With Nuendo 12 having Supervision, I’m wondering if anyone finds it useful to still purchase Wavelab for mastering? Is the layout / metadata options just more useful when putting together a record? I have Nuendo 12, and I’m basically just trying to talk myself into purchasing WaveLab since I love everything Steinberg 
It’s always been possible to master in Nuendo. But not to author a CD (for instance).
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the workflow in Wavelab is different - and yes you need it
does that help ?
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Sold!
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Never said it wasn’t. I guess I basically answered my own question within my post. The different workflow and metadata options make it worth it. I normally send out for mastering, but that half price has been tempting me for a month now!
Also, RIP CDs 
I think we all have that one stack of blanks that will never be used again.
Thanks guys
there is a trial (if you care) - but you should just buy it.
Also check out the Wavelab forum here - lot’s of good and useful advice, plus direct access to the developer PG who is very, very active.
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I’ve not used a CD blank in years, no. Masters are delivered as DDP files for years, now. Thank heavens.
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I dont know your rig and expertise but it should be noted that there’s a lot more to mastered than just having the right software.
If you’ve already been sending out to a trained professional mastering engineer/facility, its probably best to stay the course.
Mastering engineers are the most skilled professionals in the business. Though I went through the training in college many years ago, it took over 15yrs mixing before my ears and judgment were honed well enough to be a mastering engineer. Yes, I took plenty of stabs at it and did some mastering in that first 15yrs and even got paid for it, but I wasnt a true mastering engineer until I reached that level.
Do you sweep around looking for what to cut with EQ, or do you hear a few seconds of audio and say to yourself “This needs a cut at about 750Hz”, make the cut, and find that your estimate was only 16Hz or so from where the cut needed to be?
When making such cuts is the amount that was needed only about ½ a decibel?
Can you clearly hear the difference after a -0.5dB cut?
When mastering engineers debate the quality of AD/DA converters, do you hear an undeniable difference that warrant having a strong preference between, lets say, RME and Prism or UA Apollo and D.A.D.?
Are your monitors and converter of such a high quality that all these differences can be heard?
How much automation is generally involved in your mastering technique?
Anyone can add a little EQ, crank up a fader into a limiter while monitoring a loudness meter and, with the appropriate software, can encode metadata. If that’s your idea of mastering, just spend the cost of WaveLab Pro on continuing your relationship with the mastering facility. If you’re making a list in your head of all the things I left out about mastering and are truly a mastering engineer… still continue to send out for mastering because, as you must know, you should never master your own mixes if at all avoidable.
Please don’t think Im antagonizing you. For all I know you could have 40years in the business, work at Capital, and be the greatest mastering engineer of all time. Im speaking to a more broad concept. Even if you’re an expert mastering engineer, the message might reach someone browsing the forum that needs to hear it.
Software companies and shitty low quality gear manufacturers want to sell their tools to the artists because there are more of them than pros, they’re more susceptible to ads and product placement, and they’ll never reach an expert level thinking YouTube.com is a .edu, so they’ll keep buying more than they need hoping to buy their way out of their problems and that’s good for business.
Yea you definitely went way too deep here, that’s for sure. Nothing you wrote is new information that I didn’t know already, and is actually all pretty basic knowledge. There is a reason for mastering facilities, and it’s the exact reason I’ve used them for years. But its insane to think that every budget / project is the same, and for it not to be useful to have particular tools on hand in order to complete a low budget project if necessary.
And while I agree I’m not a fan of mastering my own mixes (as I said I sent out to people I trust), that is a line that has been beaten to death and dis proven constantly by people that continue to win awards / receive accolades for projects they’ve done from start to finish. Let’s also not pretend that mastering facilities with all the gear in the world and best room there is, still won’t destroy a mix by trying to compete with their competitors by doing whats best for them, and not for the record.
I know you said it doesn’t sound like an antagonizing response, but it was pretty unwarranted considering I basically agreed with your sentiment in another comment in this thread about using mastering places. (its not like I’m pushing LANDR here! lol). It’s like your response came right out of the "I’m a mastering facility and you’re not!" handbook, and is the verbatim battle I see weekly online from mastering engineers vs technology. Don’t worry man, I’m on your side here…
In the end, I agree with the obvious points you mentioned, but they were all based off of a general assumption that could have stopped at “I don’t know your rig and expertise”, because all this thread was about was a software deal and program comparison, not about my over 20 years experience, Apogee Rosetta 800s and RME Raydat setup. 
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I think ultimately - if we all just say ‘leave it to the professionals’ - none of us would have learned an instrument - learned to record audio - made records - learned to drive - learned to cook etc etc.
One of the great things about technology is that (for those fortunate enough to afford or have access to it) it has ‘democratised’ music production. Whole musical genre’s have developed because of the lack of ‘conventional’ skills. And great musicians and producers appeared from nowhere.
If anybody wants to have a go a mastering (or playing guitar or recording audio etc) - I say ‘go for it’ - you might be rubbish or you might be amazing but it’s great to have a go. And EVERYONE starts somewhere
(not suggesting @Exeter is in that category )
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Never mind all the argument about who should and shouldn’t be allowed to master audio or with what, Wavelab is a really nice editor and I like it. While I’m sure there’s nothing you can do with it that you ultimately can’t do in Nuendo, I really like its workflow for editing audio tracks be it trimming or dealing with something like noise removal. It just has a good setup and workflow for that setting. Also it is really good for doing something to a lot of tracks, either literal batch processing or more for “Here’s a plugin chain I want to use, but I want to tweak it on each track before I apply it.”
I was always a fan of Sound Forge for that going back many years, but when I tried Wavelab I found I really liked it so, like you, I picked it up on sale. Was it “worth” the money? I dunno, realistically nothing I buy including Nuendo is “worth” it since I just play around as a hobby. But I like it, and I like the workflow.
As an example of where I used it most recently was I recorded my grandfather’s celebration of life, and I used Wavelab to load and process the WAV files, before loading them into Vegas for syncing and cutting with the video. Nuendo would have worked fine, heck I probably could have done it in Vegas (though its audio capabilities have slipped compared to other things in recent years) but Wavelab has, to me, the most intuitive workflow when it is a situation of a recording that I want to touch up.
Also I have to hard agree with @Dr.Strangelove one of the things I LOVE about where we are now with technology is the ability to have all the powerful music production tools on my workstation. I have always been fascinated with audio production but as a kid it was using a computer with a noisy, garbage, soundcard using software that wasn’t all that great and waiting as it slowly did non-realtime changes. It was so far from what I wanted.
Now I get to have Nuendo, I get to have amazing plugins, I get to have a stellar RME soundcard, and well, I get to have my own studio in my house. It is great. I don’t have to wistfully wish that I could play in a recording studio, I can, any time I want, and I don’t even have to put on pants
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