This page is not meant to be a manual, a more in depth instructions manual can be found here for download. Here, we are going to list a few scenarios that will help you understand what Wave Rider can do.
Wave Rider was designed to work best with the most familiar sound to our ears: human voice. The algorithm is tuned to respond best to dialogue recordings, where quiet parts are boosted, and loud parts are attenuated to maintain a constant level. However, you might find that it's quite handy for a multitude of scenarios.
WARNING!!! WAVE RIDER MAY CHANGE THE WAY YOU APPROACH A MIX. (in a good way)
The simplest scenario is where you have no means of controlling the faders other than the mouse, or worse, your laptop's trackpad. Using a mouse to even out levels can be a tedious job, and not as accurate as we'd like it to be. Just run Wave Rider on the tracks you need smoothened out, sit back, and watch the volume automation glide through the waveforms.
Run Wave Rider on your Vocal tracks, or other instrument tracks that need smoothing out.
You have a controller but you want to save time by allocating tasks to Wave Rider. While you are concentrating on production dialogue and backgrounds, Wave Rider can handle the Voiceover track. Imagine this: After you clean up your dialog or voiceover tracks, run Wave Rider, and go get some fresh air, when you come back, your levels are good to go. Or run Wave Rider on some tracks as you are editing other tracks, and watch it run in the background. The beauty of it is that all the automation can be altered afterwards.
Let's say you have a Radio/TV spot to mix. Voiceover and music. Run two instances of Wave Rider on the Voiceover track: One controlling the Voiceover track itself and maintaining a user defined output level, the other controlling the Music track in the Duck mode, attenuating the track when the Voiceover kicks in.
For advanced uses you can create complex session templates specifically for Wave Rider:
For a typical TV program you have Voiceover, Production Dialog, Background, and Music elements. Just populate your tracks with your favorite plugins as you would, and send them through sub mix Aux's, or blind Aux's that don't output audio but used purely for Wave Rider control. You can have the dialog AUX with Wave Rider to control the Music tracks in Duck mode, and have the Voiceover track control the Music submix AUX in Duck mode, both with different attenuation levels, to achieve a MIX and MIX MINUS (M&E) at the same time. With a complex setup where you have Ride mode smoothing out levels on individual tracks, and AUX setups handling ducking and other smoothing needs, you can pretty much hit play and watch the program mix itself! Of course, it's not recommended to leave your mix unattended. ;)
Use the "Park on silence" mode to ride the faders up on tom tracks only when they are played, and leave them lower in the mix when they are not.
You can also liven up your drum sound by reverse-ducking the room mics triggered by toms.
You can use Wave Rider on live inputs as well. Wave Rider can control the faders whether Pro Tools is on playback or stopped. It can be used in various combinations in a broadcast situation.
Once you get used to Wave Rider controls, you will find it to be an indispensable tool in your arsenal.
Contact support for technical inquiries.
