[FR] stem mastering streamling/batch render from montage

I have an idea for a WL 9 feature request and wanted to see if anybody else would have a need or ideas for it.

I have one particular client that I only do “in the box” stem mastering for. Each song gets it own montage file because the songs are not presented in album form. Each song has anywhere from 5 to 10 various versions…the full mix, and then various other versions similar to stems with slight mix changes. The additional versions always differ in length both slightly and significantly. Some alternate versions are stems of different elements of the entire song (vocals only, no-vocals, no-lead instrument, persuasion only etc), some files are shorter 30 second promo versions or even shorter stingers. They all get the same montage master processing but their lengths can vary.

I always load in each stem/file/version onto it’s own audio track in Wavelab so the files are lined up on top of each other vertically as opposed to an album sequence where each song is spread out horizontally on the timeline. This is partially so I can make sure the stems that need to remain in sync, can remain in sync while still trimming the heads of all files at one time as a group. I can’t line the files up horizontally because it makes it hard to manage the sync of all the stems.

My process now is to render each file one at a time using the “whole montage” setting, muting all but the one file I want to render, pasting in the desired file name for that render in the render dialogue box. Then I mute that audio track and unmute the next audio track and repeat. I think there could be a faster way to batch render each track one at at time, with a special final file name, with one render command.

What I would really like to see is a place to enter in what will be the final file name of the stem. Often times the original source clip name is just a working title, and I paste in the final file name that I get from a database when I making the rendered file.

Anyway, a place to determine what each stem file will named would probably be needed. Renaming the clip might not be ideal because sometimes you need to reference what was the original file name. I see no way to generate the rendered file name from a marker because each file is in the same place on the timeline starting from 0:00. So, I think a place to quickly paste the resulting rendered file name for each stem is needed.

After I have each stem trimmed up and a fade out tailored on the end of the clip, montage master plugins set, I would like to see a batch render for all stems so Wavelab renders each audio track (not CD track) one at a time from 0:00 to the last audio samples on that given track.

Wavelab is already good about that last part because when you choose to render “whole montage”, have a montage arranged as I mention above, and have all tracks muted except the 30 second version for example, then Wavelab only renders until the end of the 30 second file (not to the end of the longest muted file). Whole montage render only considers the active/unmuted clips when rendering “whole montage” which is good. Each batch stem render should only be the length of the audio on that particular audio track.

So, this new stem render method would have to be intelligent and render each audio track only to the end of the last audio sample of that track, and make the resulting file have a special name that is entered somewhere in a new field.

This would save a lot of time as opposed to manually muting and muting each track and rendering one at a time, pasting in the name for each render on the fly.

Would this be useful to anybody else or am I just crazy?

You could render up to four tracks at once to separate stereo files by making the montage an 8-channel DVD one and assigning the track outputs to different pairs of channels; you’d have to rename the files to your required convention afterwards, though.

Paul

Thanks, but not ideal for a few reasons. I think I’d stick with my original way as I’ve at least gotten fast at it.