I’m attempting to export an AES-31 project from Wavelab 12.0.2 on an M3 MacBook Pro Max with 36GB of memory. Unfortunately, it keeps crashing out the system. I get a finder warning that Wavelab is requesting 225GB of system memory. I can export the AES without fades generated; however, I’m trying to do a roundabout way of exporting an AES, importing into Nuendo and converting the whole thing into an AAF to share with other editors. (I’m using Wavelab to edit podcasts and need its ability to ripple edit rather than Nuendo). If I export without the audio fades generated, I get audible pips at all the edit points. Any thoughts?
First, update to WaveLab 12.0.40
Normally, this process does not consume much memory, unless your montage is huge. Maybe there is a bug, though a quick test shows no problem here. Do you get a crash dump?
If you can upload the montage (without audio files), I could try.
I’ll try an update first. Would it be a crash dump from WaveLab itself or the system? It doesn’t fully ‘crash’ per se, it’s just that Finder prompts me to force quit. The montage is over an hour with many hundreds of edits in it so there are quite a lot of fades to calculate and render out.
Therefore, a crashdump won’t help.
I will replace your audio files with some of mine (as this should not make a difference), and will try the AES31 export.
Updated but still having the same problem. It seems to get hung up somewhere in making the fades as it’s churning through them making a folder in the output but then crashes somewhere along the way. I’m trying to upload the .mon file here but the forum says that’s not an allowable format to upload. Here is a dropbox link to it: Dropbox
I spent some time testing your montage today. It’s worth noting that trying out setups like yours, with over 500 clips, is less common in standard testing scenarios, so I’m glad to have explored this.
I believe I’ve identified the source of the issue and can suggest a solution.
First, I successfully performed the AES-31 export on both Windows and Mac, with monitored memory consumption remaining below 2 GB. However, in my case, your plugins were not loaded (I don’t have them), which I suspect is the root of the problem.
When rendering each fade, WaveLab instantiates a copy of all montage plugins. This is not a bug but rather an inefficient process, I admit, as these plugins aren’t utilized during fade creation. After rendering each fade (and your montage has 488!), the plugins are deactivated, which should normally release their memory. However, it seems that one of your plugins isn’t fully releasing its memory, causing memory usage to grow until your system runs out of resources.
Notably, I see you’re using iZotope plugins, which are known to have high memory demands and are not very clean in this domain (as observed in various user reports in the past).
To resolve this, I recommend removing all plugins from your montage (back it up first to avoid any risk), then performing the AES-31 export. Since the export process doesn’t rely on plugins, the result will remain valid.
Please give this a try and let me know how it works.
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Thanks so much for the follow through there; I had assumed that plugins would not be an issue as the AES doesn’t have any sort of inclusion of them. I am using a couple very processor heavy ones such as dxRevive and iZotope. And, yes, I realise that’s a large amount of cuts/files. I’m dialogue editing out a lot of verbal tics and clean ups for this podcast so perhaps asking a lot of WaveLab for something I don’t think it was originally intended for.
That…sort of works. I first tried just bypassing the plugins but that had the same outcome. I then made a copy of the project and removed all plugins entirely. WaveLab was then able to export the AES-31; however, upon opening it in Nuendo, there were numerous errors in the import (AES-31 accessor error in cross fade events). I ignored or cancelled each error and ended up with only about three tracks that imported. Also the tracks that did import were misnamed or moved from their original track locations in WaveLab. I tried importing the AES-31 in Fairlight. It would import the file but did not seem to be able to parse the EDL or locate the associated media. An AES file with no cross fades both exports from WaveLab and then imports into Nuendo with no crashes or errors, I just don’t get any of my fades (and also the tracks are still all moved around and misnamed). So…not sure. This isn’t a critical process for me but it would be good if Steinberg could make the exporter for this a bit more robust (or, ideally, allow WaveLab to export an AAF…or ultimately, integrate ripple editing into Nuendo).
Sorry that the import did not work with Nuendo. I only imported the same ADL back in WaveLab (with success). I hope this can improved in the future.
All good for now; as I said, just something I was experimenting with. I do realise that it’s been a long saga across the past decades to find some kind of stable exchange format between DAWs regardless.
I’ve only really started using WaveLab in earnest over the past months for podcast editing; finding it very stable and useful for long-form material. (Have a listen to the podcast we are producing here, if interested. This is the particular episode timeline above: The Apple & Biscuit Show – Episode 8 – Maestro: Stephen Griffiths on the sound design of TÁR - Sound Producer)
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@Jason_Nicholas I haven’t looked at your montage file but exporting an AES file from Wavelab 12 and importing to Nuendo 13 works as expected here. The fades are included, the tracks are not moved around and there are no misnamed tracks. This is on PC, Win11.
I’ve often thought that WL could benefit from AAF export. Conversion of an AES-31 file may have also been a possibility via a conversion utility like AATranslator2, but unfortunately AATranslator2 doesn’t seem to recognise AES-31 files exported from Wavelab.
AAT doesn’t since when? I must admit I haven’t used AAT with WL12 yet
I don’t know. All I can say is I tried to convert a couple of AES-31 files exported from Wavelab and AAT2 couldn’t read them.
Curiously, when I read the actual EDL of the AES in a text editor, the tracks are all in the ‘right’ places where it lists them out; however, when I import the file into Nuendo, they are mismatched. This happens not only with the project above but also if I create a new montage with just three uncut audio tracks on the timeline and attempt to export and import that. I’ve also tried another (albeit, equally complex) montage with the same issues that I had above. So, not sure what the issue is.
Hi!
If AES-31 from WL is not working right with Nuendo, this have to be tested in/at Steinberg. Is it the same thing from Nuendo to WL with AES-31 ?
Nuendo is that the latest version?
regards S-EH
It’s Nuendo 13.0.41 so almost the most current version. I’ll try exporting an AES-31 from Nuendo back into WL. I just tried opening an AES-31 created in Hindenburg in WL and that seems to work for the most part. I may also try to fire up SADiE and see what I can import/export with that to narrow down where the issues are with which DAW.
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Using a recent version of Nuendo 13 (13.0.40) here and sorry to say I can’t repro the issue. No apparent issues with AES-31 export from Wavelab imported into Nuendo here. Also exported from Nuendo 13 as AES31 and imported into Wavelab - seems to work OK too.
@Jason_Nicholas for the AES-31 export from Wavelab imported into Nuendo I see you have tested with a simple test project and you still see the same issues. That is odd.
FYI, I just tested again using Nuendo 13.0.50.318 (latest version) and I see the same results. You could maybe consider updating to the latest version of Nuendo to see if that makes a difference.
Hi @S-EHansson I know you are using MacOS so just wondering, do you too see issues with AES-31 export from Wavelab imported into Nuendo 13 (latest version)?
Hi!
I don’t have Nuendo to test, are there any other software to test with
Reaper, Logic, ProTools e.t.c ?
Cubase don’t work with AES-31
regards S-EH
@S-EHansson Hi Sven-Erik, I didn’t think of that! 
Probably not useful to test in other software since @Jason_Nicholas seemed to want to use Nuendo.
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Would you be able to post a screenshot of the layout of that montage and I’ll recreate and test again here. Also, what format was the audio in that montage?