| What is a Waveform Audio Track?
A Waveform Audio Track holds and plays waveform audio clips, which are simply sound files (.wma, .mp3, or .wav). How does waveform audio differ from MIDI audio, you may ask?
How do I add a Waveform Audio Track to a song?
Use the Insert/Track menu command, or double-click the "(new track)" label in the Track View. This will open the Track Properties window. Enter a track name, then change the Content field to "Waveform Audio." This will disable the majority of controls.
NOTE that if you have not already done so, you must enable real-time audio processing before you will hear waveform audio tracks produce sound.
How do I add an audio clip to a Waveform Audio Track?
There are actually at least three ways. First, if the audio clip (file) already exists on your hard drive, select the waveform audio track in the track view, and then use the File/Import/Audio clip menu command. Although MIDI Maestro may allow you to "overlap" audio clips, you should definitely avoid doing this. They will be difficult (or impossible) to visually discriminate or separate. Instead, you should use separate waveform audio tracks to handle overlapping audio clips.
You may record a waveform audio clip using the same Transport/Record menu command that you use for recording MIDI. Recording that is done this way is always uncompressed (.wav) format. The sampling rate and size is taken from the setting on the track properties window for the audio track (which takes its default from the Setup/Audio window). You may later resample/compress these clips.
You may record a waveform audio clip using the Wave Maker. This is a powerful tool that was initially designed to make recording CD versions of your work easier, which may also be used to create new waveform audio tracks.
Finally, you may use the Edit/Copy and Edit/Paste commands to create copies of existing audio clips between tracks.
Once an audio clip has been successfully added to a track, MIDI Maestro will automatically preview its waveform in the Clips and Time views.
Can I seamlessly loop an audio clip without pasting it multiple times?
Yes. Right-click on the clip, and select Properties. Change the "Play times" setting as desired.
MIDI Maestro also shows you the clip's duration and physical path on your system.
Is there a way to edit an audio clip once it has been recorded?
Yes. There is a very powerful editing tool called the Wave Mixer. It is capable of combining multiple clips into one. It can extract a selected portion out of an existing clip. It can create a new waveform audio track or export a file onto your hard drive. It can also compress, recompress, and/or resample. To begin, you may select in one of the following ways:
- One or more clips
- One or more waveform audio tracks
- A range of time
- One or more waveform audio tracks AND then a range of time
Use the File/Wave remix/export command to open this window:
If you select WAV (uncompressed format), the sampling rate and sample size will be be identical to the system's real-time audio processing setting.
MIDI Maestro is able to work with the Windows Media Audio (WMA) file format. A number of codecs (compression technologies) are available. Each codec will offer its own set of formats from which to choose. The higher the kbps and kHz settings, the higher the audio quality will be (at the cost of a larger file size). As a basis, most MP3 audio files that you might download from the Internet are 128 kbps, 44 kHz files. NOTE that the WMA format is not available in the product demonstration mode.
Next select either to save the new clip to a new track, or to an external file (export), then click Ok to begin. A progress bar fills to show time remaining.
How about audio effect filters?
Absolutely! MIDI Maestro supports DirectShow-compatible audio filters. First select the audio clips or tracks. Then, use the Edit/Audio Effect... menu command. You may instead right-click directly on an audio clip and select the Audio Effect command. Recently used effects are placed on the menu. If your effect does not appear, use the "more..." option to list all available filters installed on the system. See the next question if you need help installing an audio filter.
How do I install an audio filter?
It is not enough to simply place an audio filter program file on your hard drive. You have to tell Windows that it is there. If the filter did not come with an installation program, don't panic. Usually, these filters are self-registering. Use the Windows Start/Run command to run REGSVR32 <path> where <path> is the full path to the DLL or other filter file. You should then see a "succeeded" message, after which the filter should appear on the Edit/Audio Effect/More list. | 
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