Steinberg Nuendo 3 Getting Started Manual

NUENDOTutorial 4: Creating a surround mix 11 – 141
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 sub-
menu that...

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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)....

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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 neces-
sary.
16.Proceed in the same way with the clips “Ambience 2” (on the second 
stereo...

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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.Click in the Device Port column for each channel in...

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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 pan-
ner 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...

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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 (Ambi-
ence 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...

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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...

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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”.
In this mode, the...

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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.Position the...

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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...