your browser and opens the page. On 
these pages, you can find support and compatibility information, 
answers to frequently asked questions, information about updates and 
other Steinberg products, etc. This requires that you have a web 
browser installed on your computer, and a working internet connection. 
						

							 8
Setting Up Your System
Before you start working, you need to make some settings.
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
Make sure that all equipment is turned off before making any 
connections.
Connecting Audio
Your system setup depends on many different factors, for example, the 
kind of project that you want to create, the external equipment that you 
want to use, or the computer hardware available to you.
About Audio Cards and Background 
Playback
When you activate playback or recording in WaveLab LE, other 
applications cannot access the audio card. Likewise, if another 
application uses the audio card, WaveLab LE is unable to play back. 
The Windows MME driver is an exception from this.
You can run WaveLab LE together with other applications and always 
give the active application access to the audio card.
To do so, select Options > VST Audio Connections, and on the 
Options tab, activate Release driver when WaveLab is in 
background. 
						

							Setting Up Your System
About Latency
9
About Latency
Latency is the delay between when audio is sent from the program and 
when you actually hear it. While a very low latency can be crucial in a 
real-time DAW application such as Steinberg Nuendo or Cubase, this 
is not strictly the case with WaveLab LE.
When working with WaveLab LE, the important issues are optimum and 
stable playback and editing precision. You should not try to reach the 
lowest possible latency figures.
The latency in an audio system depends on the audio hardware, its 
drivers, and settings. In case of dropouts, crackles, or glitches during 
playback, raise the Buffer Number setting on the VST Audio 
Connections dialog, or increase the buffer size in the ASIO control 
panel, specific to the audio card.
Defining VST Audio Connections
To be able to play back and record audio in WaveLab LE, you must 
specify how the internal input and output channels in WaveLab LE are 
connected to your sound card and which device you intend to use for 
audio playback and recording.
You can define the buffer settings for your device as well as set up 
connections to external gear, such as external effects units. You should 
select at least two channels for stereo playback and recording.
If you have no third-party audio card, you can select the Windows MME 
driver or Built-in Audio (Mac) options. You can also use MME with most 
third party audio cards, with the advantage that you can record and play 
at different sample rates. However, Windows MME drivers do not allow 
audio monitoring in the Recording dialog or multichannel operation, and 
other drivers generally offer better sound quality and performance. 
						

							Setting Up Your System
Defining VST Audio Connections
10
Selecting an ASIO Driver
Audio Stream Input/Output (ASIO) is a computer device driver protocol 
for digital audio specified by Steinberg. It provides a low-latency and 
high fidelity interface between a software application and the soundcard 
of a computer.
PROCEDURE
1.In any workspace, except the Podcast workspace, select Options 
> VST Audio Connections.
2. From the Audio Device menu, select your ASIO driver.
The ASIO plug-ins tab and the Control panel button are activated.
3. Optional: Click the Control panel button and make your settings.
4. On the ASIO plug-ins tab, select the audio ports that are used for 
recording and monitor input of the ASIO plug-ins.
5. Click OK.
Selecting a Windows MME Driver
PROCEDURE
1.In any workspace, except the Podcast workspace, select Options 
> VST Audio Connections.
2. From the Audio Device menu, select the Windows MME driver.
3. On the Playback tab, select the audio ports that are used for 
playback.
4. On the Recording tab, select the audio ports that used for 
recording and monitor input.
5. Click OK.