Steinberg Nuendo 3 Operation Manual

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5.Now, you need to make sure that one audio card (and only one!) is set 
to be the Clock Master, and all the other cards must be set to listen 
for the clock signal coming from the Clock Master i.e. they must be 
Clock Slaves.
The naming and procedure for this differs depending on the audio hardware – consult 
its documentation if required. If you are using Steinberg Nuendo ASIO hardware, all 
cards default to the “AutoSync” setting – in this case you must set one of the...

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However, the latency time of a VST System Link network is the total 
latency of all the ASIO cards in the system added together. Therefore 
it’s extra important to minimize the latency times for each computer in 
the network.
• The latency does not affect the synchronization – it's always perfectly in 
time. But, it can affect the time it takes to send and receive MIDI and au-
dio signals, or make the system seem sluggish.
To adjust the latency of a system, you...

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4.In Computer 2, open the mixer and locate the corresponding digital 
input bus.
The audio being played back should now “appear” in the program running on Com-
puter 2. You should see the input bus level meters moving.
5.Reverse this procedure so that Computer 2 plays back and Computer 
1 “listens”.
Now you have verified that the digital connection works as it should.
• From this point on in this chapter, we refer to the busses connected to 
the digital inputs and outputs...

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Activating VST System Link
After setting up the inputs and outputs, you now need to define which 
input/output should carry the actual VST System Link information.
The System Link networking signal is carried on only one bit of one 
channel. This means that if you have an ADAT based system which 
normally carries eight channels of 24-bit audio, once you activate VST 
System Link you will have seven channels of 24-bit audio and one 
channel of 23-bit audio (the least...

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3.Use the ASIO Input and ASIO Output pop-up menus to define which 
channel should be the networking channel (and thus become a 23-bit 
audio channel, in our example).
Quite often you will be able to just leave these pop-ups the way they are. 
4.Click the Active checkbox at the top of the panel.
5.Repeat the steps above for every computer on the network. 
As the computers are made active, you should see the small T (Trans-
mit) and R (Receive) lights flashing on each active...

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1.Activate the Online checkbox in the VST System Link panel for all 
computers. 
2.Check that the system is working by pressing Play on one computer – 
all computers should start almost instantly and play perfectly in time, 
with sample accurate precision.
•The Offset setting to the right allows you to adjust whether one ma-
chine will play back slightly ahead or behind the rest.
This is normally not needed, but occasionally with some hardware you may find that the 
lock...

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3.If you now pull down the “in” or “out” pop-ups, you will find the spec-
ified System Link ports added to the list of MIDI Inputs and Outputs.
This allows you to route MIDI tracks to VST instruments running on 
another computer, as described in the application examples (see 
page 611).
The “Active ASIO Ports for Data only” setting
If you are sending huge amounts of MIDI data at once, there is a small 
possibility that you might run out of bandwidth on your VST System...

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Hearing the network audio
If you are using an external mixing desk, hearing your audio really isn't 
an issue – just plug the outputs of each computer into the desired 
channels on the external mixing desk, press Play on one of the com-
puters, and you're good to go.
However, many people prefer to mix internally inside the computer and 
just use a desk for monitoring (or maybe not use any external mixer at 
all). In this case you'll need to select one computer...

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If you now start playback, the audio from Computer 2 will be sent 
“live” to the new tracks on Computer 1, allowing you to hear them to-
gether with any tracks you play back on Computer 1.
Adding more tracks
OK, but if you have more audio tracks than you have VST System Link 
busses (physical outputs)? Then you just use the Computer 2 mixer 
as a submixer: Route several audio channels to the same output bus 
and adjust the output bus level if needed.
Note also that if your...

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If you have lots of hardware inputs and outputs on your ASIO cards you 
don't need to send audio via the chain at all, but can transmit it directly 
to the master mix computer via one or more of its other hardware In-
puts. For example, if you have a Nuendo Digiset interface or 9652 card 
on Computer 1 you could use ADAT cable 1 for networking, ADAT ca-
ble 2 as a direct audio input from Computer 2, and ADAT cable 3 as a 
direct audio input from Computer 3.
You can...