Steinberg Wavelab Pro 12

The biggest ever release for audio mastering

With close to 80 new features and improvements, WaveLab 12 is the biggest ever release for audio mastering and editing. The best choice for world-class mastering facilities, music studios, and ambitious hobbyists alike, WaveLab 12’s array of state-of-the-art tools has something for everyone working with music and sound.

ARA plug-in

You can now use WaveLab within another DAW, thanks to WaveLab’s powerful Audio Editor now being available as an ARA plug-in. Allowing you to directly edit your audio files with WaveLab 12’s advanced editing features from within your favorite DAW: Cubase 13, Nuendo 13, Reaper 7, and Studio One 6.5 have all been fully approved for seamless compatibility.

Rainbow waveform

You can now visualize audio waveforms in multiple colors, which highlight the spectral content. Fully customizable coloration assists with the instant recognition of specific audio features.

Automatic transient markers

This feature offers optional visual guidance which aids with snapping audio selection to transient and release points, streamlining the editing process. You can also use the tab key for swift navigation forwards and backwards across transient points, speeding up your workflow.

No limits to audio exchange with other applications

Seamlessly transfer any audio range, with or without effects, from WaveLab to any other application, without any limits or restrictions. The new drag and drop and copy/paste functions help to radically streamline your workflow across diverse platforms, even when using the ARA extension.

Extended copy and paste functionality

You can now optionally associate all standard editing actions with a crossfade option, enabling smooth transitions throughout the editing process.

Automatic waveform zoom to peaks

You can automatically zoom to the peaks of the waveform’s visible part. As you scroll/zoom horizontally into a quiet section, the waveform expands to fill the vertical zoom.

Synchronized audio file and montage navigation

This provides the option to synchronize scrolling and zooming across selected audio files and/or montages, providing a convenient way to visually compare different versions.

Loudness analysis and reporting

You can now generate personalized reports detailing all aspects of loudness and peak levels within your audio files and montages. Focusing on ensuring your work adheres to specific loudness standards, these reports will prove valuable to both pre-mastering assessments and post-mastering quality assurance.

Visual analysis

Explore the spectral details of your audio files and montages in minute detail with this wide range of visual analysis tools. Serving as an asset to both seasoned sound engineers, budding audio enthusiasts and providing assistance for audio engineers, these visual aids will help you to increase understanding of the impact of audio processing on loudness.

New Loudness Meta Normalizer functions

The Audio Montage meta normalizer has been enhanced with three new functions: to set the active clip's loudness and shift others; to peak normalize the predominant clip and shift others; plus normalizing the peak level.

Loudness matching

Match the loudness of reference tracks to the Audio Montage output and vice versa, for instant, accurate A/B comparisons between mastered audio and reference sources.

New Startup Assistant

Kickstart your projects with the new Startup Assistant. Featuring a web display panel, it streamlines your access to essential resources and updates from the moment you start WaveLab 12.

Enhanced project structure

WaveLab’s project system has been redesigned for ease of use. Enjoy the convenience of backing up your entire project as a consolidated folder or a ZIP archive, containing all your files.

Audio Montage asset management

Simplify the organization of your audio montages with a revamped structure which operates from a central folder housing files and other folders. You can now back up an entire audio montage with all of its media files.

Sideline tracks

Tracks can now be hidden to declutter your screen space, while also freeing up CPU resources for other tracks. As well as enhancing your workflow, this acts as a safeguard, preserving the integrity of your clips by preventing any unintended alterations during editing.

Windows: New Steinberg built-in ASIO driver

If you do not have an ASIO driver on your PC, this driver provides access to the audio inputs and outputs provided by the Windows audio subsystem. It automatically performs sample rate conversion if the source audio file's sample rate differs from that of your device.

Naming scheme

There are now new filter option which allow you to generate new names from custom modifications of source names.

New Null Test Track

WaveLab 12 introduces Null Test Tracks for the Audio Montage. A Null Track undergoes phase inversion of its signal before mixing with the Audio Montage output. This feature is primarily employed for a technique known as null testing or null difference, a widely adopted audio measurement method for quality assurance, troubleshooting and audio analysis.

Frequency band monitoring

You can apply a filter to isolate a specific frequency band while listening to both the Audio Montage output and the reference track. Choose from five customizable high-quality, linear-phase filters for instant A/B comparison, enabling you to monitor your mastering session's impact

Speaker configurations with playback plug-ins

There is now the option to attach each of the eight speaker configurations to a playback plug-in chain preset. When a speaker configuration is selected, the associated plug-ins automatically replace any existing playback plug-ins

Plug-in settings replicator

Instantly copy the current parameters of a given plug-in to one or more other instances of the same plug-in within the same audio montage.

Enhanced album wizard

The new album wizard provides ISRC generation enhancements as well as added options to adjust markers and preserve clip positions.