The documentation applies to the operating systems Windows and macOS.

There are several ways of accessing the help system. The documentation is available online and you can download most of it in PDF format from steinberg.help.

In our documentation, we use structural and markup elements to present information according to its purpose.

Many of the default key commands, also known as keyboard shortcuts, use modifier keys, some of which are specific to each operating system.

Your system setup depends on many different factors, for example, the kind of project that you want to create, the external equipment that you want to use, or the computer hardware available to you.

When you activate playback or recording in WaveLab LE, other applications cannot access the audio card. Likewise, if another application uses the audio card, WaveLab LE is unable to play back.

Latency is the delay between when audio is sent from the program and when you actually hear it. While a very low latency can be crucial in a real-time DAW application such as Steinberg Nuendo or Cubase, this is not strictly the case with WaveLab LE.

The ASIO-Guard allows you to pre-process all channels as well as VST plug-ins. This causes fewer dropouts and allows you to process more tracks or plug-ins.

To be able to play back and record audio in WaveLab LE, you must specify how the internal input and output channels in WaveLab LE are connected to your sound card and which device you intend to use for audio playback and recording.

You can use Steinberg remote devices to remote-control WaveLab LE.

The common editing operations apply to any Steinberg product.

When WaveLab LE starts, the Startup dialog opens, where you can select which file you want to open.

WaveLab LE follows the basic guidelines for the Windows/macOS interface, which means that Windows/macOS standard procedures apply.

Almost all types of editing and processing that you perform in WaveLab LE operate on the audio selection. There are numerous ways to make an audio selection.

At various places in WaveLab LE, slider controls are available to change parameters. There are a number of ways to change the value of a slider.

You can rename items in tables in the Markers window, and in the Clips window.

A peak file (extension .gpk) is automatically created by WaveLab LE each time an audio file is modified or opened in WaveLab LE for the first time. The peak file contains information about the waveform and determines how it is drawn in the wave window or the montage window.

WaveLab LE can load audio samples in many formats but processes them internally as 64-bit float samples.

In WaveLab LE, you can set some dialogs and warning messages to Do not show again. If you want to show these dialogs and messages again, you must reset the default answers.

The Audio Editor provides tools and functions for sample-accurate audio editing.

In the Audio Montage, you assemble audio clips into a montage. You can arrange, edit, and play back clips on both stereo or mono tracks.

In the RSS Feed Editor, you assemble, define, and publish your RSS feed to the Internet.

The File tab is the control center of WaveLab LE. Here, you can save, open, render, import, and export files. It also gives you detailed information about your files and allows you to set up the WaveLab LE preferences.

The Info tab provides information about the active file and allows you to edit the audio properties of audio files and audio montages.

Throughout WaveLab LE there are various tool windows available that allow you to view, analyze, and edit the active file.

Slide-out windows are hidden in the frame of the Workspace window. When you hover the mouse pointer over the window name, the window slides out. It is hidden again, when you click anywhere else.

Tool windows can be used as docked windows, as floating windows, or as a slide-out window. You can freely drag around the windows and dock them at various locations.

The command bar of file windows allows you to create, open, and save files, and undo/redo changes. You can also use the text field to quickly find and access open files, and to trigger keywords.

The status bar at the bottom of the screen of the Audio Editor and the Audio Montage window shows information about the active window using the units specified in the rulers.

Throughout WaveLab LE, various context menus are available. These menus group the commands and/or options that are specific to the active window.

In the Audio Editor, you can display a time and a level ruler in the wave window. In the Audio Montage window, you can display a time ruler in the montage window.

A tab is a container for a file in WaveLab LE. You can open several tabs, but only one can be active at a time. The Tabs context menu offer tab related options.

You can use WaveLab LE in full screen mode.

You can open one or several files at the same time.

You can close files by closing the file tabs. You can close a single file, multiple files or all files but the selected file.

You can save files under the same name and location or specify a new name, location, and file format when saving.

You can delete the active file from within WaveLab LE.

You can rename a file and update all references automatically. For example, if you rename an audio file named India to Sitar, all open files that reference the file India are updated to reference the file as Sitar.

The File Browser window allows you to browse files from within WaveLab LE. The Auto Play Mode is useful for speeding up the process of auditioning sound files.

You can have multiple files open and switch between them.

All files that you have recently used in WaveLab LE are saved in a list. This helps you to gain fast access to recent projects.

WaveLab LE creates temporary files to store intermediary results of the audio file processing and for the undo/redo functions. You can specify where WaveLab LE saves its temporary files and the processing precision of temporary files.

You can undo and redo as many operations as you like, even after saving the file. The only limitation is the available hard disk space.

At various places in the program, numerical values can be edited by using a combination of text fields and knobs.

WaveLab LE makes much use of drag-and-drop techniques to perform various operations, some of which can only be performed this way. These are referred to as drag operations in this documentation.

You can zoom in the Workspace window according to the standard zoom techniques.

You can create presets to save commonly used settings. WaveLab LE provides a selection of factory presets that can be used by most dialogs.

WaveLab LE distinguishes between two types of folders: work folders and document folders.

You can copy information about the name and location of the selected audio file, including any selection information and cursor position. This information can be pasted into an external text application.

If you are editing inside a floating window or a tool window and you want to switch the focus back to a wave/montage window, you can use the Set Focus on Current File option.

With this command bar you can control playback of an audio file or audio montage, navigate between various positions in an audio file or audio montage, and open the Recording dialog.

You can use the time ruler to jump to a position and start playback from there.

During playback, you can switch between playing back the left/right, mid/side, channel clusters of multichannel audio files, or both audio channels.

Playback scrubbing helps you find a specific position in an audio file by restarting playback repeatedly when you click and drag on the time ruler during playback or when using the Play tool.

You can determine how the view should be scrolled in Play mode.

Playback in the Audio Montage window works the same way as in the Audio Editor. However, there are some things to note.

The wave window in the Audio Editor displays audio files graphically. Here, you view, play back, and edit individual audio files.

The tabs in the Audio Editor give you access to the tools and options you need to edit audio files.

This section describes the principal editing operations within the Audio Editor.

You can render regions of an audio files or whole audio files to a single audio file.

You can change the sample rate and bit depth of audio files.

Metadata consists of attributes that describe the audio contents, for example, the title of the track, the author, or the recording date of the track. Depending on the file format of the selected audio file, this data varies.

This dialog allows you to insert silence in an audio file.

Using the 3D Frequency Analysis, you can view an audio file in the frequency domain.

The Process tab provides access to the offline processing tools.

Processing can be applied to a selection or to a whole file. For some operations processing the entire file is necessary.

In this dialog, you can apply a gain to change the level of an audio file.

In this dialog, you can change the peak level of an audio file.

In this dialog, you can create a level envelope which can be applied to a selected range or a whole audio file. This is useful if you want to even-out loud and quiet parts or create a sophisticated fade in or fade out, for example.

A fade in is a gradual increase in level and a fade out is a gradual decrease in level.

A crossfade is a gradual fade between two sounds, where one is faded in and the other faded out. You can automatically create a crossfade when pasting an audio section into another.

Inverting the phase turns the signal upside down. The most common use for this function is to fix a stereo recording if one of the channels has been recorded out of phase with the other.

You can reverse an audio file or a part of an audio file as if playing a tape backwards.

DC offset means that there is a too large DC (direct current) component in the signal. This most often occurs due to mismatches between various types of recording equipment.

You can change the sample rate of a recording. This is useful if the file that you want to use in an audio system was recorded at a sample rate that this system does not support.

The montage window is where you assemble your audio montage. This is where you view, play back, and edit audio montages.

The tabs in the Audio Montage window give you access to the tools and options you need for editing audio montages. For example, you can edit the envelope curves and fades in clips, make zoom settings, analyze the audio, and render the audio montage.

The audio signal passes through the various sections of WaveLab LE in a certain way.

You can create new, empty audio montages with custom audio montage properties.

You can duplicate audio montages in various ways. This allows you to quickly create new audio montages using the same properties and audio files as previously created audio montages.

In the Audio Montage Properties, you can define the sample rate of the audio montage.

You can import audio files and Audio CD tracks into your audio montage.

An audio montage consists of references to one or multiple audio files. These references can be broken if you move audio files to another location on your hard disk, for example. WaveLab LE detects broken references and allows you to specify new file locations or replace the missing audio file with another audio file.

You assemble your audio montage by adding tracks and clips.

All clips are displayed in the Clips window. In this window, you can edit and rearrange clips and drag them into the audio montage.

You can edit files that are used in the current audio montage in the Audio Editor.

For clips in the audio montage, you can create envelopes for volume and fades, and for panning.

A fade in is a gradual increase in level and a fade out is a gradual decrease in level. A crossfade is a gradual fade between two sounds, where one is faded in and the other faded out.

The Render function allows you to mix down the whole audio montage or a region of it to a single audio file.

This window allows you to enter notes about the current audio montage session.

You can import audio CD files. The imported audio CD opens as an audio montage.

Before you start recording, set up the Recording dialog.

When you are recording, you can click the marker buttons to add markers to the recorded file.

In this window, you can apply effect plug-ins, adjust the master level, and render the audio file or audio montage.

By default, the Master Section is active. You can bypass it for each file individually or globally.

By rendering the effects using the Render function in the Master Section, they become a permanent part of a file. So instead of performing all processing in real time during playback, you can save the audio output to a file on disk.

You can save all settings that are made in the Master Section as a preset and load the presets later.

When rendering, you can monitor the process, and pause or cancel tasks.

A dropout most likely occurs when your computer does not have the processing power to handle all used effect processors.

You can use different marker types to locate certain positions quickly.

In this window, you can create, edit, and use markers while working on an audio file or audio montage.

You can create markers in the wave window and montage window in stop mode or during playback. You can create specific markers if you already know what you want to mark, or create generic markers.

Markers can be deleted in the wave window or the montage window, and in the Markers window.

You can adjust marker positions in the wave window and in the montage window.

You can jump to the previous or next marker using the corresponding marker buttons.

For a better overview, you can hide marker types.

You can convert markers of a specific type to another type.

You can change the names of markers.

There are several ways to select markers.

You can select the audio between two adjacent markers or between any two markers. This allows you to select a section that has been marked.

In the Audio Montage window, you can bind markers to clips. By doing this, the marker remains in the same position, relative to the clip start/end, even if the clip is moved or resized in the audio montage.

You can loop the audio selection and tweak the loop during playback.

In this dialog, you can import one or more tracks from an audio CD.

You can import audio from audio CDs into WaveLab LE projects.

The RSS Feed Editor is divided into several tabs. The Feed and Episodes sections show the information for the feed or an episode, depending on the item that is selected in the list below. This is where you can add files, Internet links, or textual information to the RSS feed and its episodes. The Main section shows an item list of the basic feed and all episodes that are included in the RSS feed.

There are several ways to create a new RSS feed or episode.

To be able to upload a RSS feeds to your FTP server, you must enter the FTP server details first.

You can upload an RSS feed from within WaveLab LE to your FTP server.

After creating and publishing an RSS feed, you can check if the upload was successful.

You can set up the wave/montage window by adjusting colors of waveforms, background, cursor lines, etc., and changing the look of the ruler and other window details.

In WaveLab LE, you can control many functions via shortcuts to speed up your workflow. You can edit existing shortcuts and create new shortcuts.

WaveLab LE comes with various plug-ins. You can exclude plug-ins from opening in WaveLab LE and add additional plug-ins.

The Touch Bar at the top of your keyboard gives you shortcuts to the WaveLab LE functions. The Touch Bar changes automatically based on where you are in WaveLab LE and offers a subset of the available options. You can customize the Touch Bar according to your needs.

Global Preferences are preferences that apply throughout WaveLab LE. Before you start working with WaveLab LE, it is recommended to edit these preferences according to your needs.

This dialog allows you to define settings for editing in the Audio Editor. However, these settings also affect other parts of WaveLab LE. You can choose defaults for editing and playback, adjust the visual appearance of the waveform displays, and determine how WaveLab LE works with audio and peak files.

This dialog allows you to set up general parameters for all audio montages or for the active audio montage only.