Steinberg WaveLab Essential 6 Personal Audio Editing System

WaveLab Essential 6 takes the critical audio editing tools and CD burning features from Steinberg's much-loved WaveLab and puts them in an affordable music software package. This bundle of award-winning editing and mastering technology is perfect for musicians, smaller recording environments, and podcasters.

Sound design-wise, the versatile application features sample-accurate stereo combined with great effects, offering the choice between a destructive stereo editor or the powerful non-destructive, clip-based Audio CD Montage. The latter provides uncomplicated realtime fades, crossfades, processing, clip grouping, unlimited undo/redo capabilities, and support for two audio tracks. Essential 6 also allows you to use four plug-ins globally on any montage from the complete suite of included plug-ins, and supports most major audio file formats. A level meter, spectrum meter, and oscilloscope ensure your finished products are crystal clear and refined to match your needs.

In addition, a "smart" video thumbnail track simplifies audio-to-video editing, from trimming of audio clips and looping background music beds, to multitrack editing and the addition of sonic muscle to in-your-face dialogue. The WaveLab software's adaptability means it can be the go-to audio editor for your favorite video editor or be seamlessly integrated into any AV workstation.

The CD mastering aspect presents you with level matching and adjustment, equalization, intuitive track assembly, spatial integration, and other audio manipulators like a global bypass switch, top-grade dithering, noise-shaping algorithms, and much more. The Master Section has four slots for VST and DirectX plug-ins with easy preset and combination recalling. The Render function makes finished mastering a one-click pony. With all of these high-caliber controls, your finalized CD mix won't suffer from a roller coaster of acoustic highs and lows. You can even create your own full-color CD covers and labels.

Podcasters will enjoy the simple and intuitive user interface which takes the complexity out of even the most intricate recording. WaveLab Essential 6 supports the complete podcast standard RSS 2.0 specification, and can merge audio, video, and PDF files effortlessly. Podcast descriptions can be imported as an HTML file, while locally saved picture files are automatically scaled to the right size and saved with the audio onto the server when a podcast is published. The package's integrated FTP client allows you to continue work on audio files while it exports your podcast over to the server. It also has user-definable templates and allows you to create podcasts directly for iTunes.