Workflow with Multichannel Wave Files

WaveLab
1

I’m on WL Pro 12, working in the audio file editor (not the montage). I know WL is not a multitrack tool, but I have a simple situation that comes up a lot and I’d think WL could be useful.

I recorded 6 tracks to my Sound Devices MixPre, which produces a 6 track multichannel wave file. I only want to hear the first 2 (stereo mix) but want to keep the others around in case the client wants a balance change. When I bring it into WL I mute tracks 3-6, but tracks 1-2 play in mono. I tried the stereo mix feature in the master section with no change. What area of WL am I missing here?

Or, alternatively, is there an easy way to simply save the first 2 files as stereo interleaved and use them? I tried the multichannel unwrapping tool from RME and it gave me a wrong format error.

Thanks,

Brian

2

As more features are (may-be) yet to come in the Audio Editor relating to Multi Channel files, it would be wise to work with montage (Shift+T).

3

Not sure what you mean, because it plays in stereo here.

Very easy: select the first two channels and drag and drop them to create a stereo file.

4

You can create a Bus - Before Playback Processing (As in the picture below). In your case, you can create a 6x multi mono bus.

Bus
Bus1163×769 38.1 KB

In the picture above, I assigned Channel 1, 3 and 5 to Left and Channel 2, 4 and 6 to the right output of my interface.

Master
Master660×971 50.3 KB

In the Master Section, you can unlink faders, and audition by sending to the bus you created as in the picture above.

Select Default Channels/Continue Some Audio Channels will be Muted.

If you want to audition channels 1 and 2, you can lower faders of channel 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Fader
Fader652×354 15.7 KB

After you are through working with your Multi, uncheck Bus from Before Playback Processing.