Steinberg Nuendo 3 Operation Manual
Have a look at the manual Steinberg Nuendo 3 Operation Manual online for free. It’s possible to download the document as PDF or print. UserManuals.tech offer 523 Steinberg manuals and user’s guides for free. Share the user manual or guide on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
NUENDO VST System Link 26 – 611 Application examples Using one computer for VST instruments In this example, you are using one computer as your main record and playback machine, and want to use another computer as a virtual synth rack. 1.Record a MIDI track into Computer 1. 2.Once you have finished recording, route the MIDI output of that track to System Link MIDI port 1. 3.Now go to Computer 2, open up the VST Instrument rack and assign an instrument to the first slot in the rack. 4.Route the VST Instrument channel to the desired output bus. If you are using Computer 1 as your main mixing computer, this would be one of the VST System Link output busses, connected to Computer 1. 5.Create a new MIDI track in the Project window of Computer 2, and assign the MIDI output of the track to the VST Instrument you created. 6.Assign the MIDI input of the track to be VST System Link port 1. Now, the MIDI track on Computer 1 is routed to the MIDI track on Computer 2, which in turn is routed to the VST Instrument. 7.Now activate monitoring for the MIDI track on Computer 2, so that it will listen and respond to any MIDI commands coming in. In Nuendo, you would click the monitor button in the Track list or Inspector. 8.Press play on Computer 1. It will now send the MIDI information on the track to the VST Instrument loaded on Computer 2. Even with a slow computer you should be able to stack a whole bunch of extra VST Instruments this way, expanding your sound palette con- siderably. Don't forget that VST System Link MIDI is also sample ac- curate, and thus has much tighter timing than any hardware MIDI interface ever invented!
NUENDO 26 – 612 VST System Link Creating a virtual effect rack The effect sends for an audio channel in Nuendo can either be routed to an FX channel track or to any activated Group or output bus. This allows you to use a separate computer as a “virtual effect rack”, by setting things up in the following way: 1.Go to Computer 2 (the machine you will use as effect rack) and add a new stereo audio track. You cannot use an FX channel track in this case, since the track must have an audio input. 2.Add the desired effect as an insert effect for the track. Let’s say you add a high-quality reverb plug-in. 3.In the Inspector, select one of the VST System Link busses as input for the audio track. You want to use a separate System Link bus, which will only be used for this purpose. 4.Route the channel to the desired output bus. If you are using Computer 1 as your main mixing computer, this would be one of the VST System Link output busses, connected to Computer 1. 5.Activate monitoring for the track. 6.Now, go back to Computer 1 and select a track to which you want to add some reverb. 7.Bring up the effect sends for the track, in the Inspector or the mixer. 8.Pull down the send routing pop-up menu for one of the sends, and select the VST System Link bus assigned to the reverb in step 3. 9.Use the send slider to adjust the amount of effect as usual. The signal will be sent to the track on Computer 2 and processed through its insert effect, without using any processor power on Com- puter 1. You can repeat the steps above to add more effects to the “virtual ef- fect rack”. The number of effects available this way is only limited by the number of ports used in the VST System Link connection (and of course by the performance of Computer 2, but given that it won’t have to handle any recording or playback, you should be able to use quite a lot of effects).
NUENDO VST System Link 26 – 613 Getting extra audio tracks All computers on a VST System Link network are locked with sample accuracy. Therefore, if you find that the hard drive on one computer isn’t fast enough to run as many audio tracks as you need, you could record new tracks on one of the other computers instead. This would create a “virtual RAID system”, with several disks all operating to- gether. All tracks will remain locked together just as tightly as if they were all running on the same machine. This means that you effectively have an unlimited track count! Need another 100 tracks? Just add an- other computer. Dedicated Video Playback Playback of high-resolution video can be taxing on a system’s CPU. By dedicating one computer for video playback via System Link, you can free up resources on your main CPU for audio and MIDI process- ing. Since all transport commands will respond on the System Link computers, scrubbing video is possible even when it is coming from another computer. Spotting sound effects to picture in Edit Mode will work the same way as it does on one computer. This is a viable and economic alternative to dedicated hard disk video systems like the Doremi V1.
NUENDO 27 – 616 Video Background Video support in Nuendo Nuendo plays back video films in a number of formats. Under Windows, video playback can be done using the playback engines DirectShow, DirectX Video or Quicktime. Under Mac OS X, Quicktime is always used as playback engine. There are several ways to play back video: •Without any special hardware. While this will be fine in many situations it does put a limit on the size of the internal video window as well as the quality of the image. • Using FireWire (Mac OS X) Using a FireWire port, you can play back video on an external monitor using a DV-to- analog converter or a DV camera. This is valid for DV video and QuickTime is used for playback and can reduce the load on the CPU since the external device is decoding the DV video stream. •Using Graphics cards (Windows). Multi-head graphics cards which support overlay functionality can be used to display the video picture on an external monitor. As of this writing, the following manufacturers have working solutions available: nVIDIA and Matrox. •Using Video cards. Video cards can also be used to display the video on an external monitor. Please note that this utilizes some of the CPU to process the video data. As of this writing, the fol- lowing cards can be used: Mac OS X: Decklink (Blackmagic) Windows: Liquid Chrome (Pinnacle Systems) and Decklink (Blackmagic).
NUENDO Video 27 – 617 Operations About the video playback engine In Nuendo for Windows, you select a playback engine in the Device Setup - Video Player page. What playback engine to select depends largely on which type of video system you are using, as well as on the file format and codec of the video files you want to work with. • As a general rule, Nuendo should be able to use a certain video file, if the native video player on your system (Windows Media Player on the PC or Quicktime Player on the Mac) can play this file. Make sure to read the section “Before you start” on page 625. • Generally, you can expect most Windows hardware to work with Direct- Show and DirectX Video. On a Windows system, the DirectShow and DirectX Video players are provided by the operating system, you don’t have to install any additional software. Make sure you are using the latest version of DirectX software available from Microsoft’s website. • For the Quicktime playback method to be available, you must have QuickTime installed on your computer. There is a freeware version (a QuickTime installer is included on the Nuendo DVD if re- quired, or you can download it from www.quicktime.com) and a “pro” version, which offers additional video cutting options. The player engine is the same in both versions, so for mere playback in Nuendo there is no need to purchase the “pro” version. Under Mac OS X, there is only one standard player option. The Quick- time playback engine is always used, supporting the formats AVI, MPEG, QuickTime and DV. If your system has a FireWire port, there is also a FireWire option – see below.
NUENDO 27 – 618 Video Importing a video file Video files are imported in the same manner as audio files. •By using the File menu (Import Video File). •By using drag and drop. •By importing to the Pool first and then dragging to the Project window (see the chapter “The Pool” for details). Note: • To be able to play back the video, you must add a video track (by using the Add Track submenu on the Project menu or Quick menu). You can only have one video track in each project. • You can have multiple video files on the track but all files must be of the same size and compression format. • You may trim video files in the project window as needed, adjusting the event boundaries as you would for an audio event. • The Import submenu on the File menu has an option for extracting the audio from a video file – see page 623. Adopting the Video Framerate When using video files within Nuendo, it is important to set the project’s framerate to that of the imported video. This ensures that the time displayed in the SMPTE readout of Nuendo corresponds to the actual frames in the video. 1.Pull down the Project menu and select “Project Setup...” (or press [Shift]+S) to open the Project Setup dialog. 2.If a video file has been placed on a video track in the Project window, a button now appears in the framerate section of the Project Setup di- alog called “Get From Video.” This will automatically detect the frame- rate of the video file and apply that setting to the project. The framerate setting will change to that of the video file and the project start time will be altered to reflect the change in framerate if needed. For example, when switching the project framerate from 30fps to 29.97fps, the start time will be changed so that all the events currently in the project will remain at the same positions in relation to realtime. If you want the project start time to remain the same, you must manually change it back after pressing the “Get From Video” button.
NUENDO Video 27 – 619 Playing back a video file Video files are displayed as events/clips on the video track, with thumbnails representing the frames in the film (if the option Show Video Thumbnails is activated in the Preferences). A video event on a video track. In the track list and Inspector, you will find two options for how the thumbnails should be shown: To view the video on the computer screen (as opposed to on an exter- nal monitor, see below), proceed as follows: •First open the Device Setup dialog from the Devices menu, click Video Player in the list and make sure “Onscreen Window” is se- lected in the Video Output section of the dialog. •Pull down the Devices menu and select Video (or use a key command – by default [F8]). A video window appears. In Stop mode, this displays the video frame at the project cursor position. Playback of the video is performed together with all other audio and MIDI material, using the Transport panel. Button Description Show Frame NumbersWhen this is activated, each thumbnail is shown with the corre- sponding video frame number. Snap Thumbnails When this is activated, the individual thumbnail images will be positioned exactly at their respective start time position. Also, no more than one thumbnail per frame will be shown, even if you zoom in a lot.
NUENDO 27 – 620 Video Setting the Window size If you are playing back video in a window on your computer screen, you may want to adjust the size: •If you are using Direct Show, open the Device Setup dialog from the Devices menu, click Video Player in the list and use the Video Win- dow buttons to select a size. •If you are using DirectX or QuickTime, the window is fully sizable: Just click and drag its’ edges to adjust the window size. Playing back video in full screen mode When viewing video on the computer screen you can choose to let the video occupy the whole screen, during playback or in Stop mode: •Right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) in the video window to switch to full screen. Click again to exit full screen. Disabling Video Playback In the track list area and Inspector of a video track, there is a mute but- ton. (Note that this can be hidden for the track list area, see page page 680.) When you mute a video track, the video will not play and the CPU resources it used will be freed up for other purposes. When per- forming complex editing tasks that do not require watching the video, temporarily muting the video track can help speed up performance of Nuendo by reducing the strain on the CPU. Using Video Pull-up and Pull-down Using either the DirectX or the Quicktime player, it is possible to play- back movie files at a slightly different speed than normal (+/- 0.1%) in order to compensate for speed changes made during a film transfer or telecine process. When film is transferred to NTSC video tape, a process known as 2- 3 pull-down occurs that allows film at 24 frames per second (fps) to be transferred to video at 29.97 fps in a regular manner. This process requires that the film be slowed down by 0.1% in order to have a di- rect mathematical relationship to the video tape’s framerate. To keep the audio in sync with the video, it too must be slowed down by the same amount.