I used Wavelab 5 and then 6 for mastering. However once I purchased Samplitude 10, I liked it a lot better (once I learned it). I think part of the reason was the work flow is just like working in a normal DAW like Cubase, Sonar, or Logic. You have your mixer, and arranger page to work with. I found Samplitude for mastering very in depth and complicated. The manual was too simplistic and it did not explain clearly all the features that the program has. There is a guy though on the Samplitude web site that has created free tutorials that gave very clear explanation on how to use the program. Since then I can't think of using another program for mastering. I am so use to it, and I know how to work through it very nicely.
With that said, ever since I went to Windows 7 64 bit, my code meter for Samplitude does not work right. I always have to take the dongle out and back in again to open up Samplitude. In addition, their excellent Ammunition plug in froze on me the last time I worked with it. I clearly like Samplitude better than Wavelab 6. However after reading the review on Wavelab 7.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec10/articles/wavelab-7.htm I was amazed on how much they actually improved it. So for a $100 upgrade I decided to purchase it and give it a go.
Here a couple of highlights on Wavelab 7 review from Sound on Sound.
1. Windows Switcher, a small and resizeable floating window that remains visible at all times — even, by default, after switching to another application, although you can disable this if you wish — and which lets you leap straight into audio file editing, multitrack montage, batch-processing or podcasting duties.
2. here are also several dozen editing, viewing and analysis functions that you can now open in the new Tab area inside tabbed ‘tool windows’, covering such things as various metering alternatives, marker creation and editing, file browsing, error detection and correction, spectrum editing options and so on.
I always liked that Wavelab has an error detection, and it fixes these little clicks in recordings with a press of a button.3. You can also create your own Tab Group arrangements by splitting an existing group, horizontally or vertically, using the icons in each workspace area.
4. the new ‘Position on screen’ option also helps to streamline your working methods by offering 25 predefined choices for each instance of the Wavelab 7 application, ranging from the ‘Full screen view’, to (for example) Wavelab occupying the top or left half of the screen, or the bottom right-hand quarter of the screen. This flexibility makes it very easy to create split-screen views with your sequencer application, Internet browser, or even tiling multiple instances of Wavelab 7 itself.
5. The Montage is also much more streamlined now, partly because of the new Workspace flexibility, but mainly because of the new ‘Focused clip’ menu: right-click anywhere over a montage clip and this new menu appears, displaying collapsible ‘accordion’ panes covering Edit, Cue Point, Envelope, Fade-in, Fade-out and Colour options. I found these much quicker to use than Wavelab 6’s floating nested menus, since you can always see all relevant parameters.
6. The Master Section also sports some handy new additions. These include dedicated buttons to toggle individual plug-in windows between visible and invisible status, locking of individual plug-in slots so they ignore the bypass function and when loading new Master Section presets, and the ability to force the Master Section meters to display the output level at any stage of your plug-in chain (useful for detecting overloads and so on)
7. The smart bypass options that match in/out levels in various ways, so you can A/B with or without effects at the same subjective level, are now part of the Master Section itself, and this function cleverly defaults to the ‘A’ and ‘B’ keyboard shortcuts, so you can perform A/B tests without a second thought.
8. Its previous generic lower-quality options have now been abandoned in favour of the latest Dirac 2.2 algorithms, which offer various code enhancements, as well as additional options to modulate time-stretching and pitch formant-correction over time in a graphic window, and preserve formants when pitch quantising. For those working in more extreme audio editing environments — such as sound designers, who may routinely pitch-shift by several octaves to create special effects — these tools now also support sample rates up to a massive 384kHz, as does the Crystal Resampler tool.
9. The majority of the 30 new bundled VST3 plug-ins will already be familiar to Nuendo users, and many to Cubase users too. They include a very effective selection of EQs, single and multi-band compressors, chorus/delays, and special effects such as an Envelope Shaper and Octaver, plus tools to (for instance) mix down surround mixes to stereo. Of special note are Nuendo’s very flexible Post Filter, with its low/high cut and up to eight notch filters for cleaning up audio material, the four-band Multi-band Compressor and four-band parametric Studio EQ, and the versatile Roomworks reverb. In addition there are Sonnox restoration plug-ins De-Noiser, De-Clicker and De-Buzzer.
10. Wavelab 7 features a completely rewritten burning engine designed for greater reliability, which for the first time allows you to burn an audio CD from an industry-standard DDP (Disc Description Protocol) image file, as well as offering DDP as an output format, for reliable error-protected transfer of files intended for optical disc duplication that can even be safely transmitted across an Internet link.
11. Multi Core improvements.
With so many improvements, it seemed quite silly not to check it out. With Montage you can put each song on a different track and add different effects to the separate tracks as well.