I used Wavelab years ago as my dedicated audio editor, mainly to burn cds, batch samples from extracted Akai discs and general audio editing. Occasionally, I would master projects with it but I generally preferred using Cubase for this task. Eventually, I just started using Cubase for everything which replaced my need for Wavelab.

There have been a few occasions where I've used some of the free options available like Audacity and Wavosaur but I never really liked their interface as much as Wavelab's. Kind of curious to hear everyone's take on the matter. Do you use a dedicated audio editor or are you happy using your DAW for editing needs? And if youre using Wavelab, can you explain why you prefer using it over Cubase or another DAW for editing?

 

Last edited: Dec 7, 2016

Most DAW's today have enough audio editing capacities that I only need a dedicated audio editor once in a blue moon(cant even remember when I really needed to do something I could not do properly inside a DAW). I still use Sony Soundforge and Spectrlayer sometimes to just mess around with audio if nothing else. But honestly, its just personal preference. I like to use a DAW for most audio editing.

 

IF you still have Wavelab, go ahead & use it, otherwise, try audashitty, ocenaudio, or Adobe Audition (paid, I use).

 

Wavelab is pretty damn fantastic now, it has been integrated with Cubase really nicely, and has oodles of stuff Cubase itself doesn't.
It does come down to whether you will actually use enough of the features to justify, as you said.

 

GangamStyle, I didnt know there was integration with Cubase. How is it? Also, can you list a few things that Wavelab does which cant be done with Cubase?

 

WL is the best audio editor on the market. If you need an audio editor, well, that's up to you...

 

I have two Record Labels, and Wavelab (I only own Elements and use PM-Chainer) is my best friend, as most of the people that send me their tracks to release, have not so much knowledge about sound (some don't even know how to use a EQ), and Wavelab is really cool.

 

The integration has gotten a lot better than years past, a lot of it's usefulness depends on what your workflow and requirements are.
There is so much stuff i won't even try to explain, but take a quick scroll down this page and see how much of it you think you can do with just Cubase as easily.
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/wavelab/new_features.html

 

@Vader: Is that the Plug&Mix chainer and are you using it to get round the plugin limitation in Elements??? If you work on Windows and own a license for Elements why not use the TeamVR version (available on the other side) with impunity as this has all plugin limitations removed?!?

 

Last edited: Oct 30, 2016

Im addicted to Wavelab... even I know I can do a lot of the same things in Cubase..... I still prefer Wavelab because it´s only editing and nothing else but editing!

 

There is the realtime VST plugins FX chain that I cannot find in any other decent audio editor.
I.E. Soundforge has only offline option with a realtime preview... way more complex.

 

used to love wavelab but today daws are not much heavier or difficult to use to edit an audio file.

the only thing that bothers me is many daws inability to open an audio file for editing directly.
you can't just right click and open a file.

for instance in studio one i have to first create project..
kind of stupid really.

 

Agreed. And then it creates a folder with nested folders for project files, etc. that you have to go and delete. Pretty annoying. I like how Live/FL/Reaper... pretty much anything other than S1 and Cubase... works. Just opens right to a default project that doesn't create any additional files until you save it.

I've never used Wavelab but I used to do my recording in Adobe Audition. Some of the destructive editing options in that beast are ridiculous. I love the spectral editing in Audition. But I've since uninstalled that. I don't use the spectral view almost ever, and don't really need anything beyond what I can get in Live and Cubase.

Image Line's Edison is an absolutely brilliant solution to this, having a plugin audio editor and recorder that works within your DAW... as long as your DAW is FL Studio. The VST version kind of sucks at compatibility with other DAWs.

 

I have "given up" on Wavelab years ago, by which I mean I stopped hoping for Steinberg completing WL as a DAW software suitable for my needs.
So I'm not informed about the current version of WL, but at that time which I am speaking of WL to my mind could have been a really nice multitracker, if only they would have added a crossfade editor (as one has in Reaper (or else Sequoia, Nuendo) which is my DAW software now). But Steinberg refused that on my request whether one could hope for this feature being added. You can't do serious classical music editing without a powerful crossfade editor, and even Reaper's leaves one or two functions to wish for being added...

But as an audio editor, well, Wavelab is certainly nice, as far as I remember. Today, I use Audition for some special tasks, especially most of my spectral cleaning tasks; it's very handy to be able to do that from within the Reaper editing (by opening a Reaper "item" in Audition as external editor) even if the file to be edited is a 3-channel file (e.g. W/X/Y horizontal Ambisonics); Audition can open and edit those files, iZotope RX cannot!
By the way, @erminardi, if I don't misunderstand your point, Audition should also be able to meet your needs for realtime playback VST: Audition has a section called "EffectsRack", whose VST entries are not processed when saving the file editing. So it is sort of comparable to Reaper's MonitorFX section, suitable to check the VST plugs within normal playback.

EddieXx, you are completely right, it would be nice if one could have done the editing directly within a DAW. But right-clicking and opening is possible in Reaper, this is exactly how I apply the mentioned Adobe Audition editing: right-click on an item in Reaper, and command "Open in Audition" (or whatever editor you have specified in Reaper's preferences), and then that item (i.e. the audio file on which that item is based) opens in the external editor. Better, of course, to open just the passage of the audio file used in Reaper's item; no problem for Reaper, too, just execute right-click and choose "open copy in...", and the audio file's part which is used by the item is opened as a file segment copy made by Reaper, so you restrict the external editing to the boundaries of the item which is in use (and leave the original audio file intact).
Therefore: Right-click opening is there indeed, it's just not done within Reaper, but needs the --quickly and automatically-- executed start of the external editor.

An all-in-one solution would be WaveLab, as far as I remember, Editor and Multitracker-DAW in one software. I regard that as the right way to go, but as mentioned above it requires a crossfade editor; which isn't present in WL so far.
If v.9 has changed that, please correct me, but that would mean Steinberg had surprisingly changed their minds concerning the necessity of a crossfade editor. Years ago, as said above, they negated that necessity in obvious complete ignorance of the procedures of classical music cutting...

 

Maybe you're confusing something here? Wavelab is, was and always will be an audio editor. You know, for editing. It's not a DAW.
I'm not sure I get your point on the crossfade editor as you can edit crossfades pretty much any way you like in wavelab, at least in the montage section.

 

I've never used WL but have used Soundforge since i started making music.
Since i'm a sample based producer,i do all of my editing there because it's just way too easy.
Just to timestretch in the MPC takes way too long.
I can E.Q.,compress,timestretch,filter,etc. within a matter of seconds,(undo and redo in real time)chop and then create my program.
Everything after that is done in P.T. but i'm comfortable with it and it really isn't time consuming.

Soundforge has got to be the best,hands down.

 

@fraifikmushi:
Thanks for clarification, but of course I know the difference and was completely aware of Wavelab's functions.
You say it yourself: The AUDIO MONTAGE section.
There we are, a multitracker, not only an audio editor (compare to SoundForge for the difference)!!
That's essentially a DAW, nothing else.

Of course you can edit crossfades in WL by manipulating their boundaries and fade shape etc. or adjusting the audiofile (item) individually with the mouse.
If you ever tried to work that way in a classical music recording project (with often several hundreds of cuts within one CD project), you know that this is no suitable replacement for a dedicated crossfade editor.
Try Reaper (or Sequoia or Nuendo), and you'll see what I mean: The "Crossfade editors" there are special windows or tabs to comfortably work on all the parameters of a crossfade, start, end, length, shape, adjustment of the audio material etc., and with adjustable pre- and post-roll playback over the cut.

Seems a pity to me that Steinberg went the way to an ambitious multitracker with WL, but didn't have the consistency to spend a crossfade editor for really professional cutting work.
To be fair, one of course has to say that there are lots of other DAWs that don't have a crossfade editor, either. Maybe all of these products simply aren't intended to care about the classical music customer... And it's not that long since Reaper got the crossfade editor (didn't have it from the beginning), I remember having "struggled" a bit to convince people (of the central importance of a crossfade editor) with that suggestion in Reaper's feature-request section...

 

@bellegear I don't think the sheer existence of multitrack editing is the relevant denominator of a daw. If it were, cool edit pro (or audition, as it's called today) and audacity were daws, too. Even Steinberg doesn't call wavelab a daw and I'm pretty sure they would upsell it in a heartbeat if they could.
For me, clean 90° and 45° cuts are sufficient in most cases, but I don't edit classical music. The specifications you outline really are the specifications for a fully fledged daw such as nuendo. Plus, for classical music you probably need surround capabilities only a daw will give you. So yeah, you're right, wavelab doesn't give you the features of a serious daw, but it's simply because it isn't that.

 

I used Wavelab for years but when we switched to Apple full time started using Peak and now Audition since a few years. Just recently had someone in the studio who still used it (Wavelab) and I was impressed with it, seeing it again.

 

For me Wavelab became irrelevant as soon as I started using Reaper for mastering. I just find it easier to do it in Reaper and export WAV files from it, and then use a dedicated Sonoris or Hofa DDP editor to create the CD master. However, CDs have been steadily on their way out and I don't need to do them nearly as often as 10 years or so ago.

Wavelab, especially versions after 3, feels so full of bloat and confusing for me. It was a really great editor 10 or so years ago, but I've always thought SoundForge was a better audio editor than WaveLab. I think Wavelab is trying to be too much. They should have made a dedicated CD editor instead. Just my 2 pence.