I’ve been using WaveLab since around WL5, and it feels like we’re at the stage where WaveLab is already a proper workhorse. Steinberg seems to be in that awkward position of, “What do we even update next?”, beyond porting features across from DAW updates.
So maybe this thread could become a “future updates wish list”, a place where people post practical features they would genuinely use.
1) Batch Processor, plugin search box
In the Batch Processor, I really want a simple search box for third-party plugins.
When you’ve got a lot of VSTs installed, scrolling through long lists slows everything down especially UAD and WAVES. A search field that filters plugins by name would be a massive quality-of-life improvement.
2) Global Editor, render all open sub tabs within the parent tab
When I’m not using the Audio Montage, I often have multiple audio files open as tabs in the Global Editor.
Right now, if I want to render them all, I have to render each one individually, one by one. I’d love a “Render All” option for the Global Editor that renders every open tab in one go, using the current Master Section settings.
3) Multi-core render tool for long files (far out idea)
This one’s a bigger idea, but it would genuinely save time on long renders.
At the moment, WaveLab seems to render long single files mostly on one core. Example:
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Import a 1-hour file into the Global Editor
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Apply a Master Section plugin chain
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Render
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Result, around 40 minutes of waiting (because it is effectively single-core rendering)
Proposed new tool: “Multi-core single file Render” (different from batch processor)
A separate tool that splits the file into sections, renders those sections in parallel across multiple CPU cores, then stitches everything back together in the correct order.
User options could be:
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Goto File / Tools / Select new multicore file render
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Select audio file (example: 1 hour)
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Checkbox: “Use current Master Section plugin chain”
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Select number of cores to use (example: 4)
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Checkbox: “Split at nearest zero crossing / silence”
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Optional: “specify Add silence” (example: 2 seconds before and after each split point / or not an option to the user but an invisible process as a temporary silence block to avoid plugin render issues at the start of audio files / the reason it would also work as an invisible process is for audiofiles like video audio where timecode accurate files are required.
How it would work (example: 4 cores)
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Tool splits the 1-hour file into 4 regions (roughly 25 minutes each) regions are based on core selection in tool. i.e 10 cores = 10 close equal length region splits.
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If “zero crossing/silence” is enabled, it nudges each region’s boundaries to the nearest safe split point
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If add silence is enabled, it adds (for example) 2 seconds extra before and after each region boundary - or this process could be invisable in the background
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WaveLab creates temporary audio files per region, in this example renders the 4 regions temp audio files (from my 4 core selection) at the same time, each region using its own CPU core, each with its own instance of the Master Section chain
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Tool reassembles the rendered temp audio file regions in correct order into the final 1-hour file
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Silences are trimmed or crossfaded so there are no clicks, gaps, or boundary artifacts
The benefit of this tool would be If the render time is currently about 40 minutes on one core, splitting into 4 parallel renders in my example could potentially bring that down to something closer to 10 minutes total or faster, massive rendering wait time reduction depending on plugins and overhead.
The main realworld problem you would solving is wait time by utilising the full potential of our CPU cores. Usually before or after rendering, us engineers have further steps to complete and this would enable to complete the further steps significantly quicker, like well above 50% increase in time management where rendering wait time in concerned. And i understand the batch processor but in this case this tool is related to processing a single long form audio (podcasts / audiobook recordings) file by automatically splitting it into temp files per region, processing each region at the sametime and then putting all those files back together into 1 file. I think 90% of this can already be achieved in wavelab but doing different steps, where as this tool would would wrap up all these steps into 1 tool. Heart this post if you want to see this, i do 
