On this episode, we take a look at the latest version of WaveLab Elements 9.5 from Steinberg.
Andrew uses it daily and Robbo has his first look and digs around to see what it can do.
Is it simple enough for anyone to use? Based on the fact Andrew uses it the answer must be a resounding yes!
Don’t forget to like our facebook page and if you have a question of your own you’d like us to answer, post it there and we will answer it as best we can.
You’ll also find us on the web at theproaudiosuite.com
The Pro Audio Suite Podcast copyright George Whittam, Andrew Peters, Robert Marshall & Darren Robertson.
Products or companies we discuss are not paid endorsements. They are not sponsored by, nor do we have any professional or affiliate relationship of any kind with any of the companies or products highlighted in the show…. sadly! It’s just stuff we like, think is cool and may be of interest to you our listeners.
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this is the pro audio suite podcast
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quick bytes welcome to another pro audio
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suite quick bite this week we are –
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George and Robert because Roberts at NAB
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and George is spending time with his
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daughter having a personal time
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excellent the cool thing about that is
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we can talk about them behind their
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backs though yes exactly
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now what are you regularly last week
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what else anyway now we we’re gonna do
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this week our X isotope waves mmm shoes
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free shootout but we’ll do that in the
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coming weeks but this one we thought
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we’d jump in because I just downloaded
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or bought the new version of Waveland
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elements 9.5 because I was having issues
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with an updated rme card that then
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wouldn’t talk to Wavelab and then
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realized my version of Wavelab was so
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old I’m surprising didn’t have the AIDS
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cleaned where is so that’s methionine
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cottonbud they see there with no one in
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there what you’re talking about
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no exactly I think you start a fire well
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you’ve also downloaded what was your
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thoughts I will look I was interested to
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hear you talking about it and so I
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thought I’d sort of download the demo
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version and have a look I guess I should
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preface all this by saying I’ve been on
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Pro Tools for 20-plus years and I do
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know a little bit about Adobe Audition
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and and I’ve also used that in its early
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incarnation as Cool Edit Pro as well so
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I guess I’m used I guess what I’m trying
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to say is what I have to say does isn’t
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necessarily a negative reflection on the
01:48
software it’s just my observations
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coming from a using other software so I
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just wanted to preface that first but I
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guess with that in mind my first
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impression was for me I didn’t find it
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very intuitive but as we were talking
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about before we started recording I had
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to get used to the idea that I’m not
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working a multitrack session here I’m
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actually just editing a WAV file
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and the time line is I know it is a
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different beast in Wavelab than it easy
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in ProTools and it’s a completely
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different way of working so um but that
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was my first impression was I I didn’t
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find it completely intuitive I found it
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kind of difficult to get my head around
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in fact I had to ring you to figure out
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how to put a plug-in on whoops
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but it’s interesting because I know a
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lot of people use this as the the
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mastering door man and I can imagine
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that people would use it for mastering
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because I you know having now played
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around with it a bit more and sort of
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dug a bit deeper if you were just
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working with a stereo file and wanted to
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master it absolutely I mean it’s it’s
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totally the way to go
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so yeah I mean I I played around with
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the some of the EQs and compressors that
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came with it I was particularly
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impressed they’ve got one or a suite
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like a RX sort of suite that of plugins
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and it’s called the mastering module
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this is probably not stuff as a
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voice-over artist you would want to play
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with but it’s it’s got a dynamics
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plug-in which is obviously compression
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EQ saturation which is tape or a tube
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saturation and imaging which is your
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stereo imaging left and right blah blah
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I found that really interesting and the
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and the EQ and the especially the
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compression the compression seems to be
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tube and which is kind of nice so you’ve
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got you know you can run one lot over
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the one setting over at the lower end of
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the frequency range and another one over
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the higher end of the frequency range
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which could be useful but yeah look for
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a voice over artist who just wants to
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maybe record in and just speed out it
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makes a lot of sense yeah well not look
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I find it I just got used to it I guess
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because it was the first proper door I
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got I didn’t I did actually buy another
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version which was seven or eight I can’t
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remember and I put it on my laptop on
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the Mac and I did I couldn’t work out
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all the how to use the thing on the Mac
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so I dumped it I went to twisted wave on
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the Mac so when you travel you don’t use
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wave later so while you’re saying now I
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use twisted wave and that came
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George actually because he answered
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about it might chucked it in I thought
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man this is so easy
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yep yeah so now that you’ve bought you
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because you bought a waves plugin to use
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while you’re away didn’t you yes I’ve
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got our waves the ship 73 yeah did so do
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you have you tried that in here if you
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tried running at your usual setup no I
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haven’t because I don’t everything I’ve
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got his outboard yeah so I don’t use any
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any plugins at all yeah the only thing I
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would ever think about doing would be
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having an G you know to get rid of
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clicking and T click yeah see I I played
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around with that a little bit I recorded
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some of my voice over and ran oh
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actually intentionally recorded some
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mouth clicks and you know some pops and
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things like that just to play with the
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RX stuff and see how it worked in there
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it’s not bad it’s um it seems to be very
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DSP hungry as opposed to Pro Tools for
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some reason maybe that was just the way
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I was using it without having been a
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longtime user that could be part of it
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so yeah so in terms of running it on
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your laptop I think you’d probably want
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a bit of um a bit of memory to burn but
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um yes other than that it it I guess the
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thing is the the hardest thing for me to
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get used to was massaging a WAV file as
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opposed to mixing a WAV file which is to
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sort of different things I mean in Pro
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Tools you can do a similar thing they
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you can use your plugins as an audio
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suite plug-in which means that you
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directly affect the clip you don’t just
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put it as a plug-in on a track but I
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rarely use that I mean the things that I
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would use from there is like just a like
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a normalization and sometimes if I’ve
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got a file that is fairly clicky your
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Poppi a voiceover that comes in I will
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run you know addy click or a deep hop
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over that but near ninety nine point
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nine nine nine times out of ten I’ll use
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it as a plugin so so that was the
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hardest thing for me to get my head
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around was just the fact that I’m
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working on a WAV file not so much on a
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timeline but yeah okay
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yeah now what did you when you first
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open the window what what was the one
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thing that you thought well I’d said it
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to you before I said it to you before
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sure I don’t understand why I’m looking
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at two windows you see the waveform
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twice you’ve got it in a little window
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up the top and then you’ve got the big
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waveform that you work on I think I know
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why that is is because if you look at
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the small one at the top you can
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actually see the whole session it’s a
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bit like an overview I suppose yeah yeah
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so you can actually find out where you
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are in the session it’s very interesting
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to look at some of the plugins that come
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with it and some of the editing tools
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that come with this version of it and
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I’m not sure whether there’s even more
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in the pro but there’s a lot in the
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prior is there yeah right cuz I was
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interested to see there like there’s a a
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retune so you can actually change pitch
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which sort of says to me that there’s
07:24
people out there who sort of throwing
07:26
vocals in here and changing parameters
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and then loading it back into whatever
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their their usual workstation is for
07:34
mixing music so that was kind of
07:35
interesting they had another function
07:38
which is the 3d frequency analysis yeah
07:42
so yeah nice looks pretty I’m not sure
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how I’d use that because as opposed to
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just a normally if normal frequency
07:53
analyzer but you know I think I think
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what it is and I don’t look I you know
07:57
I’m not a tech guy at all but and I’ve
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seen that thing on the old version I had
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that I was watching a guy doing a
08:04
demonstration of wave LED 9.5 and he
08:08
looked at that and it then it kind of I
08:10
kind of got it right cause because it’s
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3d you can actually slide the whole
08:15
thing around and you can see where those
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points are that you may want to EQ yeah
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you can you didn’t do the completely
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turned around so you can see where these
08:25
bits actually really do sit in a
08:27
three-dimensional here just right I just
08:29
figured that out there we go so that
08:33
could be kind of handy when you’re
08:34
digging to find this weird thing that
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you you know frequency you want to
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either enhance or get rid of you will
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find it much easier and a 3d image I
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would have thought if you’ve got a funny
08:43
little clicky thing going on or some
08:45
ambient noise in the background that you
08:46
can’t quite find it would be interesting
08:48
to compare yeah
08:48
maybe a second or two before in a second
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– or two after – what’s happening either
08:53
exactly at that moment yep
08:55
and see what rears its head yeah okay I
08:57
get that now
08:58
I’ll give him yeah so that could be
09:01
handy yeah the only thing it was funny
09:04
because I saw what I thought you’d jump
09:07
on straight away but you haven’t
09:08
my buddy pip who’s just moved down here
09:10
he came around when I was setting up the
09:13
rme and he helped me set up the new um
09:16
total mix and one thing that he looked
09:19
at when he fired up a record he’s got he
09:22
said where’s the waveform
09:24
there’s no waveform yeah you don’t get
09:26
it until you stop recording and then it
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pops up hmm that didn’t bother me secret
09:31
you’ve got some pretty good meters there
09:33
some metering going on which is enough I
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don’t know yeah maybe I might maybe from
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my analog days that doesn’t bother me
09:40
because I’ve got the meters there to
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keep my eye on okay that’s an
09:45
interesting point though and it’s funny
09:48
how we’ve become used to that
09:49
I mean you know you sort of yeah oh I do
09:51
it now even while I’m recording you know
09:53
with Pro Tools open in front of me I
09:54
glanced across to make sure that the
09:56
clips still read and there’s a waveform
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in it so you know I suppose that’s you
09:59
know that’s understandable I guess but
10:01
I’m yeah but the one thing I do like
10:02
about this version which was certainly
10:04
wasn’t on the last – I bought the whole
10:07
of the recording box when he when you
10:11
hit record that thing pops up with a
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metering and it goes red yes yeah that’s
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yeah I like that a lot and I don’t know
10:18
if you’ve played with it and I didn’t
10:19
get the chance but I noticed there was a
10:21
podcast template did you have a look at
10:23
that if you had a live no no okay
10:26
well actually I’ve got it open let’s
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just see if I can even find it but there
10:31
was a a template that just said podcast
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and maybe this is for another episode
10:36
yeah I’m not there in front of me but
10:39
I’ll find it there was there was
10:40
definitely a podcast sitting so it made
10:43
me wonder whether that’s just a you know
10:46
we’re just going to record in a way that
10:49
they think is easier for podcasting or
10:52
for someone who’s not quite sure exactly
10:54
about all the other functions of this
10:56
just to keep it simple whether it opens
10:58
up a template that gets rid of all the
11:00
stuff that you know you would look at
11:02
and go what
11:02
hell was that – just leaves the basic
11:04
functions they are what but um yeah kind
11:06
of thought that was interesting so yeah
11:08
yeah as much as we talked about Road and
11:10
you know them specializing in podcasting
11:12
it’s interesting to see other people are
11:14
starting to think about it – oh
11:15
absolutely why would mean the other
11:17
thing I didn’t mention when we talk
11:18
about the the Wavelab 9.5 pro as opposed
11:23
to this one which is the elements I
11:24
noticed Pro has isotope plugins as part
11:28
of allele nice that’s probably why they
11:31
charge so much 900 yeah yeah something I
11:33
think yeah yeah but it’s definitely good
11:35
isotope you’re in there so that’s
11:37
interesting there they’re like we’ve
11:39
talked about this before but it’s it is
11:41
so fast becoming the standard in terms
11:45
of noise reduction that it’s just crazy
11:47
it’s funny and also talk about standards
11:49
I was looking at some Facebook stuff
11:51
today but someone made the quit ask the
11:54
question should I get source connect
11:56
interestingly there was a huge amount of
11:59
comments and it looks like that the
12:02
pendulum has swung towards source
12:04
connect as opposed to eyes to him right
12:07
it’s finally moved over that we not the
12:10
same time yeah yeah well won’t that be
12:12
interesting when people like Steinberg
12:14
and you know some of these other people
12:16
like Adobe and all that sort of stuff
12:18
you know come out and basically they’re
12:20
all set up and all you’ve got to do is
12:22
push a button and you’re all set up to
12:23
send a source connect or something I
12:25
hope well the things that you base
12:26
actually have that as part of their um
12:28
do they need aw yes nice but I think it
12:31
only talks to two-way I think is the
12:33
only way it works right from memory
12:36
barely worth checking out yes another
12:39
one of steinberg’s
12:39
things there you guy the boys are on it
12:42
so what do you reckon out of if you’re
12:44
gonna give it a school I having not
12:48
dived deep into it but they’re having a
12:50
cruise across the surface if you had
12:53
have asked me before I sort of spoke to
12:56
you and then got an idea of how it was
12:57
all working out would have given it a 4
12:59
or a 5 but now having played around I’d
13:00
give it an 8 oh cool that’s good having
13:03
said that I guess the only the the
13:07
competition to this in terms of the way
13:10
it works that I see is actually Adobe
13:12
Audition just working in there to track
13:14
mode
13:15
not in the multitrack mode I can see how
13:18
voice-over artist might um might go down
13:21
that route because it does work very
13:22
similarly and I would probably just give
13:26
the edge to audition in that but as I
13:28
said I haven’t spent months sitting
13:30
behind this to sort of know its full
13:33
capabilities but that’s my first
13:34
impression anyway interestingly the
13:37
thing we should have talked about before
13:38
we started talking about Wavelab the
13:41
resign dedup updating I said at the
13:42
beginning was because I updated my rme
13:45
with an expander and using totalmix
13:48
which then for some peculiar reason the
13:50
drivers in the old wave lab didn’t like
13:52
it and it kept crashing so Ansari’s not
13:55
got rid of it but this is a trick for
13:57
young players if you do have an rme pci
14:01
card and you decide that you’re gonna do
14:04
what I do which is have like four
14:06
different mic chains going into the PCI
14:08
card when you do that unfortunately when
14:11
you hit mute in the totalmix it only
14:14
needs two monitors it doesn’t mute to
14:15
record oh and I can tell you now that
14:18
was an absolute oh man it was a
14:21
head-scratcher so I ended up getting a
14:23
guy from based in Melbourne here guy
14:25
called Lee innovative music should give
14:28
him a plug because he jumped on with
14:30
TeamViewer and he managed to reconfigure
14:34
all the stuff inside the total mix today
14:38
I can form a loopback
14:39
it was the only way we could do it so
14:41
now I’ve got a loopback that allows me
14:43
to meet on recording yeah yeah that was
14:47
that was a weekend of hell well he was
14:50
my he was my interesting one with with
14:51
Wavelab then I just connected my double
14:55
o2 to record off and I couldn’t figure
14:59
out I wanted to make just a mono
15:01
recording but using the input of input
15:04
to off the double o2 rack because that’s
15:06
where my in studio mic the one I’m on
15:09
now comes up and I couldn’t figure out
15:11
how to do that I couldn’t figure out how
15:13
to tell it you don’t know least in in
15:15
mono mode it only seemed to want to
15:17
record off input one when there are like
15:20
16 inputs with the digital and the
15:22
analog and all the rest of it on their
15:24
double o2 so I had to record as a stereo
15:28
file
15:29
so that mic that input to was recording
15:31
on the right channel the left channel
15:35
was mute because there was nothing on
15:36
there and then fold it down to a mono
15:39
file before I could start working so
15:41
that was I couldn’t figure out how to
15:42
tell it okay I want to record a mono
15:44
file but I wanna record the mono file
15:45
off input – I found that sort of
15:48
difficult to figure out so um I’m sure
15:51
someone will write and tell us there is
15:52
a way but that was my my first
15:54
impression well there you go
15:56
well I’ve got 30 days to trial it so
15:58
I’ll be I’ll be playing with it some
16:00
more definitely yeah good give it a
16:02
whirl – easy we’ve memory there’s
16:04
another conversation in 30 days and you
16:08
know what most importantly it looks good
16:11
that’s right you said like my wife said
16:14
why did you buy that well it looks sexy
16:16
that’s right swing with me would be the
16:19
next question on that now you’re just
16:26
keeping it real
16:27
yes that was the pro audio suite if you
16:32
have any questions or ideas for a show
16:34
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16:37
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16:43
you
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.”
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