Steinberg has announced that WaveLab 8.5, the latest generation of its audio editing and mastering suite, is shipping now.

The updated WaveLab adds new features and accelerates workflows for essential audio tasks such as batch processing, file rendering and working with encoders.

Key New Features:

• Watch Folders: Drag-and-drop automated offline-processing feature, using standard folders of the operating system to process and render audio files
• Encoder Checker: Compare and contrast codec quality and settings on the fly without perceivable latency and with up to three streams simultaneously, such as MP3, AAC and OGG Vorbis
• Multi-format rendering: Render to multiple audio file formats simultaneously and save encoding chains as presets
• AAC Encoder: Encode straight to AAC formats, such as HE-AAC, HE-AAC v2, HD-AAC and 3GPP, for compatibility to Apple products, such as iTunes, iPod and iPhone

See the Steinberg site for details.