I played around with Reaper and Wavelab yesterday. I was able to load two stereo sources (SBD + AUD) and get them aligned. Applying the VST plug-in as part of chain of effects was different from what I'm used to (configure the plug-in and apply to the file creating a visibly obvious change to the wave form), but it worked in both programs. I struggled a bit with a couple basic tasks - I suppose this is part of the learning curve.
I Googled and went through all the menus in Reaper but could not find a simple way to increase the volume of a short segment of audience participation in the AUD source. Could they make it more confusing? In SoundForge you click-drag to highlight the portion you want, go to Process> Volume, and move the slider bar up or down to alter the volume of the selection. I still need to wrap my head around the different vocabulary, because "Take Volume Envelope Automation" seems unnecessarily complex for making a four second passage slightly louder.
I switched to Wavelab where I stumbled a bit over applying fade ins and outs and dropping markers for track separation. It was getting quite late so I rendered the project as-is and performed the remaining tasks in SoundForge. The end result is here: https://archive.org/details/dirtfoot2015-10-16.matrix.flac16
Does anyone use a multi-track editor for the majority of their workflow? I've always used r8brain, Trader's Little Helper (after FLAC FrontEnd became obsolete with 64-bit operating systems), and the Live Show Tagger/Foobar2000 after I finish in SoundForge. I imagined that I would ditch SoundForge for whatever DAW I switch to, but maybe I'm just adding one more application to the front end of my workflow.
You can't use the same procedures for Reaper and Wavelab because they are two different kinds of programs. Wavelab is a wave editor meant for editing mono or stereo tracks, whereas Reaper is a full-out multitrack DAW.
If you were to make a time selection in Reaper and then ask it to do a gain change or anything else to that selected area, it would do that to
all of the tracks which have any content at that time, be they 1 or 100.
Using volume envelopes as Scoobie recommends is, IMO, simply the correct way to do this. It also allows you to get very precise with points, curves, etc. and is very similar to how video effect automation is done in multitrack NLE video software. You are changing the track volume for
that track only, whereas in Wavelab you are changing the volume of
the entire project at that time selection.
That said, there is another way to adjust the volume of an isolated section a bit more similar to what you did in Wavelab (but again, it's not worth comparing the two programs). Every Item in Reaper has it's own adjustments,
1. Mark the beginning and end of the section you want to adjust.
2. Position the cursor at the first marker and hit ALT+Z to split at a zero crossing.* Do the same at the end marker.
3. You now have a separate "item" to play with. Hover your mouse over the top edge of the item and you'll get a double-headed arrow. Drag up or down to adjust the gain of that item.
4. If you right-click the item and select "Item Properties" a window with many more options will appear.
5. When you're done adjusting that item, Shift+Click to select the item you edited and the items before and after, right-click and select "Glue Items".
*ALT+Z is different than the regular "S" split, which does an auto fade in/out by default and will cause you to hear a little pop at your edit point as the volume will go down to zero and then right back up again. This would remain even when you "Glue" the items back together later. ALT+Z (split at zero crossing) avoids this. Know that by doing the split this way, it may not be exactly where you dropped your marker, but will be at the nearest zero crossing in the waveform.Note that by using this method, you still may hear the edit points. If you use the Track Volume envelope, there's no edit points to be audible.
The only other way to do this and not hear the edits would be to follow the above steps, through Step 4, and then:
5. Drag your volume-edited item straight down and it will pop into a new track.
6. Hover over the left edge to get a double-horizontal arrow. Drag left a little bit to extend the track out a second or so earlier. Do the same on the right side.
7. Drag that item straight up back to where it used to be. It will automatically crossfade the overlapping sections.
8. Make sure to "Glue" the items back together so you can move everything around later if need be. Or leave them as separate items to tweak your level adjustments, crossfades, etc.
See screenshots below to see what this looks like. (The reason the waveforms show "offline" is because I'm using an ASIO audio driver which takes the source tracks offline when the application loses focus - in this case when I'm taking screenshots.)
While the two procedures I've described will certainly work for you, I hope you see that just clicking V and putting some points in to adjust the volume is fairly quick and easy.