I would disagree. Wavelab is a mastering suite for professional ME’s. An ME can master in any digital environment. What Wavelab offers is features that are not found in DAWs. A few of those that I use fairly often:
- customizable Batch Processing, conversion and re-naming. Set up chains, do multiple tasks very fast.
- smart bypass. eliminates any loudness bias when comparing processed to non-processed .wavs. Very nice for an attended session.
- error correction, very customizable
- audio analysis including global and comparing files and producing a delta file for differences. To my knowledge there is still nothing like the 3D frequency analysis, in any other application.
- audio montage, the foundation and a very nice way to assemble tracks, and incredibly flexible with fx vs. master section. If you are just mastering 1 track, then I would keep it in the main editor.
What Wavelab isn’t…is you buy it and that’s the end. It’s the framework or environment for an ME to further purchase whatever 3rd party tools is necessary. Yes Wavelab comes with some decent basics, but it’s far from what I think any ME would need. The features built-in such as smart bypass or how you can set up audio analysis or error correction to your own specifications is what I like.
I don’t use S1. However any time any DAW attempts to become all things to all users, you get compromises. S1 has your concerns covered, plus a lot of what I call finalizing tools for many users who don’t want to send their work out to ME’s. Wavelab is built for ME’s. Again an ME could master in S1, or most any DAW, but how it works with outboard gear, plus the missing functions of whatever DAW, is going to make a big difference. Wavelab is just very comprehensive and was built from the ground up for mastering…nothing else. If there is any lacking feature I can think of, it would be the Cubase style of automation. Wavelab has Effect Morphing, but that’s nothing like Cubase automation.
I’ll assume your familiar with the Cubase “edit in Wavelab” feature finally brought back with I think C9? I did like the old CubaseSX integration with Wavelab a bit better where you just double click on the sample part in Cubase to open Wavelab, but “Edit in Wavelab” pretty much achieves the same thing. If this is now what you meant, what do you mean by “tightly integrated?” Keep in mind Wavelab and Cubase are totally 2 different applications. Wavelab is pretty much a 1 man operation and under the hood, and I think very little code similarities with Cubase.