Likelihood to Recommend Transcription of internal presentations and web conferences. It's great for capturing and transcribing the audio from presentations, demos, etc. which can then be used to develop training materials, blog posts, etc. Podcasts. Makes it really easy to record, edit, and publish video or audio podcasts. Promotional videos. Streamlines and accelerates the process for developing videos. Read full review Steinberg Media Technologies
WaveLab is well-suited when you want to apply a lot of VST FX processing to audio, or do a real-time recording and be able to hear how the FX processing sounds as you're recording. It is an excellent tool for recording in the studio. However, it lacks the sophisticated multitrack capabilities you find in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), instead of focusing on the features of an audio editor. It is also great for quickly opening, editing, and saving a lot of files because of how fast it is.
Read full review Pros I like the sidebar - breaking my scripts up into different "chapters" makes it easier to create quickly. I like that it auto-corrects punctuation, capitalization, etc. as I polish the scripts. It's easy for my team and my collaborators to read/listen, remark, and create useable transcripts. Read full review Steinberg Media Technologies
Realtime FX Chain - This is the big one for me. I always had both WaveLab and Sound Forge (along with some other audio editing programs, and using Pro Tools at school). Of the two, I preferred Sound Forge for its user interface and hotkeys, but I preferred WaveLab for its realtime FX. The ability to easily chain FX together and tweak them on the fly while the audio is playing is enormous for me. Speed - Quite simply, saving a huge file in WaveLab is orders of magnitude faster than in Sound Forge. To this day, I don't know why that is, but it's just faster. Opening and saving files is a breeze in WaveLab, while in some other audio editing programs, it can take 30 seconds or a minute for a large file. Read full review Cons When editing a transcript it can get a little cumbersome, as a double click doesn't always do what you think it will Some features aren't that intuitive (what is resize word gap) for beginners A tutorial/wizard as soon as you sign up would be very useful Read full review Steinberg Media Technologies
User Interface and Hotkeys - I've always struggled with the UI in WaveLab, and even after all these years, I am just much faster in Sound Forge. I used to have a job as an audio editor, where I edited hundreds of hours of interviews. By using the "Mark" feature, I could easily cut out silence, "ums" and "ahs," and other audio artifacts in Sound Forge. I struggled to do the same in WaveLab but was never able to work even a fraction as quickly. Built-In Audio Processing - I much prefer Sound Forge's built-in audio tools like time-stretching, normalization, compression, and so on. WaveLab has many of the same tools, but I have not found them to be as easy to use, and in some cases, nonexistent (relying instead on a VST plugin). Read full review Support Rating Steinberg Media Technologies
I have never contacted Steinberg, so I am not sure how responsive they are. Still, I've watched countless tutorials on audio editing and mastering in WaveLab, so I am pleased with the level of support available from the online community of users. It is a much-loved program among audio industry professionals, and there are all sorts of great tutorials, tips, and tricks available online.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Descript is by far superior to the other editing software you can get on Apple computers. It's able to do a lot more and really save us tons of time. Other Adobe apps are great, but take a while to learn. Descript is very user-friendly, making it easy to start from day one with very little training.
Read full review Steinberg Media Technologies
I am relatively agnostic about what audio software I use. I still use WaveLab to this day, 21 years later, for applications where I want to apply effects chains and tweak them in real-time.
Sound Forge even can't do this for some reason. But when I have a lot of editing to do, I'll typically open
Sound Forge instead, because I prefer the workflow of using the "M" hotkey to mark the audio as it's playing, and then quickly skip through markers and edit out audio artifacts. When I'm recording a vocalist, however, if I am not using a Digital Audio Workstation (like
Ableton Live ), then I do prefer WaveLab. I can apply VST effects in real-time to the audio coming in through the sound card input and playing back in their headphones.
Read full review Return on Investment I can get video completed much more quickly and cheaply We can produce more video content because of the speed with which we can have a finished product We can have shorter timelines for example I record on Monday and we publish on Tuesday which wouldn't be otherwise possible with other methods I've used Brecht Palombo Founder - REO, Non Performing Loans, and Bank Contact Data Services
Read full review Steinberg Media Technologies
Positive Impact - Ability to rapidly edit audio for EPUB3 ebooks and interviews. Positive Impact - Being able to hear in realtime how audio effects chains will sound, and to save commonly-used effects chains. Read full review ScreenShots