Steinberg Nuendo 3 Operation Manual

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Mixing down to an audio file
1.Set up the left and right locator to encompass the area that you want 
to mix down.
2.Set up your tracks, so that they play back the way you want.
This includes muting unwanted tracks or parts, making manual mixer settings and/or 
activating the R (Read) automation buttons for some or all mixer channels.
3.Pull down the File menu and select “Audio Mixdown…” from the 
Export submenu.
The Export Audio Mixdown dialog appears.
The upper half...

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4.Select the bus or channel you want to mix down with the Outputs 
pop-up menu.
This lists all output busses and channels in the active project.
5.Select the channel configuration for the mixdown file with the Channels 
pop-up menu.
Typically you would select the same channel configuration as the bus or channel you’re 
mixing down, but it’s also possible to e.g. mix down a stereo bus to a mono file. In this 
case a warning will appear, asking if that’s what you want...

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•When Real-Time Export is activated, the exported audio will be played 
back on the Audition bus.
The fader below the Real-Time Export checkbox allows you to adjust the volume of the 
Audition bus.
10.If you activate Update Display, the meters will be updated during the 
export process.
This allows you to check for clipping, for example.
11.Select a folder and a name for the audio file to be created.
• With some file formats you can create split stereo files (see page...

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File format specifics
The following pages describe the different export file formats, and 
their options and settings.
• AIFF files (see page 554).
• Sound Designer II files (Mac OS X only, see page 557).
• Wave files (see page 557).
• Wave 64 files (see page 559).
• Broadcast Wave files (see page 559).
• MP3 files (see page 560).
• Ogg Vorbis files (see page 561).
• Real Audio G2 files (Windows only, see page 562).
• Windows Media Audio files (Windows only, see page...

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Channels
Resolution
Allows you to select 8, 16, 24 bit or 32 bit (float) files.
• If the file is an “intermediate mixdown” that you plan to re-import and continue 
working on in Nuendo, we recommend that you select the 32 bit (float) option.
32 bit (float) is a very high resolution (the same resolution as used internally for audio 
processing in Nuendo), and the audio files will be twice the size of 16 bit files.
Option Description
Mono The audio is mixed down to...

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• If you are making a mixdown for CD burning, you should use the 16 bit option, 
as CD audio is always 16 bit.
In this case, we recommend that you activate the UV-22HR dithering plug-in (see page 
269). This reduces the effects of quantization noise and artifacts from being introduced 
when converting the audio down to 16 bit.
• 8 bit resolution should only be used if required, since it will result in limited au-
dio quality.
8 bit audio may be suitable in some...

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Sound Designer II files (Mac OS X only)
The SD II format was developed by Digidesign. It is one of the most 
popular audio file formats on the Macintosh, especially for professional 
audio work. The following export settings are available:
Channels
Allows you to select mono or stereo files, with the same options as for 
AIFF files (see page 555).
Resolution
The bit resolution of the file, with the same options as for AIFF files 
(see page 555), except that 32-bit...

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Coding (Windows only)
The Coding pop-up menu allows you to select a compression scheme 
for the Wave file, creating smaller files (with a loss of audio quality).
• Which options are available depends on the installed and activated codecs in 
the ACM (Audio Compression Manager) under Windows.
See the operating system documentation for details.
• When a compression option is selected, not all Channels, Resolution and 
Sample Rate options may be available (depending on...

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Wave64 files
Wave64 is a proprietary format developed by Sonic Foundry Inc. In 
terms of audio quality, Wave64 files are identical to standard wave 
files, but there is one major difference:
•In the file headers, Wave64 files use 64-bit values for addressing where 
wave files use 32-bit values. The consequence of this is that wave64 
files can be considerably larger than standard wave files. Wave64 is 
therefore a good file format choice for really long recordings...

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MPEG Layer 3 files
MPEG Layer 3 files have the extension “.mp3”. By use of advanced 
audio compression algorithms, mp3 files can be made very small, 
maintaining good audio quality.
The following options are available for MPEG Layer 3 files:
Channels
Use the radio buttons to select mono or stereo files. This setting af-
fects which options are available on the Attributes pop-up menu (see 
below).
Sample Rate
Determines the frequency range of the audio – the lower the...