WaveBurner 1.6 - buggy, PITA to use, but for free, who's complaining? Me.
WaveBurner 1.6 is my first experience with WB. I had purchased/upgraded logic versions 4,5 and 6 in a past life... but never really used it (i'm a protools guy). Jump ahead to Logic 9 -- and WaveBurner looked quite attractive, and totally justified the upgrade costs, assuming that it worked.
It doesn't.
Let me backtrack. If you SIMPLY use WB to load files, do PQ and burn, it's perfectly fine and a great value. Unfortunately, the application's designers put a bunch of features in that either don't work, don't work well or are non-supported by some plugins.
1. Arguably, Waves makes some very good sounding mastering plugs. Especially the linear-phase bundle. Not to mention the L3 family and CLA and SSL bundles. Unfortunately, don't try to use them within WB. Your settings wont survive a transport stop. of course you could automate EVERY parameter. Geez, that's a PITA. Let's say you want to use an L316 on a region, but you want to use Pow-r type 3 dither... so you MUST turn IDR off in the Waves plug. But when enabling an automation path, it defaults to NOT the state of the plug, but to the opposite of the plug setting. That's just LOGICAL, right? DO the math. 3 paths x 17 songs on a 70 minute CD and that's 51 edits to turn off a switch. Or try actually editing the automation data. Wow that is an exercise in frustration. After the elegance of working in protools, the WB interface is, well, butt ugly. And non-functional.
2. If you are processing files using a brickwall limiter set to -.3dbFS, and your maximum level for a file is -.3dbFS, HOW ON EARTH is WB telling me I have overs? And it won't tell you this until it's 15 minutes into a burn/bounce. Then the ONLY way to solve this is to "normalize" the offending region. But sometimes, that doesn't work and on the next bounce you hang again 13 minutes in.
3. They say that Logic Studio 9 requires Intel CPUs -- but PPC macs may work (unsupported). Well, with WB, the program works MUCH, MUCH better on a G5/2.7DP (PPC) than my MacBook Pro C2D 2.33 (and I have a 7200rpm 500gb drive in the laptop. Rendering or bouncing a region with basic automation data (change threshold of a limiter, let's say) on the G5 seems to be accurate. On the Intel, forget about it. NO accuracy in the sound based on where the automation poaints are. Your move could happen early or late. Can't use it.
4. WHY ON EARTH is there a "burn cd" option without a bounce? Bad design. AND we discovered that NOT bouncing before a burn is a reckless process. Your CD will not sound as expected unless you bounce per-region. Maybe.
5. And transport issues -- Press the spacebar. Maybe it will play, maybe it won't. Transport and cursor UI have been elegantly designed in many applications, including final cut. WB is as bad as it gets in this area.
6. Zoom. SO I really have to go there? Am I simply spoiled rotton from ProTools? WB zoom is a productivity killer. It's like gambling. You never know what you're going to get.
But most of all, my no-confidence is how WB 1.6 deals with plugins is what prompted my return to ProTools for making regions, and then simply using WB to stack them up and do PQ.
IF Apple can fix WB and have it work as the feature set is, this can be a fantastic application. But for now, I suggest restricting it's use to ONLY PQ and cd-text. DO your creative elsewhere and bring in your 16-bit, already dthered, already noise-shaped files. And be careful if you don't have a PPC mac.
</rant>
It doesn't.
Let me backtrack. If you SIMPLY use WB to load files, do PQ and burn, it's perfectly fine and a great value. Unfortunately, the application's designers put a bunch of features in that either don't work, don't work well or are non-supported by some plugins.
1. Arguably, Waves makes some very good sounding mastering plugs. Especially the linear-phase bundle. Not to mention the L3 family and CLA and SSL bundles. Unfortunately, don't try to use them within WB. Your settings wont survive a transport stop. of course you could automate EVERY parameter. Geez, that's a PITA. Let's say you want to use an L316 on a region, but you want to use Pow-r type 3 dither... so you MUST turn IDR off in the Waves plug. But when enabling an automation path, it defaults to NOT the state of the plug, but to the opposite of the plug setting. That's just LOGICAL, right? DO the math. 3 paths x 17 songs on a 70 minute CD and that's 51 edits to turn off a switch. Or try actually editing the automation data. Wow that is an exercise in frustration. After the elegance of working in protools, the WB interface is, well, butt ugly. And non-functional.
2. If you are processing files using a brickwall limiter set to -.3dbFS, and your maximum level for a file is -.3dbFS, HOW ON EARTH is WB telling me I have overs? And it won't tell you this until it's 15 minutes into a burn/bounce. Then the ONLY way to solve this is to "normalize" the offending region. But sometimes, that doesn't work and on the next bounce you hang again 13 minutes in.
3. They say that Logic Studio 9 requires Intel CPUs -- but PPC macs may work (unsupported). Well, with WB, the program works MUCH, MUCH better on a G5/2.7DP (PPC) than my MacBook Pro C2D 2.33 (and I have a 7200rpm 500gb drive in the laptop. Rendering or bouncing a region with basic automation data (change threshold of a limiter, let's say) on the G5 seems to be accurate. On the Intel, forget about it. NO accuracy in the sound based on where the automation poaints are. Your move could happen early or late. Can't use it.
4. WHY ON EARTH is there a "burn cd" option without a bounce? Bad design. AND we discovered that NOT bouncing before a burn is a reckless process. Your CD will not sound as expected unless you bounce per-region. Maybe.
5. And transport issues -- Press the spacebar. Maybe it will play, maybe it won't. Transport and cursor UI have been elegantly designed in many applications, including final cut. WB is as bad as it gets in this area.
6. Zoom. SO I really have to go there? Am I simply spoiled rotton from ProTools? WB zoom is a productivity killer. It's like gambling. You never know what you're going to get.
But most of all, my no-confidence is how WB 1.6 deals with plugins is what prompted my return to ProTools for making regions, and then simply using WB to stack them up and do PQ.
IF Apple can fix WB and have it work as the feature set is, this can be a fantastic application. But for now, I suggest restricting it's use to ONLY PQ and cd-text. DO your creative elsewhere and bring in your 16-bit, already dthered, already noise-shaped files. And be careful if you don't have a PPC mac.
</rant>
macbook pro C2D 2.33 17" 3GB ram, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
