18 year veteran of WL here, going back to version 3. The Live Input (now Audio Input) feature of WL which allows recording with plugins has always been implemented in a very strange and unintuitive fashion. Audio Montage must be open, then plugs into MS, then hit Play on the transport and then change record input to “playback”. Every engineer I have introduced to this maneuver always gives me that look of “is this really how this works?”. Not only is this signal path overly complicated but it removes normal montage transport control and monitoring so comparisons of input to montage contents are convoluted.
I propose integrating an FX slot chain into the record window itself. This is much more natural and understandable. The input path + FX and output paths+FX are now completely independent for easy comparisons. Also recording would be possible without needing a montage. Attached is a mock up of what the window might look like.
Yeah, I am not going to invest time talking about what the solution is but the current method for using external gear in WaveLab and capturing back is the reason why I use another DAW for this part of the process.
As much as I love the WaveLab montage and other things about WaveLab, I also had the “is this really how this works?” moment when I first got WaveLab with version 7.
I know I am not the only person to feel this way about it and I hope that for WaveLab 10 there can be major improvements in this area.
For now, it’s better and more efficient for me to use another DAW for this task and the longer WaveLab waits to improve in this area, the farther it has to go to catch up IMO.
Wavelab is still an amazing program, but I agree – I too would like to see improvement in this area…
I wish there was no input plug-in – I would preferred just a “Monitor input” button like each channel has in Cubase… and I’d like a key command to instantly enable or disable it… all while play back continues (for easy comparisons)… CLICK: now you’re hearing the input… CLICK: now you’re hearing the montage play back… CLICK: now you’re hearing the input again… so when Mastering, you can compare tracks already within the montage to a new track you’re preparing to capture.
Some of the other guys here have some really good ideas to as far as routing… maybe a dedicated input channel… who knows…
I’m hopeful and excited to see what may come in Wavelab 10!
