Stem mastering and multichannel files
Stem mastering is an inherently fiddly process, but WaveLab has always done a decent job of simplifying the procedure as much as possible, and the new Track Lanes feature makes things that bit easier still. Montage tracks can be split into up to eight individual lanes, each of which can host its own independent playlist of clips. Clips that reside on lanes can have clip plugins and envelopes applied to them, just like any other montage clip, and a new Auto Grouping option makes it easy to lock the lane clips together for editing.
In a similar vein, Steinberg have improved WaveLab’s handling of multichannel interleaved audio files, now supporting up to 22.2 surround channels, as well as the Ambisonics files used in VR. Once opened in WaveLab you can edit and work with the file in exactly the same way as you would a mono or stereo file, but you can also work on the individual channels and pass them to external editors if required.
Another great feature is that, when used in a montage, interleaved channels are automatically extracted into mono and stereo tracks. With WaveLab 11’s new montage bussing and processing options, this makes for a powerful yet quick way of working on surround and Ambisonics mixes.