If you have Nuendo 13, is there much to gain by getting Wavelab Pro 12? I mean, it’s on sale for $250 for most people, and if you got the email with the vouchers it’s $150, so that’s a very tempting price.
But aside from an important feature, which is CD authoring and burning (for those much younger than me, it was this shiny disc that you would put in a big machine and play 74 minutes of music, some even 80! Yes, I know. Old people and their physical media. So annoying, right?), when I scroll down the list of features I see a lot of things that can be done with Nuendo.
Nuendo can do waveform as well as MIDI, and it works perfectly fine with audio files. And I didn’t go through each and every item on the list, but most of it seems to me that it can be done with Nuendo, and Wavelab Pro is mostly for people who don’t have Nuendo and only want to do mastering, is that take more or less correct, or am I way off?
Because for the CD burning part, the Elements version has it, and that one is $50, so I wouldn’t spend an additional $100 for things that Nuendo can give me.
This comparison should help you sort out which features you need.
As you can see, a lot of features are “Limited” in Elements, while they are “Full” in Pro. These also include Metadata support, CD burning engine, and a LOT of editing functionality. Besides, only Pro has the Project Manager, which I believe is a must. Before you could store and recall entire projects as Projects (!), I found the structure of WaveLab projects to be a little messy. Personally I would just go Pro and be done with it.
I am happily using WaveLab Pro 12 for certain restoration and CD authoring projects. It’s a totally different tool than Nuendo, for different purposes.
Thanks, I saw the comparison like I mentioned. But the comparison I need is between Nuendo and Wavelab Pro. Nuendo I have, Wavelab Pro is $150 until later this month.
Like I said, the only need I have for CD burning is to set a bunch of tracks and burn them, which the Elements version has. Someone from Steinberg explained to me a few months back the extra CD burning features in Wavelab Pro, and they’re not something I need.
The thing is that Nuendo is an excellent audio file editor and very capable of mastering by itself. While $100 is not excessive, what I’d like to know is if having Nuendo I would have a real need for Wavelab Pro, or Wavelab Elements would be just fine.
One thing you might need is full Metadata support, as well as DDP support.
Say you need to send in your files to be mass reproduced, say your artist client wants 1,000 CDs, or more. You cannot make that at home on a single CD burner LOL. If you have DDP and full Metadata, which is required from most CD manufacturers, then you’re good to go.
Yes, some artists still make CDs. Vinyl too, and of course smaller files like MP3 and AAC. Those files also need to have proper Metadata in them.
Well, I should’ve clarified. I’m not a professional sound engineer, I’m just an aspiring musician in the field of film music, so I doubt I will have the need to press 1,000 CDs, at best 20 or 30, and that I can do myself.
But what type of metadata does a CD need? Because it’s about the most basic format there is. At best there’s that CD Text thing where you can just enter two fields, album name and artist. Can’t even enter the name for each track.
And AAC and MP3 metadata can be entered easily with any run of the mill app in the App Store, I think I have one somewhere, or even the Music app itself.
Nuendo and Cubase can enter some metadata but it gets cut off if it’s over I can’t remember how many characters.
Yeah, and I hope they still do. I don’t understand this pressure in the industry to get rid of physical media, or to relegate it to overpriced vinyl that in many cases is pressed like crap even if it looks all perfect and thick, while the vinyl records of the 70’s and 80’s were much thinner, but had no pops from start to finish.
I have Nuendo and I am currently trialing Wavelab.
I have always wanted to use a mastering environment but considered it a luxury…
…times have changed, and I will be purchasing WaveLab simply because I don’t specifically want to have to create a new project or template, just to analyse files, e.g., using a DAW to master.
Wavelab has project files, which makes it even more attractive, since any audio files used, are remembered and maybe FX rack settings as well but it’s still new to me.
It’s now a part of my workflow, so I won’t be going back to dodgy Windows apps, with WASAPI however while ASIO is a robust driver framework, you are still better to quit each app before loading the other, if you are using a single system.
If you can afford it without issue, I’d get Pro just because it is extremely nice software and then you won’t run into any limits on it later. Do you need it over Elements? Likely not, but if you run into a situation where you do it is just nice to not have to mess with it. Like say you get your hands on a 192kHz file you want to have a look at. Elements won’t do that, they limit it to lower rates, so you’d have to resample it first. Not the end of the world, but if you have Pro you can just load it and not worry about it.
In general, Wavelab isn’t a tool you NEED if you have a competent DAW. You can do most, if not all, of what it does in your DAW. However, it is a really nice tool and very good at what it does, so you’ll probably find you prefer using it for the things its good at because it makes life easier.
That’s a bit like comparing Adobe InDesign with Microsoft Word. The entire premise of the apps are different, so you can’t really compare them directly. One is a powerhouse multitrack DAW, while the other is a workplace where the wave file itself is the main environment, and things like analysis, mastering, metadata and batch processing is the focus. Sure you can use Nuendo for more WaveLab-esque operations like mastering, just like you can use InDesign for writing letters, even though there might be a more dedicated tool for that. Nothing wrong with any of that as long as you can work with it.
Then it looks like you already may have concluded that Elements is all you need at this point, which is fine. You can always upgrade to Pro later if you want to.
To be completely blunt, unless you think you cannot afford the future upgrade price, then why would you?
I purchased Halion 6 a while back but will not upgrade it simply because SB’ strong suit is not sound palates and I was sorely dissapointed when I purchased it because it didn’t even have a complement of bass or guitar sounds, let alone orchestral sounds, and I don’t need another piano, organs can be synthesised, and other esoteric keyboards, other manufacturers that use VST simply do a better job but saying that I have since realised that it is more of a sampling and re-synthesis tool, which is fine my bad.
I’ve used WaveLab Elements alongside Nuendo for many years now. I mainly use it for doing fast editing jobs, screening audio files, and to quickly add effects to audio files. The advantage being that you can just open the file → do your thing → render and save without having to go through the process of creating a new project, importing and bouncing. Sometimes I master tracks in WLE too. It’s absolutely enough considering Nuendo covers everything else. Only thing I’m missing in WLE is a simple batch processor for things like gain etc, which Pro has.
Well, I realize now that when I asked this question, I should’ve mentioned what FX plugins I have, because that makes a difference. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as printing a list divided by company. I could take a lot of screenshots from the Cubase Plugin Manager which shows the maker, but that would take too long, so I just copied the folder that has the VST3 plugins, pasted the list in TextEdit and removed the ones that are VST instruments. So this is the list, you’ll have to forgive me if I left in one or two that are instruments:
So, keeping these in mind, when it comes to mastering, would buying Wavelab Pro 12 give me anything else that will make my music sound better than with Cubase Pro 13 or Nuendo 13 when I use any of these that are meant for mastering? Or would it just give me an excellent editor for wave files?
Why not do the “trial” and answer all of your own questions? PG (main developer) on the WaveLab sub-forum is amazingly responsive if you have any further questions …
Sure thing, the idea behind asking here is to gather some opinions from professionals that know this stuff well. I want to take advantage of this price, but I’m between this and Dorico Pro 5. Both have things I want, but I can only afford one of them, so I’m trying to make a decision between them.
I don’t have the knowledge yet to trial Wavelab Pro 12 and determine whether or not I can make my masters sound better than I can with Nuendo or Cubase Pro only. But when I see a good deal of something I know I’m going to need, sometimes I take it, that’s how I built a nice library of VST FX and instruments.
That’s why I ask for opinions for people who know far more than I do.
Short answer, no. With Pro you’d just get an advanced wav editor, batch processing and cd authoring software. You’d probably use the plugins you already have when mastering in Wavelab anyway. It’s just a matter of workflow.
I wouldn’t buy Elements, if you are thinking Pro, simply because of future features, and there is not a great difference in price over the upgrade cycle.
However, Dorico Pro is fantastic and Cubendo’s score features come nowhere near. Completely essential tool for scoring. So if that’s your dilemma, I would certainly buy Dorico first.
Thanks, I already bought it. Very different interface, I barely had a chance to play with it last night. I love that it has all the different loudness profiles, and one of them is “Loudness Wars”
I opened this rather mellow song by Craig Armstrong that starts really low, and it has a loud part that lasts for about 20 seconds give or take, and the loudness wars preset destroyed it, it was hilarious.
It was surprising to see that the most accurate level, where I didn’t see the loud part being crushed at all was Apple Music. And I don’t know what’s the deal with Netflix, why so freaking low?
Dumb question, how is it at repairing vinyl records. Well, not the actual record, but the digital recording when you transfer them. I mean all those manufacturing disasters we hear these days from poor standards and QC that have loud pops and that kind of thing. Does it have a tool that does a decent job at getting rid of that?
The entire premise of the apps are different, so you can’t really compare them directly. One is a powerhouse multitrack DAW, while the other is a workplace where the wave file itself is the main environment, and things like analysis, mastering, metadata and batch processing is the focus. Sure you can use Nuendo for more WaveLab-esque operations like mastering, just like you can use InDesign for writing letters, even though there might be a more dedicated tool for that. Nothing wrong with any of that as long as you can work with it.
