Wavelab newbie question-exporting stems

WaveLab
#1

Hi folks,
I just bought Wavelab and I haven’t used it in many years, so the new version is quite different from what I remember (and awesome!). Here’s my situation:

I have stems for a group of songs that my band is playing live. We use backing tracks and these stems are those backing tracks. What I’m trying to do is normalize the levels for the songs while maintaining the stem balance relationship.

So it seems like the way to do this would be to decide a short term loudness-let’s say -12 LUFS- and then create an audio montage and bring in the stems for one song. I could then get that songs master output reading at the LUFS that i need.

How do I now export each individual stem with their new loudness?

#2

What are you using to achieve the loudness you require? Metanormalizer in the audio montage? If so, what precise settings are you using (screenshot if possible)?

You’d probably use ‘All Selected Clips’ in the source selection of the render tab.

#3

Because this was a job that I needed to get done quickly, I ended up doing this (I am a Cubase user primarily):

I brought all my stems in to a new cubase project and then I exported a stereo mixdown of all the stems-essentially all the songs as a long 30 minute long stereo file. I then dropped that in to Wavelab and did a loudness analysis of the file. From that I went back in to the cubase project and did gain adjustments by applying processing to the various songs. I went back and forth a couple times and get it right and then just did a batch export of the stems from Cubase. It worked well for me and was easy because it’s using tools i already know. I’m sure there is a way to do it in Wavelab, but I just had to get this done quickly. I figure for now I should focus on using Wavelab mainly on stereo files for mastering since that is the bread and butter of what it’s made for as I learn the program.

#4

Wavelab is also good for processing stems but with certain limitations. I’d suggest you get to know Meta Normalizer in the Audio Montage and experiment with the processing. This can get you quick results when processing multiple clips. I think this has already been covered here:
https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=244&t=133927

Your Cubase process seems to be a good one but you could have done that whole process within Wavelab.

#5

Wavelab is also good for processing stems but with certain limitations. I’d suggest you get to know Meta Normalizer in the Audio Montage and experiment with the processing. This can get you quick results when processing multiple clips. I think this has already been covered here:
https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=244&t=133927

Your Cubase process seems to be a good one but you could have done that whole process within Wavelab.
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Right on. Yeah, I started that other thread first. :smiley:

The thing that tripped me up (total newbie stuff I’m sure) was that I couldn’t tell with the super clip stuff was processing the original stems and I wasn’t sure how to then reopen those super clips and export the stems…

#6

I’m not sure what you mean here. You haven’t yet described how you are using the program and you haven’t actually confirmed you are using the Meta Normalizer. So I’m just guessing here. I’d suggest you get to know all about super clips from the manual. And as I mentioned, it’s worth getting to know the Meta Normalizer in all its details. It’s super powerful but requires detailed knowledge about its operation and also knowledge about the theory of loudness. All the info about Meta Normalizer is in the manual.

If you mean that you weren’t sure if the super clip or the stems in the clip are being processed by Meta Normalizer then of course it depends exactly what you have selected or opened at the time that you use it. If you want to have more of an idea about what Meta Normalizer is processing note that it has log and test options. If you check these options you’ll get a list of exactly what is being processed and how before you do the processing. This might help you. The log and test options are also a good way of doing an analysis of an entire montage since it shows the original loudness data and peaks for all clips… so this might help you when analysing the loudness of your stems. Log and test allow you to experiment with the results without actually processing anything.

#7

Yes, this is all stuff I need to look more deeply in to. I just didn’t have time to do it for this last job because it needed to be done last Monday. :wink: Thanks for the hints and ideas! I look forward to getting to spend more time with Wavelab in a week or so…

#8

Good luck with it! IMO spending some time with Wavelab will get you some great results.