Wave Form Editor, a simple explanation

[EveningSky]

I have been a DP customer for many years. I am a basic level user. I like so much about DP. But one module which I have never grasped is the "Wave Form Editor".

Could someone knowledgable from the Motunation communition explain to me in simple terms: "What is this good for"? Because I just don't get it. I think that it has to do with mastering or perfecting a tract or bounce. But the fact that it cannot deal with a stereo track, and appears to only focus on the single mono track baffles me.

In all of the years that DP has been on the market, why is there no simple Wave Form Editor for editing a stereo master? Where in DP do I edit the stereo master? What is Wave Form Editor intended to do?

I just don't get it, and think that I must be missing something fundamental.

Thank you,
ES

[rainmaker]

Actually, the wave form editor does work fine with stereo files and it is where I clip the silence from the beginning and ends of my final mix bounces. Just double click on any audio file in your sound bites window and it will open in the wave form editor where you edit away.

There are many other functions that dp's wave form editor are good for as well.

[mikehalloran]

I use it regularly. Best to open the manual and give it a good read.

[Armageddon]

My gut instinct is strongly suggesting this might be a trolling post, but just in case it isn't ...

You can open the Waveform Editor by simply double-clicking on any soundbite in your Soundbite window. It can be a mono soundbite, stereo soundbite, any format supported by DP, doesn't matter. If it's residing in your Soundbite window, you can double-click it and the Waveform Editor opens. Once you're there, you can normalize the soundbite, trim it, add fades to it, the usual stuff. So long as your two-track mixdown has been added to the Soundbite window -- and you have the option to "Not Import" (means, you'll just be rendering the file to a folder of your choosing), "Import" (where it will appear in your Soundbites window) or "Add To Sequence" (meaning, it will actually show up as a stereo track in your Tracks window). So long as you added it to either your Soundbites window or directly into your sequence, it will be there and you can edit it. One of the awesome things about DP is, if you don't like their Waveform Editor, you can actually select the option to "Open Soundbites With A Third Party Editor", which means, if you'd rather open it in Peak, Amadeus, Wave Editor, etc., the soundbite you double-clicked on in the Soundbites window will launch the program of your choice and allow you to edit it there. As stated above, it's in your manual if you need to scrutinize its features in detail, but it's actually pretty self-explanatory.

[EveningSky]

Thank you Argameddon Mikehalloran and Rainmaker. Your responses are all very helpful.

What is a "trolling response"? I do not know what that is, and I may be many things to many people, but I have never been called that before?

I will delve more deeply into the Wave Editor module. I do wish that DP would convert it into a more traditionally styled editing environment, but maybe I did not give it enough attention and I need to adapt to a different style of onscreen editing.

Thank you all again.

I noticed as very generous upgrade offer on the small Italian software package DSP Quattro, which I have used in the past, but not recently upgraded.

I think that I will both give the MOTU wave editor some more consideration, as well as upgrade my DSP Quattro, which offers a nice environment for 2 channel audio editing, as well as exemplary customer support.

Yours,
ES

[TnMike]

I haven't used the waveform editor but maybe 2 times. I can do most things in the seq. editor window.


G5 2.7 GHZ, DP 7.24, MOTU 2408, Ivory, SD2, B4ll, UAD-1, Melodyne, Ramza DA-7,

[mikehalloran]

Thank you Argameddon Mikehalloran and Rainmaker. Your responses are all very helpful.

What is a "trolling response"? I do not know what that is, and I may be many things to many people, but I have never been called that before?

I will delve more deeply into the Wave Editor module. I do wish that DP would convert it into a more traditionally styled editing environment, but maybe I did not give it enough attention and I need to adapt to a different style of onscreen editing.

Thank you all again.

I noticed as very generous upgrade offer on the small Italian software package DSP Quattro, which I have used in the past, but not recently upgraded.

I think that I will both give the MOTU wave editor some more consideration, as well as upgrade my DSP Quattro, which offers a nice environment for 2 channel audio editing, as well as exemplary customer support.

Yours,
ES

We sometimes get people on the boards with pirated copies that try to get us to substitute for the manual they don't have. "Troll" is one of the more polite terms. One of the giveaways is asking really basic questions about stuff covered in the Quick Start Guide.

My main use for the Waveform Editor is to normalize tracks that I get from other studios. I do a lot of liverecording and it is useful for balancing sections before I edit.

I also have DSP Quatro4 but haven't gotten much into it yet. I doubt I will use it in DP but it's nice to know that I can. It looks pretty good and if you can take advantage of the $19 version upgrade, it's not a bad idea. I did the $49 cross-grade from Peak 4 (hasn't worked since OS 10.4 came out) and like what I see.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Back on topic (from me? that's funny).

The waveform editor is DESTRUCTIVE while editing in other windows editing is NON-DESTRUCTIVE and creates a "region" referencing the original. It is also the only window where you can NORMALIZE the original soundbite. You might be able to do so in list view but I wouldn't. I like to see the processed wave. Frankly, I'd first try bite gain in a problem low signal or maybe dynamics plug.

Dang, I'm o/t again.

Carry on.

[Radiogal]

Thank you Argameddon Mikehalloran and Rainmaker. Your responses are all very helpful.

What is a "trolling response"? I do not know what that is, and I may be many things to many people, but I have never been called that before?

I will delve more deeply into the Wave Editor module. I do wish that DP would convert it into a more traditionally styled editing environment, but maybe I did not give it enough attention and I need to adapt to a different style of onscreen editing.

Thank you all again.

I noticed as very generous upgrade offer on the small Italian software package DSP Quattro, which I have used in the past, but not recently upgraded.

I think that I will both give the MOTU wave editor some more consideration, as well as upgrade my DSP Quattro, which offers a nice environment for 2 channel audio editing, as well as exemplary customer support.

Yours,
ES

We sometimes get people on the boards with pirated copies that try to get us to substitute for the manual they don't have. "Troll" is one of the more polite terms. One of the giveaways is asking really basic questions about stuff covered in the Quick Start Guide.

My main use for the Waveform Editor is to normalize tracks that I get from other studios. I do a lot of liverecording and it is useful for balancing sections before I edit.

I use Set Bite Gain to adjust volumes on tracks, even out volumes and more.
Works very fast and is NON destructive. The Wave Editor, on the other hand, is used for destructive editings. I always avoid that.

Just my 2 cents.

EDIT: Yes MLC, like you said.. Hmm, I seem like your echo now..

[FMiguelez]

I've used the Wave Form editor probably 10 times since I got DP.

It was useful to grab one side of stereo tracks when I needed a Mono track only (typically from VI's that output Mono signals to stereo, i.e. bass lines).

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Not exactly Radiogal. I learned the bite gain from one of your earlier posts. that would make your post a distant echo of your initial post many months ago. I'm just a reflective surface.

[mikehalloran]

I preferred Waveform Editor in DP 5 but am ok with it in 7.

For all the talk of destructive editing, Undo does work.

In any case, I never edit my raw files. When I record in DP, I import those files into another project for editing. This has saved my butt too many times to count and always preserves my raw audio files.

[Armageddon]

Back on topic (from me? that's funny).

The waveform editor is DESTRUCTIVE while editing in other windows editing is NON-DESTRUCTIVE and creates a "region" referencing the original. It is also the only window where you can NORMALIZE the original soundbite. You might be able to do so in list view but I wouldn't. I like to see the processed wave. Frankly, I'd first try bite gain in a problem low signal or maybe dynamics plug.

Oops! Clean forgot about that part! Only in the Sequence Editor -- not at all the same as the Waveform Editor, except that you're working with audio waveforms -- is editing your audio non-destructive. If you cut or delete parts in the Sequence Editor, you can simply grab the edges (or "handles", if you prefer) and pull/stretch them back out again. This is useful for actually editing an audio track; you can trim out the silences or unneeded parts, and if you change your mind later, you can simply pull them back out. If you cut parts out in the Waveform Editor, they actually affect the audio waveform and you can't get them back. You most likely would want to do your edits in the Sequence Editor, then, once you're happy with your edits and want to keep them, use the "Compress" function in your Waveform Editor and delete the parts you edited out of the audio track for good.

I'm not even sure if MOTU has much faith in the Waveform Editor, since they've made the option to "Edit Waveform In Third Party Waveform Editor" available at least since DP 3. It's not a bad feature, per se, but it has always been a very basic one. Your best bet is to make sure you have a third-party waveform editor on-hand -- you can get expensive, like Peak or DSP Quattro, or go with something cheaper, like Amadeus or Wave Editor -- and do all your major waveform editing, like normalization, destructive fades and two-track mixdown editing and mastering in that. Hopefully, once MOTU fiishes conquering the world with DP 8, they'll get to revising those few remaining audio quirks. All that said, Waveform Editor isn't useless, it's just very basic.

I apologize to the OP for making a "trolling" reference, but a lot of people do come on here either belittling the software or fishing for knowledge because they actually have pirated versions of the software.

[AnthonyS]

I'm not even sure if MOTU has much faith in the Waveform Editor, since they've made the option to "Edit Waveform In Third Party Waveform Editor" available at least since DP 3. It's not a bad feature, per se, but it has always been a very basic one. Your best bet is to make sure you have a third-party waveform editor on-hand -- you can get expensive, like Peak or DSP Quattro, or go with something cheaper, like Amadeus or Wave Editor -- and do all your major waveform editing, like normalization, destructive fades and two-track mixdown editing and mastering in that. Hopefully, once MOTU fiishes conquering the world with DP 8, they'll get to revising those few remaining audio quirks. All that said, Waveform Editor isn't useless, it's just very basic.

I'm not sure it's a matter of 'faith", as you mention, because many DAW's have always had this option. Back in my Windows days Sonar allowed you to open a track in a third party editor. I'm sure there are others as well. Might have been as simple as keeping the costs down. When I switched to Mac/DP6, i found the Wave Editor to be very capable, more so than Sonar's basic WAV editing.

My .02

[labman]

three cheers for bite gain here too