An editing tool I use all the time is scrubbing, and I’m sorry to report my disappointment in WaveLab’s scrubbing feature. It just doesn’t give me the exacting control I need. Adobe Audition’s scrubbing feature did, and it couldn’t be easier to use:
While playback is stopped, dragging the cursor along the time ruler plays the audio. It plays only what is dragged over – one sample at a time if that’s how I’m zoomed in, without repeating/looping or reversing direction. This allows me to pinpoint exactly where I want to perform an edit.
Please consider this a respectful but urgent request for this improvement.
I’m getting about a 30 ms delay between what I’m seeing and hearing using Jog or Shuttle in either direction. No matter how I set buffers. I don’t hear anything at all when I zoom anywhere close to the sample level. You say Audition can do that?
The left-most button on the extended transport bar is labeled “Jog & Shuttle.” I tried that and it is very slow and ponderous. That is, unless there’s a setting somewhere that can improve that. I wasn’t able to find anything in the manual about playback “browsing.”
However, here’s a very brief screen recording I made which shows Adobe Audition’s ability to provide the true scrubbing I need:
There is not the exact feature you find in Audition, but in WaveLab, once playback is started (and you can double click on the timer ruler), you can move the mouse cursor along the time ruler to move continuously the playback position.
In File > Preferences > Audio Files > Editing there is a setting called Playback Scrubbing, to adjust the sensitivity. With the minimum value (100 ms), you come closer to what you seem to expect.
That does come closer to scrubbing, but it is not scrubbing. The term “scrubbing” comes from moving magnetic tape back and forth across the play head using the same motion as for scrubbing something clean. So, when I saw in the manual that WaveLab offered scrubbing, that’s what I expected to find. I need the ability to manually move the cursor over a length of time I choose and at a speed I choose, just as Audition provides.
Is anybody else seeing a delay between what is seen and what is heard when using Jog or Shuttle from the transport panel, when zoomed to about a 350ms range? I’m getting about a 30ms delay before transients are heard, after they’re seen passing. It makes Jog pinpointing very inaccurate. Is it just me? I’ve tried all different buffer settings.
That does come closer to scrubbing, but it is not scrubbing. The term “scrubbing” comes from moving magnetic tape back and forth across the play head using the same motion as for scrubbing something clean.
Right. But this is not what the Audition video demonstrates either.
For the traditional scrubbing, WaveLab has the Transport bar dedicated option.
Then there is something about WaveLab’s Jog & Shuttle feature that I’m not understanding.
At its minimal setting of 100ms, Jog & Shuttle takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R to go back and forth over a very short stretch of time. Scrubbing tape by rocking the reels back and forth would get me to my desired location much more quickly. Just like Audition’s scrubbing does. Quick results.
Can WaveLab’s feature be improved so that an edit point can be found as quickly as it can in Audition? Surely, Steinberg has greater and longer audio experience than does Adobe.
The ms setting I told you has nothing to see with WaveLab’s Jog & Shuttle feature.
Please check the manual about Jog & Shuttle. There are 2 different functions,… Jog & Shuttle, with 2 different mouse actions. Shuttle speed depends on where you click.
OK, so I was confusing the ms setting. Still, using Jog & Shuttle according to the manual instructions results in exactly what I described: a painfully slow and ponderous movement through the audio. Again, unless there is still something I’m not understanding, or a setting that is not correct, finding an edit point in this manner is not even close to the speed with which this is accomplished in Audition.
I wonder, then, could you please help me understand what I’m doing wrong? When I try to use this, dragging through the audio is extremely slow and time-consuming. Is there a setting that will make this more responsive (quicker)? If you watched the short movie I linked to in a previous post, that shows the speed I need.
What you show in Audition is another way to do scrubbing. It is neither the traditional Jog nor Shuttle. But I understand you like it the way it is done in Audition, and that maybe better suits your needs and habits.
This being said, Jog & Shuttle is not “terribly slow”. For Jog, you have to drag left and right the purple bar.
For Shuttle, you have to click and drag the mouse more or less away, left or right, from the central cursor.
I can’t describe it better than the page in the manual I referred to, and I’m not much of a video maker. The speed that you show in your video should be no problem, in my experience. In a way it’s opposite in WL. In your video, you drag the cursor through the audio - in WL the cursor is stationary and you drag the audio ‘behind’ it.
I’m beginning to wonder if that is the very problem. When I try to use Jog & Shuttle, it’s like trying to drag a corpse down the street.
If you say achieving the speed shown in my video should not be a problem, then something is clearly wrong. And, as I have read the sections on Scrubbing and Jog & Shuttle in the manual, I can’t figure out what that might be. With the ponderous response I’ve experienced, I don’t understand how this can be a helpful feature to anyone.
But what I’m really asking here is this: if there is no way CURRENTLY to achieve the speed I get when using Audition, can this be implemented in the next update? If Adobe can achieve this, being in audio for only a few years, it would seem to me that Steinberg should have no trouble accomplishing it. Yes?
As someone who still scrubs actual analog tape regularly, I can say with confidence that WL scrubbing has never been quite right.
When I do need to scrub in WL, its usually to find some pop or noise which is not readily apparent visually in the wave form. But WL’s scrubbing audio quality is poor, granulated and jumpy. When I can discern a noise, the cursor will not be accurately positioned at the noise’s location. Scrub forward, hear the noise, then scrub backward to verify the noise position but then the cursor is in a different location when noise is next heard. Basically I have found WL scrubbing to be useless. And I have used WL since version 3. Even half-speed playback in WL is surprisingly poor in sound quality.
In contrast, ProTools half-speed playback and scrubbing has always responded very much like real analog, for like 20+ years. The audio sounds right and the cursor position is spot on. Finding bad edits, pops, snaps etc feels natural and is a total breeze in ProTools. Why not WL?
Yes, scrubbing is different in Adobe Audition because, instead of moving the audio over a stationary play head (as in magnetic tape), we move the play head (cursor) over the audio.
And I just learned that same type of fast and easy scrubbing is also offered by Twisted Wave.
So I will respectfully request again that Steinberg seriously consider either changing it’s current version of scrubbing or making this type of scrubbing an additional option.
Thank you… and here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe set of year-end holidays.
