1 ![Stereo Waveform](images/15/23.png)

You know how there are times where you wish you were recording because a practice take was so amazing? Or maybe a singer sings a pickup just before the downbeat. Waveform's "Retrospective Record" feature actually keeps a recording buffer running for any track that has an input set up.

To enable this feature, from the Menu choose Option > Retrospective record and select the buffer size. We find that the 30-second buffer is usually enough to safe-guard against chopped off picks or endings. For live shows or recording speeches, set it to 10 minutes.

Enabling Retrospective Record

To recover lost audio, simply click the retrospective record icon in the upper right corner of the Waveform window. The buffered audio will be added as Audio clips to the appropriate tracks. If you click the icon while the transport is still running, the audio will be synched to the timeline. If you click the icon with the transport stopped, the audio will be placed at the cursor. In that case you will need to manually align the clip to the track.

Click Retrospective Record Icon

Retrospective record doesn't consume much CPU and is a great safeguard against losing important audio or a killer take.

When recording shows, doing long recordings, or if you ever need to leave your computer unattended while it's recording, consider enabling Safe-Record (Options > Safe-Record mode).

Safe Record Mode

In safe-record mode, you starting recording in the normal way. However, as soon as recording starts, Waveform shows a the Safe Record modal dialog box. You can't do anything in Waveform including stop the recording without entering the four key shortcut.

Here is how to get out of safe-record mode:

OS X: Shift + Opt + Cmd + R Windows: Shift + Alt + Ctrl + R

How to Exit Safe Recording

Those are the defaults, but you can change those to any other crazy key combination you want.

That was a lot of information about recording audio in Waveform. In the next chapter we will continue on with overdub recording.

In this chapter we walk through an example of recording a simple song. In the previous chapter, we explained how to use the Click feature to hear a metronome tempo reference while recording. In this chapter we will use a drum loop instead. Later you will learn the steps to overdub guitars and bass, in order to create a simple tune.

Tip: For overdub recording, you typically do all the recording wearing headphones with your main speakers off. This prevents bleed from one track to the next for cleaner mixing later on.

Here are the tracks we will have by the end of the chapter:

• Track 1: Drum Loop
• Track 2: Acoustic Guitar
• Track 3: Acoustic Guitar - Double
• Track 4: Bass

1. First, set the desired tempo. Click on the tempo (e.g. 77 bpm) in the Master section. Then click on the BPM value in Properties and type in the tempo.

Click BPM to Edit Tempo

1. Drag in a loop from the Browser, for example a two bar loop. This will create an Audio clip. The example shown uses Track 1 for the loop, which has been renamed to "DrumLoop."

Start With a 2-Bar Drum Loop

Tip: If the loop doesn't align to the bars correctly, hold Opt / Alt and drag the right trim arrow until it does.

1. Click the L icon on the Audio clip to convert it to looping mode. Now drag the right trim handle to roll out as many copies of the loop as you want.

Roll Out Repeats of the Drum Loop

1. Set up the input. In this example, the drum loop is on the first track, and the second track is used for recording the acoustic guitar rhythm part. We have selected Input 1 where the mic is connected.

Configure the Input

1. We won't use loop recording, so make sure the Loop button is turned off in the Transport section.
2. Turn off Click because we are using the drum loop track for the timing reference.
3. Let's use a two bar count-in. To set that up, select Click Track > Prerecord count-in length > Use 2-bar count-in.

1. Use your audio interface mix knob or app to balance the level of the guitar mic with the level of the drum loop track. On the guitar mic input, make sure Live Input Monitoring is turned off.
2. Next, arm the track for recording by clicking the R icon on the input. When you try this you will see the metering on the input moving if you play a chord.
3. Test the input level by playing at the loudest level you plan to use for the track. Adjust the level using the gain control on the audio interface.
4. Verify that the cursor is at the beginning of the edit. If not, press Home.
5. Press Record (R) on the Transport to start recording. Now record a take of your song. At the end hit Spacebar to stop recording.

Recording the Guitar Part

Tip: If recording doesn't go as planned, delete the Audio clip and try again. We went over several ways to do this in Chapter 15.

Note: If you hear some kind of weird phasing as you play your instrument, then it probably means you have Live Input Monitoring enabled while also monitoring through your audio interface. Disable Live Input Monitoring.

1. Following recording the initial rhythm guitar part, rewind and play it back. Use the Volume & Pan plugins in the mixer section to balance the signal with the drum loop.
2. To double the rhythm guitar, drag the Input object to the the next track. Now track 3 is immediately ready to go for recording an overdub.

Tip: You might want to lower the original track 3 to 6 dB using the Volume & Pan plugin to better balance the recorded track with your live mic.

1. Rewind then click Record in the Transport.

Recording the Second Guitar Part

1. After recording, play back and balance the new recording with the original guitar track. To get a wide stereo effect from the doubled part, pan the tracks to opposite sides using the Pan slider from the Volume & Pan plugin.

Panning Guitar Parts Left and Right

You can record the bass by connecting it directly to the audio interface; no amp, no mic.

High Impedance Inputs. Identify which input on your interface supports a direct 1/4" high impedance input. This is often indicated by the guitar, gtr, or hi-z. Sometime you need to engage a switch or button for the high impedance mode. Your bass or electric guitar will sound better if you have the hi-z mode enabled.

1. Connect your bass to the interface using a normal 1/4" to 1/4" guitar cord.

Engage High Impedance Mode on Your Audio Interface

1. From this point, recording works exactly the same as with a mic. Select the correct input and adjust the input level. Make sure the bass has a good level but is not activating the clip LED on the interface using the gain knob on the audio interface.
2. Arm the input for recording if it's not already. Adjust the levels of the existing tracks so that you can hear the the tracks. At the same time, you want to hear what you are playing on the bass.
3. Rewind and hit Record. If if the take doesn't go well, stop, press Undo and try again.

Overedubbed Bass Line

Tip: If you get a good take but think you can do better, don't delete the clip. You can drag the input to another track and try again. Just mute the original track or clip so that you don't hear it while recording the next take. The first take might wind up being the best take!

As you record overdubs, it's good idea to stay organized. One key is to name the tracks appropriately. Click directly on the track name then edit the Name property.

Renaming a Track

Tip: It can get annoying when renaming several tracks. You keep mousing between the track and the Properties section. To avoid all the extra mouse mileage, click the track name then press Tab. Tab puts the focus directly on the Name property ready for typing.

If you get to this point and you do not have enough tracks in your project, you can easily add tracks. There are several ways to do that.

1. Press T. Select any existing track and press T. That creates a new track directly below the selected one.
2. Right-click. Right-click in any blank space or on any track and select Create new track.
3. Track Menu. Another way is to select Tracks > Create a new track. using the Tracks menu. Or, select Tracks > Create several new tracks to add up to sixteen new tracks in one go.

Create Tracks from the Tracks Menu

Tip: Like most things in Waveform, you can undo creating tracks using the Undo button (Cmd + Z / Ctrl + Z). To remove a track from your project, select it and hit Delete or Backspace.

To rearrange the tracks, drag the track from the track name area and drop it in the new position. As you drag the track, a glowing bar will appear between tracks showing you the target for your drop. When that bar is in the right spot, let go of the drag and the track will be repositioned.

At this point you can adjust the levels of all the recorded track or continue to record and overdub vocals, keyboards, or other instruments. As you add more tracks, you will need to reduce the level of each to avoid overloading the master level.

Adjust the Mix

Tip: If you temporarily overload the master meter, you can reset the overload indicators using the backslash key ( \ ).

That was a walk-through of overdubbing. At this point, you should be getting familiar with basic recording in Waveform and have a handle on how to work with tracks in Waveform.

After you have some basic tracks recored, you can use the Waveform editing tools to clean up the clips and fix small problems with the takes. We covered Audio clip editing in Audio Clips and Editing Audio. In this chapter we will show you a few practical examples of how to use them.

Note: Sometimes it is easier to make timing edits if you move the part you're working on near the drum part. That way you can see the timing of your notes compared to the timing of the essential rhythmic elements of the song.

The trim handles are a great way to clean up the beginning and ending of recording takes. Trim the beginning to keep the track silent until the part actually comes in. Then trim the end to silence any extra noise that happens after the song is done.

Trimming an Audio Clip

To use the trim handle just grab and drag. If you leave Snap on, trimming will snap to the grid. With Snap turned off, you can trim freely.

Tip: You can temporarily override snapping by holding Cmd / Ctrl while trimming.

You can also trim multiple Audio clips at the same time. Just select several clips using Opt-drag / Alt-drag and then adjust the lengths using the trim handles on any of the select clips.

Bass Note Timing is Early

Look at this example baseline compared to the drum loop. One of the bass notes is early. Ideally, you would re-record this part. If that's not an option you can easily correct small issues like this. The strategy is to separate the out-of-time note to its own Audio clip, them move it slightly.

1. Turn off Snap.
2. Select the Audio clip you want to fix.
3. Position the cursor just at the beginning of the note that needs fixing and press slash ( / ) to split the clip.

Split the Beginning of the Note

4. Position the cursor just after the note and press slash ( / ) again. The bad note is now separated to its own Audio clip.

Split After the Note

5. Click to select the single note. Trim the clip to shorten it a bit.

Trim the Clip

6. Zoom in enough so you can see the alignment between the note and the drums. Grab the note and slide it to line up with the correct drum hit.

Drag the Clip to the Correct Time

7. Complete the edit by trimming and crossfading into the other notes.

The Completed Correction

Splitting & Selecting. Right after you split a clip, you'll notice that the two resulting clips are both selected. If you trim, slip or move a clip the action will apply to all selected clips. That might not be what you want. To select a single clip, just click one of the clips. At any time, you may hit Escape to de-select everything.

Another way to correct timing is with slip editing. With this approach you "slip" the waveform within the Audio clip rather than moving the clip. The key to this approach is to put the initial split exactly where you want to the note to start.

1. Turn Snap off
2. Zoom in enough to see where the note should start and select the clip to fix.
3. Position the cursor at the exact spot you wish the note had started and press slash ( / ) to split the clip.

Split the Clip Where the Note Should Start

3. If the note was early, trim back the previous clip to get rid of the extra bit.

Trim Back the Extra Bit From the Previous Clip

4. Position the cursor at the end of the note and press slash to split it again. The bad note will will have a separate Audio clip.

Split After the Note

5. Select only the note you want to adjust. Grab and drag the slip handle (solid box). The waveform will slip within the window of the Audio clip. Align the waveform so it starts just after the leading edge of the clip.

Drag the Slip Edit Handle to Adjust Timing Within the Clip

6. Clean up the edges with trimming and crossfading.

The Completed Edit

Note: If you have automatic crossfade turned on then as you move one clip to overlap another, a crossfade will be created automatically. See Audio Clips and Editing Audio for more about crossfades.

You can also adjust the fade-outs at the end of takes simply by using the fade handle and dragging it to the left for each track appropriately.

Adjusting Fade-outs

Remember, you can adjust the shape of the fade-out by selecting one of the four preset shapes in the Properties section.

Fade-out Shapes in Properties

If a note at the ending isn't held out long enough, you can apply a time stretch quite easily. Re-recording the take would be preferable, but if that's not an option, here's how you can do a quick time stretch to lengthen an ending note.

1. First, separate out the note that you want to stretch using split as in the other examples.
2. Hold Opt /Alt and drag the right trim handle to extend the note to the desired length.

Hold Opt / Alt While Trimming to Stretch a Clip

3. Audition the playback to make sure that it sounds clean. The more you stretch it the more chance you have to degrade the audio quality, but you might be surprised at how well this really works.

Note: Besides just simply cleaning up the takes, you can do detailed editing on Audio clips to completely change the timing or even the arrangement. While writing songs, you can use these tools to compose bass lines that tightly lock in with the drums. You can do this by adjusting the timing, removing notes, or shortening notes; It all depends on the nature of your music production. When writing a song, you can use these tools to try many different ideas.

When you do this type of editing, you might occasionally hear a click at the beginning or ending of a clip. This occurs when you split across a waveform that's actually got some energy present. You can easily correct those by putting a very tiny fade at the beginning of the clip.

Example of and Edge Fade

You could zoom way in and add tiny fades to the beginning and ending of each clip. The easier way is to select the clip and click Apply Edge Fade in Properties. This instantly puts 7 ms fades at the beginning and ending of all selected clips.

Apply Edge Fade in Properties

Chopped Up Audio Clip Following Editing

If clean-up editing leaves your track looking like a shredded mess, you can quickly render all the clips back to a singled clip. To do so:

1. Select all the clips you want to combine to one clip. One way to do that is to click the first clip, hold down Shift, then click on the last one.

Selected Clips before Rendering

1. In Properties select Render Clips > Merge the selected clips. In Waveform 6, merging is a single command, which is a great enhancement to the workflow.

Render Clips > Merge the selected clips

Audio Clip After Rendering

Those are some of the basic techniques you can use to clean up your recorded tracks. Use these techniques to trim clips, apply fade-outs, make minor timing adjustments, and then render all the changes to a single clip.

Warp Time is an audio editing option that was introduced in T6. Rather than needing to split out notes to move them, as discussed in the previous chapter, you can drag Warp points to bend and stretch audio into time. Apart from simply correcting timing problems, you an apply it creatively to compositions and loops to alter the feel of recorded audio.

The implementation is actually very simple. You can get up and running with Warp Time very quickly.

Tip: Since T7, Warp time is also available as one of the Clip Layer Layer effects, as described in Clip Layer Effects

Here is how to switch into the Warp Time mode:

1. Select an audio clip
2. In Properties, go to the Loop Properties tab
3. Enable the Warp Time option

Enable Warp Time Mode

The waveform view on the Loop Properties tab switches to the zoomable Warp Time editor.

Warp Time Editor on the Loop Properties Tab

The Warp Time Editor is working on the underlying audio in the clip so there might be much more audio shown than you see on the Audio clip. This will usually be the case if you have trimmed the Audio clip before hand.

Tip: If you want the Warp Time editor view to exactly match the waveform on the selected Audio clip, render the clip using *Render Clip

Flatten the selected clip*. This will create a new underlying file. After that, what you see and hear in the Warp Time editor will match what you see and hear in the Audio clip.

Zooming In & Out

• To zoom the waveform, use the mouse scroll wheel. On many laptops you can use a two finger up/down gesture in place of a scroll wheel. On Mac laptops you can also use a two finger left or right gesture to slide the waveform left and right.

Warp Points

• Click on the timeline to add a Warp point. When you drag a Warp point left or right, time is stretched or compressed between that point and next surrounding Warp points.

Tip: You can add a Warp point and drag in a single action. Just click on the timeline, hold and start dragging. The waveform will stretch until you stop dragging.

Warp Point

Removing Warp Points: Shift-click any existing Warp Point to remove it. Right-click any existing Warp point for options to rename it or remove all Warp points.

Warp Point Right Click Menu

By default, the Warp Time editor will always have starting and ending Warp points. If you add a Warp point and move it, the audio will be stretched between the beginning and ending of the wave.

Before Warping

Dragging a Warp Point to the Left

Dragging a Warp Point to the Right

To correct audio timing over a constrained area, you can think about a three point technique. You typically want to add Warp points just before the beginning of notes or percussive hits. That would be just before a transient. If you do that then stretching occurs over the note not in the middle of it.

With the three point technique, you insert Warp points before and after the note you want to alter to lock down the timing. Then add a Warp point right at the transient you want to change and drag it into to time.

As you drag Warp points, you will notice they snap to the grid. The snap grid for Warp points is based on the zoom level of the Warp Time editor, not the zoom level of the Edit.

To override snapping when adjusting Warp points, hold down Cmd / Ctrl as you drag the points.

Warp Time editing works best for single track parts. If you use it on multitrack drum parts, you will find it seriously affects the phase alignment of multi-miked drum kits. This is the same for other instruments that are recorded with multiple mics.

You can use Warp Time on stereo tracks. If you have two mono tracks, first render them to a stereo track before using Warp Time.

By default Warp Time uses Elastique Pro but you can switch it use any of the other modes as well. There is little benefit in selecting other modes, since Waveform does the actual stretching offline.

Stretch Property Options

Most of the time, Elastique Pro will give you the best results. If you have specialized needs, you can experiment with the other Elastique options under the spanner icon.

Elastique Options

Note: If the Stretch property is set to "Melodyne" or "No Time-Stretching," Waveform still uses the Elastique Pro algorithm for Warp Time.

Here is a video demo of Warp Time that you might find interesting:

Warp Time Video Demo

Warp Time, the standard editing tools, and Melodyne give you amazing potential to manipulate the timing of your Audio clips.

Loop recording is a really cool way to quickly record multiple takes of a part onto a single track. Following loop recording, you can easily pick the best take and make it active, so that it is the one you hear during playback.

Loop recording also sets you up to use the track comping tools that are built into Waveform. Comping allows you to go phrase by phrase through the different takes and choose the best parts and create a composite best take. We cover comping in detail in Comping.

Getting into loop recording in Waveform is simple - enable Loop (L) in the Transport. Now when you click Record, recording will only occur between the In-marker and Out-marker. The transport will "loop" between the In-marker and Out-marker allowing you to automatically record take after take, until you hit Stop.

Turn on Loop for loop recording mode

1. Set the In-marker and the Out-marker over the range that you would like to do the loop recording. To set the In-marker, position the cursor and press I. To set the Out-marker, position the cursor at the end of the loop and press O.

Set the In-marker & Out-marker

Note: The Click count-in works for loop recording. If you want a running start for each take, set Click Track > Pre-record count-in length to one or two bars.

2. Configure the input and check your levels just like we did for standard recording.

Configure the Input for Recording

3. Click Record (R) on the transport to start recording.

While recording when the cursor hits the Out-marker, Waveform will automatically loop back for the next take. You can do as many takes as you like.

After loop recording, you will have a number of takes stacked within the Audio clip. The very last take you recorded is what you will hear during playback. That is called the "active take." To select a different take for the active take, click the plus (+) sign in the lower right corner of the clip. You will see a list of all takes there. Pick the one you want to promote to the active take. You can audition all the takes and make your favorite one the active take.

Choosing the Active Take

Tip: With your takes recorded this way, it is perfectly set up for comping, which we will cover in the [next chapter].

If you want to work with your loop recorded takes as separate audio tracks, it is easy to unpack the takes to tracks. To do so, click the plus (+) sign and then select Unpack to new tracks.

Unpack Takes to Tracks

That instantly coverts an Audio clip full of takes to a series of tracks containing separate Audio clips. Now you can use normal audio editing to move them around, chop them up, or arrange them into a song.

The secret to loop recording is to set the In-marker and Out-marker over the section you want to record, make sure Loop is turned on, and then record like you normally would. Loop recording also sets you up for comping, which is covered in the next chapter.

In this chapter, we're going to go over the cool comping features in Waveform. Comping is an editing technique where you select the best phrases from numerous takes to build a composite or "comp." The idea is to create the best possible take. Engineers have been doing this for years, but Traction makes it much easier than the traditional methods.

Comping typically starts with takes recorded in Loop mode, covered in Loop Recording.

Loop recording used to be a prerequisite for doing comping. Starting with T6, Waveform also allows you to build composites from any collection of tracks, using the new Comp Groups feature. More on that later in the chapter.

Before you start comping, it is a good to create a copy of the Edit. This is so you can return to the raw takes, in the event you later wish to do the composite a different way.

Note: We are assuming that you have already recorded using the technique in the previous chapter. If not, go back to Loop Recording and get some takes recorded!

1. When you finish loop recording, make sure to save the Edit with Save > Save edit (Cmd + S / ctrl + S).
2. Go to the Projects tab and select the correct Edit. In the Controls panel, click Create a Copy.
3. It is recommended to keep your Edits organized by adding a revision number. Do so by clicking on each Edit, then editing the Name property.
4. On the original Edit, add a comment that says, "This version is before comping" or similar.
5. Close the tab for the original Edit and open the new copied version.

Strategically creating copies of your Edits and naming them in a logical way, works like a revision control system. You can always roll back if something goes wrong, or if you just change your mind.

Now that everything is setup, it's time to get to the creative, part of the process.

1. Select the Audio clip that contains the takes you want to comp.

Takes Follow Loop Recording

1. Click on the plus (+) icon in the lower right corner of the clip and select Show takes. That expands the clip to show all of the individual takes. If you play back over this section of the Edit, you will hear the very last take you did during loop recording.

Takes in the Expanded View

3. To build a composite take, click and drag a range over a phrase from any take. That phrase is instantly promoted to the active take. This drag-to-select action is called "swiping."

Swipe a Phrase to Add it to the Active Take

Tip: While comping, sometimes it's helpful to have the cursor return where you started playback whenever you stop playback. Do so by enabling Options > Return cursor to start position when play stops. This makes it easier to audition phrase by phrase without needing to constantly reposition the cursor.

4. Continue swiping and auditioning to build up the composite. If you want to switch a selected phrase to a different take, just click another take. The selection instantly moves to that take.

Building the Composite Take

5. If the swipe selection doesn't fully enclose a phrase, adjust either edge of the selection by simply dragging the edge to trim it.

Trim the Edges of a Selection

Note: While comping sometimes you'll use a little bit from every take. Other times you'll predominantly use one take and just fix a couple of bad phrases.

Once you have finished, click the plus (+) icon and select Hide takes. At that point, you're finished comping!

Hide Takes

Tip: After comping, it is a great time to create another copy of the Edit and add a note that this was saved after comping. This gives you the option to roll back if you ever want to make some changes.

If you feel compelled to remove the underlying takes from the Edit, click the plus (+) icon on the clip and select Flatten current comp. This gives you the option to delete the source files. Keep in mind that this operation is permanent.

Flatten Current Comp

Tip: Don't flatten the comp without first saving a copy of the Edit. Also, we do not recommend selecting the option to delete the source files as this will remove them for your other saved Edits.

T6 introduced Comp Groups, a feature that allows you to use swipe comping with any group of tracks. This works similarly to the techniques described above for comping takes. The difference is that you first add the tracks involved to a Comp Group.

Select Tracks to Comp

Select all the tracks you want use to build the composite. These are typically recorded as various takes of a lead vocal or solo instrument. However you can use any collection of tracks you want.

Select the Tracks to Comp

Create a Comp Group

In Properties, open the Comp Group menu and select Add group. This opens the Comp Group Name dialog box. The name will default to Comp Group 1 which is fine. You can change it to something more descriptive if you want. Click OK.

Creating a Comp Group

Add a Track to a Comp Group

Any tracks pre-selected at the time you created Comp Group 1 are automatically added as you create the Comp Group. To add another track to Comp Group 1, select the track, open the Comp Group menu and select Comp Group 1.

Adding Another Track to Comp Group 1

Removing a Track from a Comp Group To take a track out of a comp group, first, select the track. In the Comp Group menu, select None.

With some tracks added to a Comp Group, it is easy to start comping.

1. Select one of the tracks then in the Comp Group menu select Show Editor > Edit track comps. This puts the tracks in to comp mode.

Enable Comp Mode

2. Now you can start swiping to select phrases from any of the tracks. On playback only the selected phrases are played back.

Swiping Phrases to Create a Composite

3. You can adjust the window of your selection by dragging either edge of range. This works very similarly to comping takes which we covered earlier in the chapter.

Tip: If you want to have good control over the silent parts of a comp, it helps to add a blank track to the Comp Group. For the parts you want to silence, simply swipe over that range on the blank track.

Here are few more things to know about the Comp Group Editor.

Show Track Comps

• When you enable comp group editing using Show Editor > Edit track comps, another option, Show track comps is also turned on. This enables the color coding of the swipe selections on the tracks. You can turn this on separately if you want. This way you can see the comp selections but leave Edit comp groups turned off so you don't accidentally change them.

Show Track Comps

Render Comp

• When you have the composite complete, you can render the result to single track. The Comp Group menu gives you two options for this. Render and replace comp group replaces the all the comp group tracks with the resulting track. Render comp group to a new track leaves the existing tracks in place and adds a new track with the composite.

Rendering a Comp to a New Track

Add, Rename, Remove

• These options on the Comp Group menu give you all the features need to manage your comp groups.

Comp Group Management Features

One interesting thing about comp groups is that you can have as many of them active in the Edit as you want. There are many uses beside typical comping, for example you could comp silence with tom tracks instead of gating. Comping is also a fast way to mash up two beats or two different songs.

The comping features in Waveform are very easy to use. As you are learning Waveform, make sure to explore these powerful features.

In this chapter, you will learn how to use an amp simulator plugin while recording direct with an electric guitar in Waveform. Out of the box, Waveform doesn't include an amp simulator plugin. However, most of the third party amp simulator plugins will work. If you don't have any of these, there is a great sounding free amp sim plugin from Voxengo called Boogex, used as an example for this chapter. You can download it from Voxengo.com.

Free Boogex Amp Simulator from Voxengo

Here is the setup:

1. Connect your guitar to the high impedance input on your audio interface as described in Audio Device Setup. If your interface doesn't have a guitar input then use a suitable preamp.

Connect Your Guitar to your Interface

2. Create a new track, select the input, and arm it for recording.

Select the Input and Arm It

3. Make sure that direct monitoring of your signal though the audio interface is turned all the way down or disabled. To make this work you need to monitor 100% of your guitar signal through Waveform.

Turn off Any Input Monitoring on Your Interface

4. Select the input and turn on Live Input Monitoring. At this point you should be able to hear your dry unprocessed guitar signal.

Enable Live Input Monitoring

5. Open the Browser and go to the Search tab, and type in a few characters of the name of your amp simulator plugin. Drag the plugin to the mixer section.

Drag the Amp Sim Plugin to the Mixer

6. If the UI window for the plugin didn't open, double click it. If you have Live Input Monitoring enabled you should hear sound through the plugin when you play. Select a preset and it should sound like you are playing through a guitar amp, maybe even amps, effects, cabinets, whatever your plugin simulates.

Tip: To bypass the plugin just click on the plugin to select it and press F. You can also enable or disable it using the Enabled control in Properties. The shortcut F will enable or disable any selected plugins.

Amp Sim Plugin Shown Disabled

At this point, recording works the same as before.

1. Record-enable the track, make sure the cursor is at the beginning.
2. Click Record in the Transport. If you want to do loop recording then have Loop on and then you can record several takes in a quick succession.
3. Once you have actually recorded the part, you can still tweak the sound.

Recording with the Amp Sim

A big advantage of recording this way is the ability to tweak the sound after the fact. You can also record using an endless variety of guitar rigs that you don't own. Plus, you can do this without disturbing the neighbors!

An important but subtle advantage is when you go to edit your guitar tracks. Edits that occur before the amp and distortion sounds more natural and are way less apparent when you edit a fully processed guitar part.

Guitars connect to your audio interface through a quarter-inch, unbalanced connection. This is a high impedance connection. It might not be super important to understand what that means electrically. You will get a better tone and feel if connect to a proper high impedance input. It's just the nature of guitar pickups. Going into a standard input loads them down and you lose articulation and punch. On most audio interfaces, the first one or two channels of the interface have guitar inputs. Many times there is a switch or button to enable high impedance on those channels, meaning that it will accept high impedance pickup like a guitar or bass. So while your guitar might actually work through a normal low impedance input, it is going to give you better picking dynamics and tone if you go through the high impedance input and have the high impedance mode engaged.

When working with guitar amp simulators, latency can be a factor. If you have the Audio buffer size set too high, you get a big delay between when you play and when you hear a note. If you set it too low the you might get pops and clicks if the computer doesn't have adequate CPU power to handle the low latency you have chosen. The challenge is to find a good setting the feels responsive, but still has perfect sound quality.

Latency is determined by Audio Buffer Size parameter. Here is how to set that:

1. Navigate to the Settings tab, Audio Devices page.
2. Locate the Audio buffer size setting. The value shows a number of samples followed by a calculated latency delay.
3. Enter an Audio Buffer Size value. Values around 256 or lower tend to work pretty well depending on what else is going on in the Edit.

Here is some background on the impact of the buffer size. In this example, a buffer setting of 256 samples offers 5.8 ms of latency.

What this means is that when you play a note on your guitar, you are going to hear the sound about 5.8 ms later. Now the speed sound through air is about 1 ms per foot (1ms per .3 meters). A 5 ms delay would be similar to playing your guitar amp if it were 5.8 feet (1.8 meters) away from your ears. You would need to add in the actual distance from your monitor speakers as well. If your speakers are two or three feet away, it might be like having your amplifier nine feet away. Most guitar players can deal with latency delay in that range. It's similar to the distance you would be standing from your guitar amp on stage. If it starts getting much longer than that, then you are going to hear a noticeable lag and that will affect the feel and potential impact your playing.

As another example, if you have your Audio buffer size set to 1024 samples, that gives you 23 ms of delay, That is going to give you the feeling of playing with your amplifier 23 feet (7 meters) from your ears. That is going to be really hard to work with.

Why not just set the buffer size as low as it will possibly go? That could affect the performance of the computer. If you set the buffer size too low, especially if you have a lot of other plugins and other virtual instruments going, the playback might halt or it might not sound clean.

Note: It's always a balancing act between setting the buffer size as low as possible to get the latency down while keeping it high enough to have clean, solid playback. When mixing, you can increase latency to approximately 1024, mostly because that is required for Melodyne ARA.

You can dial in your ideal guitar tone using the controls on the amp simulator. Flip through the presets or start with a preset and tweak the controls until you get what you like. Keep in mind, one of the powerful things about recording guitar this way is you don't really have to commit to the sound at this point. Just dial in something that's inspiring so that you can get a good performance. You can always come back and tweak the amp settings later.

If you are recording direct with a guitar or bass, you might want to add a tuner plugin before the amp sim. Waveform does not include a native tuner, but if you have a tuner plug-in, you can just drop it into the effects section of the mixer for the track. That will give you a quick and easy way to tune up.

Tip: If you don't have a tuner plugin, consider downloading one as part the the MFreeEffectsBundle from Melda Production.

Tuning with the MTuner Plugin

Assuming you have a tuner plugin available, here is how to get it going:

1. Open the Browser, go to the Search tab. Make sure Plugins is selected from the search options drop down menu. Type in a few characters of the name of your tuner plugin. The plug-in will show up in the search list.
2. Drag the tuner and drop it in the plug-ins area of the track. Normally, as soon as you drop it, the user interface window will pop open. If not double click the plugin to open the UI.
3. Play a note on your guitar. If the tuner does not respond make sure to arm the track for recording and enable Live Input Monitoring. This is necessary for the signal to flow through the track to the mixer section and to the tuner plugin.

Tip: To keep the plugin open, click the pin icon in the upper right corner.

When you are finished with tuning, click the red X in the upper left corner of the tuner to hide its user interface.

Note: In earlier versions of Waveform, Live Input Monitoring was called "End to end monitoring." It has been renamed to reduce confusion about this feature.

You can always record in the traditional way by miking your guitar amplifier. It's also interesting to split your guitar signal and record the direct signal along with your miked guitar amp. That way you can blend the sound of the amp sim with the real amp when mixing.

We're going to move on to MIDI recording and editing in this and the next few chapters. The first step is to set up a MIDI keyboard so that you can play notes into Waveform. If you don't have a MIDI keyboard, you can enter notes manually into the MIDI editor, or you can use the computer keyboard as a virtual MIDI device.

The setup is quite simple. We are using a USB external keyboard controller, but the setup works much the same for other types of controllers.

Before you dive in here, you might need drivers for your controller. Check the manufacturer's website for drivers for the controller model and your operating system. With Waveform closed, download and install the drivers. Once you've done that, the rest is easy.

Go to the Settings tab, MIDI devices page. You will see a list of all available MIDI inputs and outputs that are connected to your system. In this example I have four of them. To enable the MIDI inputs and outputs, click to toggle between Enabled and Disabled next to each entry.

Click to Enable/Disable MIDI Inputs and Outputs

Tip: If you don't see your devices listed, make sure the controller is connected and has power. If that checks out, then make sure the latest drivers are installed. At any time you can click Refresh. Refresh initiates a scan for connected MIDI devices.

From the Settings tab, MIDI Devices page, click on a MIDI input or output in the MIDI devices list. Notice that in Properties, there is an Alias value. Edit that to give your MIDI input or output a friendly name. I often make this match the name of the controller that is connected.

Tip: You can customize Alias for a specific Edit, by selecting the input in the Edit tab and changing it in Properties. Changing Alias on the Edit tab takes precedence over the Alias property in the Settings tab.

Your audio interface might also include MIDI in and out hardware connections. Those allow connecting legacy controllers that don't support USB. If you don't plan to use the hardware MIDI in and out connections, you can leave them disabled. In this example we have disabled.

Disable Unused MIDI I/O

This hides those from the selection list when setting up a track.

Back in your Edit, choose a blank track or create a new one.

1. Click on an input and select the MIDI input that matches the controller you just configured.

Select the MIDI Input Device

1. Play some notes on your keyboard. You will see the meter registering the MIDI activity on that track.

Input Meter Activity

1. With the input selected look in Properties. Turn on Enable Input Monitoring if it isn't already on.

Enable MIDI Input Monitoring

With this done, MIDI events come into the track from your keyboard and the pass through to the virtual instrument that we're going to setup next.

To hear what you play, you will need to insert a virtual instrument. Use the Browser Search tab to locate a synth plugin. In this example we are using the Waveform FM Synth.

Search for a Synth Plugin

1. Insert your synth plugin ahead of the Volume & Pan plugin. By ahead, we mean ahead in the signal path. So in this example, we have dropped FM Synth to the left of Volume & Pan.

FM Synth Installed in the Mixer

1. Play some notes on your keyboard and at this point you should hear synth notes.

Note: There is no difference between a MIDI track and an audio track in Waveform. To configure a MIDI track, just set a MIDI input and insert a virtual instrument plugin as a sound generating source. Then, as you record your performance, you'll create a MIDI clip instead of an audio clip like we did in the previous examples.

If you don't have a physical MIDI keyboard, you can use your computer qwerty keyboard to play notes. Here is how to set it up:

1. Go to the Settings tab, MIDI Devices page
2. Click Create New Virtual MIDI Input

Create New Virtual MIDI Input

1. Enter a name such as 'Qwerty Piano' into the Virtual MIDI device dialog box

Name the Virtual MIDI Device

1. Back in your Edit create a track
2. Choose Qwerty Piano as the input

Select the Virtual Device as the Input

1. Notice the piano keyboard along the bottom of the screen. To play the keyboard first click on any key with the mouse then use keys A,S,D,F,G,H,J,K,L as white keys. Use W, E,T,Y,U,O,P as black keys. This virtual keyboard lets you play notes in the range from C4 to E5.

Tip: Click the 'lock' icon in the upper left corner Properties. This locks the Waveform keyboard to the Virtual MIDI Piano feature. Also, when attempting to record, it helps to start recording using a keyboard shortcut. If you click record, the qwerty piano loses focus until you click a key on the virtual keyboard.

Lock the Input Properties While Playing the Virtual

Note: When you are finished using the virtual keyboard, unlock Properties by clicking on the lock icon again. It will stay stuck on the virtual keyboard until you do that.

In the next chapter, you'll learn how to record a MIDI performance onto the track!

In this chapter you'll learn how to record a MIDI performance from your controller. Your controller could be a keyboard or any other sort of instrument that you can use to generate MIDI note data. We covered how to set up a MIDI controller in the previous chapter.

In this chapter, we'll go further and cover the details of how to record your MIDI performance. You will also learn about the various MIDI recording modes. The MIDI implementation in Waveform is fairly comprehensive while also being quite easy to use. Let's get started.

There isn't a special type of MIDI track in Waveform. Any track can be used for audio, MIDI, or Step Clips. To record MIDI, pick any unused track or create a new track. On the track, set up the input by selecting your MIDI controller. Play a few notes on your MIDI controller to see if you have MIDI activity.

A Track Set Up for MIDI Recording

To hear any sound, you'll need to insert a virtual instrument. Do so by dragging the plugin object to the mixer section, or search for the synth plugin in the Search tab on the Browser. When you find it, drag it over to the mixer section of your track. We usually recommend dropping it to the left of the Volume & Pan plugin. As soon as you drop it, the user interface will open up for the instrument plugin. Choose a suitable preset for the part.

We covered all of this in the previous chapter. If when you play notes on your controller you don't hear anything, go back to MIDI Setup and make sure the MIDI input is set up correctly.

Recording MIDI is very much like recording audio:

1. Enable the track for recording by clicking the red R on the track input

Enable Recording

1. In the Transport, click the red Record button to start recording. You can also do this using the keyboard shortcut R.

Start Recording

1. Record your MIDI performance

MIDI Recording in Process

1. To stop, either press R again or just hit the space bar.

Tip: To record your MIDI performance with a metronome click, configure and enable Click using the procedure outlined in MIDI Editing.

If everything went according to plan, you'll have created a MIDI clip. Notice, the MIDI notes on the clip. If you zoom the track vertically, the MIDI clip will, at one point, flip to the MIDI editor mode. In this mode, you can edit MIDI notes, which we cover in MIDI Editing.

MIDI Clip Following Recording

Position the cursor before the newly recorded MIDI clip, the press the spacebar again to playback. You should be able to hear the exact performance.

Tip: If you don't like what you recorded, simply select the MIDI clip and press backspace to delete it.

As I mentioned above, as you expand the track vertically, you'll notice that at a certain point MIDI clips will switch to edit mode. The Waveform MIDI editor is what is commonly called a piano roll view (PRV). In this view, you can clearly see the notes along with a vertical piano graphic located along the left.

Track Expanded to the MIDI Editor

Note: The PRV in Waveform allows you to see the timing of notes as they relate to the timeline, and the pitch of notes as they relate to a piano keyboard. The graphic length of a note represents how long that note is held in musical time.

The MIDI editor PRV includes everything you need to edit MIDI data. You can add notes, delete notes, copy notes, and duplicate them. You can also work with velocity and other controller values. We'll get into the details later when we go deeper into [MIDI editing].

Select a MIDI input and look in Properties at the item labeled Action. The drop down menu for Action gives you a variety of record modes.

MIDI Record Modes

By default, Action is set to Merge newly recorded MIDI into any existing clips. If you rewind and record in some more notes, you will find that they're merged into the MIDI clip that you created in the first pass. It doesn't replace notes that you recorded before; it just adds new notes and and merges them with the original MIDI clip.

If you mess up an otherwise good performance in merge mode, undo the new notes by pressing Cmd + Z / Ctrl + Z.

Tip: Merge mode can be very helpful if you're building up a part pass by pass, particularly when layering a drum part and adding additional drum hits in each pass.

If you wanted to replace what you played previously, change Action in Properties for the input to Replace existing clips with newly recorded MIDI clips. Now when you start to record, the new recording will create an entirely new MIDI clip and it will gradually overwrite what you had before. It doesn't exactly erase the original clip. If any portion of the clip is still visible, you can trim the edges of it and expose the original data. Of course, Undo will get you back to where you started from if things don't go well.

Note: You can envision replace mode as being similar to tape recording. As you record something new onto tape, you are erasing the section you are recording over.

In overlay mode, as you record you'll get a new MIDI clip stacked on top of the original clip. After you have recorded this way, you'll hear the output from both clips mixed together.

During playback, you will hear the overlapping MIDI clips merged together.

To find MIDI Input Quantize, click on the input and locate the Quantize property. The drop down menu for Quantize offers a wide variety of beat subdivisions.

Notice how this works; you are selecting a subdivision of the beat (not the bar). For example, if you want to quantize your input to the nearest eighth note, you don't select 1/8 beat from this list, you select 1/2 beat, because an eighth note is half of a quarter note (when working in 4/4 time).

Input Quantize Options

As you record, you're going to hear the notes however you play them, but on playback all of your notes will be snapped to the value you set in Quantize.

Note that the results of quantizing can sound somewhat unnatural, because this approach quantizes both the note start and the note ending. Notes get stretched out and tend to sound mechanical. In general, input quantize is more useful for drum programming than playing something like a piano part.

Note: Input quantizing does not happen in real time. You hear the result during playback.

There are other ways (Apply Groove) to quantize after the fact. We'll be getting into that in Quantizing MIDI Notes.

That's an introduction to MIDI recording. You learned the essential options to set up a MIDI input. You learned about the MIDI record modes. We also took a quick look at input quantizing. Next up, loop recording with MIDI!

In this chapter you'll learn about loop recording and MIDI. Loop recording in merge mode can be useful for layering up a drum part, or building a chord over a couple of passes through the loop.

Waveform also supports MIDI loop recording to layers, which gives you the capability to build a composite MIDI performance in the same way you can do with audio.

In the last chapter you learned about MIDI merge mode. Here are the steps again:

1. To put your track into MIDI merge mode, click on the track input, then in Properties set Action to Merge newly recorded MIDI into any existing clip.

MIDI Merge Mode

1. To prepare for loop recording, set the In-marker and the Out-marker over the area you want to loop.

Set the In-marker & Out-marker

1. Toggle the Loop button to until it's enabled.

Enable Loop

1. As Waveform cycles through the loop, you'll immediately hear the results of what you played in previous passes. Keep adding passes until you're happy with the part.
2. To stop recording, either click Record again or hit Spacebar.

MIDI Clip After Recording

Following loop recording, you'll have a single MIDI clip containing the part you built up over successive recording passes.

This technique is particularly useful for programming drum parts, especially if drumming is not your main skill. For example, on the first pass play in the high hat. Then, on the second pass add the kick and snare. Finally, strategically add a crash on the downbeat.

Comping is usually associated with audio recording and editing. With comping, you record multiple takes of a part then use simple editing tools to select the best phases from the various takes.

To prepare to comp with a MIDI recording, leave everything set up the same way as for merge mode, but change the Action parameter to Overlay new clips containing newly recorded MIDI.

Enable Overlay Mode

Set the In-marker and Out-marker and turn Loop on. Hit Record and record a performance during each cycle through the loop.

When you hit Stop you'll have separate takes in the MIDI clip for each loop pass, just like in audio loop recording.

To see the takes, click the plus icon in the lower right corner of the MIDI clip; You'll see a list of all your takes. From here, you can choose the best take from the list and that will make it active.

Takes Following Loop Recording

You can also expand the view to show all the takes below the track. Click the plus icon and select, Show takes.

View following Show takes

Not only does this show the takes, but it puts you in comping mode. Swipe over the phrases you want to keep and build a composite from the best parts of each take.

Comping the Takes

Once you have the composite assembled, you can convert it to a single MIDI clip. Click the plus icon and select Flatten current comp. You will need to press Delete on the Delete Unused Takes dialog box to proceed.

Flattening the MIDI Composite

Note: When you select Flatten current comp Waveform asks if you want to delete the unused takes. If you want to flatten the takes to a single MIDI clip, you need to accept this. Note that you can use Undo following this action.

Delete Clips Warning Message

Loop recording and comping are really powerful tools for MIDI composition, just as they are when working with audio. Next up, learn how to edit MIDI clips and MIDI notes.

In this chapter you will learn MIDI editing. There are two aspects to MIDI editing. You can, of course, edit individual MIDI notes, but you can also edit the MIDI clip. Editing a MIDI clip is similar to editing an Audio clip, but with a few key differences. We will go over both approaches in this chapter.

Many of the tools for working with clips work much like they do with Audio clips. Each MIDI clip header has several drag handles. Let's take a look at how they work.

To trim a MIDI clip, drag one of the trim handles left or right. The trim handles are the hollow arrows at the left and right of the MIDI clip header.

Trim MIDI Clips by Dragging a Trim Handle

Note: One difference between Audio clips and MIDI clips is that the MIDI clips don't have fade handles.

To move a MIDI clip forward or backward in time, drag from the header area. Don't drag starting from any of the icons, but instead drag from the blank space in the header area.

Moving a MIDI Clip

To move a MIDI clip track-to-track, grab the header area and drag it up or down. To move track-to-track without affecting the timing, hold down Shift as you drag.

The three solid color handles are used for slip editing: left arrow, right arrow, and the box. The essential tool for slip editing is the solid box in the center of the header. Grab the solid box and drag, in order to slip edit the notes within the frame of the window.

MIDI Clip Slip Handles

Use the left solid arrow to slip the notes later in time, while leaving the ending of the clip anchored. The right solid arrow works the opposite way. You can slip the end of the clip, while leaving the beginning of the clip anchored.

The hollow box tool in the center of a MIDI clip allows you to reframe the entire window of the clip, leaving the notes in their original place. This is done by dragging the hollow box left or right.

To split a MIDI clip, select it then position the cursor at the time you want to make the split. Press the slash key (/). This is the exact same workflow you use for splitting Audio clips.

Split MIDI Clips Using the Slash Key

You can also split using the Split Clips actions at the right side of Properties. The various actions give you more control over splitting.

Split Actions Button in Properties

Note: As you split MIDI clips, any notes that are sustained across the split area are separated into two notes.

You can even split a mixture of Audio clips and MIDI clips across multiple tracks, by selecting a combination of them at once.

As you increase the vertical size of a track holding MIDI clips, you'll see that there's a point at where it switches to the inline MIDI note editor. This gives you a comprehensive view of the notes contained within the MIDI clip. This type of view is commonly called a piano roll view (PRV).

The MIDI Note Editor

Another way to see the MIDI note editor is to double-click on the MIDI clip header to toggle track height.

Note: Clip header double-click behavior is dependent on a global setting. Go to the Settings tab, General behavior page and find the Track Resizing property. You can choose a number of options, based on how you would like that resizing to occur when you double-click. This setting also holds for audio tracks.

You can adjust how many octaves you see on the MIDI editor in the Options menu. By default Options > Default MIDI editor vertical scale is set to 2 octaves, a reasonable starting point. If you want you can set this to show more or fewer octaves.

Default MIDI Editor Vertical Scale Setting

To fine tune the vertical size of MIDI notes, drag the arrows above and below the piano graphic.

Use Arrows to Adjust Vertical Size

You can use your mouse wheel to scroll vertically within the MIDI editor. During mixing you may prefer to disable this function, in order to prevent scrolling within the MIDI clips unintentionally.

Mouse Wheel MIDI Scrolling Setting

You may find it's generally helpful to have MIDI scrolling on during MIDI editing. You'll find this setting in the menu under Options > Mouse wheel action > Mouse wheel scrolls MIDI grid.

Next, let's look at the tools for editing the actual MIDI notes. In general, editing works by selecting notes and then doing an action.

Select a Note and Drag Up or Down to Change Pitch

The most basic edit? Click a note to select it. Drag it up or down to change the pitch.

As you start to drag MIDI notes around, you will immediately see the per-note controller editing area appear above or below selected notes.

Drawing Per Note Automation

If you don't see the per-note automation editing area, you can turn it on and off in Properties.

Turn Per Note Automation Editing On or Off

To begin, select any single note. The automation editing area will appear for the full length of the note. By default you will be editing Volume (controller 7). Select the pencil tool and draw in the desired automation curve by click-dragging over the editing area.

Note: You need to select the pencil tool to draw in the per-note automation.

The curve will appear as steps based on the current snap resolution. The snap resolution is set by the zoom level; To draw in a more detailed curve, zoom in more.

Selecting the Controller Type for Per Note Automation

You can select any other control by clicking the Type button on the MIDI editor toolbar. This type of editing gives you detailed control over performance details and articulations.

Note: Not all virtual instruments respond to this type of data.

Nudging works much like it does for Audio clips and MIDI clips. You hold down Shift and use the arrow keys. Shift-up and Shift-down change the pitch. Shift-left and Shift-right change the timing.

Nudging is particularly helpful when changing the pitch, since there there's no chance of altering the timing of the note.

Tip: Cmd + Z / Ctrl + Z works as undo for most editing operations.

You can trim the length of a note by grabbing the right edge and dragging it left or right.

Trimming a MIDI Note

Many of these editing operations will snap to the grid as long as you have Snap enabled. To edit freely, disable Snap. The keyboard shortcut Q enables or disables snapping.

Note Editing Will Snap if Snap is On

To copy a note, hold down Cmd / Ctrl and drag the note to create a copy. Another way to do this is with the Duplicate keyboard shortcut. First select the note that you would like to copy, make sure the cursor is where you'd like the copy placed and then hit the keyboard shortcut D.

Copying a Note

Another way to adjust pitch and velocity is to select the note and then edit the values directly in Properties. Both Pitch and Velocity can easily be edited this way.

Adjust Pitch and Velocity in Properties

You can also make very precise adjustments to the Length, Start Time, and End Time by editing the values directly in Properties for the selected note.

Start, Length, & End Settings in Properties

The pencil tool is used to draw in notes. Simply select the pencil tool and then start painting in notes where you'd like them to appear on the piano roll.

Draw in New Notes with the Pencil Tool

Use the eraser tool to swipe over any series of notes that you would like to erase.

The Eraser Tool

There's also a line tool. We usually recommend using this for drawing in controllers, but it is also possible to use it for notes as well. Draw a line to create a stepped series of notes.

Draw a Series of Notes with the Line Tool

The color selection along the top edge of the MIDI editor allows you to select set a note color. Select a group of notes, click on a color and then it will change those notes to that color. It doesn't affect playback, but it gives you a way to visually organize a sequence. For example, when programming drums you could make snares, hi-hats, and kick drum all different colors.

Note Colors

Selecting multiple notes is easy. Use the arrow tool and drag a selection around any group of notes that you'd like to select together.

Note Multiple Selection

You can also add or remove notes from a multiple selection by holding down Shift (or Cmd / Ctrl) then clicking additional notes you'd like to toggle in and out of the selection.

To select an entire row of notes that are the same pitch, hold down Cmd / Ctrl and click on the PRV keyboard key corresponding to that row of notes; doing so selects the full row of notes.

Selecting a Row of Notes with Cmd / Ctrl

Once you have a multiple selection, move all the notes in time or by pitch by dragging with the arrow tool. Alternatively, you can change values in Properties that will apply to all notes in the selection. Nudge also works on well on a multiple selection of notes (Shift plus the arrow keys).

To quickly change the velocity of a note, select the note and then select a value from the Velocity drop down menu. This gives you a variety of preset values at popular levels.

Quickly Set Note Velocity

If you choose Other, from the velocity drop down, you can type in whatever value you want from 0 to 127.

You'll See this if you Select Other

Tip: Here's another trick way to adjust velocity. Select a note then hold Shift as you drag up and down over the note. Notice the Velocity value changing in Properties as you drag.

When the Step button is toggled on, the MIDI clip goes into step entry mode. In this mode, any notes you play to the track will be entered at the cursor position. Then, the cursor will advance to the next step based on the Snap grid resolution. You can adjust that based on the level of zoom.

Step Entry Mode

You have the option to trigger notes that are being moved so you can hear the pitch. You can enable or disable this using the speaker icon at the far right at the top of the MIDI editor tool bar.

Enable Speaker Button to Trigger Notes During Editing

You can edit MIDI note velocity from the velocity area below the PRV. Click the Velocity button at the left of the MIDI editor toolbar to expose the velocity editor. For the selected note, grab the stalk which represents the velocity and drag it up or down. You will notice the Velocity parameter moving in Properties for that note as you drag.

The Velocity Editor

You can also edit multiple velocities together by first selecting several velocities. Say we want to edit the velocity of all the C4s. Hold down Cmd / Ctrl and select all the C4s, then, just grab one of them and they will all adjust together.

You can use a view similar to the velocity editor with any kind of controller. Click the Control button and then click Type to choose which controller to edit.

Editing Other Controller Data

Example editing aftertouch: In the MIDI editor click Control > Type > Channel Pressure. Now the channel pressure data will appear in the same way velocity appears.

Those are the fundamentals of MIDI editing. We're going to get into quantizing MIDI notes in the next chapter.

The idea of quantizing is to correct the timing your MIDI performances. At a basic level, quantizing snaps each note to the nearest correct note on a virtual grid defined by the bars and beats of your song. Waveform gives you tools to define that grid in musical increments like quarter note, eighth note, but it does so using divisions of a beat.

Waveform takes quantizing further with groove templates. Groove templates allow you to quantize in a way that's not perfectly aligned to straight timing. An important use of this is to introduce musical swing to the timing. You have all the tools needed to impart the desired feel into your performance.

Within a MIDI clip, select all the notes you want to quantize. If you want to quantize all of them, you can use select all (Cmd + A / Ctrl + A). The quantize actions are available by clicking Quantize in Properties.

MIDI Quantize Actions

There are four different quantize actions available, as shown above. The most common option is the first one - Quantize note start times. To complete the action, you pick which beat division to use.

The beat division selection can be a little confusing. Musical divisions in Waveform are represented as fractions of one beat. For example, if you want to quantize to eighth notes and you're in 4/4 time, then you select To nearest 1/2. One half of one beat would be an eighth note. If you want to quantize to sixteenth notes, then select To nearest 1/4 beat from this menu.

MIDI Notes Before Quantizing

MIDI Notes After Quantizing Note Starts to Nearest 1/2 Beat

You'll will notice right away that quantizing perfectly tightens up up the performance. It will snap the notes to the nearest increment of the division that you selected.

Note: If you're playing was so far off that it actually snaps it to the wrong note, then you might need to do some MIDI editing to clean that up!

Tip: Some styles of music are based on perfectly quantized timing while other styles aren't. To get a more natural feel but also fix timing errors, you can always edit timing note-by-note manually with Snap turned off. Groove quantizing also gives you other options for "quantizing with feel". More on that later.

If you choose the option to quantize the note lengths you'll see that the notes become the full length of that particular note value.

Note Lengths Quantized to 1/2 beat

With something like a piano part, this can lead to a choppy, unnatural feel. You could try quantizing the note lengths to 1/4 beat (sixteenth note) if the playing is that inconsistent.

In most cases, it's not really important to quantize the note lengths. It can be useful for things like quantizing the note lengths on drum parts, because it helps play out the full attack and decay of a drum hit.

Next let's look at how to quantize with groove. This feature can be as simple a choosing a preset, or as complex as finely programming a groove template. Groove can be applied to both MIDI clips and Step clips, which we will cover in the next chapter.

First lets look at the basics:

Select the notes to quantize and click Apply Groove in Properties.

Apply Groove in Properties

You will then get a large menu of groove presets. These are custom templates that allow you to apply fine adjustments to the timing.

Apply Groove Presets in Options

The most common scenario is to apply swing: Delaying the eighth notes that follow the four primary beats in a bar. To locate the groove templates for standard swing, look at those starting with Swing 1/2. Swing 1/2 as in half beat. In normal musical terms, that's eighth note swing. To apply a nice groovy swing, try Swing 1/2 60%.

Groove Presets for Swing

Note: In 4/4 music, eighth note timing is counted 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. In swing timing, the "&" beats are delayed. The swing presets in Waveform let you pick how much delay as a percentage from subtle (10%) to dramatic (90%).

Before Applying Groove

After Applying Groove - Swing 1/2 60%

After you apply swing, you'll see it lays back all of the "and" notes to be a little late; groovy! Waveform will also adjust the note lengths appropriately as shown above.

To take groove to the next level, you can build grooves to your own definition using the Groove Template Editor. At the bottom of the Apply Groove menu, you'll find Edit groove templates. This is also available in the Menu section under Snapping > Edit Groove Templates.

Snapping > Edit groove templates

Select this to open the groove template editor. Click on any of the presets to see how the logic works.

Groove Template Editor

In the image above, we have selected the Swing 1/4 60% template we used for the examples in this chapter. A groove template consists of a pattern length, note subdivision, and the timing for each note. For each step of the pattern, you choose the amount that that note falls 'early' or 'late' relative to perfect timing.

Swing 1/2 60% Template Example

The example in the figure shown above is the setup for a basic swing beat, with each 'and' eighth-note delayed. You can adjust the intensity of the swing feel by how much delay you put on the eighth notes.

Since you can create groove templates with as many steps as you want, you can dial in exactly the feel you want. For example if you want to vary the swing within the bar of music, you could create a template with eight notes with each swing element slightly different.

Groove Template with Variable Swing

Alternatively, you can create a groove that pushes the timing over two bars, which will give excitement and tension like the FastSlow2 preset.

FastSlow2 Groove Template

Tip: It can also be useful to create a 'No Groove' template to help you remove the effect of groove. This is particularly useful when applying groove templates to Step clips; more on that in the next chapter!

Creating a 'No Groove' Template

Waveform gives you all the tools you need to create new groove templates, rename them, and import and export them. Exported templates have the .trkgroove file extension. This allows you to share them with other Waveform users or installations.

Create, Rename, Import, or Export Groove Templates

While editing a groove template, you may reset it. This removes the late/early timing for the pattern, but doesn't change the length or note division settings.

Resetting a Groove Template

Any groove template that you don't need, you can delete using Delete Template.

Deleting a Groove Template

You should now have a pretty good understanding of MIDI, MIDI recording, MIDI editing, and even quantizing with MIDI. But there is one more thing: Step clips. And that is up next!

On the surface, a Step clip is a simple MIDI step sequencer, allowing you to turn notes on and off with a simple click. That is correct but Step clips go much deeper.

In this chapter, you'll learn all about Step clips and how to use them to create drumbeats, synth lines, or bass lines.

This tutorial is an excellent introduction to working with Step clips:

Video: Explaining Step Clips

Step clips act like a special type of MIDI clip. However, the notes are represented on a grid where each column is a 'step' indicating a musical increment. By default, there are 16 steps similar to common drum machines and step sequencers. That means in 4/4 timing, there are four steps per beat. You can change this to other values, but this is usually a good starting point.

Here is a breakdown of the key concepts you need to work with Step clips:

Parts of a Step Clip

Step Clip

• Step clips are similar to MIDI clips. You can add, delete, and copy them. They are always in loop mode so you can drag the right trim handle to roll out repetitions. Step clips need a synth plugin in order to make sound, just like MIDI clips.

Header

• Click the Step clip header to select it. With the clip selected, you have access to a wide variety of settings in Actions or Properties. Drag the Step clip by the header to move it forward or backward in time, or track-to-track. Right-click the Step clip header for a context menu of the most used options.

Footer

• Click the Step clip footer for access to a drop down menu and additional options in Actions or Properties. These options are related to working with variations and patterns sections.

Variation

• A variation is a table of rows and columns (steps). It looks like a mini spreadsheet - click a cell to trigger a note at that step. Click and active cell again to turn it off. A Step clip can hold any number of variations.

Step

• A variation is defined by how many steps it has, and what each step represents musically. By default a new variation has 16 steps with a step length of 1/4 beat. A step is one column of the grid that makes up a variation.

Row

• Each row is assigned to a single MIDI note. Rows are defined for the entire Step clip. Row assignments are the same for all variations within the clip. It is possible to assign rows within one Step clip to different MIDI channels or virtual instruments. More on that later.

Note

• A note is the cell formed at the intersection of steps and rows. You program by clicking notes to toggle them on or off.

Section

• By default, a Step clip has a single pattern section which holds one variation. You can create longer Step clips by adding more pattern sections. Each pattern section is assigned a variation.

Variation Number

• Variations are numbered within each Step clip. The variation number appears on the footer for each pattern section.

A Step Clip with Four Pattern Sections

Tip: You can think about Step clips as follows: Step clips are a sequence of pattern sections. Each pattern section is assigned to a variation. You can assign the same variation to more than one pattern section if you so desire.

Note: Variations can exist in a Step clip that are not assigned to any pattern section.

There are several ways to insert a Step clip onto a track:

Insert Using the Clip Object

• Like all the other kinds of clips, you can drag the Clip object to a track and then choose Insert Step Clip from the menu.

Insert by Dragging the Clip Object

Insert with Right-click Menu

• Right-click at the point on a track where you want to put it and choose Insert Step Clip from the context menu.

Insert from the Track Header

• Another way is to select the track where you'd like the Step clip to go, position the cursor where you'd like it to start, then right-click on the track header and select "Insert Step Clip".

Right-click Track Header

Insert from Track Actions

• Select a track by clicking on the track name. In Actions, click "Insert New Clip > Insert New Step Clip."

Insert from Track Actions

Inserting a Step Clip Preset

• Since you can save Step clip setups as presets, a great way to get a starting point is to drag in a preset. You can find any existing Step clip presets in the Browser Presets tab. Filter or search by "Step clip".

Use a Step Clip Preset from the Browser

Waveform includes a wide variety of Step clip presets to get you started.

Once you insert a new Step clip, notice that the rows are pre-assigned to General MIDI drum notes. This makes it really fast to get started programming beats.

Tip: Use one of the Waveform drum instruments - Micro Drum Sampler, Drum Sampler, or Multi Sampler. Add the instrument first and load a preset drum kit. Next, insert a blank Step clip. The row names will match the pad names of the preset!

Default Step Clip

Here are the basic steps to programming a drum beat using a Step clip:

1. Insert a drum instrument onto a track and select a preset.
2. Insert a Step clip on the track.
3. Set Loop in and Loop out over the Step clip and turn Loop on.
4. Start playback, and turn notes on and off by clicking on the individual note cells.

Programming a Step Clip

As you toggle notes you will hear the result. You are are now programming a variation!

Video Clip: This video overview is a great way to get a better understanding of how all this works. While the video was created using Tracktion version 6, the workflow is almost identical in Waveform version 8.

Step Clips Overview

A Step clip has a header that is similar to that of MIDI clips and Audio clips. Click the header to reveal all the actions and settings in Actions. The following things are the most important when working with Step clips:

Click the Header for Step Clip Actions

Name

• Give your Step clip a descriptive Name. This will be particularly helpful when you go to save a Step clip as a preset. The Step clip name is used as the basis for presets.

Color

• Use the color selection to give your Step clip a unique color.

Clear All Variations

• Clear All Variations clears all the notes from all variations for this Step clip.

Warning: Clear All Variations clears all variations whether you can see them or not. Fortunately, you can click Undo (Cmd + Z / Ctrl + Z) if you change your mind right after zeroing out all your variations!

Delete All Unused Variations

• With Step clips, you can string together a series of pattern sections - each one assigned to a variation. Delete All Unused Variations remove any variation that is not in use.

Add Row

• Add Row inserts a row as you might expect. You can also insert a row using the context menu for the Step clip header or Step clip row header.

Render Clip

• Use any of the Render Clip options to convert a Step clip to an Audio clip.

Note In the Render dialogue box, make sure you have Pass Through Plugins selected. If you don't, the resulting audio clip will be silent.

Standard Clip Operations

• Step clip properties also includes Select Clip, Set Edit Tempo, Split Clips, and Move Clip. These are standard operations shared by all the other kinds of clips.

Convert to MIDI Clip

• Convert to MIDI Clip is an important feature of Step clips. This will convert any selected Step clips to a MIDI clip. This allows you to continue editing in the MIDI editor, using the piano roll view.

Create Preset

• Create Preset gives you tools to create presets from Step clips. Presets are searchable from the Browser.

Delete

• Delete allows you to delete the selected Step clip. Alternatively, just select the Step clip, press Delete, Backspace, or Cmd + X / Ctrl + X. Any of these will delete a clip.

Tip Just like any other clip, Step clips can be copied (Cmd + C / Ctrl + C), pasted (Cmd + V / Ctrl + V), or duplicated (D).

Step Clip Header Context Menu

• Right-click the Step clip header and the most essential actions are available from the context menu.

Step-click Context Menu (Right-click)

When you click on the Step clip footer, you select the pattern section and its variation. The active variation number is indicated on the footer. Click the footer to see the most important actions in a popup context menu.

Section Footer Context Menu

If you have more than one pattern section in a Step clip, you select a specific section by clicking its footer. Right-click a footer (or click the footer if the clip's already selected) to pop up the context menu. All of the actions also appear in Actions and Properties.

Step Clip Footer Shows Variation & Pattern Section Options

Note: The pattern section and variation numbers are shown in the title line of Properties when a footer is selected. For example, "Section 1 (Pattern 8)."

Variation Options in Actions

Use (Set Active Pattern)

• "Use" sets which variation to use for this pattern section. You can also set this from the footer context menu.

Name

• Give your clip a meaningful name if you want.

Step Length

• By default, step length is one-quarter beat. This means each beat is divided into four steps. This creates a 16 step sequencer. If you change this to some other value, it will change it for this variation but not for the entire Step clip.

Number of Steps

• Number of Steps is the number of steps in the variation. By default, this is 16. With a step length of one-quarter beat and the Number of Steps set to 16, each beat in 4/4 timing is divided into four steps. This is the most common setup for a step sequencer. This also gives you one bar of music.

Select a Common Setup

• "Select a common setup" gives you preset combinations of Step Length and Number of Steps to create one or two bar variations.

Select a Common Setup in Actions

Variation Actions

Clear All Steps

• Clear All Steps clears all steps of any notes that have been turned on. This is a simple way to erase the variation and start over with some new programming.

Randomize Each Step

• Randomly turns on and off notes at each step of the variation. This might give you some quick creative inspiration.

New Variation

• Duplicates what you have to a new variation. The variation number is automatically assigned.

New Blank Variation

• Creates a new blank variation and makes it active. The variation number is automatically assigned.

Video Clip: Step Clips Randomize Each Step

Note: You can also randomize a row of notes. We'll get to that shortly.

Apply Common Groove

• Apply Common Groove is usually used to impart a swing feel. Here you selected a template. The most common settings are for basic swing. This setting applies groove to all rows in the Step clip. There is a way to apply groove to separate rows - we'll cover that a bit later.

Apply Common Groove Amount

• With groove amount set to minimum the groove template selected in the previous option has no effect. Increase it for more and more impact.

These options are available from the Actions for Step clip footers. Some are available directly from the footer context menu as well.

Step Clip Section Actions

Add Pattern Section Here

• Puts in a new pattern section along with a copy of the variation and pushes any existing pattern sections to the right.

Add Pattern Section at End

• Creates a new pattern section at the end along with a copy of the variation.

Tip: Keep in mind that you choose which variation to sue for each pattern section. Click the footer and select a variation.

Choosing a Variation for a Pattern Section

Remove this Pattern Section

• Select a pattern section by clicking its footer. Choose "Remove the pattern section" from the menu or Actions. This doesn't remove any variations; they're still there and can be assigned to other pattern sections.

Each row of a Step clip has a name, and a variety of actions you can use to manipulate the notes on that row across all the pattern sections. Individual rows can be set to separate MIDI channels or even routed to different virtual instruments using the "Set Destination" option. We'll be covering that shortly.

Step Clip Row Properties

Here are the things you can do with Step clip rows:

Assign a Note Value

• If you know the MIDI note value, then you can set it with the Note property. Alternatively, drag the yellow arrow along the virtual keyboard at the bottom of Properties and set it to the desired note there. As you drag the arrow, you'll hear the notes play.

Velocity

• Velocity sets maximum MIDI velocity for the row. Using the Step clip V/G editor (more on that shortly), you can set each note to a percentage of this value. The default Velocity value is 96.

MIDI Channel

• MIDI Channel sets the output MIDI channel number. If you're playing into a multi-timbral virtual instrument, then this would set which instrument is being played from this Step clip row.

Note On Every

• The Note On Every parameter is followed by a series of buttons. Those buttons complete the sentence "Note on every (blank) steps." For example, click 2 to mean "Note on every 2 steps."

Groove

• Earlier, I explained how you can set the groove for an entire Step clip and choosing Apply Common Groove. You can set the groove for an individual row using Groove. Also, if groove has been applied to the Step clip, that groove setting will show up here. In reality, groove is set at the row level. When you apply common groove it sets all rows to the same groove template.

Note: Typically groove is used to apply swing. Chose "Basic 8th Swing" or "Basic 16th Swing" to get started.

Video Clip: Step Clip Groove

Name

• Name is the Step clip row name. As you hover the mouse pointer over a Step clip, row names appear along the left. If you want to set a unique name for a channel, then select the channel and update Name in Actions or Properties. These are often set to drum sounds like "Kick" or "Snare". You can also right-click any row now and choose "Rename row".

These actions are available from Actions or Properties when a Step clip row is selected. Key actions are also available from the row header context menu.

Step Clip Row Actions

Insert Row

• Select a row and click Insert Row. This inserts a new row right after whichever channel you started from. Rows are always numbered from the top down, so if you insert a row all of the following rows get renumbered.

Clear Row

• Clear Row simply erases any notes that have been programmed in to that channel.

Randomized Row

• Randomize Row randomly selects an on or off state for each step that row. This applies to variations across all the pattern sections.

Shift Notes

• The left and right arrow buttons following Shift Notes do exactly that - hey shift the series of notes in each step one increment left or one increment right per click.

Set Destination

• Set Destination opens up one of the coolest hidden features of Step clips. It allows you to choose which, of many, virtual instruments you assign that particular row. For example, you could have your bass drum being played by EZdrummer while your high hat is played by Drum Sampler. Then, you can set up a hand clap being played by some other virtual instrument.

Note: For this feature to function, Waveform automatically wraps the virtual instruments in a plugin rack. For the most part, Waveform handles the details automatically when you apply Set Destination.

Video Clip: Route Step Clips to Different Synths Video

Select any row in your Step clip, click Delete Row to remove that entire row. All the following row numbers are then re-sequenced to keep them in numerical order.

Delete Row in Properties

Tip: When programming Step clips, there's really no reason to have all eight default rows taking up space on your screen if you are not using that many. Use Delete Row to simplify your Step clips. It's easy to add another row at any time using Insert Row.

Take your Step clip programming to the next level using the Velocity Gate editor. When you click V/G in the upper left corner of any Step clip, the V/G view appears below the patterns. This give you a quick graphical view of the velocity per note for the selected row.

Step Clip Velocity Gate Editor

Here is how to use it:

1. Click V/G at the upper corner of the Step clip to toggle the V/G view. If you don't see it, expand the vertical height of the track a bit until it appears.
2. Select one the rows in your Step clip by clicking its name. The V/G editor shows the velocity of each note in a bar graph format. Click or drag within one of the velocity bars to adjust its percentage.

Adjusting a Velocity Bar in the V/G Editor

Note: The V/G setting is a percentage of the velocity value set in Actions or Properties for the row. By default it starts at 100%. If you want the notes to hit harder, then increase the row Velocity and adjust the V/G percentage to taste.

1. To adjust the velocity for a series of notes, hold down Shift and drag across the bars. This allows you to paint in velocities for an entire sequence of notes. This is really useful for rows with lots of notes like high-hats or snares.

Adjusting a Series of Velocities with Shift Drag

1. You can also gate the length of notes by dragging the right side of any velocity bar to narrow it. This gives you freedom to get gated, glitchy notes if you want, or just to tighten up the hits.

Adjusting Note Gating in the V/G Editor

Video Clip: Step Clip Velocity/Gate

Step clips are always in loop mode. Grab right trim handle at any time to loop it over part or all over you song. By contrast, MIDI Clips and Audio clips have a loop mode that allows you to roll out repetitions by dragging the right trim handle.

Looping a Step Clip

If your Step clip loops only the last pattern section, enable Repeat Whole Sequence in Actions or Properties.

Enable Repeat Whole Sequence

When you get to a point where you want to do more detailed ending on your Step clip sequence, convert it to a MIDI clip and use the MIDI editor. To do this, right-click the Step clip header and choose Convert to MIDI clip. A MIDI clip is created, replacing the Step clip.

Convert a Step Clip to a MIDI Clip

Waveform includes the ability to save presets of your Step clips. This is very useful for creating a library of sequences for use in future productions. You may want to create presets and use them as templates, holding your preferred starting points for Step clip channel assignments and names.

Always use Create Preset > Include patterns

To save a preset, select the Step clip by clicking the header. Then click Create Preset > Include patterns in Actions. You can name and tag your preset. To find it later choose Load Preset. Alternatively use the Browser Presets tab and filter by Step Clips.

Preset Details Dialog Box for a Step Clip

Tip: I suggest you always use Create Preset > Include patterns. Create Preset > Exclude Patterns is also available, but that will always have the default 16 step blank pattern since the save function doesn't include any patterns. If you use this option, you may be disappointed to see that presets don't appear to save correctly. If you want a blank preset, clear all the notes, then save it using Create Preset > Include patterns.

Step clips are incredibly powerful and a fun way to work with MIDI data and virtual instruments. They are also unique to Waveform. Use this tool as a secret weapon for creating cool and expressive beats!

Video Clips: Check out this tutorial series to learn more about Step clips:

Step Clips Overview

Step Clips Velocity/Gate

Step Clips Randomize Each Step

Step Clips Groove

Step Clips Route Channels to Different Synths

In this chapter, we will show you how to apply effects plugins using the In-line mixer or the separate mixer window.

Note: Scanning plugins and setting up a favorites plugin list are done on the Settings tab, Plugins page. Check the reference section Reference: Settings > Plugins to learn more about that.

The In-line mixer section resides along the right side of the Edit, and completes the left-to-right signal flow on each track. You can open and close the Mixer using the open/close icon at the upper right, or also using keyboard shortcut M.

Button to Open Close the In-line mixer (M)

Whenever you create a new track, it will automatically have a Volume & Pan plugin and a Level Meter plugin inserted. These behave just like any other plugin. You can change the order, remove them, or even add additional instances of them on the same track.

Default Plugins Volume & Pan and Level Meter

For example, you might want a level meter before and after a compressor. Of course, you can add other plugins, both built-in and third party to the Mixer section.

Level Meter Before and After a 3rd Party Compressor

Tip: Each Mixer channel is stereo. If the track contains mono clips, you will still typically want to choose stereo versions of plugins for the Mixer, as mono plugins will only effect the left side of the signal.

Try moving the mouse pointer from the arrangement slowly to the Mixer section. As your pointer crosses over from the arrangement to the Mixer, notice the vertical highlight line.

Resizing the Mixer

Drag the highlight line to the left to expand the Mixer section. If you drag it right, then you can make the Mixer section smaller. All of the plugins on the Mixer are dynamically resized.

Tip: If you accidentally delete, change, or move a plugin, or simply change your mind, click Undo on the Menu (Ctrl + Z / Cmd + Z) to restore it.

You can fully customize the mixer for each track by inserting a chain of plugins. This is one of the most compelling features of Waveform, as there is no need to switch between a horizontal track view and a vertical console view.

Here are the essentials for working with plugins in the Mixer:

Inserting Plugins

• To insert additional Waveform plugins or third-party plugins, drag the Plugin Object to a track and then select the plugin that you would like from the list.

Drag the Plugin Object to Insert a Plugin

For third-party plugins, the UI window will pop up. Apart from the core built-in plugins, each has its own graphical user interface.

Right-click to Insert

• Right-click on any existing plugin and select Add new plugin. This pulls up the plugin selector menu and you may pick any plugin to add. It will be added to the left of plugin you started from.

Note: If you don't see some of your plugins, review the previous chapter that details how to scan your system for all available plugins.

Plugin Properties

• To select a plugin, click on it. When selected, Properties shows a wide variety of settings and actions related to that plugin. Most of the built-in plugins have the entire user interface in Properties.

Select a Plugin to See its Properties

Duplicating Plugins

• To duplicate a plugin, select it and press D. This gives you a new instance of the plugin to drag to a different position or to another track.

Duplicate Plugins by Pressing D

Deleting Plugins

• To delete a plugin, simply select the plugin and hit Delete or Backspace. You may alternatively click the red Delete Plugin button in Properties.

Moving Plugins

• To move a plugin from one track to another track, simply grab the plugin and drag it wherever you would like to put it, even to a different track. As you drag, a red insert illumination will appear showing where the plugin will be after you drop it.

Moving a Plugin

Copying Plugins

• To copy a plugin, hold down Opt / Alt and drag it to where you want the copy. Alternatively, press D to duplicated it then drag the duplicate to the target location.

Bypassing a Plugin

• To bypass a plugin, select the plugin then turn off Enabled in Properties. Or, simply select the plugin and press the keyboard shortcut F. A bypassed plugin appears with a red X through it on the Mixer.

A Bypassed Plugin

Tip: You can bypass several plugins at once, by first selecting them and then pressing F.

You can assign a quick control parameter to any instance of a plugin. This allows you immediate access to tweak one parameter without mousing back to Properties or opening the UI for the plugin. For example, I often set the mix control for delay plugins as quick control.

Delay Mix Set as a Quick Control Parameter

To set up a quick control parameter, right-click the plugin and choose Select quick control parameter. Next, choose which parameter to use.

Right-click to Set the Quick Control Parameter

Waveform Delay has only two parameters, but many third-party have many more to to choose from.

Third-party plugins are inserted in the same way as built-in plugins. One difference is that the UI (user interface) does not appear in Properties. Each plugin has its own UI window.

Sonimus SonEQ, an Example 3rd Party Plugin

To open the UI for a third-party plugin, double-click the plugin in the Mixer.

Note: You can change to a single-click to open plugin windows the Settings Tab, Plugins page. The parameter is Opening Plugin Windows.

Setting to Open Plugins with a Single-click

The Waveform Browser includes a Search tab. This allows you to search for plugins. When you find one you want to use, drag it to your Edit. Here are the steps:

1. Open the Browser and click the Search tab
2. Type in a few characters of the name of the plugin
3. From the search results, drag the plugin from the Browser to the Mixer.

Searching for Plugins Using the Browser, Search tab

The search uses an index that includes plugin names, tags, and manufacturer. We covered how to set tags in the previous chapter.

Tip: It often helps to disable the options for Loops and Presets when searching for a specific plugin. This gives you more targeted results.

Limiting Search Filters to Plugins

To apply processing to the full stereo mix, add plugins to the Master section. The drop target says Drop Master Plugins Here.

Master Section Plugins Area

Typically, you may put a bus compressor, a limiter, and maybe an EQ on the master. Another great option is Waveform's own Final Mix plugin, which combines all of those functions in to one package expressly designed for use on a full mix.

Master Mix inserted in the Master Section

Tip: You can right click the Drop Master Plugins Here area then choose Add new plugin to open the plugin selector menu. You may find this a bit faster than dragging the plugin object down there!

Right-click to Add new plugin

The Waveform built-in effects are really quite simple. They act as plugins that you can combine to build up more complex effects chains in the mixer, or within plugin racks. While we won't touch on every single effect here, we will go over the essential ones. Let's get started.

Drag the plugin object to the mixer and select Waveform Plugins. You'll see the list of built-in effects.

Built-in Plugin Effects in Waveform

In this chapter, we will go into more detail about the plugins hightailed in the image above. The other effects provide specialized functions, or are not typical audio effects. We'll get into some of those in later chapters.

Whenever you create a track, you will see a Volume & Pan plugin at the right in the mixer section. This gives you basic level and pan controls like you'd expect to find on any mixer channel. Since the Waveform mixer is made up of plugins, the Volume & Pan plugin can be moved before other plugins or deleted entirely. You can even add another Volume & Pan and use it as a trim control for gain staging.

Adjusting Volume

• To control volume, click and drag the volume slider up and down. A large volume slider appears as drag giving you nice readable dB markings for fine level adjustment. The numeric value for Volume setting appears in Properties.

Volume & Pan Plugin, Adjusting Volume

Adjusting Panning

• The pan adjustment works similarly. Click the panner graphic then drag left or right to adjust left to right stereo positioning.

Volume & Pan Plugin, Adjusting Panning

Resetting Controls

• To reset either Volume or Pan to their default position, hold down Opt / Alt as you click the control.

Properties

• With a Volume & Pan plugin selected its values and actions appear in Properties.

Volume & Pan Plugin Properties

The Volume slider is repeated in Properties along with buttons for Reset and Mute. Pan is repeated in Properties along with a Centre Panning button that resets panning.

Pan Law

• Properties also holds a setting for Pan Law. By default this is set to Linear but you can change it to other popular formats. For example, many DAWs use a -3 dB pan law so that as you pan to the center it lowers the volume slightly to make it easier to keep a track in balance as you adjusting panning.

Tip: To apply a velocity offset to notes going into a virtual instruments, insert a Volume & Pan plugin before it and enable Apply to MIDI velocities. Adjust the fader to offset MIDI velocity to increase or reduce the velocity. This is a quick way make your MIDI drums hit harder - much easier than going back to editing the MIDI data. This only works if you insert Volume & Pan ahead (to the left) of the virtual instrument.

The Level Meter plugin is also at the right end of the mixer for every track by default. Level Meter is stereo and shows what the left and right levels are doing.

Level Meter Plugin

When you select a Level Meter, Properties displays a large horizontal version of the meter, that also includes dB markings.

Large Meter in Properties

The meter indicates signal overload with a red indicator at the top of the meter. You can reset the meter by clicking the red overload indicator.

Tip: To clear all overload indicators in the Edit, right-click any level meter and choose Reset all overload indicators ( Backslash ).

By default the Level Meter is set to peak mode. This is typical of the metering in most DAWs. You may change the meter mode in Properties or from the right-click menu. Here is an explanation of each of the modes:

Meter Modes for the Level Meter Plugin

Peak Mode

• Peak mode shows the digital peak. This is the normal mode for Waveform and most other DAWs. From a technical point of view, you want to keep this out of the red to prevent ugly digital clipping.

RMS Mode

• To get a sense of the overall perceived volume your signal, try RMS mode; it emulates the response of legacy VU meters and gives you a better indication of how loud one track is perceived, compared to others.

Sum & Difference Mode

• Sum & difference is a specialized mode that gives you a visual representation of both the level and the stereo spread. The left part of the meter shows the level of sum of left plus right. This represents the combined level of the stereo signal.

The right side of the meter shows the difference between left and right. The more difference you see the wider the stereo spread between the two channels. This gives you a visual indication of stereo spread. If both channels are playing exactly the same thing, then left minus right will cancel to zero and the right side of the meter will show no activity: a mono signal.

Tip: The level meter will also indicate MIDI activity if you enable Show MIDI activity in Properties. This can be a very useful diagnostic if you ever wonder why a virtual instrument is not triggering.

Level Meter, Show MIDI activity

The 4-band Equalizer has a graphical interface that shows up in Properties. You'll immediately notice that there are four bands, which correspond to four movable nodes on the frequency response plot. The high band and the low band are shelving filters, the middle two bands are peaking filters.

The 4-Band Equalizer

To adjust the gain of any of the bands, grab the node directly in the middle by the small square and drag up or down. To set the frequency of any band, drag the node left or right. To adjust the width (or Q) of the filter drag within the perimeter of the node clockwise to make the band narrower or counterclockwise to make it broader.

On the shelving bands, drag clockwise to make the slope increase or drag counterclockwise to make the slope shallower. As you adjust these values you'll see the actual numeric values over to the right for Frequency, Gain, and Q.

Just under the frequency plot, notice the Reset button. Click Reset to return all four bands back to their default values giving you a flat frequency response plot.

Also, the notice the controls for saving and loading presets. Using these you can create a library of common presets to use in your mixing projects. The 4-band Equalizer is very simple and the graphic adjustment makes it very quick to sweep through the frequencies to quickly locate your cuts and boosts.

Waveform's Reverb plugin doesn't have a fancy user interface; You get just a few simple sliders. It is however a very effective, low-CPU tool to add some depth to a track, and may be all you need to get a nice variety of reverb sounds.

Traction Reverb

Tip: You may find it speeds up mixing to assign Wet Mix (Wet Level) as the quick control parameter when using Reverb. Mixing with a little reverb on a track gives you another dimension to mix with, in addition to level and panning. More reverb pushes the track further back, less reverb sounds closer. Combine that with left and right placement from panning for more spacious mixes.

Reverb, Wet Level as the Quick Control Parameter

The Waveform Delay is an extremely simplified mono delay effect, with delay times up to one second. You control Length with a slider, allowing you to enter delay times between zero and 1000 milliseconds. You can also adjust the Feedback amount with the Feedback slider, from no feedback all the way up to 0 dB (which is essentially full feedback). The Amount parameter is a mix control, and allows you to set the percentage of the effected signal to pass through. {style="width: 258px"}

The Delay plugins also has a Tempo parameter. It is not really a host sync, but rather just helps you calculate delay times based on musical divisions of the beat at the current tempo.

Waveform Delay Tempo Selection

For example, if you want to get an eighth note delay, click Tempo and select Set delay length to 1/2 beat and it calculates that delay time and sets the value int Length. It is a one time calculation; If you change the Edit tempo, then you need to set it again.

The Chorus plugin gives you the classic chorusing effect. It works as a type of doubling effect but it provides a shimmery, smooth quality. It can be used on just about any source, but is common on guitars, pads, electric pianos, bass, and vocals.

The Chorus Plugin Parameters

To get the classic chorus effect, the plugin modulates the delay time; the delay time is gradually changing, getting longer and shorter. The amount of variation is controlled by the Depth parameter. The Speed slider controls the quickness of modulation to get results from warbling to smooth. The Width slider adjusts how far apart the dry signal and the wet signal are panned to give you a wide stereo effect or a narrow doubling. Finally, Amount controls the overall mix of the original signal with the chorus effect.

Phase shifter pedals became popular in the late '60's and during the '70's. It gives you an intense swirling impression you will instantly recognize. While a phaser is most commonly used as a guitar effect, it is also frequently used on synths or any track that needs some movement.

The Phaser Plugin

The Speed parameter controls the speed of the LFO that modulates the phase shifting effect. Depth controls the number of octaves the phase shift will sweep through. Feedback lets you adjust resonance which makes the phasing more or less intense. The Tempo parameter allows you to set the Speed of the LFO to a musically useful division of a beat based the current tempo.

Tip: As you work with effects you can easily change the order of effects on any track by grabbing the plugin and dragging it left or right. As you drag, a red drop target will glow in the spot where the effect will be inserted when you drop it.

Waveform's Compressor/Limiter is a very basic compressor, that includes most of the common parameters you expect to find in a compressor: Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, and make-up gain (Output).

The Compressor/Limiter Plugin

As the signal goes above the Threshold, the compressor reduces the output signal by the amount set by Ratio. So, if you set Ratio to 4:1, Attack sets how long it takes for the 4:1 ratio to fully kick in. Release is the amount of time it takes for the compressor to recover after the signal goes back below the threshold.

You can set Threshold and the Ratio by dragging the appropriate nodes on the frequency response transfer plot.

Compressor/Limiter functions as a limiter when you set the Ratio to the maximum of 20:1. When used as a limiter you also want to set a very fast attack time. In this mode it really clamps down on transients.

Compressor/Limiter Configured as a Limiter

Note: The built-in Compressor/Limiter lacks metering, but you can insert a Level Meter before and after the compressor and look at the difference between the two meters get an idea of gain reduction.

The Pitch Shifter plugin uses DSP processing to change the pitch of the signal in real time. For audio tracks, this uses the Elastique Pro algorithm, or whichever algorithm you select in the Type parameter.

The Waveform Pitch Shifter Plugin

Pitch Shifter is set in semi-tones; if you want to go up an octave, set Pitch to 12. If you want to go down one octave set it to -12. To reset back to the original pitch, select Pitch and type in zero.

Pitch Shifter, Set Pitch

Tip: You nay find it's usually a lot easier to control the Pitch value by typing in the digits than it is to use the slider.

Note: If you insert Pitch Shifter ahead of a MIDI instrument, it works on the MIDI data stream to transpose notes up or down by the value you set in the Pitch parameter.

You may use this plugin frequently because of its simplicity. Drag the Low/High-Pass Filter to any track; in Properties choose if you want it to be Low-pass or High-pass.

High/Low-Pass Filter Properties

Once you've made that selection, drag the Frequency slider or type in the frequency. For example, if you want to just create a common rumble filter to apply to a vocal, Choose High-pass and set Frequency to 100 Hz.

Tip: A quick way to create a low-fi effect on any track is to insert two of these filters, one set to High-pass and one set to Low-pass. For example, set the high-pass frequency to about 300 and set the low-pass frequency to about 3,000. That will give you a nice starting point for a low-fi sound.

The text plugin is a convenient tool to keep your Edit organized as you record, edit, and mix. Drag Text it to a track, give it a Name and then type in a Description.

Text Plugin Example

You can type in as much text as you'd like describing how the recording was made, the kind of microphones used, the artist name, and really anything you'd like to make a note of. Text plugin Name appears right in the mixer on the thumbnail. While Text doesn't do anything to your audio path it can help you remember what you were doing when you come back to a project later on.

Tip: You can enable or disable several plugins at once by simply selecting all of them and using the keyboard shortcut F.

Most of the built-in plugins allow you to load, save, and delete presets. Once you have your favorite presets saved, you can search for presets on the Presets tab or the Search tab of the Browser.

Load, Save, or Delete Presets

As you create presets you can also add tags to make it quick to filter to exactly what you are looking for; Vocal EQ, Guitar Focus, Bass Boost for example.

Now we've touched on most of the built-in plugins in Waveform. The built-in effects, along with third-party plugins give you tremendous creative potential when composing or mixing.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to set up an effects bus track in Waveform. A bus track is configured to be shared by multiple tracks within your Edit. Sometimes this is called a master effects bus. This is an extremely common production technique that originated when recording was done using large mixing consoles. When mixing with a console, effects like reverb and delay are created using outboard hardware. In the early days, studios only had a limited number of reverbs and chambers to use. The solution was to use a common bus for the effect and then send the desired amount of each track over to the effect bus.

It works the same way in Waveform. You dedicate a track to the effect and then use a special Aux Send plugin to send part of the signal from your instrument, vocal, or drum tracks to over to the effects bus track.

To get started create a new track. The fastest way is select any track and hit T. That creates a new blank track right after the one that you started with. You can drag the new track anywhere you'd like.

Next, click on the track name, and rename the track by editing Name in Properties. In this example you can use a reverb effect and name it "Master Reverb."

New, Blank Track

The next step is to insert an effect plugin on the bus track. In this example we're using Waveform Reverb.

Insert the Reverb Plugin

Check that the Dry Mix fader is turned all the way down. You want only the wet signal to go through Reverb. You can tweak the other parameters later, after you get some sound going through it.

Set the Mix to 100% Wet

Tip: If the plugin you're using has a mix control, make sure it's turned to the 100 % wet position. The critical thing here is you don't want any dry signal being mixed back in through a different, parallel path.

So this seems like a pretty ordinary track. How do you make this track behave like a bus? You do so by inserting the Aux Return plugin, one of the built-in plugins in Waveform. It pairs up with the Aux Send plugin for just this purpose.

Insert the Waveform Aux Return plugin to the left of Reverb.

Insert the Aux Return Plugin

Notice that it is labeled Aux Return #1 in Properties. Also, you can see it is automatically assigned to the next available bus: in this case *Bus #1.

Automatic Bus Assignment for Aux Return

It's optional but you can type in something descriptive for the Bus Name property. In this case Verb 1.

Adding a Descriptive Bus Name

The descriptive name appears right on the plugin thumbnail in the mixer, making things much clearer. This will help even more when you have several effects buses configured.

How the Bus Name Appears in the Mixer

Now that your effects bus track is set up, all you need to do is insert an Aux Send plugin on each track where you would like to apply this effect.

Insert Aux Send on a Track

This is important. Insert Aux Send after the Volume & Pan plugin. This way as you adjust the track volume, you're also adjusting the amount sent to the bus track proportionally. Even if you lower the volume all the way down, you won't hear a ghosting of the effects bus from that track playing in your mix.

Note: On a conventional mixing console, this position is called "post fader." Hardware consoles will have a special switch or maybe even a special knob that allows you to send post fader. In Waveform you do this in a very direct way: rearrange the order of the fader so that it comes before the Aux Send plugin.

Now that it's all set up, as you play back, adjust the send level by clicking on the Aux Send plugin, and adjusting the Send level slider that pops up.

Adjust the Aux Send Level

Alternatively, you can just click on the Aux Send plugin and adjust Send in the Properties section. The more you turn it up the more effect you'll get. As you turn it down, you get less and less of the effect.

You can create as many effects bus tracks as you need for your mix. You might want a reverb for drums, a different reverb for vocals, a delay for vocals, and other delay for guitars. The steps to set up the additional buses are the same as outlined above. You just need to make sure your Aux Sends and Aux Returns are assigned to the correct bus numbers.

Setup with Three Bus Effects Tracks

When we set up Verb 1, we used Bus #1. For DLY1 WE HAVE used Bus #2 and gave it a unique name.

Assigning Buses to the Aux Returns

As you insert the Aux Send plugin onto each track, select which effect you want to use by choosing the correct bus.

Selecting the Effects Bus for Aux Send

Tip: Feel free to assign more than one Aux Send to the same track.

Your effects tracks aren't limited to a single plugin. You can create an entire effects chain, for exampling combining compression, EQ, reverb, or delay on a single bus track.

There's a special solo mode that you will likely to want to use on bus tracks, called Solo isolate. To do so, right-click the Solo button on one of your bus tracks and choose the option Solo isolate.

Enable Solo Isolate on Your Effects Tracks

Notice how that the Solo button changes from "S" to "SI." With Solo isolate enabled, if you solo any track, this track will also be soloed. This is useful because when you solo a track, you usually want to hear it along with its send effects. If you don't use Solo isolate on your bus tracks, the effects get muted when you solo a track.

Tip: Waveform includes a track tagging feature that allows you to quickly view any tracks that share a tag. You can tag all of the effects buses with the tag "FX.", which makes it really easy to pull up a view of all of your effects bus tracks using the Tracks tab in the Browser. Take organization one step further by giving your bus tracks a specific color.

If you commonly use a similar set of send effects, you can create some presets for your bus tracks, and then recall them for your next project. To do so, right-click the track name and select Save preset > whole track.

Saving an Effects Track Preset

In the Preset Details dialogue box, put in an appropriate name for your preset such as "Master Reverb." In the tags area, the tag Track will automatically be entered. You can also add another tag such as Effects Bus.

Preset Details Dialog Box

Remember to separate tags with a comma. Click OK, then the next time you want to create a very similar effects bus track, go to the Presets tab in the Browser and filter by Effects Bus. Drag the preset onto any track to instantly configure your favorite master effects set up.

In a full mix, you may have four or more effects buses configured at once, such as two reverbs and two delays: drum reverb, vocal reverb, stereo delay, and a mono slap back delay.

One key is to group the bus tracks together and to put them at the top of the Edit. You can also make them a unique color, tag, and label them appropriately.

Once you get a hang of the set up, using effects bus tracks in Waveform is very straight forward.

In Chapters 29 through 31 we covered using effects plugins in a variety of ways. Now, we want to show you how to apply plugins to individual Audio clips. Let's get started.

To insert a plugin on an Audio clip, drag the plugin from the Browser or the plugin object, and drop it onto the Audio clip. You'll notice that the plugin thumbnail appears in the lower right corner of the clip. You can add as many plugins as you'd like to create a chain of effects, all operating on that one clip.

Plugins Using Clip Effects

Note: Clip effects work with Audio clips, but not MIDI clips or Step clips.

The rest of the operation is pretty much the same as using plugins in the mixer. Select a plugin and hit F to enable or disable it. You can also enable or disable the effect with the Enabled button in Properties.

For third-party plugins, clicking or double clicking on the plugin opens its user interface.

Tip: How plugins open, depends on a setting in the Settings tab Plugins page: Opening Plugin Windows. It can be set to either Single-click on a plugin to open its GUI window or Double-click on a plugin to open its GUI window.

To remove a plugin, simply click on the plugin and press Delete or Backspace. You can also select multiple plugins by holding down Cmd / Ctrl to select multiples, and then press Delete to remove them.

One of the reasons to use clip effects is if you want to put an effect on just part of a track, even a single word or a single phrase. Without using clip effects, you'd need to move a piece of the clip to another track to apply a different type of an effect. This is really useful for something like an echo throw where you're applying an echo effect to a single word, or if you want to process one phrase of a vocal line with a lo-fi effect. Just separate the phrase or word to its own cli, then apply the effect only to that short clip.

An echo throw is taking one word, usually the last word of a phrase and then applying an echo to it. Here are the steps:

1. First, separate the final word of the phrase from the rest of the phrase. To do that position the cursor where you'd like to make the split and hit the slash (/) key.
2. Now that clip is separated into its own clip, drag in the Delay plugin.
3. Dial in the Delay parameter so it echoes out in a musically useful way, maybe using eighth notes or quarter notes. Add a little bit of Feedback so you get some echoes that die out over time.
4. Playback and tweak the Delay parameters until you get the echo throw effect that you like.

The same technique is great for lo-fi effects as well. Apply a high pass and a low pass filter in order to cut the highs and the lows, or even apply chorusing to a few words in a vocal line. Clip effects are super easy to use in Waveform, and they unlock all kinds of creative options!

With the Folder Tracks feature, you collect a group of tracks into a folder, allowing to you work with them together as unit. The obvious advantage is to collapse the view so that related tracks, like your drum tracks, can be viewed as a single entity.

Folder Tracks also give you a convenient way to apply volume automation, so that you can do a fade across a number of tracks at the same time. Folder Tracks allow you to solo every track that is contained within it with a single click. You can also do basic editing across the included. Let's take a closer look.

To create a Folder Track, right-click the track name for any existing track and select Create a new Folder Track. The Folder Track appears below the original track.

New Empty Folder Track

Alternatively, right click on the background of the Track section and choose Create a new Folder Track.

Either of these methods will create a new empty Folder Track. There are easy ways to create a Folder Track containing existing tracks, which we will cover that shortly.

Putting Tracks into a Folder Track

• To put a track into a Folder Track, simply grab the track by the track name, drag it, and drop it on the folder. Just before you drop it, the Folder Track will glow, usually with a red color, indicating it's ready to receive your track.

Folder Track after Dropping in One Track

If you already have some tracks in the folder you can drag it over the folder and then downward; You'll notice a red glowing insertion point, where you can put your track between other tracks to get the order you would like.

Naming a Folder Track

• Naming a Folder Track works exactly like any other track. Click on the header part of the track where the name is, and then edit Name in Properties. By default, it will have a name similar to Folder 1 or Folder 2.

Naming a Folder Track

Tip: One of the most common uses of Folder Tracks is to organize all of your drum parts into a single folder. In this case, you might want to name it 'Drums' or 'Drums Folder.'

Reorder Tracks within a Folder Track

• To reorder the tracks within your Folder Track, grab any track and drag it to the correct position. The red insertion line shows the target, so you know exactly where the track is going to go. When you drag a track directly onto the Folder Track and drop it, that track goes to the topmost position.

Reordering Tracks within a Folder

Collapsing and Expanding a Folder Track

• Click the small triangle to the left of the Folder Track name to expand or collapse the folder. When the folder is collapsed it doesn't affect playback. All the tracks that are contained within the folder still play and respond as normal.

Expand/Collapse a Folder by Clicking the Triangle

Soloing/Muting a Folder Track

• Folder Tracks have Solo and Mute buttons, just like any other track. However, they operate on all of the tracks that are contained in the folder. So if you have a Folder Track set up for your drums and you click Solo, you will solo all of your drum tracks. Likewise, Mute mutes all the tracks with in the folder

Folder Track Solo

Note: When you solo a Folder Track, the tracks contained in it are soloed with a blinking Solo button. This indicates that the track is being soloed by the Folder Track and not directly. If you click the blinking Solo it will change to the standard solo state with a steady indicator.

The Solo and Mute functions are really good reasons to set up Folder Tracks for the different instrument types. You can set up Folder Tracks for drums, for guitars, for keyboards, and another for vocals.

VCA stands for "voltage controlled amplifier." For those of you with experience with analog gear, that name relates to a similar feature on automated mixing consoles. In essence, the VCA on the Folder Track remotely controls the level of all the included tracks proportionally. This gives you level control for the everything in the folder.

Folder Track VCA

Keep in mind that no audio passes through the Folder Track itself. The VCA acts as a remote control, proportionally controlling the volume of all of the individual Volume & Pan plugins of the tracks contained within the Folder Track. It's a very convenient way to add high-level mixing to your groups of instruments, without going through the complexity of adding numerous additional bus.

Note: You can't insert plugins on Folder Tracks, since no audio actually passes through the track. To do so you would need to create a Submix Track, which we'll cover in the next chapter. # Creating a Folder Track with Existing Tracks

With multi-track drums, you often have 10 tracks or more that you need to put into a Folder Track. Rather than drag each track individually, there is a quick way to pack all of them into a Folder Track at once:

Create a Folder Track Contain Existing Tracks

1. Select the first track by clicking on the track name. Hold down Shift and click on the last track. All of the drum tracks will then be highlighted.
2. Next, right-click on the track name for any of the tracks and choose the option Create new folder track containing. This instantly creates a Folder Track containing all of your drum tracks.
3. Finally, select on the Folder Track and give it a descriptive name in Properties.

Tip: This isn't limited to drum tracks. Create new folder track containing is a great way to create Folder Tracks for any related selection of instruments or vocals.

Folder Tracks get even cooler when you discover the editing possibilities. Here is a rundown of what's possible:

Splitting Contained Clips

• To split clips across all of the contained tracks by simply selecting the Folder Track clip, position the cursor, then press Slash.

Split All Clips Within a Folder Track

Rearranging

• After splitting the Folder Track clip, you can rearrange everything within the folder by dragging the Folder Track clips to any order. You can use this rearrange a song or just swap verse 1 and verse 2. If you put all your tracks in to a Folder Track you can use this for block arranging of the song.

Rearranging Clips within a Folder Track

Trimming

• The beginnings and the endings of the Folder Track clips have trim handles. Drag to trim all the included clips.

Trimming Using the Folder Track Clip

Deleting

• In addition to moving and splitting clips, you can delete entire sections of the contained tracks by separating out a section, selecting it, and pressing Delete or Backspace.

You can automate the VCA fader to create fade-outs or fade-ins on Folder Tracks. We'll get into more detail about automation in a later chapter, but here is a step by step recipe for creating fade-outs:

1. Grab the little "A" icon. That is the automation icon for the track. Drag it and drop it on the VCA fader. A red line appears on the Folder Track. That is the automation curve for the VCA fader.

Activate Automation for the VCA

1. Double-click on automation curve add points. Add two points: one before and one after the section you would like to fade.

Add Automation Points to the VCA Curve

1. Drag the last point all the way down to the bottom of the clip to draw in your fade-out.
2. Between the two points you added, notice an additional point was automatically added. This is a curvature point. Drag the curvature point to adjust the shape of the fade.

Customizing the Fade with Curvature

You can further adjust the speed of the fade by dragging all these points until it sounds like what you want. The automation points snap to the current snap increment. Turn Snap off for finer adjustment.

This technique is really a time-saver because you don't have to go in and edit each individual clip in order to do a fade-out.

Folder Tracks are a powerful feature in Waveform. You may have seen this concept in other digital audio workstations. Once you get the hang of how it works in Waveform, you will be amazed at the creative things you can do with Folder Tracks.

In professional mixing, it is common to submix drums to a stereo bus to add compression, EQ, and limiting before mixing it with other other tracks. Actually, it is common to submix other things like vocals, guitars, or instruments. Starting with T6, awe added a Submix Tracks feature that resembles Folder Tracks but with a twist: you can process a submix with plugins.

Like earlier versions, you still have the option to use any track as a submix. This still works and has certain advantages. We will show you how to configure that later in the chapter.

Creating a Submix Track in Waveform is super easy:

1. First, select all the tracks you want to include.

Creating a Submix Track

1. Right-click any of the tracks and choose Create submix track containing. The same action is also available in Properties as Create Submix Containing.

A Submix Track

The result looks very similar to a Folder Track. It differs in that the audio actually passes through the Submix Track. You can use the Volume & Pan plug and add any additional plugins you want.

Adding Tracks

• To add a track to a Submix, just drag and drop it on the Submix folder. You also drag tracks up or down within the Submix Track to re-order them. This works exactly like it does for Folder Tracks.

Removing Tracks

• To remove a track from a Submix, simple grab it by the track name and drag it back out.

Tip: When dragging tracks, grab them by the track name.

Open/Close a Submix

• A Submix works just a like Track Folder in that you can open and close it with triangular control at the far left of the header.

Adding Effects

• You can add any built-in or third-party effect you want (accept for the Waveform Freeze Point) to Submix Tracks. Just drag them to the mixer like any other track.

Muting

• Mute works like you would expect, muting everything within the Submix Track.

Soloing

• soloing works a little differently than you might expect. When you click Solo on the Submix, it mutes all other tracks, including the ones contained within the Submix Track.

In older versions of Waveform, The way to setup a submix was to use a track. We will review how this is done, since you may encounter older Projects that used this method.

1. Create a track in the normal way.

Creating an Old School Submix Track

1. Name the track appropriately. In this example, we have named it Drums Submix.
2. Select all the tracks you want to route to the submix.
3. In Properties, click Track Destination. Select your the Drums Submix track. This effectively routes the output of each selected track through to the drum submix track.

Set the Track Destination on the Source Tracks

Now, you can use the Volume & Pan control on your Drum Submix track to control the volume of all the tracks that you have just routed to it. You can also add any plugins you want to the new Submix Track. In this example, we have inserted a tape simulator and a third party bus compressor.

Submix Using Third Party Plugins

Of course, you can use any processing that you like. That depends largely on which kind of tracks and the style of music.

This chapter is an introduction to the automation features in Waveform. Automation allows you to program changes to many of the parameters that exist within a track. You can easily program changes to volume, pan, and plugin parameters. You can program automation using external hardware, like controllers that have knobs and faders. Alternatively, you can program automation by adding points and changing the shape of the graphic automation curve that appears as a line on or below the track.

Waveform has excellent features designed to keep all of your automation nicely organized. For example, you can add Automation Tracks that nest under your track. You can also open them when you're working on automation changes and edits, and then close them when you move onto other parts of your project.

In this chapter, we're going to focus on Volume & Pan automation and then offer an example of how to extend automation to parameters within other plugins.

The keys to automation are the A icon and the 'plus' icon that reside at the far right of each track.

The A and Plus Automation Icons

The first step is to click the plus sign, to add an Automation Track. You'll instantly see the Automation Track appear below your original track. The Automation Track will have minus, A, and plus icons.

Track with One Automation Track

The minus icon will remove the Automation Track, the A icon allows you to set up the track, and the plus icon will add yet another Automation Track below this one.

For this example, we're going to automate volume on the track. To do that, click the A icon. Then select the menu item, Automatable parameters for this track > Volume & Pan Plugin > Volume.

Select the Parameter to Automate

You'll see an automation line appear. The line is labelled with the name of the parameter, and the value of the parameter is listed over on the right. This line is the "automation curve." There's no literal curve to it yet, because it's just a line. As you will see shortly, it's easy to draw curves, steps, and ramps.

The Automation Curve Line

Click the curve to select it, then check out its Properties. You can change the Name or choose from several actions. Those make more sense once you have some automation points on the curve.

Automation Curve Properties

Tip: A fast way to set the automation parameter for the track is to grab the A icon and just drop it on the thing you would like to automate. Then choose the parameter from the list. So, to automate panning, drag the A and drop it on the Volume & Pan plugin and then choose Pan from the list. This also works for third party plugins.

To give your Automation Curve some shape, you need to add some points on it. Add points with either double-click or Opt-click / Alt-click. Here is how to work with the automation points:

Creating a Ramp

• To draw a ramp add two points and the drag one of them up or down. This adjust the steepness of the ramp. Drag the points left or right to adjust the start and ending of the ramp.

Drawing an Automation Ramp

Shaping with Curvature

• To shape the line segment between points you can use the Curvature the point. A Curvature point is automatically inserted midway between two automation points. Adjust Curvature by dragging diagonally.

Adjusting a Curvature Point

Tip: The automation point can also be adjusted in Properties using the Value parameter slider. You will also find a slider for Curvature in Properties.

Value and Curvature Properties*

Drawing an Automation Step

• Insert two points that define the position of the step. Hold down Cmd / Ctrl and drag the line segment between the points up or down. You'll see that the line segment moves separately from the overall automation curve. This makes it really easy to draw in a step shape on your automation. If you don't hold down Cmd / Ctrl, then the entire automation curve moves.

Hold Cmd / Ctrl to Draw a Step

To program a fade shape with automation, add a point where you'd like the fade to start, then add another point where you'd like the fade to end. Drag the second point all the way down until the value reads zero. Adjust the speed of the fade by dragging point down to the left for a quicker fade or up to the right for a more gradual fade. Dragging the Curvature point to adjust the shape of the fade ramp. Of course, you always have the option to adjust that parameters directly in Properties.

As we discussed in a Chapter 33, if you program an automation curve for a track folder, you can apply a fade across all the tracks together.

As you've already learned you can easily apply fade-ins or fade-outs to Audio Clips with the fade handles on the upper left and right corners of the clip. If, for some reason, you'd like more control over the fade shape you can convert a clip level fade to and an automation curve.

Clip Fade

To convert a clip fade to automation, first select the clip and then click Copy Fade To Automation > Transfer Fade-in to Automation, Transfer Fade-out to Automation in Properties.

Copy Fade to Automation

That will redraw the automation curve in the shape of the fade and remove the clip fade from the clip. Now you can apply additional points and shaping using the automation tools.

Result of Copy Fade to Automation

Once you've drawn automation like this, Waveform performs the automation dynamically during playback, as long as you have Automation Read enabled on the Transport.

Automation Read Enabled

As you playback, watch the controls changing in real time as the cursor moves through the Edit. If you go back about three decades that feature would cost you about a million bucks!

The automation curve has several of its own properties. Click on the curve to selected it and look at Properties. Here is a rundown of the controls:

Automation Curve Properties

Curve

• The Curve property is the name that appears above the automation curve. This is here for reference only. You can't change it directly. It is made up of the track name, the plugin name, and the parameter.

Displace Curve

• Displace Curve allows you to drag left or right which offsets the curve up or down. It basically takes the entire programmed curve and set of points, and moves them down if you drag left or up if you drag right. This is very useful to make minor mix changes after the automation is already programmed.

Scale Curve

• Think of Scale Curve to function like an intensity control. As you drag to the left, it proportionately lowers all of the points on the curve, squashing the shape of the curve. Dragging to the right expands the curve, scaling it upward.

Only Displace/Scale the Marked Region

• This parameter works along with Displace Curve and Scale Curve. When enabled, any scaling or displacing, only occurs between the In-marker and the Out-marker.

Simplify

• If your automation curve becomes very complex with lots and lots of points, you use Simplify to thin out the points. You can usually choose Simplify the entire curve and then pick from Light, Medium, and Strong. The Light option does the least thinning where Strong thins the most. This is particularly useful if you recorded automation from a hardware controller that added hundreds of points.

Automation Curve Simplify

You also have the option to Simplify only in marked region. You can use this if you want to simply just simplify a section that was recorded from hardware, leaving the rest of the curve unchanged.

Delete Points from Curve

• This set of options allows you to completely reset the automation curve. If you delete all points from the curve, you've basically taken it back to a flat line. Sometimes this results in the automation value being set very low, so you might need to drag the curve line back to a good starting position.

You can also Delete points within the marked region which means you'll delete all the points between the In-marker and the Out-marker. You can do the same thing and "close the gap," means to take out the time within the marked region.

Copy the Marked Region to the Clipboard

• Set the In-marker and the Out-marker over a region of automation and click Copy Marked Region to the Clipboard to copy that region of the curve. Then, position the cursor to the destination and select Paste From Clipboard > Paste Curves at Cursor Position and that pastes the automation. This makes it fast to create repeating patterns of automation.

This is also useful if you've created a very specific effect using automation and want to reproduce that effect in a later part of the song.

Paste from Clipboard has two options. Most of the time I would use Paste curves at cursor position. You can alternatively do that with Cmd + V / Ctrl + V.

Alternatively, choose Paste curves to fit between the in/out markers. That allows targeting the destination only within the merged region. Normally you paste at the cursor position.

Tip: You don't need to manually copy automation when moving or duplicating clips on a track. Enable Auto Lock in the Master section and the automation follows along as you move or duplicate clips.

It's pretty easy to program a lot of automation, but sometimes you don't have all of the automation curves visible. To see which ones are available click the A icon and select Active Parameter Curves for This Track. This shows all automation curves for the track and you can choose which one to make visible.

Active Parameters for a Track

This is particularly helpful if you don't have each parameter on a separate Automation track.

Each plugin has a Remap on Tempo Change setting in Properties. With that enabled, as you change the tempo of the song, the automation will track the tempo changes. That means it will get smaller if you speed up the tempo or it will get longer in order to match the clips in your Edit. This is a great feature but is not enabled by default; You need to turn it on for each plugin.

Remap on Tempo Change

Tip: We suggest you turn Remap on Tempo Change on as a global option for all new Edits. To do so, enable Timecode > Default remapping options > Remap plugin automation from the Menu section.

Make Remap the Default

Note: Remap Plugin Automation is not set as the default or turned on by default, to maintain compatibility with older projects. This setting and the new default option were new for T6.

During playback, you can adjust a parameter in real time and have Waveform record it as automation. You can do this with a MIDI controller, or simply by manipulating plugin controls on-screen during playback. All you need to do is setup your automation track and enable Automation Write mode.

Automation Write Enabled

To go into write mode, enable the Automation Write button on the Transport. Now, during playback, Waveform will record any dynamic changes you make to the parameter.

Automation from Write Mode

Note: You don't need to be in Record mode to record automation changes. All you need is to have automation write turned on during playback.

Tip: When you've written automation this way, it's often a good idea to use Simplify to thin out the automation points. You may find you get good results with the Medium option.

Automation with Medium Simplification

Notice in the Master section, there is an Auto Lock button. By default that button is not engaged. If you move a clip around on a track, the automation will not follow it to the new position.

Automation Lock Engaged

With Auto Lock engaged, automation will follow as you drag the clip to a different place in time. It's a great feature, assuming that's what you want to do.

There is a lot more you can do with automation, because you can automate almost any parameter. You can automate sends to effects. You can even automate your Master plugins. Simply create a separate track then drag the A icon from that track over to the Master section plugins to automate them.

In this chapter we're going to go over the steps required to mix down your Edit to a WAV file or MP3 file.

Before you mix down, you might want to add some Master effects, so that the entire stereo mix is processed. Master plugins often include a compressor and a limiter to give the final mix a professional sound.

We won't get into the details about exactly what you'd apply there, although the included Waveform Master Mix plugin is a nice choice. It's a multi-band compressor, EQ, and limiter all in one.

Waveform Master Mix

Make sure that the metering for the Master section is not going into the red before you export the mix. Exactly how you process the mix depends on what you plan to do with the file after it's mixed down.

Waveform Master Section

If you're having professional mastering done, then you probably don't want to put any plugins on there. However, if you are immediately going to upload to your website or SoundCloud, you will want to put some mastering effects on to make your mix into a finished product.

Here are the steps to export your song as a WAV file:

1. Set the In-marker exactly at the beginning of the song. This defines the start of the export. Adjust the position of the In-marker to skip any extra bars or count-in at the beginning of the Edit.

Set the In-marker Just Before the Song Start

2. Set the Out-marker right after the end of the song. This allows you to control the exact length of the exported file. We recommend leaving a couple of extra milliseconds after the final fade.

Set the Out-marker Just After the Song Ending

3. Select Export > Render to a file from the Menu section. The Render dialog box appears.

Export Render Dialog Box

The above example shows the most common settings for exporting a WAV file. You can customize the file location and name if you want. Also, make sure to select Only Render Marked Region so that the In-marker and Out-markers are used to define the export region.

4. Click Render and the export will begin. Waveform starts processing in the background as you adjust the settings. Much of the time export is already done as soon as you click Render!

Unless you change the file path, the file saves to the project folder. You can find the file either on the Projects tab or from the Browser.

Locating the Export on the Projects Tab

• Click the Projects tab and look at the Exported Audio/MIDI list at the right. Unless you have changed the filename, your exported file will be there with the word "Export", and an export number appended.

The Exported File on the Project Page Files List

To locate the file in Finder or File Explorer on your computer, select the exported file and look at Properties. In Properties, click the ... button to the right of File and choose Open the folder containing this file. That opens the folder on your system, giving you direct access to the file.

Locating the Export in the Browser

• Open the Browser and go to the Files tab. Click the folder icon and select Project folder.

Locate the Project folder from the Browser

Double-click the folder named Exported and you will see your file. To located it in Finder or File Explorer, right-click and choose Open the folder containing this file.

Exported Folder in the Browser

The steps to create an MP3 file are almost identical. Follow the same steps above except when you get to the Render dialog box select MP3 for Format. That selection gives you a few extra options for Rendering.

Add ID3/Vorbis Info