WavTool How-To: Terms
WavTool is a digital audio workstation (DAW) that can help you do tons of different things with audio. Making audio is a complicated process, with many things to consider, so there are many things to keep track of.
Let's start by explaining some basic terminology, especially in the context of WavTool:
Tracks
A track is a virtual channel where audio or MIDI data can be recorded, edited, and processed. Each track in a DAW can hold a separate audio or MIDI recording, allowing you to work with multiple parts of a song or sound effect independently. You can add effects, adjust volume levels, and perform other types of processing on each track individually, and then combine all the tracks into a final mix. Think of a track as a single voice in a choir, or a single instrument in a band.
Here, you can see the three kinds of tracks in WavTool - MID tracks for clips of MIDI notes, automation tracks for automating controls, and audio tracks for recorded audio.
Devices
A device is a module that processes sound. Most devices take in inputs (like a MIDI note, a recording, or an instruction), and create and transform sound in some way into an output. A simple example of a device is a synthesizer.
In this example, by selecting the 'Simple Synth' device in the Chain Editor, the Device View displays the available controls for the device. Here you can adjust settings for how the synth will take MIDI inputs from the track and create sound to output to the Master Bus (the final channel where all tracks are routed to, before going to the computer speaker).
Clips
A clip is a movable section in a track that contains instructions for musical performance. These instructions can include MIDI notes to play, or recordings to play back. Clips can be extended to be longer than their content - in this case, they will loop their content for the length of the full clip.
To create a clip, highlight a section of a MIDI or Audio Track and hit Ctrl/⌘-J to fill the highlighted space with an empty clip. If it's a MIDI clip, selecting the clip head will show the clip's MIDI content in the MIDI editor panel.
These are some of the most basic elements of WavTool's UI that will let you make your music! If you want to find out more on how to navigate the WavTool UI, maybe check out our post on WavTool's panels and layouts.
