Wave Editor Help

File
Edit
Tools
Wave
Effects
View
Control
Help

Menus

File

New

Create a new file. A dialog box comes up asking you about the number of channels, samples per second, and bits per sample for the new file. When you click OK a new wave of length 0 will be created.

Open

This allows you to select a wave file to open for editing.

Revert

This will reload a file, restoring the previously saved version and undoing all changes made since the file was last saved.

Save

Write the wave data to a wave file. If this is a new file, you will be prompted to enter the file name.

Save As

Same as "Save", except that it always prompts you for a file name.

Close an open file. If changes have been made, you will be asked whether you want to save them.

File Info

Shows some information about the wave file, including number of channels, sample rate, bits per sample and length.

Exit

Exit the wave editor.

Edit

Undo

Undo the last change made (on the current file)

Redo

Redo the last change undone (on the current file)

Cut

Copy the selected section of the wave to the clipboard, then delete it from the wave. Only those channels that are selected are cut.

Copy

Copy the selected section of the wave to the clipboard (selected channels only)

Paste Over

Paste the clipboard in the current wave at the selected position. The clipboard overwrites the wave at that position. If a section of the wave is selected, pasting is restricted to that section. If the clipboard goes over the end of the wave, the wave is extended. Pasting only occurs in selected channels.

Paste Insert

The clipboard is inserted at the selected position, without overwriting any existing wave. The wave is extended to make room for the clipboard. If a section of the wave is selected, pasting is restricted to that section.

Paste Mix

This is the same as paste over except that it mixes the clipboard with the existing wave. A dialog box pops up asking you to select the volume of the clipboard wave and the "mixing mode", which is either add or subtract.

Paste As New File

Creates a new file and pastes the clipboard in this new file.

Delete

Delete the selected section of the wave.

Delete Selected Channels

Deletes the selected channels (as you would have guessed).

Crop To Selection

Deletes everything that isn't selected.

Crop To Selected Channels

Deletes all unselected channels.

Insert Silence

Inserts a silent section at the selected position. The length of the silent section is determined by the length of the selection.

Insert Specific Silence

This does the same thing as Insert Silence, but allows you to specify the length of the inserted silent wave.

Select All

Selects the entire length of the wave. It does not change the channel selection.

Select none

Unselect whatever is currently selected

Invert Selected Channels

Select all unselected channels and unselect all selected channels.

Tools

Select

When this is checked you are in selection mode (the default). You can select a section of the wave by clicking and draging the mouse.

Draw

When this is checked you are in drawing mode. You can "draw" a wave using the mouse. If part of the wave is selected, drawing is limited to that selected section. Note that if you go over the end of the wave, the wave will not be automagically extended for you, you'll have to use "Insert Specific Silence" or something similar to extend the wave so you can draw at the end of it.

Wave

Format (submenu)

Convert to mono

Convert the wave to mono if it isn't already mono. All channels are mixed together.

Convert to Stereo

Convert the wave to stereo if it isn't already stereo. If it is mono, the channel is duplicated. If it is 4 or 5 channel surround, the rear left and right channels are mixed with the front left and right channels to produce a stereo wave. The center channel (if it exists) is deleted (if you want to keep this you'll have to manually copy and paste mix the center channel).

Change Sampling Frequency

Change the number of samples per second in the wave. A dialog box asks you what the new sample rate will be. You can select a preset from the list or enter one yourself. The "Resample Wave" check box is checked by default, and unchecking this will change the duration and pitch of the wave. Presets include: 11025 Hz (telephone quality), 22050 Hz (radio quality), 32000 Hz (DAT long play), 44100 Hz (CD quality), 48000 (DAT / DVD quality) (I'm not sure whether DVD uses 48000 or 96000 Hz, so this is a guess). Extremely fussy audiophiles might choose to do their editing at 96000 or 192000 Hz, but this uses a lot of memory.

Chanbe Bits Per Sample

This changes the number of bits each sample uses when stored in the file. The more bits per sample, the greater the range of values a sample can have. There are only 3 settings that can be used: 8 bit (values ranging from -128 to 127), 16 bit (-32768 to 32767), and 24 bit (-8388608 to 8388607). 16 bit is CD quality, 24 bit is DVD audio quality (and a good setting to use while editing.)

Mute

Mutes the selected part of the wave, making it completely silent.

Adjust Volume

Allows you to increase or decrease the volume of the wave.

Normalize

Makes the wave as loud as it can be without distorting. You can normalize the wave to any volume you choose (100% is the default).

Fade

This does fade in or fade out on a section on a wave (meaning the volume steadily increases or decreases over the length of the selection). You can choose the volume at the start of the fade and the volume at the end of the fade.

Adjust Balance

This allows you to adjust the balance of the wave. It is typically done left to right to change the apparent position of the sound source. You can select a mode from the drop down list.

Pan

This allows you to create a "moving sound source" effect on a wave with more than one channel. You can choose the balance at start, balance at end and the same modes as those available in "Adjust Balance" above.

Invert Waveform

This flips a wave upside down. If you do this on all channels of a wave it does nothing to change the sound. But it is useful to add an interesting stereo effect to a wave. Simply use "Invert Waveform" on one channel of a stereo wave (or a mono wave, after converting it to stereo) and listen (it's pretty cool how such a simple thing can sound so good). It's also a great way to discriminate against people who use satellite & subwoofer speaker systems (it'll virtually kill their bass).

Phase Shift

This just "shifts a wave along" by adding silent samples at the beginning. Like "Invert waveform", this is most impressive when used on one channel of a stereo wave. The default value of 10 milliseconds is a good setting to use for adding a stereo effect to a wave (although you might like to try 5 milliseconds if you notice one channel lagging too far behind the other).

Resize Wave

This makes a wave shorter or longer, changing its pitch at the same time.

Reverse

This turns a wave around so you can listen to it backwards.

Shift

Shifts the wave up or down. Not much use really, except to center the wave (click the "Auto Adjust" button).

Effects

Add Echo

This allows you to add an echo effect to the wave.

Differentiate

This is a wierd effect I couldn't think of a better name for. It finds the "slope" of the wave (the difference between one sample and the next sample) at each point, and uses this to construct a new wave that usually has a somewhat more trebble sound.

Absolute

Pretty simple. All it does is invert all negative samples to create an "absolute value" wave. What you end up with is a distorted version of the original sound.

Increase Stereo Separation

This is a great effect that "widens" the stereo separation of a wave. There must already be some stereo separation or this effect will not work. It is similar to the "Wow Effect" in windows media player 8. (And by the way, the only reason I have windows media player 8 is because it came with Windows XP and I can't remove it. Winamp is much better, and I definitely won't install that DRM infected thing called windows media player 9.)

View

Zoom

You can select the scale that's used to view the wave, from 1:1 (1 sample per pixel) to 1:50 and above. Zoomed out full, you can see the entire wave in the window. You can keep the zoom window open while you do other stuff.

Fit wave into window

Does exactly that.

Fit selection into window

Same as above, except only the selected part of the wave is shown.

Other View Menu Items

There is a list of open files in the view menu, with a check mark next to the one you are currently looking at. You can select different files from this menu.

Control

Play

Play the wave. This plays the entire wave if nothing is selected, or the selected section if there is a selection. There is currently no way to listen to one channel of a multi-channel wave. If the file is big, it will take a few seconds to save the wave to a temporary file before it can be played.

Stop

A nice way of telling the computer to shutup.

Help

I shouldn't need to help you with this menu.

Popup Menu

This menu appears when you right click the channel selection buttons on the left side or the window.

Insert New Channel Above

Creates a new channel and puts it before the channel you right-click on. The new channel will be completely silent.

Insert New Channel Below

Ditto, except that it goes below the channel you right click on.

Move Up, Move Down, Move To Top, Move To Bottom

These are used to move & swap channels around.

Cut Channel

Copy the contents of a channel to the clipboard, then delete that channel.

Copy Channel.

Copy the contents ot a channel to the clipboard. The entire channel is coppied, selections are ignored.

Paste Over Channel

Paste the contents of the clipboard in the channel you right-click on, overwriting anything that's already there.

Paste Mix Channel

Mix the clipboard wave with this channel.

Insert Copied Channel Above, Insert Copied Channel Below

Create a new channel and paste the clipboard in this new channel

Delete Channel

Deletes a channel.

Keys

You can use the left and right arrow keys, home, end, page up and page down to move to different parts of the wave. Also, the + and - keys can be used to zoom in and zoom out.