Romanticizing vintage software is fun, but the reality is harsh.
Wavelab 6 was the last great editor before the "loudness war" destroyed dynamic range. It came equipped with a suite of brickwall limiters (L2, L3) that could smash a song into a perfect sausage of distortion. But ironically, the tool that enabled the loudness war also contained the tools to fight it. wavelab 6
However, many professional mastering houses still cite WaveLab 6 as the version that “got long-form right” for the first time. Romanticizing vintage software is fun, but the reality
WaveLab 6 is not the best mastering software you can use today. That title belongs to its successor, WaveLab 12, or rivals like iZotope Ozone 11. However, represents a golden era of audio software: when tools were functional, focused, and fit on a single 800x600 screen. But ironically, the tool that enabled the loudness
: High-quality algorithms for altering audio duration and pitch without degrading sound quality.