+1. I thought this was about a combination use of Montage and Audio Files. I don’t know how you can can compare objects-clips in other programs without trying Montage clip, track, and master functions.
Montage would seem an odd choice for this. I can see how you could imagine how it might work - chop up a cue across tracks and then add a plugin to each track as relevant. For one thing on Elements you have only three tracks, so you’d be limited to only three different effects or, crucially, settings. So if you needed to do a bunch of noise reduction fixes such as declicks etc which are configured to each artefact, you’d run out pretty quickly. Aside from that, chopping up a file into different chunks across different tracks in order to perform small fixes just seems a very messy workflow.
The fact it has been suggested at all is rather telling - Wavelab is lacking core functionality here, and one has to think outside the box to achieve what is ordinary day-in-day-out stuff on other DAWs. There is one other I know that doesn’t have it, Pyramix - and it was a core reason I abandoned it many years ago, despite some terrific strengths. It’s now sadly such a niche product, most people haven’t even heard of it.
Didn’t notice this was about Elements, sorry.
But things seem different between different DAWs. AFAIK, Cubase and Pro Tools cannot do non-destructive Clip Effects, like Wavelab can. And Pyramix now too, I believe. (also Samplitude, Reaper, Studio One).
And automation parameter controls are in the future for Wavelab I believe, so that could take care of some of this.
But I really don’t know how this will affect Elements.
And comparison between Elements and full versions of other programs (?) is not really fairly weighted I don’t think.
Hm, all interesting. As I try to render one section, I realize I need to UNDO the results… Reading the manual I get this:
“You can undo and redo as many steps as you like. The only limitation is the available hard disk space.
When undoing or redoing any operation in the Audio Editor or the Audio Montage window, the zoom factor, cursor position, scroll position, clip selection status, and time range are restored to the state before the operation.
•To undo or redo a step, click Undo or Redo in the title bar of the Audio Editor or Audio Montage window.”
Seems typical. But here is my screen shot of the Editor window. Where is the icon of the UNDO function? Am I blind or looking in the wrong place?
AFAIK the only limitation with Elements that’s come up here is 3 montage tracks - if I had full Wavelab all my core issues would remain.
The non-destructive thing sounds interesting and I’ll look into that. When applying an effect to a selection I guess I’m used to wanting that to be permanent anyway, with the proviso of unlimited undo.
Going forward, what would seem to be a reasonable feature request given Wavelab’s workflow is a second effect rack, alongside the Master effects - perhaps called the Render Effect Rack. All functionality is exactly as the master effects, it just applies to a selection. Add a shortcut to loop selection for previewing, and all my issues gone in one stroke - indeed it would steal a march on the competition as it would be easy to apply combinations to a selection, and use presets. Although it’s easy for me to say not being a developer, I’d have thought that was a relatively simple coding job as all the elements already exist in Wavelab, it’s just a more convenient use for a specific application. Worth me putting in feature requests, do you think?
I will think about a way to improve your type of workflow.
It’ll not trouble me again; but it did take me a little while to realise that there was a block of icons at the right-hand end of that window header bar - it’s an unusual place for them.
It’ll not trouble me again; but it did take me a little while to realise that there was a block of icons at the right-hand end of that window header bar - it’s an unusual place for them.
You can place them elsewhere, there are settings for this. But this default place was retained for layout balance reasons, and after a little use, it feels fine.
I would also be happy to see an offline render rack. A place where you can put a plugin that isn’t heard on playback, but you can render certain sections of a file with it. Pro Tools Audio Suite is a great example in the way that it processes only a section of the song and also will loop the section you have highlighted while you dial in your settings.
This combined with the playlist feature in PT makes the destructive aspect of Audio Suite also be non-destructive at the same time because if you need to, you can recall an earlier playlist with a non-processed version of the song and copy/paste any or all of the original audio and it’s perfectly in sync with the most recent playlist.
Wow, thanks for the location of the undo/redo. I use two screens and clearly I would have never found this! So in my case I moved it to the left, perfect. 
Thanks Phillipe, much appreciated.
I now returned back with the new version of Wavlab (8.5) and I can’t seem to find the “key command” for this.
No, I don’t want “mouse click command”, I need a keyboard shortcut for this.
Or a tiny box to tick, so that it will always turn back to the start position on stop.
Can somebody please, tell me where the heck is this preference?
I am on a Mac, WaveLab 8.5
There’s no menu for this in the preferences bs.
Thanks. And sorry for the ranting tone on my writing, but it’s very frustrating.
Steinberg never uses common functions in common menus/windows…
It’s a 2 step shortcut:
, then <