There has been some interesting comments on the Wave Rider thread here on the DUC.

Stereosurfer asked…

Vedat (the designer of Wave Rider) replied…

Insert slot should not affect WR. But it should be put after all the other plugins to reflect the added gain.
If you’re having that full gain or full attenuation thing, just switch to Duck mode momentarily and switch back to Ride. That fixes it.
It’s a rare occurrence, we can’t pinpoint what makes it go like that. It might be related to opening or importing sessions that already have Wave Rider on them.

Is this your first try of WR, or have you installed an older version in the past? If so, please do a clean install as described in the installation document.

Cheers!

Edit: I just realized you’re on 8.03pr. Apparently there are a few glitches Digi will have to iron out on that puppy.

Badjitter also asked…

I have tested WR only limited time, but I think it works often too hard to match the levels. What I would like to see:

1. Target volume (WR has slider named output). If your audio is already making that output level, it should keep the volume slider at 0. Is it already making that?

2. Slider to adjust the behavior to louder and softer signals than target. Something like compression ratio. Often I wouldn’t want to flatten the levels, but add +3dB gain to signals that are -6dB below the target volume and add negative gain of -3dB to signals that are +6dB above the target volume. Makes sense?

Vedat replied…

Yes, WR will target whatever you set with the output slider. If it’s already that than it will keep it that way, but you’ll still see micro adjustments.

If you set your silence level high enough, you will find that low level signals aren’t boosted as much, depending on the behaviour slider. I am finishing a video hopefully this weekend to explain all this.

Kopper then mentioned Waves and their new Vocal Rider product…

“Vocal Rider is the first of Waves’ new series of mixing tools. This plug-in automatically “rides” the levels of vocal tracks. Instead of manually riding the physical mixing console fader or drawing in every level change on a DAW track, Vocal Rider does it automatically.

First, the user sets the target range of the vocal level in relation to the rest of the mix. Vocal Rider then compensates for all deviations from the target, raising or lowering the vocal volume. Unlike compression, Vocal Rider adds no additional coloring to the track.

Vocal Rider will soon be available from authorized Waves dealers and online.”

Sounds like Waves is going to take the Wave Rider approach… Another case of the “big guys” stealing a concept from the “little guy”?

To which Dmazurek replied..

Not really. The WR plug is meant to level out the audio based on internal dynamics. Sort of like a auto compressor. The Waves plug is designed to level the vocal against the rest of the mix by using the sidechain. Similar concepts but different intent and results it seems.

I saw the Waves plug at AES, and it was just dumb IMO. Just mix the song for goodness sake, why do I need a plug to do that?? Especially for $400/800 native/TDM.

Vedat added…

Well at least we know they were lurking around here too.

Maybe you could do feature requests and bug fixes for other Waves products on this thread, cause it may be the only place they are looking at these days.

Finally PhilBuckle added this strange commendation for Wave Rider..

This thing is so cool.
I’m going to have to buy it.
I therefore hold you personally responsible for increasing my credit card debt.
Damn all you coding type people with cunning business tactics!!

Well the conversations do continue and I am interested to hear about the differences between Vocal Rider and Waves Rider. I am hoping to be able to do a comparison soon, just waiting for Vocal Rider to come out. But it does look as though Wave Rider has a number of unique features, not least of which is ducking.

Comments (1):

1. 

   Vedat said:
   May 28, 2010 at 9:45 am

   Hey Mike,
   Thanks for the write ups.
   Just a heads up to your readers that Wave Rider is on sale for a very limited time.
   Now you can buy a license for a whopping 49USD!

   Cheers