Steinberg Nuendo 3 Operation Manual
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NUENDO Synchronization 25 – 591 •“Display Follows Locating Device”. This is a very useful option for tape-based machines that take a certain amount of time to locate to new positions. When this option is checked and sync is enabled, the project cursor in Nuendo will reflect the position of the 9-pin machine’s transport as it locates to different positions. For instance, if you place the cursor several minutes ahead of the current tape position, Nuendo can immediately locate there but the tape machine will take several seconds to arrive at the same position. During that time, the cursor will move with the tape machine, giving the user visual feedback as to its location. This is necessary in larger facilities that have a central machine room where the tape machine is located. Since the Nuendo system is in another room, the user will not know when the tape machine has located to the correct position.
NUENDO 25 – 592 Synchronization 9-Pin Preferences There are several options for 9-pin control in the Preferences dialog on the Transport–Machine Control page. They are as follows: •“Machine position follows mouse edits”. When this option is activated and the transport in Nuendo is set to “Edit Mode,” the 9- pin device will track the edits you make with the mouse in the project window. Actions such as adjusting event boundaries, moving fade handles and even selecting events will cause the 9-pin machine to follow the mouse position as you make the edit. This emu- lates the response of a video file playing in Nuendo under Edit Mode. •“Machine position follows jog”. When this option is activated, Nuendo will send Locate commands to the 9-pin device when you use the jog wheel on the Transport panel, allowing you to see each frame of video as you scroll through the tape. When it is deactivated, the positioning of the de- vice takes place when the jog wheel has been released. •“Send Shuttle Command instead of Fast Forward/Rewind”. When the fast forward and rewind buttons are pressed on the Transport panel, Nuendo can send either fast forward and rewind commands to the 9-pin device or send shuttle commands. Each 9-pin device will react differently to these commands so some exper- imentation will be necessary. Tape machines will most likely respond best to fast for- ward and rewind commands. This option is deactivated by default. •“Send Still Command instead of Stop”. Many video tape machines will not display an image when in stop mode as the tape is typically retracted from the playback heads in this mode. Using a still or pause com- mand instead will allow most video tape machines to display the current frame of video while paused. Many video tape machines have internal settings that affect this as well, allowing images to be displayed in stop mode. •“Allow machine controlled cycle”. Nuendo can behave in two ways when in cycle mode and using machine control. When this option is not activated, Nuendo will begin the cycle normally from the left locator. But when it gets to the right locator, Nuendo will go back to the left locator to start the cycle again while the tape machine (or other external transport) will continue on until stop is pressed. When this option is activated, once Nuendo reaches the right locator, playback will stop on both the machine and in Nuendo. Both will locate back to the left locator and begin playback automatically. This will continue until stop is pressed. Also, if there are pre and post roll values activated in the Transport panel, Nuendo will in- clude these in the cycle, playing past the right locator by the post-roll amount and then locating to a point before the left locator by the pre-roll amount and playing from there. The tape machine will follow all of this in sync.
NUENDO Synchronization 25 – 593 Audio Layback for 9-Pin Devices Nuendo has some special features for working with 9-Pin devices (typically video decks). These allow you to transfer audio to the 9-Pin device by recording it from Nuendo, manually or automatically. A typi- cal application would be audio layback – if you have edited audio for a video in Nuendo and want to transfer the audio back to the audio track(s) in the video deck, at the correct positions. This assumes that Machine Control of the 9-Pin device has been set up, and that the proper audio connections have been made for recording audio from Nuendo to the 9-Pin device. 1.Open the Device Setup dialog and select the 9-Pin device (1 or 2) in the Device list. 2.Make sure the Number of Audio Tracks value is correct. This should be set to the number of audio tracks in the 9-Pin device. The maximum number of audio tracks supported is 48. • If you have activated the “Try to Recognize Device” option and the 9-Pin Device model is known to Nuendo, the number of audio tracks is auto- matically set to the correct value. 3.Close the Device Setup dialog. 4.Select “9-Pin Device 1” (or 2, depending on your connections and setup) from the Devices menu. The control panel for the 9-Pin Device appears. The numbered buttons to the left correspond to the set number of audio tracks. 5.Make sure the Online button is not activated. 6.To record enable an audio track in the 9-Pin device, click the corre- sponding numbered button in the panel. The button lights up, indicating that the corresponding audio track is record enabled.
NUENDO 25 – 594 Synchronization 7.Set the locators in Nuendo to encompass the audio section you want to transfer. 8.Click the Auto Edit button in the 9-Pin device panel. This is the button to the right of the transport controls. •If the Auto Edit function is supported by the 9-Pin device, the device will automatically go to a position just before the left locator, start playback, activate recording at the left locator and punch out at the right locator. Assuming you have connected the proper outputs from Nuendo to the correct inputs of the tape machine, the audio section will be played back in Nuendo and recorded on the audio tracks of the 9-Pin device. •If the Auto Edit function is not supported by the 9-Pin device, you have to activate recording “manually”. Use the 9-Pin device control panel transport (or the main Transport panel) to rewind to a position before the left locator, activate automatic punch-in and punch-out and start playback. If no Nuendo tracks are record enabled, recording will only be performed by the 9-Pin device. Please consult the documentation for the 9-Pin device for information about whether the Auto Edit function is supported or not. Options Making Project Settings About Frame Rates The frame rate is the number of frames per second in a film or on a video tape. Just as there is always sixty seconds to a minute, there is always a certain number of frames to each second. However, the frame rate used varies with the type of media (film or video), which country the video tape has been produced in, and other circumstances.
NUENDO Synchronization 25 – 595 In the Project Setup dialog are two settings for frame rates: •The Frame Rate pop-up is automatically adjusted to the frame rate of the incoming timecode. There is an exception to this when you are synchronizing Nuendo to MIDI Timecode: If you have selected 29.97 fps or 30 dfps as Frame Rate in Nuendo, this selection will be kept, since these frame rates are not included in the MTC format. The Project Setup dialog contains six frame rates to choose from: •The Display Format pop-up contains a number of formats that when selected work as the “master” setting for the display format used in the various windows’ rulers and position displays. The item “60 fps (user)” on this menu represents a user definable frame rate. To make editing with frame accuracy correspond to the actual frame rate in an external sync source, you need to set this frame rate to the same value as the Frame Rate pop-up. Proceed as follows: 1.Open the Preferences dialog (accessed from the File menu under Win- dows or the Nuendo menu on the Mac) and select the Transport page. 2.Enter the desired frame rate under “User Definable Framerate”. Either type the desired value directly or use the arrow buttons to increase/decrease the value. You can enter any value between 2-200. Frame Rate Description 24 fps The traditional frame rate of 35mm film. 25 fps The frame rate used for all video and audio in Europe (EBU). 29.97 fps Straight 29.97 frames per second. 30 fps Straight 30 frames per second. This is often used in the United States for audio only work. 29.97 dfps “Drop frame” code running at 29.97 frames per second, most often used in the United States of America for work with color video. 30 dfps Very rarely used.
NUENDO 25 – 596 Synchronization 3.When you’re done, click OK to close the dialog and save the settings. The Frame Rate you specified will now be the one used when you se- lect “60 fps (user)” in the Display Format pop-up. Sync Options The following options are available in the Application section in the Synchronization Setup dialog: Drop Out Frames On an analog tape with timecode, dropouts may occur. If a drop-out is very long, Nuendo may (temporarily) stop. In the Dropout Time field you can set how long a drop-out (in frames) should be tolerated until Nuendo decides that the tape isn't good enough to synchronize to. If you have a very stable timecode source, you may lower this number to make Nuendo stop more swiftly after the tape recorder has been stopped. Lock Frames Using this field you can set how many frames of “correct” timecode Nuendo should receive before attempting to “lock” (synchronize) to incoming timecode. If you have an external tape transport with a very short start-up time, you could try lowering this number to make lock- up even faster than it already is. Inhibit Restart Some synchronizers will still transmit MIDI Time Code for a short pe- riod after an external tape machine has been stopped. These extra frames of timecode can sometimes cause Nuendo to restart suddenly. Inhibit Restart allows you to control the amount of time in milliseconds that Nuendo will wait to restart (ignoring incoming MTC) once it has stopped.
NUENDO 26 – 598 VST System Link Introduction VST System Link is a network system for digital audio that allows you to have several computers working together in one large system. Un- like conventional networks it does not require Ethernet cards, hubs, or CAT-5 cables; instead it uses the kind of digital audio hardware and cables you probably already possess in your studio. VST System Link has been designed to be simple to set up and oper- ate, yet give enormous flexibility and performance gains in use. It is ca- pable of linking computers in a “ring” network (the System Link signal is passed from one machine to the next, and eventually returns to the first machine). VST System Link can send its networking signal over any type of digital audio cable, including S/PDIF, ADAT, TDIF, or AES, as long as each computer in the system is equipped with a suitable ASIO compatible audio interface. So, why would you want to link up two or more computers? Well, the added computer power gives you vast possibilities: • Dedicate one computer to running VST instruments while recording audio tracks on another. • If you need lots of audio tracks, you may simply add tracks on another com- puter. • You could have one computer serve as a “virtual effect rack”, running CPU- intensive send effect plug-ins only. • Since you can use VST System Link to connect different VST System Link ap- plications on different platforms, you can take advantage of effect plug-ins and VST instruments that are specific to certain programs or platforms. This chapter describes how to set up and use VST System Link in Nuendo.
NUENDO VST System Link 26 – 599 Preparations Requirements The following equipment is required for VST System Link operation: •Two or more computers. These can be of the same type or use different operating systems – it doesn’t matter. For example, you can link an Intel-based PC to an Apple Macintosh without problems. •Each computer must have audio hardware with specific ASIO drivers, installed and working. •The audio hardware must have digital inputs and outputs. Of course, to be able to connect the computers the digital connections must be com- patible (i.e. the same digital formats and connection types must be available). •At least one digital audio cable for each computer in the network. •A VST System Link host application installed on each computer. As of this writing, VST System Link is implemented for Nuendo (version 1.6 or later), Cubase SX/SL and Cubase 5.2s (System Link version). Any VST System Link applica- tions can connect to each other. Additionally, we recommend that you use a KVM switchbox: Using a KVM switchbox If you want to set up a multi-computer network, or even a small net- work in a limited space, it's a good idea to invest in a KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switchbox. With one of these switchers you can use the same keyboard, monitor, and mouse to control each computer in the system, and switch between computers very rapidly. KVM switch- ers are not too expensive, and very easy to setup and operate. It you decide not to go this route, the network will function just the same, but you may end up doing a lot of jumping from one machine to the other while setting up!
NUENDO 26 – 600 VST System Link Making connections Below, we will assume that you are connecting two computers. Should you have more than two computers, it’s still best to start with two and add the others one by one once the system is working – this makes troubleshooting easier if you run into problems. For two com- puters, you will need two digital audio cables, one in each direction: 1.Connect a digital audio cable from the digital output of Computer 1 to the digital input of Computer 2. 2.Connect the other cable from the digital output of Computer 2 into the digital input of Computer 1. •If a card has more than one set of inputs and outputs, choose which- ever one that suits you – for simplicity usually the first set is best. Setting up clock sync Before you proceed you need to make sure that the clock signals on your ASIO cards are synchronized correctly. This is essential when cabling any kind of digital audio system, not just VST System Link. All digital audio cables by definition always carry a clock signal as well as audio signals, so you don't need to use a special Word Clock input and output for this (although you may find that you get a slightly more stable audio system if you do, especially when using multiple computers). The Clock Mode or Sync Mode is set up in the audio hardware’s ASIO control panel. In Nuendo, you proceed as follows: 1.Pull down the Devices menu and open the Device Setup dialog. 2.Select your audio interface from the VST Audiobay subpage. 3.Click the Control Panel button. The ASIO control panel appears. 4.Open the ASIO control panel on the other computer as well. If you are using another VST System Link host application on that computer, check its documentation for details on how to open the ASIO control panel.