![]() If you’re ready to take your mixes and truly make them “final,” WaveLab Pro 9.5 is chock-full of the tools you need. It’s a bit intimidating at first, sure, but what an amazing lab. “What the heck does that do?” I found the WaveLab workbench to be scattered with intriguing tools, made by people smarter than me to wrangle audio in ways I didn’t think possible. Exploring the software feels like walking into a scientists’ lab and seeing crazy tools everywhere. The more I work with WaveLab, the more I think its name is spot-on. You can detach, move and group windows and menus extensively, and most functions allow you to create and save your own presets for easy retrieval. Flexibility is a key WaveLab value, and the software gives you what you need to make the workspace your own. In many cases there are multiple ways to achieve the same goal. Dive in, and you’ll discover there’s almost nothing WaveLab can’t do to an audio file. The software is deep, and many of its functions go way beyond the intuitive. Swallow your pride and make friends with that documentation, because you will need some help learning WaveLab. ![]() With certain types of problems, the repair is flawless. ![]() This examines audio around a glitch or dropout to replace the problem spot. Error correction can locate problems in an audio file and correct then with interpolation or even “audio inpainting”. If you need multiple audio files rendered in multiple formats, this will save you much time. Worthy of note are its batch processing features, which allow you to perform almost any function on a stack of audio files without human intervention. WaveLab has many other features-far too many to list here. The final result wasn’t perfect, but it was an impressive improvement. WaveLab’s active noise reduction algorithm learned the noise signature and removed enough of it to salvage the track. I torture-tested this feature with a spoken word track cursed with both the low-frequency hum of a pump and the high-frequency swish of running water in the background. WaveLab 9.5 offers a newly redesigned restoration plug-in, which handily reduces clicks, noise and hum from audio. When a DAW is overkill, WaveLab’s montage may be a good fit. It’s also great for layering effects, music and dialog for a video soundtrack. Montage won’t replace your DAW, but it can make quick and efficient work of floating a spoken word track over a music bed. The WaveLab “montage” mode allows mixing of multiple files with automation and effects. This process is less about what you hear and more about visual monitoring, and WaveLab shines in this regard as well. The final step in mastering involves rendering the file at the proper level, bit depth, sample rate and file format. Everything you need to finalize the perfect mono, stereo or surround file is here. standard level, loudness and spectral) visible at the same time. Metering is extensive, and you can have multiple meters (i.e. ![]() Most users will find the stock plug-ins to be more than adequate, but external plug-ins are also supported. Traditional limiting, multi-band compression, EQ, harmonic effects and saturation, spatial/imaging effects-all are present in multiple forms to suit your favored approach. For all of these functions, WaveLab offers a wealth of power. Most of WaveLab’s functions pertain to what is traditionally considered “mastering,” the art of applying EQ, compression/limiting and other effects to balance a mix’s audio frequencies, stereo image and perceived level. Also available is WaveLab Elements ($100) with a stripped-back feature set. clipping), eliminate noise, analyze and adjust spectral content, mix multiple tracks, perform batch processing and much more. This is not just about “filling the meters”-WaveLab also includes tools to correct problems in an audio file (i.e. It allows you to optimize and process your final mix in countless ways, making it sound its very best no matter what device is playing it back. WaveLab is to a stereo file what a digital audio workstation (DAW) is to individual tracks. One such tool is Steinberg WaveLab Pro ($560), a powerful package that engineers have been using to put the finishing touches on audio for over 20 years.
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