GoldWave is composed of three windows: the Main window, Sound windows, and the Control window.

The Main window contains the main menu, two rows of toolbar buttons, and status bars (see Main Window figure below). It groups together and manages all the Sound windows.
Main Menu Main Toolbar Effect Toolbar Sound Window Left Channel Right Channel Start Marker Finish Marker Playback Marker Cue Point Slot Cue Point Zoomed Time Axis Overview Overview Time Axis Status Bar

Note: If this manual is printed, be sure to enable printing of background images.

The Main window contains the menu, toolbar, Control window, and Sound windows, as shown below.

  1. Main menu button. Displays the main menu when you can access all of the features in GoldWave.
  2. Toolbar area. Allows quick access to commonly used commands.
  3. Cloud indicator. Shows the number of files currently being saved/uploaded to the cloud.
  4. Sound window tab. Each opened file has a tab. Choose the X button to close the file.
  5. Sound window area and waveforms. Each channel in the file displays a waveform. A stereo file has the left channel on top and the right on the bottom.
  6. Start marker. Sets the start of the selection area. Commands are usually applied to the selection only.
  7. Finish marker. Sets the end of the selection area.
  8. Playback marker. Shows the current playback location.
  9. Controls. All the controls for playing, pausing, fast forwarding, rewinding, and recording sounds.
  10. Level visual. Shows the current audio level for playback or recording. Press and hold to change it.
  11. Status visual. Shows the elapsed time and status. Press and hold to change it.
  12. Control window sizer. Changes the size of the Control window to make it larger or smaller.
  13. Volume fader. Sets the playback volume level.
  14. Speed fader. Sets the playback speeed. Tap the X to reset to normal speed.
  15. Control window area. The Control window is the lower half of this image, but it's size can be changed using (12).
  16. Left visual. Graphs the audio of the left channel.
  17. Right visual. Graphs the audio of the right channel.
  18. Left visual selector. Tap to change the left visual.
  19. Right visual selector. Tap to change the right visual.
  20. Right visual settings. Sets the settings for the visual, if the visual has settings.

The toolbar buttons provide quick access to many of the frequently used commands. The upper bar holds File, Edit, View, and Tool commands, while the lower bar contains Effect commands. The function of each button is displayed when the mouse pointer is positioned directly over it. Right-click on Effect buttons to display a list of presets for that effect.

Use in the Options menu to configure the toolbar.

Click-and-drag the left edge of a toolbar to move it. To reorder toolbars, right-click on the toolbar and choose Allow Toolbar Reordering.

The status bars show attributes of the Sound window, including the channels, length, selected region, playback position, modified status, zoom level, and general file format information. By clicking the mouse pointer over any status item with an inverted triangle on its right side, the unit or format for that status item can be changed. If you click the mouse pointer over the "Length" item, for example, a menu lists file lengths in terms of storage size, time, and samples. Clicking on the "Channel" item displays a channel selection window.

▲Channel ▼Length ▼Selection Range ▲Playback Position Coordinates
Modified ▼Zoom Format Description

Sound windows are created when you open a file. These windows contain a waveform graph of the sound with a time axis near the bottom. For stereo sounds, two separate graphs are shown. The top white graph is the left channel and the bottom red graph is the right channel (see for other colours). The selected part of the sound is highlighted with a blue background between two cyan markers. Initially the entire sound is selected. A vertical line with a left pointing triangle shows the current playback position within the sound. This line is the .

A is located just below the graph. Cue points are shown as inverted yellow and blue triangles. Overlapping cue points are shown in slightly different colours.

Near the bottom of the Sound window, a small area shows the entire sound with the selected part in highlighted green and/or red with a blue background and the rest with a black background. White gradient edges indicate what part of the sound is currently displayed and zoomed.

Use the mouse buttons or the keyboard to change the selection. See for details. You can configure the window size and axes format of Sound windows using the command and set the function of the left mouse button. The command sets the colour scheme.

The window is divided into three rows. The top third is the selection area. Touching in this area sets the selection. See for details. The middle third is the view and zoom area. Touching or pinching in this are scroll or zooms the waveform. See the for details. The bottom third is the playback area. Touching in this area changes the playback position. You can configure some of the features of Sounds windows using the on the menu. Use to change the colour scheme.

The Control window interacts with your sound hardware. It contains buttons to play and record sounds as well as controls for volume, balance, and playback speed. Real-time visuals display audio data whenever a sound is played or recorded. See for more details.

The playback marker is a vertical line with a right pointing triangle that moves across the during playback.

Move the marker in the following ways:

To hide the marker when playback stops, check the setting in .

Use Set Playback Position to see or set the current position. The position can be absolute from the beginning of the file, or relative depending on mode setting. to change the position.

Modes
Mode Description
Absolute The time entered is the absolute time from the beginning of the file.
Add The time entered is added to the current position. Use this to move the marker ahead a given amout of time.
Subtract The time entered is subtracted from the current position. Use this to move the marker back a given amount of time.

When performing time consuming processing, such as decoding a compressed file when opening it, or encoding a file when saving it, or using most effects, a progress window appears showing the amount of processing done and the estimated time remaining to complete it. Use the Cancel button to abort processing at any time. Use the priority drop-down list to reduce the load on the computer's processor to give more time to other programs. Use the notification drop-down list to set the audio notification played when processing is finished. Notifications are enabled only when processing takes more than 10 seconds.

Some poorly designed (or overclocked) computers overheat when performing complex processing, such as Noise Reduction and saving in MP3 or other compressed formats. Reducing the Priority setting helps to avoid thermal related errors.

In GoldWave the mouse wheel supports zooming, scrolling and selection, or playback speed adjustments. Click the middle mouse button or the wheel button to display a menu to configure the behaviour of the mouse wheel. The menu items are explained below. The mouse wheel works only when the Main window is active and only on the currently active . Click-and-drag the middle mouse button to scroll the waveform left or right.

Click the mouse wheel, Zoom In/Out

Zooms in and out of the waveform when the wheel is rotated up or down. The location of the mouse pointer is used as the focal point. Position the mouse over the area of interest when using the wheel. See for information about viewing parts of the waveform in more detail.

Click the mouse wheel, Scroll and Select

When zoomed in, rotating the wheel up or down scrolls the waveform left or right. Holding the shift key moves the start marker. Holding both the shift and control keys moves the finish marker. Holding just the control key scrolls vertically, when zoomed in vertically. See for more information about selecting part of a file.

Click the mouse wheel, Playback Speed

Increases or decreases the playback speed by changing the on the Control window.

Click the mouse wheel, Playback Volume

Increases or decreases the playback volume by changing the on the Control window.

GoldWave displays and accepts several different time formats. The time is separated into hours (H), minutes (M), seconds (S), and fractions of a second, like thousandths (T). Two digits are given for hours, minutes, and seconds. Zero or more digits are given for the fractional part. The basic format looks like this: HH:MM:SS.TTTTT. When using this format, minutes and seconds must be numbers from 0 to 59. Only five digits can be given after the decimal point. Other supported formats are given in the following table.

Time Formats
Format Description
HH:MM:SS.TTTTT Hours, minutes, seconds, and fractions of a second. MM and SS must be between 0 to 59, inclusive. A decimal must be used to separate fractions of a second from seconds. Colons must be used to separate hours, minutes, and seconds. All values are optional. A time can be entered as HH:: to specify hours only, or MM: to specify minutes only.
MMMMM:SS.TTTTT Minutes, seconds, and fractions of a second. SS must be between 0 to 59, inclusive. Minutes can be larger than 59.
SSSSS.TTTTT Seconds, and fractions of a second. Seconds can be larger than 59.
HH:MM:SS.XX/YY Hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. This is the same as the first format, but instead of providing fractions of a second as a decimal, frames are used. The numerator, XX, specifies the frame number and the denominator, YY, specifies the frame rate, such as 30 for a 30fps animation, or 75 for CD frames. If HH, MM, and SS are not given, then XX may be greater than YY to specify any frame. Otherwise XX must be smaller than YY. Refer to the examples below.
XXXXXXXXsmp Specifies time as a number of samples. This number is divided by the sound's sampling rate to calculate the actual time. This notation is supported only in and .

Time Examples
Example Meaning
5 Five seconds
3:00 Three minutes
9: Nine minutes
2:: Two hours
7.1/2 Seven and a half seconds
5123/60 Frame number five thousand one hundred twenty-three in a sixty frames per second file
34:25.15/75 The fifteenth CD aligned frame beyond thirty-four minutes and twenty-five seconds.
1::.3/4 One hour and three-quarters of a second.
12:34:56.789 Twelve hours, thirty-four minutes, fifty-six seconds, and seven hundred eighty-nine thousandths of a second.
.67 Sixty-seven hundredths of a second.
24000smp 24000 samples, which is half a second of audio at a sampling rate of 48000Hz.