It’s bizarre to me why Wavelab 9 Pro has such ‘Garage Band’ like features for sample rate conversion. You can tweak metadata to seemingly arcane degrees, but something as basic as changing between a LP or MP Fs conversion is not something WL is capable of. 
It’s certainly not awful conversion quality, but for the price tag, and the depth that other parts of the software goes, I’m failing to see why a more extensive feature set wasn’t implemented. Is there a reason for this, and does PG have any plans to improve the feature set in a future release?
+1 for parameter controls. FR: Resampler Parameter Controls. - WaveLab - Steinberg Forums
But what do you mean by not awful quality?
What program are you coming from? And have you blind tested (with LP and fairly steep filter no aliasing, as Wavelab “best”)?
Somehow missed that thread in my search before posting. Pretty disheartening to see PG’s response. As clunky as I find parts of the UI (especially when compared to a very powerful but very simple UI like Reaper), it’s hard to believe PG’s reluctance is truly due to a concern for keeping the UI simple.
By “not awful” quality, I simply meant it doesn’t sound horrible, but the lack of parameters keeps me from using it at all. I know others have to pull their projects out of WLP9 as well to do any conversions, and then reimport including a prominent beta tester. Such a process / workflow is far less simple than having more configurable a few sliders (within the customize section it’s such a threat to clean UI?). PG’s reasoning doesn’t add up. At the very least, it calls into question the “Pro” in the version’s name 
I use/used Reaper, Rx 5, DSP-Q4, Triumph, and PT. I have done some A/B’ing and didn’t find the material conversion objectionable, hence the “not awful quality.” In general though I’m not a fan of LP, and I would never want to be limited to just LP (or just MP) in my work.
The custom montage copy feature makes it easy to use the 3rd party sample rate conversion you’d like to use. I guess I’ve gotten used to it but doing SRC outside of WaveLab works for me.
Aside from the sound quality of the SRC found in WaveLab which is debatable, I don’t like where it sits in the signal flow. This is because I don’t like to use the global master section for normal montage work. I like to keep everything in the clip/track/montage output effects tabs so that all settings are saved and recalled within the montage without extra work or room for user error.
If the Resampler was available anywhere in the signal flow, I’d be tempted to use it more and put it near the end of the montage output FX chain followed by a final peak limiter to catch the peak level changes and then dither.
For now, the custom montage copy option works for me. I do most of my work at 96k or 88.2k, then downsample with Saracon to 44.1k and build the final montage for client approval. Most clients are OK with 44.1k and some clients might have a hard time with anything higher. Then when I need to make the hi-resoltion version(s), custom montage copy works perfect to build the montage at a new sample rate in just a few clicks.
Agreed. I’d love to be able to load it as a clip effect. Also, imagine you’re working on an album with files at various sample rates. To set up your montage, select all files to import, and Wavelab instantly imports all of the files into the montage while automatically loading the resampler plugin as a clip effect on any songs where the sample rate differs from the project sample rate, and everything is ready to play… Would be very cool.
I think the way that Triumph by Audiofile handles this is great. All sessions are sample rate agnostic. The trick is finding a good SRC for playback needs and they have a few SRC options and settings for rendering.
I’m sure that allowing for SRC at the clip/track/montage effects level would be a big challenge.
I’d love to be able to load it as a clip effect. Also, imagine you’re working on an album with files at various sample rates. To set up your montage, select all files to import, and Wavelab instantly imports all of the files into the montage while automatically loading the resampler plugin as a clip effect on any songs where the sample rate differs from the project sample rate, and everything is ready to play… Would be very cool.
If you drop an audio file to a montage that has a different sample rate, WaveLab offers you to create/use a resampled copy of this audio file. No need to eat CPU and add streaming complexity that would come with a SRC plugin.
This makes logical sense but I think some purists would like to keep the sample rate as high as possible for as long as possible in the processing chain.
So in that regard, the current location of Resampler works well. It’s only my personal preference to use custom montage copy and 3rd party SRC because of the global master section operation. I don’t think it’s the way normal people would want to work.
If you want to stay at highest rate, why not set the session to rate of highest track, let WL up-sample as PG suggests? I do this since shifting to Mastered for iTunes workflow for all targets – work at highest available rate, monitor through a common peak limiter (with and without encoder-check in master section), then render from there to all formats. Then you can either SRC in the master section, or set up a batch with 3rd party SRC wherever you want it in your chain (using the same peak limiter you used to monitor).
Up-sampling is only potentially damaging at non integer values… 44.1 > 88.2 or 176.4 is simpler and cleaner than 44.1 > 96 or 192. But with most tools, even that’s trivial these days, so that direction’s close to a free lunch, especially in float daws like WL (no need to scale till you leave). Downsampling is where things get funky because you’re throwing signal away. The montage batch tools enable you to do this at various points of the render, to your liking. You can bounce/render at native montage high sample rate, then run files through src+limiting, or the other way round if you like, monitoring (if using WL src) or not (if using 3rd party).
PG … is this correct? I ask because t’s not my understanding of how SRC math works.
I’m not PG, but I assure you Daved is incorrect. Favoring remainder-free SRC superiority is outmoded rehashed logic. It may have had validity 20 years ago with poor SRCs, but has been a non-issue for a long time now. Lots of things influence quality, but this ‘cleaner’ math isn’t one of them. The burden is on Daved to prove otherwise.
That’s what I thought I remembered: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Digital-Audio-Sixth-Video/dp/0071663460
I don’t think we disagree here at all… Read what I said: “Up-sampling is only potentially damaging at non integer values”. Key word there is POTENTIALLY. I didn’t think it necessary to specify the corner cases you mention (old, bad algorithms) since my underlying point was that up-sampling is NOT risky, and a simple solution to work at higher sample rates. As I stated, I’m just fine with Crystal and am liking SoX so far, and already work at rate of original files through delivery. 
IOW: no burden here, Kywoman we agree by and large, it’s a product most of the past. That said, this isn’t a free lunch in real time scenarios. As Pohlman points out in the linked book, the math works in all cases, but inevitably consumes more DSP at non-integer rates. In hardware devices like the Weiss SFC2 this is irrelevant, but in WL8.5 the quality and range of SRC absolutely affected your DSP availability. Today, on most machines that can run WL9 this is pretty negligible, so not a real concern.