The terms are often used confusingly, but there are two clearly different concepts.
Picture an editor in which you have stereo files on different track and you can vary the mixing of them; This (especially if it has a fader view) is a DAW for music production. Now change each stereo file to be a 5.1 file - six channels in one multichannel file - you can still mix the different 5.1 groups on the separate tracks.
- How is it not better if Wavelab can work better with multichannel or/and multitrack files?
Multitrack mixing is catered for in other programs like Cubase. But WaveLab is unrivalled for editing and mastering. It can even edit surround audio - but only with the channels in several separate mono and stereo files which have to be placed on different tracks of the montage - even though they are conceptually a single “surround track”. But every action is complicated by having to select all the clips to be acted on together, and only some actions can be done on multiple clips at all. Using WaveLab for handling more channels then the two of stereo is a hack - usable for some things, but ultimately severely limited.
All my audio is surround, which is why I want to be able to handle files with not just two channels, but greater numbers (not limited to 5.1 or even 7.1).