Old timey Cubase user, new timey Wavelab Elements user. Return to start position on stop from the spacebar… can’t seem to find this preference anywhere. It’s my single most basic preference-switch, must be there somewhere?
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Right click on the Stop button in the Transport bar…
Phew! Thanks v much, Philippe, that’s oddly obscure so hugely grateful.
BTW … if I draw a loop, my positionpointer is always on the end of the loop. It need a mouse click to get it in the loop. How did I get the positionpointer on the begin of the loop, if I draw a new loop?
+1 to this question.
F6
Check the Extend Transport Bar <<
or right click beside Transport Bar to read Help about…
regards S-EH
Maybe you mean this:
Thanks folks.
As someone new to Wavelab, it does seem remarkably clunky. In either Cubase, Audition or PT you can just highlight a section, preview the effect as a loop and apply directly. Here you have to highlight, click the cursor back to the start, highlight loop in the transport bar, insert an effect in the master bus, set up the render to be selected audio range only, start a loop to get the effect right, render it, bypass the effect in the master bus before you can audition the edit so the effect isn’t applied twice, audition it, find there’s a glitch so go round the whole cycle again. I mean… seriously?! Why haven’t you long time users been lobbying for directly applying effects to selections for years? Or have you and it’s just been ignored?
Hm. Whereas I would never use this feature, I found many things hidden within the various transport buttons that I never knew existed. Thanks for the question, and thanks for the answer, PG. 
Noiseyboy, in my case, WL is the end of a recording process after Cubase so I wouldn’t be needing spot editing like you seem to need. What is your host DAW software - or are you just using WL? If this is the case I can see why you are having issue with WL, but I don’t think it was ever intended to replace typical DAW programs, only enhance them.
I use either Pro Tools (audio post) and Cubase Pro 8 (music). I’ve stumbled into Wavelab since Ive swapped the Windows laptop for a MacBook, I only have a Windows license for Audition and it’s now either an eye-watering subscription option or phenomenally expensive 2nd hand licenses (I’ve seen one available for over £3k!).
I turn to Audition for all sorts of reasons - quick editing or fixing of a file that I may not have generated is typical, as well as mastering chores. It’s my daily audio workhorse for anything less than complex multitrack work. It looks like Wavelab isn’t really set up for the former use, only the latter - and even there the need for spot fixes still happens from time to time.
In either Cubase, Audition or PT you can just highlight a section, preview the effect as a loop and apply directly.
Maybe you are new to WaveLab, but it’s the same procedure in WaveLab:
- select the desired audio range
- press F6 to preview the selection (or use the corresponding button on the Transport bar)
- press Alt + A to process the selection (or press the corresponding button on the plug-in window).
Pretty direct, isn’t it?
Have the solution.
If I make a (loop) selection from left to right, the positionpointer is on right side and don’t play the selection. If I make a selection from right to left, the positionpoinetr is on the begin of loop. Ok, its logical, but mostly I make a selection from begin to end (left to right), so there would be helpful, if there is a option to change this, so that a selection from left to right set the positionpointer (“playpointer”) to begin of a selection …
Well I’m certainly new to WaveLab, but that doesn’t seem to help unless I’m missing something (which is quite possible).
You seem to have missed out the whole part of choosing a plugin for one thing, which seems a rather important part of the process. AFAIK, you can only do that through the Master section, with all the inherent problems that brings - once rendered, the plugin remains in place for the whole track. Also, F6 doesn’t seem to do anything for me with just a section highlighted - just plays right across it here.
To be clear, the workflow I’m looking to emulate and common to Cubase, PT and Audition is the following:
- Highlight a section of audio
- Choose an effect
- Audition the effect with a looped preview of the highlighted section, tweaking the effect until happy
- Apply.
- Check and undo / redo if necessary
This is the best i’ve got the same routine 50-times-a-day task in Wavelab:
- Set render settings to apply to the selection (only need to do this once when editing, but it will need to be altered for rendering out the final file)
- Highlight the section (backwards preferably)
- Activate loop in the transport bar
- Choose an effect in the Master section
- Audition the effect, tweaking until happy
- Render
- Bypass the effect in the Master section
- Check and undo, re-enable the effect in the master section and redo if necessary
So - again, unless I’m still missing something, not very direct I’m afraid. But if any wise folks can improve on that list above, I’ll be eternally grateful.
Step 1 is not necessary, as there is a direct “Render Selection” function (Alt + A, or button, as already mentioned).
Step 3 is not necessary, as there is a direct “Play looped” function (Shift + G, see picture)
Step 8: why do you need this step, as the step #5 “Audition the effect, tweaking until happy” already did it?
Moreover, with other DAWs, can you use/tweak/render eg. 3 effects in the same time with the workflow you have quoted? Or can you solo one plugin among eg. three of them, to compare them, in real time, as WaveLab can do, before you render?
Thanks Philippe, good news about the plugin’s render being unaffected by the render settings, so out goes (1). 3 is also useful but goodness that’s obscure - the only way to activate it is seemingly is by remembering the key shortcut or to otherwise remember that it exists in a submenu of presets in the transport bar. Too much to ask to have a “play looped selection” icon somewhere accessible?
Step 8 (or indeed step 5 on everything else) is always necessary when applying an effect to a selection in my experience, to hear it in full context and make sure there’s no clicks across the join (which there has been in my tests using Wavelab). Actually that raises another issue - when using the effect’s render in place, it looks like you don’t have options to crossfade the joins? To be fair that’s usually only a system preference on other DAWs and the default is typically a very short smoothing of the join. Those options are there when using the full render section I see, but not on the render in place shortcut?
As to other hosts, yes with all of them you can chain effects. Each offers the two different ways to use effects - either singly on a selection, or chained in a channel. With Audition the latter is possible in multitrack mode, the former in wave view. This is the basic functionality lacking in WaveLab at present, as its only offered on the master bus.
But nevertheless with your help it’s got 8 steps down to 6, and that’s an improvement for sure, albeit it requires remembering obscure (to me) actions. The one that bothers me most is remembering to disable the effect in the master after each render - on subtle effects I can see that being left in by mistake. This is particularly confusing when checking the joins of the render, you have to remember to disable it before auditioning, else you will be hearing the effect twice applied on the rendered section and once everywhere else.
when using the effect’s render in place, it looks like you don’t have options to crossfade the joins
This option is always activated for the “Render in Place” shortcut.
Too much to ask to have a “play looped selection” icon somewhere accessible?
To be productive, use shortcuts:
/ to toggle loop on/off
F6 to play the selection (looped or not).
Both these shortcuts have transport buttons.
Shift + G is a shortcut to loop the selection whatever the settings.
The Transport bar has the possibility to assign shortcuts to specific play tasks (customizable), independently from the current Transport settings. Shift + G is one of them.
Another one: shift + F6 allows you to play and skip the selection, etc…
The one that bothers me most is remembering to disable the effect in the master after each render
This can be done automatically if you use the “Render in Place” option of the Render tab. See:
This is not the default for the quick “Render in Place” shortcut, because this one is designed to process several selected ranges one after the other, and in that case, you don’t want to toggle bypass on/off all the time.
Thanks again. I can’t get the F6 option working here - it just plays from the top. The shift F6 one works though. I’ve remapped shift G to shift P (P for preview makes much more sense to my brain).
I’m not sure I’ll use the render in place option - really what would be more useful is to bypass just the one effect rather than the whole section. It would be nice to have that behaviour customisable to the render in place button for the effect - render, then bypass effect. As it is its just one extra keypress to remember I realise.
EDIT - one thing thats often useful is to play from the end of a selection to the beginning - i.e. the last two seconds of a selection then the first two, to quickly audition how a loop would sound. Is that possible in WaveLab?
I can’t get the F6 option working here - it just plays from the top.
What do you mean with “top”?
what would be more useful is to bypass just the one effect rather than the whole section.
Why? since all effects are applied (unless one is soloed).
one thing thats often useful is to play from the end of a selection to the beginning - i.e. the last two seconds of a selection then the first two, to quickly audition how a loop would sound. Is that possible in WaveLab?
Yes. You can set the transport to play this way (check the options). Then you can save a preset and assign a shortcut to it.
Again, thanks Philippe.
Top = start of track. I’ve just restarted it, and F6 is now playing the selection - odd, it was definitely playing from the top earlier.
I can’t readily imagine a situation where I’d want to apply a chain of effects on just a selection. Typically one uses a specific tool on a small part of a clip - de-click, say. Once you’ve applied that effect to the spot or spots you need, then you won’t use it any more.
Again, this is the basic conflict in having to use a tool in a certain way that it’s not really suited for. Having a chain of effects on a master section is for whole-track implementation, obviously. This is why every other DAW has a separate implementation for applying effects to clips. There will always be a degree of awkwardness in sharing duties - of needing to solo / mute effects in the rack as you switch between modes of working. The way I’m thinking of proceeding is to effectively allocate one slot that is used solo’d for selection rendering and remains muted for whole-track purposes.
It almost sounds as though you’d be better off using an Audio Montage, (ie., on a file which has been divided into clips).