I would say that it barely meets the requirements and that's if you invest a lot of time. If you master a few projects a week or more, you may find it to be a bottleneck to your workflow. If you master a few albums a year, maybe it's fine. So, it really depends how much time you want to invest working with it and working around what it can't do yet. So to me it really falls short when it comes to making all the potential release formats in an accurate and simple way down to the CD frame.Įven the REAPER Blog guy uses another app for final assembly and not REAPER. Yes, REAPER can make a DDP but not only is it kind of a headache to do, it still can't embed metadata in a WAV when needed, and I'm not sure if it can write metadata to mp3 yet using the pre-exiting CD-Text info like WaveLab can.

I'll check out RX6 and Saracon.ĭSP Quattro actually looks very useful. Yes, I like Reaper as well for the DAW, so I'm thinking something with the CD-text and metadata capabilities looks good. I personally feel that nobody has really nailed the ideal mastering DAW, especially for Mac.Thanks for the tips. I personally feel that nobody has really nailed the ideal mastering DAW, especially for Mac. I haven't checked in awhile but if you do need to work at higher/different sample rates, you are probably stuck using their built in SRC whereas WaveLab makes it easy to use a good 3rd party SRC to recreate your projects at various sample rates. Sonoris and HOFA are great for what they are but they are pretty limited in terms of higher sample rates etc. Other options are Studio One V3 (using the Project Mode), and Triumph. REAPER and WaveLab make a great team and I also use RX6 and Saracon with them regularly.įor Mac, I have heard that DSP Quattro which some people are using now is undergoing a major overhaul and a public beta will be available sometime soon but in software terms, that could easily be another year or more. I just prefer to do it in a different and more flexible DAW so I use REAPER. What WaveLab is not great at is the analog play/capture process though it can be done and people are definitely doing it. Rendering all the various master file formats you'll need for any given project is also very easy. Inputting the project data just once and pushing it to all applicable CD-Text and metadata fields is super fast/easy/accurate and a major time saver. The montage part of WaveLab really excels when it comes to sequencing an EP or album, as well as single tracks.

Wavelab pro