How do I play just a selected portion of a stereo audio file?

I’ve looked all over the internet and the useless Wavelab Pro manual and can’t find an answer to this simple question. I have Wavelab Pro 11.2 installed. I open a basic stereo MP3 or WAV file and all I want to do is be able to select a portion of just the left or right side of the track and play ONLY that part of the audio. Right now, if I select a portion of the right side of the audio track, the left side’s audio still plays even though it’s not highlighted.

How do I do this? And before someone says to open the Track Control Area, I can’t find any instructions on how to open that either. I’m not in montage mode because I’m literally just trying to work on ONE file.

Maybe you need the right tool for the job?
Wavelab is an audio editor. If you select a range this is marked for editing.
You can apply different things to a selection.
Since you are editing one file, you need to delete the unwanted part and save it as a new file.

But I ask for understanding, why you need to play only a part of the file? What is the goal?

You have to be kidding me? Every other audio program out there, including something as basic and free as Audacity, has the ability to at least mute one of the channels in a stereo track so that just one channel can be heard. Are you seriously telling me Wavelab 11 Pro (which is supposed to be geared toward pros) doesn’t have that basic ability?

The reason I want to do this can vary. Sometimes I only want to hear one side of the track so that I’m not distracted by the other side of the track. Other times, I may want to look at the meters and see only what is coming out of one side of the track.

Having to delete one channel, listen to what I want to hear, and then undo the delete to put the channel back in the track is incredibly inefficient.

The inability to either play only a selected region of a track, or at the very least, mute one of the L/R channels, is comically bad.

Just press F6.
But the proper mode must also be activated: see picture:

Awesome. Thank you so much!!! This is exactly what I needed. I knew there had to be a way to do this.

No. I didn’t guess right what you’re trying to do.

or select Left or Right in Audio File
press down and use “option” key then playback L or R
very fast and useful

regards S-EH

PG, to do this I don’t need to press the icon to the left or F6. I put the player on loop and the section plays the loop until I stop it. Is there a benefit to doing what you suggest here? Also, short of expanding the wave file and finding zero crossing point, it there a way to program WL to cut the wave file at a zero crossing point when you left click and drag the curser to create a loop section - OR - is WL doing this automatically?