Steinberg Nuendo 4.0 User manual

Operation Manual

Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Marion Bröer, Sabine Pfeifer

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. No part of this publica-

tion may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission

by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.

All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. Windows XP is a trademark of

Microsoft Corporation. Windows Vista is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the

United States and/or other countries. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. Macintosh and Power Macintosh

are registered trademarks.

Release Date: April 02, 2008

Table of Contents

4

Table of Contents

8 About this manual

9 Welcome!

10 VST Connections: Setting up input and

output busses

11 About this chapter

11 Setting up busses

14 Using the busses

17 Setting up Groups and FX channels

17 About monitoring

17 External instruments/effects

22 The Project window

23 Background

25 Window Overview

33 Operations

55 Options

58 Playback and the Transport panel

59 Background

60 Operations

62 Options and Settings

64 Recording

65 Background

65 Basic recording methods

67 Audio recording specifics

77 MIDI recording specifics

83 Options and Settings

85 Recovery of audio recordings after system failure

86 Fades, crossfades and envelopes

87 Creating fades

89 The Fade dialogs

91 Creating crossfades

92 The Crossfade dialog

96 Auto Fades and Crossfades

97 Event Envelopes

98 The Arranger track

99 Introduction

99 Setting up the Arranger track

100 Working with arranger events

102 Flattening the Arranger chain

103 Live Mode

104 Arranging your music to video

105 Folder tracks

106 About folder tracks

106 Handling folder tracks

107 Working with folder parts

109 Using markers

110 About markers

110 The Marker window

111 Using the Marker track

113 Marker key commands

113 Editing markers in the Project Browser

114 The Transpose functions

115 Introduction

115 Transposing your music

119 Other functions

122 The mixer

123 About this chapter

124 Overview

126 Configuring the mixer

130 The audio-related channel strips

131 The MIDI channel strips

131 The common panel

132 The input and output channels

132 Basic mixing procedures

136 Audio specific procedures

144 MIDI specific procedures

145 Utilities

148 VST Mixer Diagrams

151 Control Room

152 Background

153 Configuring the Control Room

156 The Control Room Overview

156 The Control Room Mixer

158 Control Room operations

163 Studios and Studio Sends

166 Direct Monitoring and latency

167 WK-Audio’s ID Controller

5

Table of Contents

168 Audio effects

169 About this chapter

169 Overview

170 Insert effects

175 Send effects

176 Setting up send effects

180 Using the Side-Chain input

182 Using external effects

182 Making settings for the effects

183 Effect presets

186 Installing and managing effect plug-ins

189 VST Instruments and Instrument

tracks

190 Introduction

190 VST Instrument channels vs. instrument tracks

190 VST Instrument channels

192 Instrument tracks

194 Comparison

194 Automation considerations

195 What do I need? Instrument channel or Instrument

track?

195 Instrument Freeze

196 VST instruments and processor load

197 Using presets for VSTi configuration

200 About latency

201 External instruments

202 Surround sound

203 Background

205 Operations

213 Automation

214 Introduction

214 Enabling and disabling the writing of automation

data

216 What can be automated?

217 The Automation panel

217 Virgin territory vs. the initial value

219 Automation modes

222 Automation performance utilities

229 The Settings section

230 Hints and further options

231 Automation track operations

235 Working with automation curves

238 Audio processing and functions

239 Background

239 Audio processing

249 Applying plug-ins

251 The Offline Process History dialog

252 Batch Processing

253 Freeze Edits

254 Detect Silence

255 The Spectrum Analyzer

256 Statistics

258 The Sample Editor

259 Background

260 Window overview

265 General Operations

271 Options and settings

272 Audio Warp realtime processing / Tempo matching

audio to the project tempo

278 Working with hitpoints and slices

285 Free Warp

288 Realtime pitch-shifting of audio events

288 Flattening the realtime processing

290 The Audio Part Editor

291 Background

291 Opening the Audio Part Editor

291 Window overview

293 Operations

294 Common methods

295 Options and Settings

296 The Pool

297 Background

297 Window overview

300 Operations

311 VST Sound

312 Introduction

314 The MediaBay

315 Introduction

316 Window overview

316 Browsing for media files

319 Finding files in the Viewer section

322 Previewing files in the Scope section

323 The Tag Editor

325 Media management

6

Table of Contents

327 Track Presets

328 Introduction

328 Types of track presets

330 VST presets

331 Browsing for presets

333 Creating a track preset

333 Creating tracks from track presets or VST presets

334 Applying track presets

336 Previewing track and VST presets

337 Inserts and EQ settings from track presets

338 Track Quick Controls

339 Introduction

339 Setting up the Quick Controls tab

340 Options and settings

341 Setting up quick controls on an external remote

controller

342 MIDI realtime parameters and effects

343 Introduction

343 The Inspector – General handling

344 Basic track settings

346 MIDI Modifiers

348 MIDI effects

350 Managing plug-ins

351 MIDI processing and quantizing

352 Introduction

352 The Quantizing functions

357 Making your settings permanent

359 Dissolve Part

360 Repeat Loop

360 Other MIDI functions

363 The MIDI editors

364 About editing MIDI

364 Opening a MIDI editor

366 The Key Editor – Overview

368 Key Editor operations

381 Edit In-Place

383 The List Editor – Overview

384 List Editor operations

387 The Logical Editor, Transformer and

Input Transformer

388 Introduction

388 Opening the Logical Editor

389 Window overview

389 Selecting a preset

389 Setting up filter conditions

394 Selecting a function

395 Specifying actions

397 Applying the defined actions

397 Working with presets

397 The Input Transformer

399 The Project Logical Editor

400 Introduction

400 Opening the Project Logical Editor

400 Window overview

401 Selecting a preset

401 Setting up filter conditions

407 Selecting a function

407 Specifying actions

408 Applying the defined actions

409 Working with presets

410 Working with System Exclusive

messages

411 Introduction

411 Bulk dumps

412 Recording System Exclusive parameter changes

413 Editing System Exclusive messages

414 Working with the Tempo track

415 Background

415 The Tempo Track Editor – Overview

417 Operations

420 Process Tempo

420 The Process Bars dialog

421 Options and settings

421 The Beat Calculator

422 Merge Tempo From Tapping

422 The Time Warp tool

428 The Project Browser

429 Window Overview

430 Editing tracks

7

Table of Contents

434 The Track Sheet

435 Overview

436 Printing the Track Sheet

437 Export Audio Mixdown

438 Introduction

438 Mixing down to an audio file

439 The available file formats

445 Synchronization

446 Background

446 Synchronization signals

447 Synchronizing the transport vs. synchronizing au-

dio

448 Making basic settings and connections

449 Synchronization settings

454 Timecode Preferences

454 Machine Control

455 Setting up Machine Control

460 Working with VST System Link

460 Preparations

463 Activating VST System Link

466 Application examples

468 Video

469 Background

469 Before you start

470 Operations

474 The Edit Mode

476 Working with film transfers

478 Compensating for film transfers to video

482 ReWire

483 Introduction

483 Launching and quitting

484 Activating ReWire channels

484 Using the transport and tempo controls

485 How the ReWire channels are handled in Nuendo

485 Routing MIDI via ReWire2

485 Considerations and limitations

486 File handling

487 Working with Projects

489 Startup Options

490 Working with libraries

490 Revert

491 Importing audio

494 Exporting and importing OMF files

495 Exporting and importing AAF files

496 Exporting and importing AES31 files

497 Exporting and importing OpenTL files

498 Importing XSend projects from Liquid

498 Exporting and importing standard MIDI files

500 Exporting and importing MIDI loops

500 Exporting and importing tracks

501 Other Import/Export functions

501 Cleanup

503 Customizing

504 Background

504 Workspaces

506 The Setup dialogs

507 Customizing track controls

509 Configuring the main menu items

510 About preference presets

511 Appearance

512 Applying track and event colors

514 Where are the settings stored?

517 Key commands

518 Introduction

518 Setting up key commands

524 Setting up tool modifier keys

524 The default key commands

528 Index

1

About this manual

9

About this manual

Welcome!

This is the Operation Manual for Steinberg’s Nuendo.

Here you will find detailed information about all the fea-

tures and functions in the program.

About the program versions

The documentation covers two different operating sys-

tems or “platforms”; Windows and Mac OS X.

Some features and settings are specific to one of the plat-

forms, Windows or Mac OS X. This is clearly stated in the

applicable cases. In other words:

Ö 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 of Nuendo.

About the Nuendo Expansion Kit

The Nuendo Expansion Kit adds a number of music com-

position functions from Steinberg’s Cubase (the “Cubase

Music Tools”) to the standard Nuendo application. The

Nuendo Expansion Kit (NEK) is a separate product and

can be purchased through your Steinberg dealer.

Whenever procedures in this manual use functions avail-

able only when the NEK is installed, this is indicated in the

text by “Nuendo Expansion Kit only”.

Key command conventions

Many of the default key commands in Nuendo use modi-

fier keys, some of which are different depending on the

operating system. For example, the default key command

for Undo is [Ctrl]-[Z] under Windows and [Command]-[Z]

under Mac OS X.

When key commands with modifier keys are described in

this manual, they are shown with the Windows modifier

key first, in the following way:

[Win modifier key]/[Mac modifier key]-[key]

For example, [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Z] means “press [Ctrl]

under Windows or [Command] under Mac OS X, then

press [Z]”.

Similarly, [Alt]/[Option]-[X] means “press [Alt] under Win-

dows or [Option] under Mac OS X, then press [X]”.

Ö Please note that this manual often refers to right-click-

ing, e.g. to open context menus, etc. If you are using a Mac

with a single-button mouse, hold down [Ctrl] and click.

2

VST Connections: Setting up input and

output busses

11

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

About this chapter

Nuendo uses a system of input and output busses to trans-

fer audio between the program and the audio hardware.

• Input busses let you route audio from the inputs on your audio

hardware into the program. This means that when you record

audio, you will always do this through one or several input

busses.

• Output busses let you route audio from the program to the

outputs on your audio hardware. When you play back audio,

you will always do this through one or several output busses.

As you can see, the input and output busses are vital when

you work with Nuendo. This is why you find this chapter in

the beginning of the Operation Manual – once you under-

stand the bus system and set up the busses properly, it will

be easy to go on with recording, playing back, mixing and

doing surround work.

Setting up busses

Strategies

You can create any number of busses in Nuendo, in virtu-

ally any channel configuration – mono, stereo or a number

of surround formats.

Ö The bus configuration is saved with the projects –

therefore it’s a good idea to add and set up the busses

you need and save these in a template project (see “Save

as Template” on page 488).

When you start working on new projects, you start from this template.

That way you get your standard bus configuration without having to make

new bus settings for each new project. If you need to work with different

bus configurations in different projects, you can either create several dif-

ferent templates or store your configurations as presets (see “Other bus

operations” on page 14). The templates can of course also contain other

settings that you regularly use – sample rate, record format, a basic track

layout, etc.

So, which type of busses do you need? This depends on

your audio hardware, your general audio setup (e.g. sur-

round speaker setup) and what kind of projects you work

with.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you are using audio hardware with eight analog

inputs and outputs and digital stereo connections (10 in-

puts and outputs all in all). Furthermore, you work with a

surround setup in 5.1 format. Here’s a list of busses you

may wish to add:

Input busses

• Most likely you need at least one stereo input bus assigned to

an analog input pair. This would let you record stereo material.

If you want to be able to record in stereo from other analog in-

put pairs as well, you could add stereo input busses for these

too.

• Although you can record mono tracks from one side of a ste-

reo input, it may be a good idea to add a dedicated mono in-

put bus. This could be assigned to an analog input to which

you have connected a dedicated microphone pre-amp for ex-

ample. Again, you can have several different mono busses.

• You probably want a dedicated stereo input bus assigned to

the digital stereo input, for digital transfers.

• If you want to transfer surround material directly to a surround

track, e.g. from surround-configured location recording equip-

ment, you need an input bus in that surround format – in this

example, this would be a 5.1 input bus.

Output busses

• You will need one or several stereo output busses for routing

stereo mixes to master recorders or other destinations.

• For digital transfers, you need a stereo bus assigned to a dig-

ital stereo output as well.

• You need a surround bus in the format of your speaker config-

uration (in this example, 5.1) assigned to the correct outputs

(which in turn are connected to the correct speakers).

• You may want additional surround busses if you tend to work

in different surround formats.

12

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Preparations

Before you set up busses, you should name the inputs

and outputs on your audio hardware. For example, if you

are using a 5.1 surround speaker setup, you should name

the outputs according to which speaker they are con-

nected to (Left, Right, Center and so on).

The reason for this is compatibility – it makes it easier to

transfer projects between different computers and setups.

For example, if you move your project to another studio,

the audio hardware may be of a different model. But if

both you and the other studio owner have given your in-

puts and outputs names according to the surround setup

(rather than names based on the audio hardware model),

Nuendo will automatically find the correct inputs and out-

puts for your busses and you will be able to play and

record without having to change the settings.

Use the Device Setup dialog to assign names to the in-

puts and outputs of your audio hardware:

1. Open the Device Setup dialog from the Devices menu.

2. Make sure that the correct driver for your audio hard-

ware is selected on the VST Audio System page, so that

the audio card is listed in the Devices list.

3. Select your audio card in the list.

The available input and output ports on your audio hardware are listed on

the right.

4. To rename a port, click its name in the “Show as” col-

umn and enter a new name.

• If needed, you can also disable ports by deactivating

them in the “Visible” column.

Disabled ports won’t show up in the VST Connections window when you

are making bus settings. If you attempt to disable a port that is used by a

bus, you will be asked whether this is really what you want – note that

this will remove the port from the bus!

5. Click OK to close the Device Setup dialog.

Ö If you open a project created on another computer and

the port names don’t match (or the port configuration isn’t

the same – e.g. the project is created on a system with

multi-channel i/o and you open it on a stereo in/out sys-

tem), the Pending Connections dialog will appear.

This allows you to manually re-route ports used in the project to ports

available in your system.

The VST Connections window

You add and set up busses in the VST Connections win-

dow, opened from the Devices menu.

This window contains the following tabs:

• The Inputs and Outputs tabs are for viewing input busses or

output busses, respectively.

• The Group/FX tab allows you to create Group and FX chan-

nels/tracks and to make output assignments for these. See

“Setting up Groups and FX channels” on page 17.

• The External FX tab allows you to create effect send/return

busses for connecting external effects which can then be se-

lected via the effect pop-up menus from inside the program.

See “External instruments/effects” on page 17 and “Using ex-

ternal effects” on page 182 for further information.

• The External Instruments tab allows you to create input/output

busses for connecting external instruments. See “External in-

struments/effects” on page 17 and the chapter “VST Instru-

ments and Instrument tracks” on page 189 for further

information.

• The Studio tab is where you enable and configure the Control

Room. See the chapter “Control Room” on page 151.

For the time being, we shall focus on how to set up input

and output busses.

13

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Depending on which tab you have selected, Inputs or Out-

puts, the window lists the current input or output busses,

with the following columns:

Adding a bus

1. Click the Inputs or Outputs tab depending on which

you want to add.

2. Click the Add Bus button.

A dialog appears.

3. Select the desired (channel) configuration.

The pop-up menu contains Mono and Stereo options as well as several

surround formats. To select another surround format, use the “More…”

submenu.

• Alternatively you can right-click in the VST Connections

window and add a bus in the desired format directly from

the context menu that appears.

The new bus appears with the ports visible.

4. Click in the Device Port column to select an input/out-

put port for a channel in the bus.

The pop-up menu that appears lists the ports with the names you have as-

signed in the Device Setup dialog. Repeat this for all channels in the bus.

Adding a child bus

A surround bus is essentially a set of mono channels – 6

channels in the case of 5.1 format. If you have a mono

track in the project, you can route it to a separate speaker

channel in the bus (or route it to the whole surround bus

and use the surround panner to position it in the surround

image). But what if you have a stereo track that you simply

want to route to a stereo channel pair within the bus (Left

and Right or Left Surround and Right Surround for exam-

ple)? For this you need to create a child bus.

1. Select the surround bus in the list and right-click on it.

A pop-up menu appears.

2. Select a channel configuration from the “Add Child

Bus” submenu.

As you can see, you can create stereo child busses (routed to various

speaker channel pairs in the surround bus) or other surround bus formats

(with fewer channels than the “parent bus”).

The child bus you created will be available for direct rout-

ing in the mixer. It’s a part of the parent surround bus,

which means there will be no separate channel strip for it.

Although child busses are probably most useful in output

busses, you can also create child busses within a sur-

round input bus – for example if you want to record a ste-

reo channel pair (e.g. front left-right) in the surround bus

to a separate stereo track.

Column Description

Bus Name Lists the busses. You can select busses and rename

them by clicking on them in this column.

Speakers Indicates the speaker configuration (mono, stereo, sur-

round formats) of each bus.

Audio Device This shows the currently selected ASIO driver.

Device Port When you have “opened” a bus (by clicking its + button in

the Bus Name column) this column shows which physical

input/output on your audio hardware is used by the bus.

Click You can route the click to a specific output bus, regard-

less of the actual Control Room output, or indeed when

the Control Room is disabled.

14

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Setting the Main Mix bus (the default output bus)

The Main Mix is the output bus that each new channel in

the mixer will be assigned to when it is created.

Any one of the output busses in the VST Connections

window can be the default output bus. By right-clicking on

the name of an output bus, you can set this bus as the

Main Mix bus.

Setting the default output bus in the VST Connections window.

When creating new audio, group or FX channels in the

mixer, they will automatically be routed to the default bus.

Other bus operations

• To change the port assignment for a bus, you proceed

as when you added it – make sure the channels are visible

(by clicking the “+” button next to the bus, or by clicking

the “+ All” button at the top of the window) and click in the

Device Port column to select ports.

• To remove a bus you don’t need, select it in the list,

right-click and select “Remove Bus” from the pop-up

menu, or press [Backspace].

• You can store and recall bus presets with the pop-up

menu at the top of the window.

To store the current configuration as a preset, click the Store “+” button

and enter a name for the preset. You can then select the stored configu-

ration directly from the Presets pop-up menu at any time. To remove a

stored preset, select it and click the “-” button.

Using the busses

This section describes briefly how to use the input and out-

put busses you have created. For details refer to the chap-

ters “Recording” on page 64 and “The mixer” on page 122.

Routing

When you play back an audio track (or any other audio

channel in the mixer – VST Instrument channels, ReWire

channels, etc.), you route it to an output bus. In the same

way, when you record on an audio track you select from

which input bus the audio should be sent.

• You can select input and output busses in the Inspec-

tor, using the Input and Output Routing pop-up menus.

For audio-related channel types other than audio track

channels (i.e. VST Instrument channels, ReWire channels,

Group channels and FX channels), only the Output Rout-

ing pop-up menu is available. Select one of its subtracks

in the Track list to open it.

• You can also select busses in the Routing panel at the

top of each channel strip in the mixer.

Again, for VST Instrument channels, ReWire channels, Group channels

and FX channels you will only be able to select output busses.

!

The default bus is indicated by an orange colored

speaker icon next to its name in the VST Connec-

tions window.

15

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

• If you press [Alt]/[Option] and select an input or output

bus in the Mixer Routing View, it will be chosen for all se-

lected channels.

This makes it easy to quickly set several channels to use the same input

or output. Similarly, if you press [Shift] and select a bus, the following se-

lected channels will be set to use incrementing busses – the second se-

lected channel will use the second bus, the third will use the third bus

and so on.

Ö If the Routing panel isn’t shown, click the Show Rout-

ing button in the extended common panel or open the

Mixer context menu and select “Show Routing View” from

the Window submenu.

The “Show Routing” button in the extended common panel of the Mixer.

When selecting an input bus for a track you can only se-

lect busses that correspond to the track’s channel config-

uration. Here are the details for input busses:

• Mono tracks can be routed to mono input busses or individual

channels within a stereo or surround input bus.

• Mono tracks can be routed to External Inputs that are config-

ured in the Studio tab of the VST Connections window. These

can be mono or individual channels within a stereo or surround

input bus. They can also be routed to the Talkback input.

• Mono tracks can also be routed to mono output busses, mono

group output busses or mono fx channel output busses, pro-

vided that these will not lead to feedback.

• Stereo tracks can be routed to mono input busses, stereo in-

put busses or stereo child busses within a surround bus.

• Stereo tracks can be routed to External Inputs that are config-

ured in the Studio tab of the VST Connections window. These

can be mono input busses or stereo input busses. They can

also be routed to the Talkback input.

• Stereo tracks can also be routed to mono or stereo output

busses, mono or stereo group output busses and mono or

stereo fx channel output busses, provided that these will not

lead to feedback.

• Surround tracks can be routed to surround input busses.

• Surround tracks can be routed to External Inputs that are con-

figured in the Studio tab of the VST Connections window, pro-

vided that these have the same input configuration.

• Surround tracks can also be routed to output busses, provided

that these have the same input configuration or will not lead to

feedback.

For output busses any assignment is possible.

To disconnect input or output busses, select “No Bus”

from the corresponding pop-up menu.

Viewing the busses in the mixer

In the mixer, busses are represented by input and output

channels (shown in separate panes to the left and right in

the window). You can show or hide these independently

by clicking the Hide Input Channels and Hide Output

Channels buttons in the common panel:

!

Assignments that will lead to feedback are not avail-

able in the pop-up menu. This is also indicated by a

one-way symbol.

Hide Input Channels

Hide Output Channels

16

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Input channels

The input channels are shown to the left in the mixer. As

you can see, each input channel resembles a regular mixer

channel strip. Here you can do the following:

• Check and adjust the recording level using the Input

Gain knobs and/or the level fader.

See “Setting input levels” on page 69.

• Change the phase of the input signal.

This is done by clicking the Input Phase button next to the Input Gain

control.

• Add effects or EQ to the input bus.

See “Recording with effects” on page 76 for an example of how to add

effects to your recording at the input bus stage.

Output channels

The output channels are shown to the right in the mixer.

Here you can do the following:

• Adjust the output level for the busses with the faders.

• Add effects or EQ.

These will affect the whole bus. Examples of effects you may want to add

here include compressors, limiters and dithering. See the chapter “Audio

effects” on page 168.

• Using Sends, send varying amounts of one output bus

to any other output bus that is to the right of the selected

output bus in the mixer.

!

The settings you make in the input channel strip will

be a permanent part of the recorded audio file!

17

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Setting up Groups and FX channels

The Group/FX tab in the VST Connections window shows

all Group channels and FX channels in your project. You

can create new Group or FX channels by clicking the cor-

responding Add button. This is the same as creating

Group channel tracks or FX channel tracks in the Project

window (see “Using group channels” on page 142 and

the chapter “Audio effects” on page 168).

However, the VST Connections window also allows you to

create child busses for Groups and FX Channels. This is

useful e.g. if you have Groups or FX Channels in surround

format and want to route stereo channels to specific chan-

nel pairs in these.

To create a child bus for a Group channel or FX channel in

surround format, proceed as follows:

1. Open the VST Connection window and select the

Groups/FX tab.

2. Select the Group or FX channel in the list and right-

click it.

3. Select a channel configuration from the “Add Child

Bus” submenu.

The child bus you created will be available for direct rout-

ing in the mixer. It’s a part of the parent Group or FX chan-

nel, which means there will be no separate channel strip

for it.

About monitoring

By default, monitoring is done via the Control Room (see

the chapter “Control Room” on page 151). When the

Control Room is disabled on the Studio tab of the VST

Connections window, the Main Mix bus (see “Setting the

Main Mix bus (the default output bus)” on page 14) will be

used for monitoring.

Setting the monitoring level

When you are using the Control Room for monitoring, this

is set in the Control Room Mixer, see the chapter “Control

Room” on page 151. When you are monitoring via the

Main Mix bus, you can adjust the monitoring level in the

regular Project Mixer.

When auditioning or scrubbing in the Sample Editor, you

can also set the monitoring level using the small fader on

the Sample editor toolbar.

External instruments/effects

Nuendo supports the integration of external effect devices

and external instruments, e.g. hardware synthesizers, into

the sequencer signal flow.

You can use the External Instruments tab and the External

FX tab in the VST Connections window to define the

necessary send and return ports and access the instru-

ments/effects through the VST Instruments window.

Requirements

• To use external effects, you need audio hardware with

multiple inputs and outputs. To use external instruments, a

MIDI interface must be connected to your computer.

An external effect will require at least one input and one output (or input/

output pairs for stereo effects) – in addition to the input/output ports you

use for recording and monitoring.

• As always, audio hardware with low-latency drivers is a

good thing to have.

Nuendo will compensate for the input/output latency and ensure that the

audio processed through external effects isn’t shifted in time.

!

External Instruments and effects are indicated by an

“x” icon in the list next to their names in the respec-

tive pop-up menus.

18

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Connecting the external effect/instrument

To set up an external effect or instrument, proceed as fol-

lows:

1. Connect an unused output pair on your audio hard-

ware to the input pair on your external hardware device.

In this example, we assume that the hardware device has stereo inputs

and outputs.

2. Connect an unused input pair on your audio hardware

to the output pair on your hardware device.

Once the external device is connected to the audio hard-

ware of your computer, you have to set up the input/out-

put busses in Nuendo

Setting up external effects

1. Open the VST Connections window from the Devices

menu.

2. Open the External FX tab and click “Add External FX”.

3. In the dialog that appears, enter a name for the exter-

nal effect and specify the Send and Return configurations.

If you want to set up a MIDI device corresponding to the

external effect, click the “Associate MIDI Device” button.

Depending on the type of effect, you can specify mono, stereo or surround

configurations. When clicking “Associate MIDI Device”, you can use the

MIDI Device Manager functions to create a new MIDI device for the effect.

Note that delay compensation will only be applied for the effect when you

use MIDI devices. For information about the MIDI Device Manager and

user device panels see the separate PDF document “MIDI Devices”.

4. Click OK. This adds a new External FX bus.

5. Click in the Device Port column for the Send Bus

“Left” and “Right” ports and select the outputs on your au-

dio hardware that you connected in step 1 above.

6. Click in the Device Port column for the Return Bus

“Left” and “Right” ports and select the inputs on your au-

dio hardware that you connected in step 2 above.

7. If you like, make additional settings for the bus.

These are found in the columns to the right. Note however that you can

adjust these while actually using the external effect – which may be eas-

ier as you can hear the result. You have the following options:

!

Please note that it is possible to select input/output

ports for external effects/instruments that are already

used (i.e. that have been selected as inputs/outputs

in the VST Connections window). If you select a

used port for an external effect/instrument, the exist-

ing port assignment will be broken. Note that you will

not get a warning message!

Setting Description

Delay If your hardware effect device has an inherent delay (la-

tency), you should enter this value here, as it allows Nu-

endo to compensate for that delay during playback. You

can also let the delay value be determined by the pro-

gram by right-clicking in the Delay column for the effect

and selecting “Check User Delay”. Note that you don’t

have to take the latency of the audio hardware into ac-

count – this is handled automatically by the program.

Send Gain Allows you to adjust the level of the signal being sent to

the external effect.

Return Gain Allows you to adjust the level of the signal coming in from

the external effect.

Note however that excessive output levels from an external

effect device may cause clipping in the audio hardware.

The Return gain setting cannot be used to compensate for

this – you have to lower the output level on the effect de-

vice instead.

MIDI Device When you click in this column, a pop-up menu opens

where you can either disconnect the effect from the as-

sociated MIDI device, select a MIDI device, create a new

device or open the MIDI Device Manager in Nuendo to

edit the MIDI device.

When Studio Manager 2 is installed, you may also select

an OPT editor to access your external effect.

Used Whenever you insert an external effect into an audio

track, this column shows a check mark (“x”) to indicate

that the effect is being used.

19

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

8. When you are done, close the VST Connections win-

dow.

Ö Note that external device ports are exclusive, see

“Connecting the external effect/instrument” on page 18.

How to use the external effect

If you now click an insert effect slot for any channel and

look at the effect pop-up menu, you will find the new exter-

nal FX bus listed on the “External Plug-ins” submenu.

When you select it, the following happens:

• The external FX bus is loaded into the effect slot just like a

regular effect plug-in.

• The audio signal from the channel will be sent to the outputs

on the audio hardware, through your external effect device and

back to the program via the inputs on the audio hardware.

• A parameter window appears, showing the Delay, Send Gain

and Return Gain settings for the external FX bus. You can ad-

just these as necessary while playing back. The parameter

window also provides the “Measure Effect’s Loop Delay for

Delay Compensation” button. This is the same function as the

“Check User Delay” option in the VST Connections window. It

provides Nuendo with a Delay value to be used for delay com-

pensation. When you have defined a MIDI device for the ef-

fect, the corresponding Device window will be opened. When

Studio Manager 2 is installed, and you have set up a corre-

sponding OPT editor, this OPT editor will be displayed.

The default parameter window for an external effect

Like any effect, you can use the external FX bus as an in-

sert effect or as a send effect (an insert effect on an FX

channel track). You can deactivate or bypass the external

effect with the usual controls.

Setting up external instruments

1. Open the VST Connections window from the Devices

menu.

2. Open the External Instrument tab and click “Add Ex-

ternal Instrument”.

3. In the dialog that appears, enter a name for the exter-

nal instrument and specify the number of required mono

and/or stereo returns. If you want to set up a MIDI device

corresponding to the external instrument, click the Associ-

ate MIDI Device button.

Depending on the type of instrument, a specific number of mono and/or

stereo return channels is required. When clicking “Associate MIDI De-

vice”, you can use the MIDI Device Manager functions to create a new

MIDI device. For information about the MIDI Device Manager and user

device panels see the separate PDF document “MIDI Devices”.

4. Click OK. This adds a new external instrument bus.

5. Click in the Device Port column for the Return Bus

“Left” and “Right” ports and select the inputs on your audio

hardware to which you connected the external instrument.

6. If you like, make additional settings for the bus.

These are found in the columns to the right. Note however that you can

adjust these while actually using the external instrument – which may be

easier as you can hear the result. You have the following options:

Setting Description

Delay If your hardware device has an inherent delay (latency),

you should enter this value here. This allows Nuendo to

compensate for that delay during playback. Note that you

don’t have to take the latency of the audio hardware into

account – this is handled automatically by the program.

Return Gain Allows you to adjust the level of the signal coming in from

the external instrument.

Note however that excessive output levels from an exter-

nal device may cause clipping in the audio hardware. The

Return gain setting cannot be used to compensate for

this – you have to lower the output level on the device in-

stead.

20

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

7. When you are done, close the VST Connections win-

dow.

Ö Note that external device ports are exclusive, see

“Connecting the external effect/instrument” on page 18.

How to use the external instrument

Once you have set up the external instrument in the VST

Connections window, you can use it as a VST Instrument.

Open the VST Instruments window and click on an empty

instrument slot. In the instrument pop-up menu, your ex-

ternal instrument is listed on the External Instruments sub-

menu:

When you select the external instrument in the VST Instru-

ments window, the following happens:

• A parameter window for the external device is opened auto-

matically. This may either be the Device window, allowing you

to create a generic device panel, an OPT editor window or a

default editor. For information about the Device window, the

MIDI Device Manager and User device panels, see the sepa-

rate PDF document “MIDI Devices”.

• To send MIDI notes to the external instrument, open the out-

put pop-up menu in the Inspector for the corresponding MIDI

track and select the MIDI device to which the external instru-

ment is connected. This ensures use of delay compensation.

The instrument will now play any MIDI notes it receives from

this track and return them to Nuendo through the return chan-

nel(s) you have set up.

The external instrument will behave like any other VST In-

strument in Nuendo.

About the Favorites buttons

In the VST Connections window, both the External FX tab

and the External Instruments tab feature a Favorites button.

The Favorites button on the External FX tab

Favorites are device configurations that you can recall at

any time, like a library of external devices that are not con-

stantly connected to your computer. They also allow you

to save different configurations for the same device, e.g. a

multi-effect board or an effect that provides both a mono

and a stereo mode.

To save a device configuration as a favorite, proceed as

follows:

• When you have added a new device in the VST Con-

nections window, select it in the Bus Name column and

click the Favorites button.

A context menu is displayed showing an option to add the selected ef-

fect or instrument to the Favorites.

• You can recall the stored configuration at any time by

clicking the Favorites button and selecting the device

name from the context menu.

MIDI Device When you click in this column, a pop-up menu opens

where you can either disconnect the instrument from the

associated MIDI device, select a MIDI device, create a

new device or open the MIDI Device Manager in Nuendo

to edit the MIDI device.

When Studio Manager 2 is installed, you may also select

an OPT editor to access your external instrument.

Used Whenever you insert the external instrument into a VST

Instrument slot, this column shows a chicanery (“x”) to in-

dicate that the instrument is being used.

Setting Description

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Steinberg Nuendo 4.0 User manual

Steinberg Nuendo 4.0 User manual

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