Getting Started
Original Manual: Synkron Revision and Quality Control for Nuendo 3: Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Sabine Pfeifer, Claudia Schomburg The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement.
Table of Contents
7 Introduction 63 Basic Methods 8 9 Welcome About the manuals and the Help How you can reach us 64 64 66 68 72 73 76 79 About this chapter Using menus Using tools Changing values Selecting objects Zoom and view techniques Window handling Undo 13 15 Installation and Requirements for Windows 16 16 20 22 About this chapter Requirements Hardware installation Installing Nuendo 83 Guided Tour 84 The main windows in Nuendo 27 Installation and Requirements for Mac OS X 95 Tutorial 1: Recording a
121 Tutorial 3: Mixing 122 122 124 125 126 127 131 137 About this tutorial Preparations Setting levels Setting pan Using Mute and Solo Adding EQ to an audio channel Audio effects Automation 139 Tutorial 4: Creating a surround mix 140 140 140 144 146 153 About this tutorial Preparations Creating a Project Creating a surround bus Setting up a surround mix Exporting to a surround audio file 173 175 177 178 180 Adding another instrument Playing a VST Instrument in real time Recording Making parameter setti
213 215 About quantize Editing velocity in the controller display 217 Tutorial 11: Customizing 218 219 221 224 228 230 231 235 239 240 About this tutorial Hiding menu items Setting preferences Setting up Key Commands Changing the look of the toolbar Changing the appearance of the program Applying track colors Creating a template Setting up Zoom presets Setting up workspaces 243 Shortcuts & key commands 244 244 About this chapter The default key commands 253 Index NUENDO 6 Table of Contents
1 Introduction
Welcome Congratulations and thank you for choosing Nuendo 3. This new version of the Media Production System continues the successful development of the software and will further strengthen the already excellent reputation of Nuendo. It is this reputation that is trusted by studios for audio post production, surround mixing and music recording around the world.
About the manuals and the Help The Nuendo documentation is divided into several sections, as listed below. Most of the documents are in Adobe Acrobat format (extension “.pdf”) - these can be accessed in the following ways: • • • • You can open the pdf documents from the Help menu in the program. Under Windows you can also open these documents from the Nuendo Documentation subfolder on the Windows Start menu.
Working with MIDI Describes MIDI editing in Nuendo, e.g. the MIDI editors, MIDI processing functions and effect handling and contains descriptions of the included MIDI effect plug-ins; how to manage MIDI Devices and device panels; how to work with MIDI System Exclusive messages and how to use the Logical Editor and Input Transformer. Audio Effects and VST Instruments Describes the features and parameters of the included VST plug-ins (real-time audio effects and VST instruments).
The Help System Nuendo comes with a detailed help system, making it easy to look up procedures and descriptions from within the program. The contents of the help basically mirror the complete Operation Manual text. The help systems are slightly different depending on which operating system you use, Windows or Mac OS X: HTML Help (Windows) You use the HTML Help in the following way: • To open the HTML Help for browsing, select “HTML Help” from the Help menu in the program.
About the program versions The documentation covers two different operating systems or “platforms”; Windows and Mac OS X. Some features and settings are specific to one of the platforms, Windows or Mac OS X. This is clearly stated in the applicable cases. In other words: • If nothing else is said, all descriptions and procedures in the documentation are valid for both Windows and Mac OS X. The screenshots are taken from the Windows version.
How you can reach us On the Help menu in Nuendo, you will find items for registering online, getting additional information and help: • On the “Steinberg on the Web” submenu you can find links to various Steinberg websites. Selecting one will automatically launch your browser application and open the page. You can find support and compatibility information, answers to frequently asked questions, links for downloading new drivers, etc.
NUENDO 1 – 14 Introduction
2 Installation and Requirements for Windows
About this chapter This chapter describes the system requirements and installation procedures for Nuendo for Windows. Installing Nuendo for Mac OS X is described on page 28. Requirements To use Nuendo, you need the following: • A PC with Windows XP installed. A USB Port is also required. For more details about the computer requirements, see below. • Compatible audio hardware. By audio hardware we mean a card capable of recording and playing back digital audio using your hard disk as a storage medium.
Computer requirements Hardware – PC The minimum requirements for running Nuendo on a PC are: • • • • • • A 1.6 GHz Pentium or Athlon processor Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional. 512 MB of RAM. Monitor and graphics card supporting 1024 x 768 resolution. A free USB drive for the copy protection key. A DVD ROM drive. • Please note that Nuendo is proven to run on less powerful computers with less RAM and slower CPUs.
Hard disk speed The speed of the hard drive also determines the number of audio tracks you can run. That is the quantity of information that the disk can read, usually expressed as “sustained transfer rate”. Again, “the more the better” applies. Wheel mouse Although a regular mouse will work fine with Nuendo, we recommend that you use a wheel mouse, as this will speed up value editing and scrolling considerably. See page 68 and page 73.
Audio card-specific ASIO drivers are provided by the card manufacturers. Make sure to check the manufacturer’s web site for the latest driver versions. If your audio hardware comes with a specific ASIO driver we strongly recommend that you use this. If the audio card communicates via DirectX DirectX is a Microsoft “package” for handling various types of Multimedia under Windows.
Hardware installation Installing the copy protection key – please read! New users Included with the Nuendo package, you will find a hardware key (sometimes referred to as a “dongle”) that is part of the Nuendo copy protection scheme. Nuendo will not run if this key isn’t installed properly.
DirectX driver If your audio card is DirectX compatible, its DirectX drivers will most likely be installed when you install the card (as with the Windows Multimedia driver). If you have downloaded special DirectX drivers for the audio card, you should follow the manufacturer’s installation instructions. Windows Multimedia driver These drivers are normally included with all types of regular PC audio cards. Some are even included with Windows itself.
Installing a MIDI interface/synthesizer card Installation instructions for a MIDI interface should be included with the product. However, here’s an outline of the necessary steps: 1. Install the interface (or MIDI synthesizer card) inside your computer or connect it to a “port” (connector) on the computer. Which is right for you depends on which type of interface you have. 2. If the interface has a power supply and/or a power switch, turn it on. 3.
Installing the files from the DVD-ROM The installation procedure puts all files in the right places, automatically. 1. Insert the Nuendo DVD-ROM. 2. A pop-up dialog appears automatically, containing three items for installing, browsing the DVD and exiting. 3. To start the installation process, select “Install”. This starts the installation procedure for the Syncrosoft License Control Center. 4. Remove all copy protection keys (if plugged) and click the “Next” button to continue. 5.
Setting up the protection key If you are a new Nuendo user: 1. After restarting the computer, plug in the hardware protection key into the USB port. If you are unsure which port this is, consult the computer’s documentation. 2. The first time the copy protection device is plugged in, it will be registered as a new hardware device, and a dialog will appear asking you whether you would like to find drivers for the device manually or automatically. 3. Choose to find drivers automatically. The dialog closes.
For information about product updates, you should check the Steinberg website regularly. Open the “Steinberg on the Web” submenu on the Help menu and select “Product Updates”. The website that opens contains a list with the recent updates. If you are upgrading from a previous Nuendo version and have no working internet connection: Before launching the program you need to activate the protection key for use with your new Nuendo version. 1.
Register your software! Registering your software will make sure you are entitled to technical support and kept aware of updates and other news regarding Nuendo. For full support services, you need to register both online and by sending in you registration card. For online registration, you need a working internet connection. From the Help menu of Nuendo, select “Register Online…” and follow the instructions.
3 Installation and Requirements for Mac OS X
About this chapter This chapter describes the system requirements and installation procedures for Nuendo for Mac OS X. Installing Nuendo for Windows is described on page 16. Requirements To use Nuendo, you need the following: • A Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.3.3 or later. A USB Port is also required. For more details about the computer requirements, see below. • Mac OS X compatible audio hardware.
Computer requirements Hardware – Mac The absolute minimum requirements for running Nuendo on a Macintosh are as follows: • • • • • A Power Mac G4 dual processor with 1 GHz and OS X 10.3.3 or later. 512 MB RAM. Monitor and graphics card supporting 1024 x 768 resolution. A free USB drive for the copy protection key. A DVD ROM drive. • Please note that Nuendo is proven to run on less powerful computers with less RAM and slower CPUs.
Mouse Although a regular mouse will work fine with Nuendo, we recommend that you use a wheel mouse with two mouse buttons. • • Having a wheel mouse will speed up value editing and scrolling considerably. If your mouse has two mouse buttons you should program the right mouse button to generate a [Ctrl]-click (this is typically the default behavior of the right mouse button). This will allow you to bring up context menus by right clicking (see page 65).
Hardware installation About the copy protection key – please read! New users Included with the Nuendo package, you will find a hardware key (sometimes referred to as a “dongle”) that is part of the Nuendo copy protection scheme. Nuendo will not run if this key isn’t installed properly. • You should first install the program (and any necessary hardware, see below), then insert the protection key and finally launch the program.
Installing Nuendo Defragment the hard disk If you plan to record audio on a hard disk where you have already stored other files, now is the time to defragment it. Defragmentation reorganizes the physical allocation of space on the hard disk in order to optimize its performance. It is done with a special defragmentation program. It is crucial to the audio recording performance that your hard disk is optimized (defragmented). You should make sure to defragment regularly.
If you are upgrading from a previous Nuendo version and have a working internet connection: Before launching the program you need to activate the protection key for use with your new Nuendo version. 1. After restarting the computer, plug in your Nuendo key into the USB port. 2. Make sure that your computer has a working internet connection. 3. Locate the Activation Code in the upgrade package and keep it at hand. 4. Launch the “License Control Center” application (found in the Applications folder).
If you are upgrading from a previous Nuendo version and have no working internet connection: Before launching the program you need to activate the protection key for use with your new Nuendo version. 1. Insert your program DVD into a second computer with internet connection or go to an internet cafe. 2. Open the folder “Additional Content/Copy Protection Driver” on the program DVD and double click on the file “SyncrosoftLicenseControl.pkg”. The application “License Control Center” will be installed. 3.
4 Setting up your system
Setting up audio Always make all connections with all equipment turned off! Connecting audio Exactly how to set up your system is a very personal matter – the following connection diagrams should be taken as examples. The audio connections below may be digital or analog, it doesn’t matter.
Multi-channel input and output Most likely however, you will have other audio equipment that you want to integrate with Nuendo. This will require a mixer, preferably one with a group or bus system that can be used for feeding inputs on the audio hardware. In the example below, four buses are used for feeding signals to the audio hardware’s inputs. The four outputs are connected back to the mixer for monitoring and playback.
Connecting for surround sound If you plan to mix for surround sound, you could connect the audio outputs to a multi-channel power amplifier, driving a set of surround channels. L Audio card outputs C R LFE Audio card inputs Rs/S Ls/S L R Amplifier and speakers Source to be recorded A surround sound playback configuration. Nuendo supports a number of surround formats. The example connection above will work for mixing both LRCS (ProLogic for example) and 5.
Recording from a CD player Most computers come with a CD-ROM drive that can also be used as a regular CD player. In some cases the CD player is internally connected to the audio hardware so that you can record the output of the CD player directly into Nuendo (consult the audio hardware documentation if you are uncertain). • • All routing and level adjustments for recording from a CD (if available) are done in the audio hardware setup application (see page 40).
Making settings for the audio hardware Most audio cards come with one or more small applications that allow you to configure the inputs of the hardware to your liking. This includes: • • • • • • • Selecting which inputs/outputs are active. Setting up word clock synchronization (if available). Turning monitoring via the hardware on/off (see page 46). Setting levels for each input. This is very important! Setting levels for the outputs, so that they match the equipment you use for monitoring.
Selecting a driver and making audio settings in Nuendo The first thing you need to do is select the correct driver in Nuendo to make sure that the program can communicate with the audio hardware: 1. Launch Nuendo, select Device Setup from the Devices menu and click on VST Audiobay in the list. The VST Audiobay panel in the Device Setup dialog. 2. Select your audio hardware driver from the Master ASIO Driver menu. There may be several options here that all refer to the same audio hardware.
4. Bring up the control panel for the audio hardware and adjust the settings as recommended by the audio hardware manufacturer. • Under Windows, you can open the control panel by clicking the Control Panel button. The control panel that appears when you click this button is provided by the audio hardware manufacturer and not Nuendo (unless you use DirectX or MME, see below). Hence it will be different for each audio card brand and model.
If you are using audio hardware with a DirectX driver (Windows only) If your Windows audio hardware doesn’t have a specific ASIO driver, a DirectX driver is the next best option. Nuendo comes with a driver called ASIO DirectX Full Duplex, available for selection on the Master ASIO Driver pop-up menu (VST Audiobay page). • To be able to take full advantage of DirectX Full Duplex, the audio hardware must support WDM (Windows Driver Model) in combination with DirectX version 8.1 or higher.
If you are using audio hardware with a Windows Multimedia (MME) driver When you select the ASIO Multimedia Driver for the first time, the system will ask you whether you want to test the configuration. We strongly recommend that you perform this test. If it fails, or if you for other reasons need to make adjustments to your ASIO Multimedia configuration, click the Control Panel button to open the ASIO Multimedia Setup control panel included with Nuendo.
2. To hide an output port, click in the “Visible” column for the port (so that it says “No”). Ports that aren’t visible cannot be selected in the VST Connections window where you set up your input and output busses – see page 99. If you attempt to hide a port that is already used by a bus you will be asked whether this is really what you want – note that this will disable the output port! 3. To rename a port, click on its name in the list and type in a new name.
About monitoring In Nuendo, monitoring means listening to the input signal while preparing to record or while recording. There are basically three ways to monitor: External monitoring External monitoring (listening to the input signal before it goes into Nuendo) requires an external mixer for mixing the audio playback with the input signal.
Setting up MIDI Always make all connections with all equipment turned off! This section describes how to connect and set up MIDI equipment. If you have no MIDI equipment you can skip this section. Connecting the MIDI equipment Below follows a description of a typical but small setup example. You might need or want to hook things up differently! In this example we assume that you have a MIDI keyboard and an external MIDI sound module.
You might want to use even more instruments for playback. If you do, simply connect MIDI Thru on the sound module to MIDI In on the next instrument, and so on. In this hook-up, you will always play the first keyboard when recording. But you can still use all your devices for providing sounds on playback. If you plan to use more than three sound sources we recommend that you either use an interface with more than one output, or a separate MIDI Thru box instead of the Thru jacks on each unit.
When “MIDI Thru” is active in Nuendo, MIDI data received is immediately “echoed” back out. MIDI Interface MIDI data coming in to the instrument is played by the “Synth” inside it. MIDI In Out MIDI In MIDI Sound Module MIDI Out In Thru “Synth” MIDI Keyboard When you press a key, it is sent out via MIDI to Nuendo. • • • When Local Control is turned on in the instrument, the keys you press will be played by the “Synth” inside the Instrument. When Local Control is turned off, this connection is cut off.
Setting up MIDI ports in Nuendo The Device Setup dialog lets you set up your MIDI system in the following ways: • Note: After changing a setting in the Device Setup dialog, you should click Apply and then click OK to close the dialog. Showing or hiding MIDI Ports Under Windows, the MIDI ports are listed in the Device Setup dialog on the DirectMusic page and/or the Windows MIDI page (depending on your system).
Setting up a default MIDI input and output The Default MIDI Ports page in the Device Setup dialog allows you to select which MIDI ports should be selected by default when you create a new MIDI track. In other words, newly created tracks will always use the input and output specified on this page. However, you can later change this setting for each individual track in the Project window.
Setting up video Always make all connections with all equipment turned off! Nuendo plays back video films in AVI, Quicktime or MPEG formats. Under Windows, video playback can be done using the playback engines DirectX, DirectShow or Quicktime. Under Mac OS X, Quicktime is used as playback engine. There are several ways to play back video: • Without any special hardware.
Optimizing audio performance This section gives you some hints and tips on how to get the most out of your Nuendo system, performance-wise. Some of this text refers to hardware properties and can be used as a guide when upgrading your system. This text is very brief.
System factors that affect performance CPU and processor cache It goes without saying that the faster the computer processor, the better. But there are a number of factors that affect the apparent speed of a computer: the bus speed and type (PCI is strongly recommended), the processor cache size and of course, the processor type and brand. Nuendo relies heavily on floating point calculations.
• Under Mac OS X, audio hardware with properly written Mac OS X (Core Audio) drivers can be very efficient and produce very low latency times. However, there are additional features currently only available with ASIO drivers, such as the ASIO Positioning Protocol. Making settings that affect performance Choosing a driver for your audio hardware As described on page 41, it is recommended to install and use a standard ASIO driver if available for your specific hardware.
Optimizing processor scheduling (Windows only) To get the lowest possible latencies when using ASIO under Windows XP (on a single CPU system), the “system performance” has to be optimized for background tasks: 1. Open the Control Panel from the Start menu and select System. 2. Select the Advanced tab and click the Settings button in the Performance section. The Performance Options dialog appears. 3. Select the Advanced tab. 4.
5 Basic Nuendo concepts
About this chapter This chapter describes the basic “building blocks” and terminology in Nuendo. Please take your time to read this chapter thoroughly before moving on! The project The native document format of Nuendo is called a project. Before you can start recording, playing back or editing you always have to create a new project, or open a saved project file from disk. There can be several projects open at the same time, but one is always the active project. Two Project windows in Nuendo.
About the file and folder structure A project file (file extension “.npr” under Windows) is always associated with a project folder on your hard disk. Several projects can share the same project folder (which is practical if you have several versions of your project, for example). • The Audio folder contains audio files referenced by the project.
Audio terminology When you record audio in Nuendo, this is what happens: • • • An audio file is created on the hard disk. In Nuendo, an audio clip is created. The audio clip refers to the audio file on disk. An audio event is also created in Nuendo. This plays back the audio clip. There are good reasons for this long chain of references: • • The audio event is the object that you place on a time position in Nuendo.
Audio tracks, parts and channels For an audio event to be played back in Nuendo, it has to be placed on an audio track. This is similar to a track on a multi-track tape recorder, and allows you to view the event and move it along the timeline. You can place any number of audio events on an audio track, but only one at a time can be played back. You can have a virtually unlimited number of audio tracks, although the number of tracks you can play back at the same time depends on your computer performance.
MIDI terminology When you are recording MIDI (or entering MIDI data manually in an editor), MIDI events are created. For example, each note you record is a separate MIDI event, and if you record the movement of a modulation wheel or other controller, a large number of densely spaced events are created. MIDI events are always placed in MIDI parts. These are “containers”, allowing you to move or copy a number of MIDI events (e.g. a recorded MIDI melody line) as one item. MIDI parts are placed on MIDI tracks.
6 Basic Methods
About this chapter This chapter contains descriptions of the general methods and procedures used in Nuendo. As this information applies to all parts of the program and all ways of working, please take time to read this chapter before continuing with the Operation Manual. Using menus Main menus The menus in the main Nuendo menu bar are available regardless of which window is active. You select items from the main menus following the standard procedure for the operating system.
The Quick menu In Nuendo, clicking the right mouse button will bring up a contextual pop-up menu (under Mac OS X you need to press [Ctrl] and click, or preferably use a two-button mouse set up so that the right mouse button generates a [Ctrl]-click). Some areas have special context menus with functions or settings that only apply to the corresponding area (for example, right-clicking in a ruler brings up a pop-up menu with display format options).
Using tools Editing in Nuendo is largely done with the various tools. Typical examples are selecting and moving events with the Arrow (Object Selection) tool, drawing with the Pencil tool, deleting with the Eraser tool, etc. There are different tools for different windows. Tools can be selected in four ways: • By clicking the corresponding tool icon on the toolbar. When you click a tool icon, the pointer takes on the shape of the corresponding tool. • By using the Quick menu.
• By using the dedicated toolbox. If the option “Popup toolbox on right click” is activated in the Preferences dialog (Editing page), right-clicking (or [Ctrl]-clicking under Mac OS X) will bring up the toolbox instead. This shows the tools only and you select tools as if from a menu. Note that you can still bring up the Quick menu in this mode by pressing a modifier key (e.g. [Shift]) and right-clicking/[Ctrl]-clicking.
Changing values Throughout the program you will encounter various value fields that can be edited. These can be divided into three categories: position values, regular numeric values and names. Editing position values Depending on the selected display format (see the Operation Manual), position values in Nuendo are usually divided into several “segments” (the exception being the “Samples” display format, in which values are edited as regular numeric values).
You can also edit the whole value (all segments) by double clicking and typing in a new value. Note: • To separate the value segments, you can use spaces, dots, colons or any other character that isn’t a number. • If the “Bars+Beats” display format is selected, and you enter a value with less than four segments, the largest position value segments will be affected and the program will set the lesser segments to their lowest values. For example, if you enter “5.3”, the position will be set to “5.3.1.0”.
• In the Inspector and elsewhere in the program you can find value sliders that may be blue or green – click and drag to adjust the value. • For some values, you can hold down [Alt]/[Option], click on the value and keep the mouse button pressed to display a value slider. This allows you to scroll the value by dragging up or down with the mouse button pressed. When you release the mouse button, the value slider is hidden again. Adjusting the event volume setting on the info line.
Using knobs and sliders In the VST audio windows, most parameters are shown as knobs, sliders and buttons, emulating hardware interfaces. For knobs and sliders, you can select the desired way of making adjustments in the Preferences dialog (Editing–Controls page): Knobs The Knob Mode pop-up menu contains the following options: Option Description Circular To move a knob, you click on it and drag in a circular motion, much like turning a “real” knob.
Option Description Ramp In this mode, clicking anywhere on a slider (but not on the handle) and keeping the mouse button pressed, will cause the handle to move smoothly to the new position. Relative In this mode, clicking anywhere on a slider does not automatically change the setting, but you can make adjustments to the current setting by clicking anywhere on a slider and dragging, without having to click on the exact current position.
Zoom and view techniques Scrolling the view If the active window isn’t large enough to show all its contents, you can scroll the view by using the standard window scroll bars. However, if you are using a wheel mouse, there are two additional ways to scroll: • Rolling the wheel will scroll the view vertically. If you hold down [Shift] and use the wheel, the view will be scrolled horizontally. Just make sure not to point at a value field, as this will edit the value instead.
• Clicking on a zoom slider will move the handle to the click position, instantly changing the magnification. If the project cursor is visible when you zoom in or out horizontally, the magnification will be “centered on the cursor”. In other words: if possible, the project cursor will remain in the same position on screen. Using the Magnifying Glass tool You can use the Magnifying Glass tool to zoom in and out horizontally, using the following methods: • Click once to zoom in one step.
Zooming in the ruler If the option “Zoom while Locating in Time Scale” is activated in the Preferences dialog (Transport page), you can use the rulers for zooming. This allows you to quickly zoom in or out on a certain position, without having to select a special tool: 1. Click in the ruler and keep the mouse button pressed. The project cursor is automatically moved to the click position. If you don’t want to move the cursor, press [Shift] and click in the ruler instead. 2.
Window handling Generally, Nuendo windows are handled according to the standard procedures. However, the Window menu contains some functions that make work quicker and easier: Menu item Description Close Closes the currently active window. If this is a Project window, you will close the current project. Close All Closes all windows, including all open projects. Minimize All Minimizes all windows. Restore All Restores all minimized Nuendo windows.
The Windows dialog By selecting “Windows…” from the Window menu, you open the Windows dialog. This allows you to manage the open windows in various ways. The display to the left lists all open windows, hierarchically arranged (so that editors and other windows that belong to a certain project are listed under the corresponding Project window). To the right are various window functions. To use one of the functions, proceed as follows: 1.
The Devices panel If you like, you can manage devices from a central Devices panel: 1. Pull down the Devices menu and select “Show Panel”. The Devices Panel appears. 2. To display a closed or hidden window, click on its button in the Devices panel. 3. Clicking the button again will close the window.
Undo There are two ways to undo operations in Nuendo: by using “regular Undo” and by using the Offline Process History. • The regular Undo can be applied to virtually all actions you perform, in multiple levels. It is accessed by using the “Undo”, “Redo” and “History” items on the Edit menu, as described below.
The Edit History window Selecting “History…” from the Edit menu opens the Edit History window. This contains a graphic representation of the “Undo stack” (the performed actions, with the most recent action at the top of the stack) and the “Redo stack” (the undone actions, with the most recently undone action at the bottom of the stack). The two stacks are separated by a divider line. The most recently undone action. The Redo stack. The Undo stack. The most recently performed action.
The Edit History dialog allows you to undo or redo several actions in one go, by moving the divider between the Undo stack and the Redo stack (in essence, moving actions from the Undo stack to the Redo stack, or vice versa): 1. Click on the divider line and drag it up or down. Drag up to redo actions, drag down to undo them. In this case, three more actions will be undone (and moved to the Redo stack). • You can also click directly between two items in the list, instantly moving the divider line.
NUENDO 6 – 82 Basic Methods
7 Guided Tour
The main windows in Nuendo The Project window The Project window is the main window in Nuendo. This provides you with a graphic overview of the project, allowing you to navigate and perform large scale editing. The Project window is divided vertically into tracks and has a time line going from left to right. Each project has one Project window. The project cursor. The area with various track settings to the left is called the Inspector.
The Project Browser The Project Browser provides a list based representation of the project. This allows you to view and edit all events on all tracks by using regular value editing in a list. The Transport panel The Transport panel features transport controls, much like those found on a conventional tape recorder. It can also be used for locating Marker positions, setting tempo and time signature, etc.
The Pool All files, audio or video, that belong to a project are listed in the Pool. There is a separate Pool for every project. In the Pool you can organize, convert and audition clips, amongst many other things.
The Sample Editor In the Sample Editor you can view and manipulate audio, by cutting and pasting, removing or drawing audio data. By using the Offline Process History, you can undo changes or revert to the original versions at any point.
The Audio Part Editor The Audio Part editor allows you to edit the contents of an audio part, i.e. the individual events within the part. The editing you can do here is basically the same as when editing audio events directly in the Project window, but you have additional features for auditioning (editor solo, play and loop) and the option to place different events on different lanes, making it easier to discern and edit the events.
The MIDI editors Editing MIDI data is done using the MIDI editors. The following editors are available: Key Editor The Key Editor shows the contents of one or several MIDI parts. The MIDI notes are represented by “boxes”, whose vertical position corresponds to their pitch. This box represents a MIDI note. This section is called the controller display. It shows “continuous” MIDI events (such as controllers) or as in this figure, the velocity values of notes.
In-Place editing The In-Place editing function allows you to edit events and parts directly in the Project window, in context with other tracks. It is very similar to the Key editor. Score Editor The Score Editor shows MIDI notes as a musical score and comes with advanced tools and functions for notation, layout and printing. Full Score editing is described in the separate pdf document “Score Layout and Printing”. This can be accessed vie the Help menu in the program.
List Editor The List Editor shows MIDI events as a list, allowing you to view and edit their properties numerically. Drum Editor The Drum Editor is similar to the Key Editor, but takes advantage of the fact that with drum parts, each key corresponds to a separate drum sound.
Tempo Track Editor For each audio and MIDI track, you can specify whether it should use a musical or linear Time base. Tempo based tracks follow a tempo, which can either be fixed through the whole project or follow the Tempo Track. In the Tempo Track Editor you can draw curves that determine how the tempo will change over time or record tempo changes in real time.
The Mixer The Mixer is where you mix your audio and MIDI channels, that is, adjust the levels (volume), panning, effect sends, EQ, etc. You will also find channel strips for the output busses here (as well as input busses and a dedicated bus for auditioning functions). • There are different mixer windows that can be configured to show different views of the mixer. This allows you to e.g. control all audio channels in one window and all VST Instrument channels in another.
Channel Settings The Channel Settings window is used for adding effects and EQ to individual channels. Each mixer channel has its own Channel Settings window. Inserts section Equalizer section Sends section VST Connections This is where you set up input and output busses – the audio connections between Nuendo and the inputs and outputs on your audio hardware.
8 Tutorial 1: Recording and playing back audio
About this tutorial This chapter contains a step-by-step description of how to make a simple audio recording and play it back. The purpose is for you to try out some of the most common recording and playback features. However, you should make sure to read the Recording chapter in the Operation Manual before doing any “serious” recording, as there are a lot of settings, options and methods that are not mentioned here.
Creating a new project Before you can start recording, you need a working environment – a project: 1. Pull down the File menu and select “New Project”. A dialog appears, listing a number of project templates for various purposes. 2. Select the “Empty” item in the list and click OK. A file dialog appears, allowing you to specify a location for the project folder. This will contain all files related to the project. 3.
The next step is to create an audio track to record on: 4. Pull down the Project menu and select “Add Track”. A submenu appears, listing the various types of tracks available in Nuendo. 5. Select “Audio”. In the dialog that appears, you can select the channel configuration for the track – mono, stereo or one of several different surround configurations. 6. In this example, set the track to stereo by selecting Stereo from the pop-up menu and clicking “OK”.
Preparing to record Before you can start recording, there are some preparations to make: Setting up input and output busses When you record in Nuendo, the signal passes from the inputs on your audio hardware to an input bus in the program. This is where you check levels and adjust the sound to be recorded. From the input bus the signal is written to an audio file on your hard disk, and sent to the track’s channel in the mixer for monitoring etc.
3. Click the “+” button to the left so that the individual inputs in the bus are shown. The Device Port column shows the physical inputs on your audio hardware that are used by the bus. 4. Click in the Device Port column for the “Left” channel. A pop-up menu appears, listing all inputs on your audio hardware. 5. Select the input you want to use for the left channel in the stereo bus. 6. Select the input for the right channel in the same way. 7.
• In addition there is an “Audition” output bus. This is a dedicated output bus exclusively for monitoring when previewing, scrubbing or editing in the Sample editor. The Audition bus is set up on the “Studio” tab in the VST Connections window, and is described in the Operation Manual. • Right now the mixer should contain one input bus, one stereo audio channel and one output bus (apart from the Audition bus) – just like in the picture above. If not, check the Hide buttons to the left.
9. At the very top of the channel strip for the audio track, you find an Input Routing pop-up menu. Click this and make sure your stereo input bus is selected. The input bus is now routed to the audio track. Leave the Mixer window open for now. Checking the input level When you record digitally, it’s important to set the input level correctly. Above all, you don’t want the signal to be too loud, as this will cause clipping, digital distortion.
To check the input level, proceed as follows: 1. Locate your stereo input bus to the left in the mixer window. The input bus. 2. Right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) somewhere in the Mixer window to bring up the Mixer context menu. 3. Select the Global Meter Settings submenu and make sure “Meter Input” is activated.
4. Play the audio source that you want to record and check the level meter for the input bus. The signal should be as loud as possible without exceeding 0 dB (the Clipping indicator for the input bus shouldn’t light up). Clipping indicator Numerical peak level indicator 5. Adjust the output level of your audio source so that the meters go as high as possible without going up to 0.0 dB. Check the numerical peak level indicator below the meter in the bus channel strip.
Making the track ready for recording 1. If the “Record Enable” button next to the fader on the mixer channel strip isn’t already red, click on it so that it lights up. 2. Make sure the Transport panel is visible. If not, pull down the Transport menu and select the “Transport Panel” item at the top.
3. The Transport panel contains a lot of options that affect how recording is done – in this example we want most of them to be turned off. Check that the following buttons are off (grey or unlit): Click and Precount deactivated. Punch In and Punch Out deactivated. Cycle deactivated. Sync deactivated. 4. Click in the ruler (the time scale area above the track in the Project window), at the position where you want to start recording.
Setting up monitoring When you are monitoring through Nuendo, you can choose to activate monitoring manually or automatically, in several different ways. In this example we choose the “Tapemachine Style” monitoring, in which the input signal is automatically monitored in Stop mode and during recording – but not during playback. This is convenient since it allows you to play back and listen to your recording without having to turn off monitoring first. 1.
Recording 1. Start recording by clicking the Record button on the Transport panel. The project cursor will start moving. 2. Play your instrument, etc. During recording, a rectangle with an audio waveform will appear, covering the recorded area. This is the recorded audio event. 3. When you are done, click the Stop button on the Transport panel. Recording stops and you can see the resulting audio event on the track. 4.
Recording more events At this point, you may want to continue recording audio, on the same track or on a new track. Recording more on the same track To record more audio on the same track, move the project cursor to a new start position and proceed as when you recorded the first time. It is possible to record audio events that overlap each other, but only the visible events (the events on top) will be heard when you play back.
Playing back in a cycle You could continue starting and stopping playback this way, moving the project cursor manually each time. However, if you want to try out some mixing features (see the chapter “Tutorial 3: Mixing”), it is more convenient to have Nuendo play back your recorded audio repeatedly, over and over again: 1. Click on the recorded audio event to make sure it is selected. A selected audio event has a red border and red and blue handles at its beginning and end. 2.
9 Tutorial 2: Recording and playing back MIDI
About this tutorial This chapter describes the basic operations for recording and playing back MIDI. For a full description of MIDI recording please see the chapter “Recording” in the Operation Manual. Before you start This chapter assumes that you have correctly connected your MIDI equipment according to the instructions in the chapter “Setting up your system” in this book.
Setting up for recording MIDI Creating a MIDI track To create a MIDI track, proceed as follows: 1. Pull down the Project menu and select “Add Track”. A submenu appears. 2. Select MIDI from the submenu. A MIDI track is added to the Track list. Setting the MIDI input 1. Make sure the Inspector is shown to the left in the Project window. The Inspector shows settings for the selected track. You show or hide it with the Show Inspector button on the toolbar. Click here to show the Inspector. 2.
3. Record enable the MIDI track by clicking the red button in the Track list. MIDI Thru is automatically activated when the track is record enabled. Record enabling the track in the Track list. This can also be done in the Inspector or in the mixer. 4. Play a few notes on your MIDI instrument, and check the level meter in the Track list to make sure that the MIDI signal is received. If not, check that you have correctly set up your MIDI system, as described on page 47.
2. To set the MIDI channel for a track, use the MIDI “chn:” pop-up in the Inspector. If you set the track to MIDI channel “ANY”, it will transmit MIDI on the channel(s) used by the MIDI input device (the MIDI instrument you play during recording). Click here to set the MIDI channel. Selecting a sound • To select different sounds, you can send Program Change messages to your MIDI device using the “prg:” value field in the Inspector. Click here to select a Program number.
Recording MIDI 1. Make sure the track is record enabled and correctly set up, as described in the previous section. 2. Make sure that Cycle and Punch In/Out are deactivated on the Transport panel. 3. To set recording to start at the cursor position, pull down the Transport menu and make sure the item “Start Record at Left Locator” is deactivated (unticked). 4. Place the project cursor at the position where you wish to begin recording.
Playing back in a cycle You could continue starting and stopping playback this way, moving the project cursor manually each time. However, it is more practical to have Nuendo play back your recorded parts and events repeatedly, over and over again: 1. Click on the recorded MIDI part to make sure it is selected. A selected MIDI part has a red border and handles at its beginning and end. 2. Pull down the Transport menu and select “Locators to Selection”.
Transposing the MIDI track Let’s try transposing the MIDI track, using the Track Parameters tab in the Inspector: 1. Make sure that the Inspector button on the toolbar is lit. 2. Select the MIDI track by clicking on it in the Track list. The parameters for the MIDI track are now shown in the Inspector area to the left. 3. Click on the Track Parameters title bar in the Inspector. Click here… NUENDO 9 – 118 …to open the Track Parameter settings in the Inspector.
4. Click on the blue value line in the Transpose field in the Inspector. A fader appears, allowing you to transpose the MIDI track up or down in semitones. You can also use the up/down arrows to the right in the field to set transpose values. Click here… …to set a transpose value for the MIDI track. 5. Start playback to hear the transposed MIDI track.
NUENDO 9 – 120 Tutorial 2: Recording and playing back MIDI
10 Tutorial 3: Mixing
About this tutorial This tutorial shows how to do some basic mixing. You will set levels and pan, add effects and EQ and finally try automating a mixer parameter. The purpose of the tutorial is to give you some basic knowledge about the Nuendo Mixer – for complete descriptions of the mixing features please refer to the chapters “The Mixer”, “Audio Effects” and “Automation” in the Operation Manual. • In this tutorial we will mix in stereo – for a quick tutorial on how to do a surround mix, see page 139.
• Since this project doesn’t contain any MIDI tracks, we will only mix audio in this tutorial. If you have MIDI tracks in a project, these will also show in the mixer. Many procedures (setting levels, pan, mute, etc.) are the same for MIDI mixer channels – see the Operation Manual. The Tutorial 3 project. • If you had another project open, make sure the new project is in the foreground and click the Activate button in the upper left corner of the Project window so that it is lit (blue).
• If you don’t hear all four tracks, make sure you have a stereo output bus (in the VST Connections window – see page 99) and that all four tracks are routed to this bus in the mixer. To make output routing settings for the tracks, use the input/output settings panel at the top of the Mixer channel strips (or the “out” pop-up menus in the Inspector). All four tracks routed to the Stereo Out bus.
2. Start playback and locate the channel strip for the Strings track. The names of the tracks are shown at the bottom of each channel strip. 3. Click the level fader handle in the channel strip and lower the fader until you feel the level of the Strings track is OK. As you can see, the level meters reflect the signal level of each track – the meter for the Strings track will reflect the level change you make. • If you need to reset a level fader to ±0.00, press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click on it.
Using Mute and Solo Each channel strip has a Mute and a Solo button, allowing you to silence one or several channels. 1. Click the M button for the bass track. The button lights up and the sound of the bass is muted. 2. Mute the electric piano track in the same way. Several channels can be muted at the same time. To unmute a channel you click its M button again. You can also unmute all muted channels in one go: 3. Click the lit M button in the common panel – the area at the left side of the Mixer window.
Adding EQ to an audio channel Equalization shapes the tone of a signal by boosting and/or cutting selected frequencies. Each audio channel in the mixer has a built-in equalizer with four parametric modules. When and how to apply EQ is of course individual. Below we will add EQ to two channels, to achieve the following: • • • Cut a very narrow frequency band in the drum track to reduce the intensity of the rimshot. Add a gentle mid frequency boost to the electric piano track to make it stand out a bit more.
This window allows you to make detailed settings for the selected mixer channel. The EQ section is located in the middle of the window with parameter dials for the four EQ modules and a graphic display showing the frequency boost/cut curve. The three parameters in each EQ module are: • • • Gain (inner dial) – this governs how much a frequency range should be cut or boosted. Frequency (outer dial) – this is the mid frequency for the range to be cut or boosted.
This setting should produce a fairly good result. 7. Turn off solo to see how the drum sound works with the other tracks. When you activate an EQ module, the EQ indicator in the channel strip lights up green. This shows that one or several EQ modules are activated for the channel, and also serves as a bypass button: 8. To compare the sound with and without EQ, click the EQ indicator/ Bypass button in the channel strip.
Now we will move on to the electric piano track, and try a slightly different approach: 9. Click the small arrow button in the lower left corner of the Channel Settings window and select “E.Piano” from the pop-up menu that appears. This selects the E.Piano mixer channel – the Channel Settings window will now show the settings for that channel instead. This time we will try adjusting the EQ in the curve display: 10.Click in the curve display and keep the mouse button pressed.
Audio effects Nuendo comes with a large number of audio effect plug-ins (VST plugins). These can be used as send effects, insert effects or for offline processing (see page 206). Adding a send effect Send effects in Nuendo make use of FX channel tracks – “effect return” tracks, each holding one effect plug-in (or several, in series). Each audio track has eight different effect sends, which can each be routed to any FX channel track. This allows for extremely flexible effect handling.
3. Pull down the Plugin pop-up menu. The effects included with Nuendo are organized in subfolders according to the effect type. Typical send effects are reverb, delay and other effects where you want to add a little bit of effect to the original dry signal. 4. Select “Reverb A” from the Reverb submenu and click OK. The control panel for the “Reverb A” effect appears. We’ll look closer at the control panel in a moment – first take a look at the Track list: An FX channel track is added to the Track list.
6. Click the “e” button for the FX channel strip. The Channel Settings window appears. The first insert effect slot holds the Reverb A plug-in. 7. OK, let’s look at the control panel for the effect. If it’s obscured by the other windows you can click the “e” button for the Reverb A slot twice to bring the panel to front. 8. Use the pop-up menu to select the “Large” preset. 9.
Setting up a send 1. Go back to the mixer and locate the channel strip for the Strings track. 2. Click the “e” button in the Strings channel strip to open its Channel Settings window. The effect sends are located to the right of the EQ section – currently they are all unused (shown as empty slots). 3. Click in the first empty effect send slot and select your FX channel from the pop-up menu that appears. 4. Click the power button for the first slot to activate the send. 5.
Adding an insert effect An insert effect is inserted into the signal chain of an audio channel, which means that the whole channel signal passes through the effect. This also means that only one track or channel will use the insert effect – unlike send effects, where signals from several channels can all be sent to the same effect. In our tutorial, we will add some chorus to the electric piano track. 1. Click the “e” button in the “E.
3. Select “Chorus” from the Modulation submenu. The effect is loaded and automatically activated, and its control panel appears. 4. Play back the project and try selecting different chorus presets. • In this case we inserted an effect on a mono track – this means the output from the effect will still be in mono. To get a stereo chorus, we would need to add the chorus as a send effect instead.
Automation All mixer parameters can be automated in Nuendo. In the final example in this chapter, we will do a simple fade in for the electric piano track, so that it starts inaudible and reaches its full level at bar 9, where the strings start: 1. Arrange your windows so that you can see both the events in the Project window and the mixer. This is not strictly necessary but it makes it easier to see where the electric piano starts. 2. Turn off Cycle on the Transport panel.
10.Click the R button for the channel. This activates automation read mode. 11.Play back the project from the start. You will see your automated fader movement and hear the electric piano fade in. That concludes this tutorial! If you are happy with the result, you may want to save the project under a different name, by selecting “Save As…” from the File menu.
11 Tutorial 4: Creating a surround mix
About this tutorial This tutorial describes how to set up Nuendo for work in 5.1 surround format, add some audio files from a library, create a simple surround mix including some mixer automation and finally export this as an interleaved multi-channel audio file. For full descriptions of all the surround features in Nuendo, please see the Surround chapter in the Operation Manual. • For this tutorial to be useful, you need to have audio hardware with six (or more) outputs.
4. Pull down the Project menu and select Project Setup. The Project Setup dialog appears. This is where you make basic settings for the project. 5. Set the Sample Rate to 48.000 kHz and the Record Format to 24 bit. This is to match the audio files we will use. 6. Click OK to close the Project Setup dialog. The project is empty right now so we need to add some audio tracks: 7. Select “Add Track” from the Project menu and “Audio” from the submenu that appears. 8.
10.Create two mono tracks as well. Use the same method, just select Mono in the dialog that appears. Now we have two stereo tracks and two mono tracks, which is what we need. 11.Pull down the File menu and select “Open Library”. 12.Navigate to the “Tutorial Projects” folder on your hard disk and open the file “Tutorial 4.npl”. This is a library – a stand-alone Pool with references to media files (in this case, the library contains four audio clips).
14.Turn on Snap in the Project window and make sure the Grid option is selected to the right. This makes it easier to line up the events at the same start position. 15.Drag the clip “Ambience 1” from the library to the first stereo track and drop it at the start of the project. You will be asked whether to copy the file to the work directory, etc. – this is not necessary. 16.Proceed in the same way with the clips “Ambience 2” (on the second stereo track), “Speech” and “Car” (each on one mono track).
Creating a surround bus 1. Select “VST Connections” from the Devices menu. 2. In the VST Connections window, make sure the Outputs tab is selected and click the Add Bus button. 3. In the dialog that appears, select the 5.1 option and click OK. The pop-up menu in the dialog lists the most common formats – to see all surround formats supported by Nuendo, check the “More...” submenu. The new bus appears. 4.
Now we have a 5.1 output bus. As you will see, you can either route a mono track directly to one channel in the surround bus or route a track (mono or stereo) to the whole surround bus and use the Surround panner to position it as desired. But what if you have some stereo material that you simply want to send to a stereo channel pair in the bus (Left and Right or Left Surround and Right Surround)? For this you need to create a child bus: 5. Select the new 5.
Setting up a surround mix If you have auditioned the audio clips already, you have found that we have a stereo clip with background noise from a petrol station (Ambience 1), a similar stereo clip (Ambience 2), some speech in mono and the sound of a car starting and driving away, also in mono. • These audio files are (except for the speech clip) based on excerpts from Steinberg’s “Urban Atmospheres” sound environment recordings in 5.1 surround format. Please check out www.steinberg.
2. Make sure the Input and Output Settings panel is visible at the top of the channel strips. If not, click in the upper part of the symbol in the lower left corner of the mixer. Surround panning in stereo Let’s start with the Ambience 1 track (the first stereo track). We want this routed to the front stereo speakers only. To get a feeling for how things work we will do this by using the surround panner: 1. Locate the channel for the Ambience 1 track and solo it by clicking the “S” button.
3. Select the 5.1 bus (“5.1 Out”). This routes the track to the whole 5.1 bus, for surround panning. As you can see, the regular pan control on the channel strip is replaced by a square grid with a dot. 4. Double click on the grid to bring up the surround panner panel. The grey ball in the middle of the display indicates the position of the signal in the surround sound image. 5. Click on the “Mo./St.” pop-up menu and select “Y-Mirror”.
6. Click and drag the ball to the top right corner of the display. As you can see, you are dragging the “R” ball – the right channel. The left channel is automatically mirrored and is therefore positioned in the top left corner. 7. Start playback from the beginning of the project. 8. Click the “R” ball and drag it slowly downwards – towards the surround (back) speakers. You will hear the sound gradually move back to the surround speakers. 9.
Routing to a stereo child bus Next up is the Ambience 2 stereo track, which should be routed to the surround speakers. We could use the surround panner again, but since we created a child bus for the left and right surround speakers, this is a much quicker way: 1. Unmute the Ambience 2 channel. 2. Pull down the Output Routing pop-up menu for the channel. 3. Select the “Stereo (Ls Rs) out” child bus. This routes the track directly to the surround stereo speakers. 4. Play back the project again.
Routing to a separate channel in the bus The speech track should be routed to the center channel only in this tutorial. This is easily done: 1. Unmute the speech channel and open its Output Routing pop-up menu. 2. Select the “Center” channel for the 5.1 Out. 3. Play back the project and check that the speech is heard from the center speaker. LFE and dynamic surround panning For the final track, the car sound, we want a sense of movement across the surround sound image.
Before we set the surround panning, let’s try sending some sound to the LFE (low frequency effects) channel: 4. Click the LFE knob in the surround panner panel and turn it up to a moderate level. This knob controls the amount of signal sent from the car channel to the LFE channel. If you like, play back the project and adjust the LFE amount. Now on to the surround panning: 5. Position the ball at “where you want the car to start”. 6. Start playback. 7.
Exporting to a surround audio file With Nuendo, you can export (mix down) audio tracks to a file on the hard disk in a number of formats. Most often you will probably export to stereo or mono files, but it’s also possible to create an interleaved multi-channel file, containing all the surround channels in a single file: First you need to set up the left and right locators to encompass all audio files in the project. Here’s one way to do this: 1.
3. Pull down the File menu, select “Export” and then “Audio Mixdown” on the submenu that appears. The Export Audio Mixdown dialog appears. 4. Enter a name for the mixdown file in the File name field. 5. Make sure an uncompressed file type is selected. You can only create multi-channel interleaved files in uncompressed formats. These include Wave, Wave 64 and Broadcast Wave (PCM coding) as well as AIFF. 6. Select 48kHz in the Sample Rate field – the same as in the project.
8. Pull down the Outputs pop-up menu and select your 5.1 Output bus. This is where you select which output bus to export. As you can see, it’s also possible to export separate audio tracks here (as well as VST Instrument channels, effect return tracks etc.). 9. Turn off the Real-Time Export and Update Display options. 10.Make sure both “Import to” checkboxes are activated. This means the resulting mixdown file will be imported back into the project, on a new audio track. 11.Click Save.
NUENDO 11 – 156 Tutorial 4: Creating a surround mix
12 Tutorial 5: Editing in the Project window
About this tutorial This tutorial describes some of the procedures for editing in the Project window. Typically, this is where you do the “large-scale” editing and rearranging of events. Again, please note that this tutorial only describes some of the many functions in the Project window – for details and full descriptions, see the Operation Manual. Preparations This tutorial is based on an existing file, included on the Nuendo DVD.
Overview As you can see, this project contains four audio tracks (drums, bass, guitar and strings) with a few events. Try playing back the project from the beginning! Well, it’s obvious that things are pretty disorganized here; the audio events do not fit together very well. The goal of this tutorial is to make some sense out of this, by editing in the Project window.
Moving and copying events Let’s start by making the events start at the same time: 1. Select the Arrow tool by clicking its icon in the toolbar. 2. Make sure the Snap button is activated and the Grid option is selected on the Snap pop-up menu. The Snap button The Snap function helps you find the correct positions when moving and editing, by making objects “magnetic” to certain positions (or to other objects).
OK, that’s much better, but there are still things to fix. For example, the Wah guitar event ends after one bar, while the other events last two bars. Let’s add a copy of the guitar event: 7. Press [Alt]/[Option], click the Wah guitar event and drag it one bar to the right. A copy of the event is created. Now we have a two-bar, slightly cheesy disco pattern. We could just activate Cycle playback and listen to these two bars over and over again. Instead we’ll use the Repeat function: 8.
Muting and erasing events A quick way of adding variation is to remove stuff. We could for example let the different instruments appear gradually instead of all at the same time: 1. Select the Mute tool from the toolbar. 2. Click on the first two Bass Synth events, and then on the first two Hi Strings events. They are “greyed out” indicating that they’re muted. 3. Start playback from the beginning. Fine, now the bass appears at bar 3 and the strings at bar 5.
Splitting and resizing events Well, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all – it might have been better with some guitar at the beginning, but maybe with some variation. Here’s an idea: 1. Pull down the Edit menu and select Undo. The last deleted guitar event reappears. 2. Select Undo again. The first guitar event reappears. Nuendo has unlimited undo – you could go back all the way to the start of this tutorial by undoing your actions, if needed.
6. Click with the Scissors tool at the fourth beat in the Wah guitar event (at the beat just before the start of bar 3). The event is split in two; one three beat long and another one beat long. If you were to play back this section now, you wouldn’t hear any difference, though. 7. Select the Arrow tool again. 8. Drag the first guitar event two beats to the left and play back. Not too bad, but we could use a little more guitar in the second bar: 9.
Adding a fade The strings in bar 5 appear rather abruptly – they would benefit from being faded in. In the Mixing tutorial, we created a fade by automating a fader – let’s try another method instead: 1. Click on the first Hi Strings event with the Arrow tool. The event is selected. The blue handles at the top are fade and volume handles. 2. Click at the upper left handle and drag it to the right. A thin blue line indicates the fade-in. 3. Play back to hear the fade.
5. Click one of the buttons to the right below the curve display to get a more exponential fade curve. 6. Click OK to close the dialog and play back the section again. Now we want the same fade to be applied to the second string event. While we could repeat the settings manually, it’s probably easiest to copy the faded event: 7. Remove the second string event by clicking on it with the Eraser tool. 8. Select the Arrow tool again, press [Alt]/[Option] and drag the first string event two bars to the right.
13 Tutorial 6: Using VST Instruments
About this tutorial This tutorial shows you how to set up and use VST Instruments – software synthesizers (or other sound sources) that are contained within Nuendo. For detailed descriptions of procedures and the parameters of the included VST Instruments, see the separate documents “Audio Effects and VST instruments” and “Working with MIDI”. Preparations Just like the previous chapter, this tutorial is based on an existing file, included on the Nuendo DVD.
The “Tutorial 6” project opens. If you followed the previous tutorial, this will look oddly familiar… It’s the same eight-bar “song” that you created in tutorial 5, but with three extra tracks. Activating a VST Instrument The three tracks at the bottom of the Track list are MIDI tracks, as indicated by the MIDI symbol to the left in the Track list.
2. Click in the first VST Instrument slot. A pop-up menu appears, listing the included VST Instruments. 3. Select “vb-1” from the Synths submenu. The VB-1 virtual bass unit is loaded, and its control panel appears. 4. In the control panel, make sure the “power button” in the left corner is activated (lit). There is a mirror of this power button in the VST Instrument slot. 5.
Routing 1. Go back to the Project window and select the “MIDI Bass” track by clicking on it in the Track list. You will notice that a set of tracks has been added for the vb-1 at the bottom of the Track list, within a “VST Instruments” folder. These tracks are for viewing and editing the automation of the vb-1 and its mixer channel – see the Operation Manual. 2. Make sure the Inspector is open. The Inspector is the area to the left of the Track list.
Playing back Now it’s time to replace the audio bass with the VB-1: 1. Click the Mute (“M”) button in the Track list for the “Bass” track. This mutes (silences) the track. 2. Click the lit Mute button in the Track list for the “MIDI Bass” track so that it goes dark. You have now unmuted the MIDI Bass track. 3. Start playback from the beginning of the song. You should now hear the VB-1 play the bass line. You may have to adjust the volume so that the VST Instrument matches the audio tracks: 4.
Adding another instrument The next MIDI track is called “MIDI Perc” and contains a MIDI percussion pattern. This is an excellent opportunity to check out another of the included VST Instruments – the LM-7 drum machine: 1. Open the VST Instruments window from the Devices menu. 2. Pull down the pop-up menu for the second slot and select “lm-7” from the Drums submenu. Make sure its power button is activated. 3. In the Project window, click the Mute (“M”) button for the MIDI Perc track so that it goes dark. 4.
7. Start playback. Hmmm, nothing can be heard – but the indicator in the Track list shows that MIDI notes are being played! The problem here is that the wrong program (drum set) is selected for the LM-7. For this track to play back properly, we should choose a percussion set. This can be done directly in the Inspector or the VST Instruments window, but let’s check out the control panel for the LM-7 instead: 8. Click the Open Device button for the track in the Inspector (next to the “chn:” pop-up).
11.Go back to the Project window and click the lit Solo button for the track to turn off the Solo function. All tracks are unmuted again – except the tracks that were muted from the beginning (Bass and MIDI Strings). Again, you may want to adjust the volume of the LM-7. If you open the mixer, you will find that a new channel strip has appeared – use the fader as before.
6. Pull down the “in:” pop-up menu and make sure the correct MIDI input is selected. This should be the MIDI input to which your keyboard (or other controller) is connected. If in doubt, you can select the “All MIDI Inputs” option, in which case the track will accept MIDI from all available inputs. 7. Click the monitor button in the Track list for the MIDI Strings track, so that it lights up.
Recording When you’ve figured out something to play, it’s time to record this. Recording for a VST Instrument is done just like “normal” MIDI recording: 1. Click the record enable button for the MIDI Strings track. In previous tutorials we recorded from the project cursor position – now we will start recording at the left locator, with a precount. 2. Pull down the Transport menu and make sure the “Start Record at Left Locator” setting is activated. 3.
9. Play back to listen to your recording. If you want to try again, select Undo from the Edit menu and proceed from step 3 above. 10.When you’re done, click the record enable button for the track to deactivate it. Making parameter settings After you’ve recorded your synth or string part (and possibly adjusted its volume in the mixer) you may want to adjust the actual sound as well.
4. Click the Open Device button in the Inspector (to the left of the “chn:” pop-up menu) for the MIDI Strings track, to bring up the a1 control panel. 5. While the music is playing, try adjusting the parameters by clicking and dragging the controls in the panel. The a1 is laid out much like a traditional analog synthesizer. You may for example want to adjust the Cutoff and Resonance settings in the Filter section.
Automating the changes Just like other mixer and effect settings in Nuendo, parameter changes for VST Instruments can be automated. Proceed as follows: 1. Stop playback and move the project cursor to the start of the project. 2. Turn off the Cycle button on the Transport panel. This is simply a “safety measure” – if you record automation in Cycle mode, you may accidentally overwrite parameter changes you have made on a previous Cycle lap. 3. Click the Write (“W”) button in the a1 control panel. 4.
14 Tutorial 7: Tempo matching audio loops
About this tutorial This tutorial aims to introduce one of the basic but perhaps most useful Audio Warp features in Nuendo. Audio Warp is a generic term for a number of tools and functions that (amongst other things) allow you to tempo match audio loops to any given tempo using real time time stretch. In this chapter we will describe how to use the Audio Tempo Definition tool to calculate the tempo of the loops used in the project, and how to enter Musical Mode.
Setting up This tutorial is also based on an existing file, included on the Nuendo DVD. • Below, we assume that you have followed the previous tutorials and copied the “Tutorial Projects” folder to your hard drive. If not, please see page 122. • Open the folder “Tutorial Projects” on your hard disk and double click on the file “Tutorial 7.npr”. Whether file extensions are shown or not depends on the settings for your operating system. The “Tutorial 7” project opens in Nuendo.
We will now increase the tempo gradually from 75 bpm to 90 bpm using a ramp curve in the Tempo Track editor. Proceed as follows: 1. Open the Tempo Track editor from the Project menu. The tempo is currently set to 75 bpm which is shown on the vertical axis to the left. 2. Open the Insert curve pop-up on the toolbar and select “Ramp” as curve type. 3. Select the Pencil tool to the left on the toolbar.
4. Using the ruler and the tempo axis as guides, position the cursor at the horizontal position shown in the picture (the end of bar 8) and the vertical position of approximately 90 bpm, and click to add a point. When you point in the Tempo Track display the tempo is shown in the box above the tempo axis in the top left corner. The tempo will be gradually increased from 75 bpm to 90 bpm over the 8 bars. 5. When you are done, close the Tempo Track editor. 6.
As you can hear, the audio and MIDI tracks drift out of sync almost immediately. MIDI events are always adjusted automatically to the project tempo, whereas audio events have a fixed tempo and therefore remain unchanged. That means, that raising the tempo will cause adjacent audio loop events to overlap, so that the end of the loop is cut. In the Project window, this overlap is indicated by the darkened areas in the beginning of the audio events. As the tempo gradually increases the overlaps become greater.
Activating Musical Mode In this particular case we happen to know that the loops in this song have a tempo of 75 bpm. However, you can use the basic method outlined in this section to match loops to any tempo even if you don’t know their tempo or if your loops have different tempos. The first step is to calculate the original tempo based on the loop length. Proceed as follows: 1. Double-click one of the “Slow Disco” events on the Drums track in the Project window. • The Sample Editor opens.
5. Click the Musical Mode button so that it lights up. As the loop events on the Drums track refer to the same clip they are all adjusted to fit exactly 2 bars (as long as Musical Mode is activated) regardless of the tempo! Activate Musical Mode… …to automatically adjust the “Slow Disco” audio events. When Musical Mode is activated for an audio loop, a note icon and two arrows are displayed in the audio event.
8. Finally, repeat this procedure for one of the Hi Strings events, setting the length to 2 bars and selecting the “Mix” warp setting preset. Now all audio events are in Musical Mode, and do not overlap anymore. 9. Activate playback. The audio events now follow the tempo exactly, just like MIDI tracks! • The same procedure can be used for any loops as long as the inherent tempo is stable. Simply enter the length of the loop and activate Musical Mode.
NUENDO 14 – 190 Tutorial 7: Tempo matching audio loops
15 Tutorial 8: Arranging with the play order function
About this tutorial This tutorial describes how you can arrange projects using the play order function. The Play order allows you to work with parts and events in a non-linear fashion. Instead of moving, copying and pasting events in the Project window event display to create a linear project, you can define how different sections are to be played back, like a “playlist”. You start by creating a play order track.
Setting up This tutorial is also based on an existing file, included on the Nuendo DVD. • Below, we assume that you have followed the previous tutorial and copied the “Tutorial Projects” folder to your hard drive. If not, please see page 122. • Open the folder “Tutorial Projects” on your hard disk and double click on the file “Tutorial 8.npr”. Whether file extensions are shown or not depends on the settings for your operating system. The “Tutorial 8” project opens in Nuendo.
Creating play order parts In this section, we shall draw some play order parts on the play order track. 1. Select the Pencil tool on the toolbar. Now, let’s define a two bar “zone” by drawing a play order part. 2. On the play order track, use the Pencil tool to draw a 2 bar part from the beginning of bar 3 to the end of bar 4. A play order part is added, by default this is named “A”. Any consecutive parts you add will be named in alphabetical order.
3. Using the same method, first draw a one bar part between the start and end of bar 1, then a second one bar part between the start and end of bar 7. You should now have three play order parts: A, B and C. On the time line, B is placed first, A is second and C is last. Up until now, we have added play order parts of exact bar lengths. We will now add three new parts that are shorter than a bar: 4. On the Project window toolbar, set the Grid resolution to “Beat”.
6. Release the mouse button to create the new part. 7. Create a new part in the same way, but make this 3 beats long. Like in the previous step, it doesn’t matter where you draw the part, as we will move them later. 8. Finally, create another new part, one beat long. You should now have 6 parts, from “A” to “F”. We are now going to move the three new parts “D” to “F”. 9. Select the Arrow tool. Make sure that Snap is activated and that the Grid resolution is set to Beat. 10.
Creating a play order list The Play Order Editor is where you assign parts to a play order list. In this list you can decide how many times a part should be repeated and in what order they should play. Proceed as follows: 1. In the Track list click the “e” button for the play order track. The Play Order editor opens. To the right all the parts we created are listed, in the order they appear on the time line.
2. In the play order Parts section, double-click the “A” part in the Name column. The part is added at the top of the play order list to the left. You can also drag parts from the Parts window into the play order list or double-click play order parts in the event display which adds them to the play order list. Activate the Play Order mode by clicking the respective button on the toolbar and click the Start button. The region or zone defined by part “A” will repeat until you click the Stop button.
7. Repeat step 6 twice. The part step order from the top down should now be “A/B/C/D/E/C/D/E/C/D/E”. 8. Finally, add part F to the bottom of the list, and set it to repeat 4 times. The list should now look like in the picture below. 9. Click in the arrow column for part A at the top of the list so that the arrow becomes blue. 10.Make sure that Play Order mode is activated. This button should be activated. 11.Position the Play Order Editor window so you can see the play order track in the project window.
• After the fourth repeat, the project cursor jumps to part B and plays 1 bar with only drums and percussion. • Next is part C which plays 1 bar with a string note rising in volume. This is cut off as the cursor jumps back to bar 3 where part D plays one beat before jumping forward to part E which is 3 beats long (starting at the second beat of the fourth bar). This repeats 2 more times. • Finally, part F, which plays a short drum figure, repeats 4 times before the play order starts over with part A.
16 Tutorial 9: Editing audio
About this tutorial This chapter describes the basic procedures for editing audio in the Sample Editor and how to use the Process functions. For a full description of all settings, options and operations available, please refer to the chapters “The Sample Editor” and “Audio Processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual. The Sample Editor The Sample Editor allows you to edit audio, by cutting and pasting, removing, drawing or processing audio data.
Editing audio in the Sample Editor – an example This example describes how to remove a section of audio and insert it at another position, by using cut and paste in the Sample Editor: 1. Open the Sample Editor by double clicking an audio event in the Project window. 2. Select the Range Selection tool by clicking its icon on the toolbar. 3. To select a section of the clip, click and drag in the waveform display. Click at the position where you wish the selection to begin, and drag... ...
4. Release the mouse button when the selection is complete. You can adjust the selection by dragging its edges. 5. Select “Cut” from the Edit menu. The selection is removed from the clip and moved to the clipboard. The section to the right of the selection is moved to the left to fill out the gap. Selecting “Paste” from the Edit menu will copy the data on the clipboard into the clip according to the following rules: • • If there is a selection in the editor, the pasted data will replace it.
Processing audio The Process submenu on the Audio menu contains a number of audio processing functions. The functions can be applied to selected audio events or clips, or to a selected range. In this example, we will apply normalizing to a selected audio event. The Normalize function allows you to specify the desired maximum level of the audio. A common use for normalizing is to raise the level of audio that was recorded at too low an input level. Proceed as follows: 1.
Applying an effect plug-in As described on page 131, you can add “real-time” effects in the mixer. However, sometimes it is useful to apply an effect directly to an audio event or clip. This is done using the Plug-ins submenu on the Audio menu: 1. Select an audio event in the Project window. In this example, select the event that was normalized in the previous example. 2. Pull down the Audio menu and select Plug-ins. A submenu appears, listing the installed effect plug-ins.
Using the Offline Process History dialog The Offline Process History dialog allows you to remove or modify audio processing at any time. It is even possible to modify or remove some processing “in the middle” of the Process History, while keeping later processing! Whether this can be done or not depends on the type of processing performed, as described in the chapter “Audio Processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.
Batch processing The Offline Process History dialog has an additional use. A list of applied processing functions in this dialog, modified or unmodified, can be saved as a batch process for future use. Batch processing is a convenient function for applying a chain of audio processing to any number of audio events, and process them all in one go. How to set up and execute batch processes is described in the chapter “Audio Processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.
17 Tutorial 10: Editing MIDI
About this tutorial This chapter describes the basic operations for editing MIDI in the Key Editor. For a full description of MIDI editing, please refer to the chapter “The MIDI Editors” in the separate document “Working with MIDI”. This chapter assumes that you have read the instructions in the chapter “Recording and playing back MIDI”, and have access to a recorded MIDI part. Opening the Key Editor By default, you open the Key Editor by double clicking a MIDI part in the Project window.
Drawing events in the Key Editor When you move the pointer in the note display, its bar position is indicated in the toolbar, and its pitch is indicated both in the toolbar and on the piano keyboard to the left. This makes it easy to find the right note and insert position. To insert new notes in the Key Editor, proceed as follows: 1. Select the Pencil tool. 2. Click at the desired time position and pitch (height).
About Snap Snap activated on the toolbar. The Snap function helps you find exact positions when editing in the Key Editor. It does this by restricting horizontal movement and positioning to certain positions. Operations affected by snap include moving, duplicating, drawing, sizing, etc. • When the “Bars+Beats” display format is selected in the ruler, the quantize value on the toolbar determines the snap value.
About quantize Quantizing in its fundamental form is a function that automatically moves recorded notes, positioning them on exact note values. • Normally, quantizing affects MIDI notes only (not other event types). However, you can choose to move the controllers together with their respective notes by activating the “Move Controller” option in the Quantize Setup dialog. This dialog is described in detail in the separate document “Working with MIDI”.
2. Open the quantize pop-up menu on the toolbar. The menu contains three main categories of note values: Straight, Triplet and Dotted. Straight note values Triplet note values Dotted note values 3. For this example, select straight 1/8 Note quantize from the menu. 4. Select “Over Quantize” from the MIDI menu. This quantizes the MIDI notes according to the Quantize pop-up menu setting.
Editing velocity in the controller display The Key Editor controller display is used for viewing and editing various values and events. The controller display can have one or several lanes, each showing a separate event type. • If no controller display is shown, right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) anywhere in the editor window and select “Create New Controller Lane” from the pop-up menu that appears. This displays the controller display at the bottom of the Key Editor window.
An example In the following example we will create a velocity ramp using the Line tool: 1. Add some notes in the note display by using the Pencil tool. 2. Select the Line tool from the pop-up menu that appears by clicking on the Line tool icon. The other tools available on this pop-up menu are described in the separate document “Working with MIDI”. 3. Click where you want the ramp to start, move the pointer to where you want the ramp to end and release the mouse button.
18 Tutorial 11: Customizing
About this tutorial This chapter describes how you can set up and customize Nuendo in various ways according to your personal preferences. Most parts of Nuendo can be customized to your liking: key commands can be freely changed and assigned to functions, the general look of the program can be changed, items can be hidden in the toolbars, the Track list and the Transport panel, menu items and entire menus can be hidden from view etc.
Hiding menu items Separate menu items and even entire menus can be hidden from view in Nuendo. Since we’ve decided we don’t need any MIDI functions, let’s start by hiding the entire MIDI menu: 1. Pull down the File menu and select “Preferences...”. The Preferences dialog opens. 2. In the left column, select “Configuration”. The Configuration page contains a hierarchical view of folders, similar to the one in the Windows Explorer or the Mac OS Finder.
5. Click Apply to apply your changes without closing the dialog. The MIDI menu is hidden in the main menu bar. There is another column to the right, labeled “Command”. This determines whether it should be possible to use key commands for the menu items (which can be possible even if the menu items are hidden from view). In this case we don’t want to use the MIDI features at all, so let’s turn off their key command functionality as well: 6.
Setting preferences While we’re in the Preferences dialog, we might as well make a few other settings so that the program behaves the way we want it to: 1. In the list to the left, select the “Editing” item. The editing page contains options for how the program should behave. 2. Activate the option “Auto Select Events under Cursor”. When this option is activated, all events “touched” by the project cursor are automatically selected.
Using presets OK, so now we have set up some menus and preferences to our liking. By clicking Apply or OK, the changes you have made will be saved globally for all projects you work on. But what if a single project comes along when you need to use MIDI? You could of course go back and change the settings again, do the MIDI project and then change the settings once again. An easier way is to store the settings you’ve made as a preset.
Loading a preset 1. Select the “General” page and activate the option “Auto Save”. This is just for the sake of example. 2. Pull down the Preference Presets pop-up menu. The preset you previously saved is now available on the menu. 3. Select the stored preset from the menu. The Preferences settings contained in the preset are now applied. As you can see, the option “Auto Save” is deactivated again, since it was turned off in your preset.
Setting up Key Commands Next, we will set up some key commands. Key commands are shortcuts for menu items and functions, meaning you can invoke an item or a function just by pressing a key or a combination of keys on your keyboard. Key commands can be customized any way you like, so if you use a particular function very often, you can assign a key command for it. Or if it has a key command assigned to it by default, you can change this to one that suits you better.
4. In the list, select the item “Import Audio File”. As you can see, this function has no key command assigned to it, as indicated by the empty “Keys” column and the “Keys” section in the top right corner. Now, how do we know which key command we can use – that is, find a key command that isn’t already used for some other function? Here’s how to find out: 5. Click in the “Type in Key” field to the right. There is now a flashing cursor in the field, indicating that you can enter a key. 6.
Setting up a macro We will also try setting up a key commands macro. A macro is a stored combination of several functions or commands. By invoking the macro you can perform these functions and commands in one go, rather than manually performing them one at a time. In this example, we’ll create a macro that will: • • Select all events in the project window Position the left and right locator to encompass the selection.
5. Now repeat this procedure to select the item “Locators to Selection” from the Transport folder and add it to the macro. That’s it, we have now created a macro with two commands. The macro will be available for instant selection and execution on the macros submenu at the bottom of the Edit menu in the program. You could also assign a key command to the macro, by selecting the macro in the Commands list and assigning a key command to it as described above. We will not do that now, however.
Changing the look of the toolbar In Nuendo you can change the contents and look of several sections and panels, including the Transport panel, the toolbars in the Project window and the editors, and the track controls in the Track list. The changes you can make include hiding unwanted controls and settings from view and reordering items on the panels. Below we will try customizing the toolbar in the Project window.
In this dialog you decide which elements should be shown and hidden, by selecting them and moving them to the respective column using the arrow buttons. The left column displays the currently visible items, and the right column the currently hidden items on the toolbar. As you can see, several items are hidden by default (listed in the right column). You can also configure the layout of the toolbar here, by moving elements with the Move Up and Move Down buttons.
Changing the appearance of the program Not only can you hide or reorder individual elements and controls, you can also adjust the general appearance of the program to your liking: 1. Open the Preferences dialog from the File menu (Win) or the Nuendo menu (Mac). 2. Select the Appearance–General page. This is where you can adjust the color saturation, brightness and contrast of the user interface. The Appearance–General page. 3. Adjust the sliders to your liking.
5. Finally, on the Appearance–Work Area page, you can adjust the brightness and grid contrast in the Project window and editors. Adjust the sliders to your liking and click Apply to apply your settings. 6. Click OK to close the Preferences dialog. Applying track colors You can use color scheming for easier overview of certain tracks and events in the Project window. Applying colors is divided into two areas; track and event colors.
In the Inspector, the track name bar at the top becomes light grey and a small arrow appears to the right of the track name. Click here to bring up the color palette. 3. Click the arrow to bring up the color palette. This palette or color set can be edited in the Event Color dialog. 4. Pick a color to apply it to the selected track. • As you can see, the chosen track color is reflected in the Inspector title bar, in the Track list, and in any parts or events on the selected track.
• If you open the Mixer, the track color is reflected in the field above the name for the corresponding channel. You can also set the track color from the Mixer by clicking in this field. Colorizing parts and events There is a Color tool (the paint bucket icon) on the Project window toolbar that can be used to colorize parts and events. The Color tool. Just below the Color tool there is a small strip. Click this to bring up the standard color palette.
• If you press [Alt]/[Option] the Color tool cursor becomes a pipette, which can be used to select a color by clicking on a part/event. • An alternative way to colorize parts and events is by selecting them, and then picking a color from the Color selector on the toolbar.
Creating a template If you often work with the same types of Projects, it might be a good idea to set up a track layout and then save it as a template. That way, you can select the saved template from the New Project dialog each time you create a new project, and start with your preferred layout and settings. Let’s say for example that you work with movie post production projects a lot and want to create a template with a convenient track layout.
Adding tracks 1. Right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) anywhere in the Track list, and select “Add Multiple Tracks…” from the pop-up menu that appears. A dialog appears, allowing you to specify the type of tracks, the track configuration and the number of tracks. 2. Pull down the respective pop-up menus in the dialog, set “Track” to Audio, “Configuration” to “Mono” and “Count” to 8. 3. Click OK. Eight mono audio tracks are now added to the project.
• To move a track from the lower track list to the upper (or vice versa), right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) it in the track list and select “Toggle Track List”. Now, let’s see, what else do we need for a movie post production project? We could use a Marker track and a Ruler track, both of which should also be placed in the upper track list. • • Marker tracks can contain Markers, which can be used for locating and jumping to certain positions.
Setting up your work space Before saving the template, you should position the windows the way you want them. You may want to hide unwanted windows from view, position the Transport panel, maximize the Project window, etc. The open windows and their positions will be included in the template. Saving the template To create the template, pull down the File menu and select “Save as Template…”. A dialog appears, asking you to name the template. This could be a descriptive name such as “Movie Post Production”.
Setting up Zoom presets When working in the Project window and the editors, you will typically need to zoom in and out depending on what you’re doing. In the Project window, zooming can be done with the zoom sliders to the right, with the Zoom submenu on the Edit menu or with the magnifying glass tool (see page 73 for more about zooming). Zoom presets are a handy way to toggle between different zoom settings.
5. Click OK to save the zoom preset. This will now be available on the horizontal zoom menu, from which it can be selected and applied. 6. Use the vertical and horizontal zoom sliders to zoom in for a detailed view, and repeat the procedure of saving the zoomed factor as a preset. The preset could be called “Detailed”. Now it will be possible to toggle between these two zoom factors simply by selecting the corresponding preset from the zoom menu.
4. Close the Project Browser, minimize the Project window, and instead open the Mixer and the VST Performance window from the Devices menu. 5. Resize the windows the way you want them and arrange them as you see fit. Now you can quickly switch between these two workspaces: 6. Pull down the Window menu and display the Workspaces submenu. Both workspaces are listed at the bottom of the menu. 7. Select “Main”.
NUENDO 18 – 242 Tutorial 11: Customizing
19 Shortcuts & key commands
About this chapter Most of the main menus in Nuendo have key command shortcuts for certain items on the menus. In addition, there are numerous other Nuendo functions that can be performed via key commands. These are all factory default settings, but can be customized if you like (see the chapter “Key commands” in the Operation Manual for details). The default key commands Below, the default key commands are listed according to category.
Option Key command VST Instruments [F11] VST Performance [F12] Edit category Option Key command Autoscroll [F] Copy [Ctrl]/[Command]+[C] Cut [Ctrl]/[Command]+[X] Cut Time [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[X] Delete [Del] or [Backspace] Delete Time [Shift]+[Backspace] Duplicate [Ctrl]/[Command]+[D] Edit In-place [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[I] Group [Ctrl]/[Command]+[G] Insert Silence [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[E] Left Selection Side to Cursor [E] Lock [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[L] Move In
Option Key command Redo [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[Z] Repeat [Ctrl]/[Command]+[K] Right Selection Side to Cursor [D] Select All [Ctrl]/[Command]+[A] Select None [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[A] Snap On/Off [J] Solo [S] Split At Cursor [Alt]/[Option]+[X] Split Range [Shift]+[X] Undo [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Z] Ungroup [Ctrl]/[Command]+[U] Unlock [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[U] Unmute Objects [Shift]+[U] Editors category Option Key command Show/Hide Infoview [Ctrl]/[Command]+[I] Show/Hide Ins
Option Key command Save New Version [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Alt]/[Option]+[S] Toggle Alternate Key Commands [#], [F5] MIDI category Option Key command Quantize [Q] Macro category Option Key command Bounce Events [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[B] Export selection on selected track(s) [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[T] Render VSTi [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift]+[R] Skip range playback [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Enter] Navigate category Option Key command Expand/Undo selection in the Project window to the bottom Move se
Option Key command Select next in the Project window/Key Editor (Right) [Right Arrow] Select next in the Project window (Up) Move selected event in the Key Editor one semitone up [Up Arrow] Nudge category Option Key command End Left [Alt]/[Option]+[Shift]+[Left Arrow] End Right [Alt]/[Option]+[Shift]+[Right Arrow] Left [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Left Arrow] Right [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Right Arrow] Start Left [Alt]/[Option]+[Left Arrow] Start Right [Alt]/[Option]+[Right Arrow] Project category Option
Option Key command Next Tool [F10] Play tool [9] Previous Tool [F9] Range tool [2] Select tool [1] Split tool [3] Zoom tool [6] Transport category Option Key command AutoPunch In [I] AutoPunch Out [O] Cycle Pad [/] Fast Forward [Shift]+Pad [+] Fast Rewind [Shift]+Pad [-] Forward Pad [+] Input Left Locator [Shift]+[L] Input Position [Shift]+[P] Input Right Locator [Shift]+[R] Input Tempo [Shift]+[T] Insert Marker [Insert]/[Help] Locate Next Event [N] Locate Next Mark
Option Key command Metronome On [C] Nudge Down [Ctrl]/[Command]+Pad [-] Nudge Up [Ctrl]/[Command]+Pad [+] Panel (Transport panel) [F2] Play Selection Range [Alt]/[Option]+[Space] Recall Cycle Marker 1 to 9 [Shift]+Pad [1] to Pad [9] Record Pad [*] Retrospective Record [Shift]+Pad [*] Return to Zero Pad [.
Zoom category Option Key command Zoom Full [Shift]+[F] Zoom In [H] Zoom In Tracks [Alt]/[Option]+[Down Arrow] Zoom Out [G] Zoom Out Tracks [Alt]/[Option]+[Up Arrow] or [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Up Arrow] Zoom to Event [Shift]+[E] Zoom to Selection [Alt]/[Option]+[S] Zoom Tracks Exclusive [Z] or [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Down Arrow] Shortcuts & key commands NUENDO 19 – 251
NUENDO 19 – 252 Shortcuts & key commands
Index
A Activate Project button 123 Add Bus 144 Add Child Bus 145 Add Multiple Tracks 236 Add Track 98 All MIDI Inputs 50 Alt/Option key 12 Alternative Key Sets 227 Apple Help 11 Arrow tool 160 ASIO 2.
E I Edit History window 80 Edits folder 59 Effects Applying 206 Insert effects (Audio) 135 Send effects (Audio) 131 EQ 127 Eraser tool 162 Events Audio 60 Copying 161 Erasing 162 MIDI 62 Moving 160 Muting 162 Resizing 164 Splitting 163 Expert settings 55 Export Audio Mixdown 153 External effects setup 38 Images folder 59 Input busses 99 Input level 39, 102 Input ports 44 Insert effects (Audio) 135 Installation Mac 32 Windows 22 F Fade-in 165 K Key command conventions 12 Key commands Assigning 224 List
Menus 64 Customizing 219 Hiding menu items 219 MIDI channel 114 MIDI events 62 MIDI input Selecting for tracks 113 Setting default 51 MIDI Interface Connecting 47 Installing (Mac) 31 Installing (Windows) 22 MIDI output 114 MIDI parts 62 MIDI ports Default 51 Setting up 50 MIDI recording 116 MIDI Thru 112 MIDI Thru Active 48 MIDI tracks About 62 Creating 113 Mixer 124 Meter settings 103 Mixing down to disk 153 Modifier keys 12 Monitor (MIDI tracks) 176 Monitoring About 46 Setting up 107 Mouse recommendations
Program Change 115 Project About format 58 Creating new 97 Project folder 59 Project Setup dialog 141 Q Quantize 213 Quick menu 65 R RAM Mac 29 Windows 17 Range Selection tool 203 Record Enable 105 Recording levels 39 Redo 79, 163 Release ASIO Driver in Background 42 Repeat 161 Ruler zooming 75 S Save as Template 235 Scissors tool 163 Scroll bars 73 Select All 161 Selecting objects 72 Send effects (Audio) 131 Show Panel 78 Show Tips 67 Slider mode 71 Snap MIDI editors 212 Project window 160 Solo Mixer 1
VST Connections Inputs 99 Outputs 144 VST input ports 44 VST Instruments Activating 169 Automating 180 Editing 178 Playing in real time 175 Routing tracks to 171 VST output ports 44 W Wheel mouse Scrolling 73 Value editing 68 Window menu 76 Windows dialog 77 Workspaces 240 Z Zoom presets 239 Zoom sliders 73 Zoom submenu 74 Zoom while Locating in Time Scale 75 NUENDO 258 Index
