Steinberg Nuendo 4 Operation Manual

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Audio processing and functions
The Offline Process History dialog
Procedures
If you want to remove some or all processing from a clip, 
this can be done in the Offline Process History dialog. 
Processing that can be modified in the Offline Process 
History dialog includes the functions on the Process 
menu, any applied plug-in effects, and Sample Editor op-
erations such as Cut, Paste, Delete and drawing with the 
Pencil tool.
ÖDue to the clip-file relationship (see “Background” on 
page 239), it is even possible to modify or remove some 
processing “in the middle” of the Process History, while 
keeping later processing! This feature depends on the type 
of processing performed (see “Restrictions” on page 251).
Proceed as follows:
1.Select the clip in the Pool or one of its events in the 
Project window.
You can see which clips have been processed by checking the Status 
column in the Pool – the waveform symbol indicates that processing or 
effects have been applied to the clip (see “About the Status column sym-
bols” on page 299).
2.Select “Offline Process History…” from the Audio 
menu.
The Offline Process History dialog appears.
The left part of the dialog contains a list of all processing 
you have added to the clip, with the most recent opera-
tions at the bottom of the list. The “Start” and “Length” 
columns indicate which section of the clip was affected by 
each operation. The “Status” column indicates if the oper-
ation can be modified or undone.
3.Locate the operation you want to edit and select it by 
clicking on it in the list.To modify the settings of the selected processing, click 
the “Modify” button.
This opens the dialog for the processing function or applied effect, allow-
ing you to change the settings. This works just as when you applied the 
processing or effect the first time.
To replace the selected operation with another pro-
cessing function or effect, select the desired function from 
the pop-up menu and click the “Replace By” button.
If the selected function has settings, a dialog will appear as usual. The 
original operation will then be removed and the new processing will be 
inserted in the Offline Process History.
To remove the selected operation, click the “Remove” 
button.
The processing is removed from the clip.
To undo the selected operation and remove the pro-
cessing from the clip click the “Deactivate” button.
The processing is removed from the clip, but the operation remains in the 
list. To redo the operation and apply the processing again, click the but-
ton, now renamed to “Activate”, again.
To save the list of processing operations as a Batch 
Process, click the “Save As Batch” button.
See “Batch Processing” on page 252.
4.Click “Close” to close the dialog.
Restrictions
If there are no settings for the processing function, you 
cannot modify it.
If you have applied processing that changes the length 
of the clip (such as Cut, Insert or Time Stretch), you can 
only remove this if it is the most recent processing in the 
Offline Process History (at the bottom of the list in the di-
alog). If an operation cannot be removed or modified, this 
is indicated by an icon in the “Status” column. Also, the 
corresponding buttons will be grayed out.
The list must contain at least two processing operations 
in order to be saved as a Batch Process (see “Batch Pro-
cessing” on page 252. 
						

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Audio processing and functions
Batch Processing
Nuendo features a Batch Processing function that lets you 
apply a chain of audio processing to one or several events 
in one go – in either the Project window or the Pool. Batch 
Processing is based on operations in the Offline Process 
History dialog, described above. That is, the list of applied 
processes in this dialog is what can be made to constitute 
a batch process.
Batch Processing is therefore a convenient way to apply 
the same effects with the same settings to several audio 
events in a project.
It can also be used to “store” effect settings for future use. 
You may for example have performed a series of elaborate 
audio processing with a good result, and want to retain 
the particular combination and settings of effects you ap-
plied, so that you may quickly and easily apply them again 
to other events in the future.
To set up a batch process, proceed as follows:
1.Apply the desired processing to an audio event or se-
lection range in the project.
Note that you must apply at least two audio processes to be able to set 
up a batch process.
From here, there are two ways to go:
2.Pull down the Audio menu, and from the Batch Pro-
cesses submenu, select “Create from Process History…”.
3.In the dialog that appears, type in a name for the batch 
process, and click OK.
or…
4.Pull down the Audio menu and select “Offline Process 
History”.
The Offline Process History dialog opens. In this dialog you can modify 
settings or remove operations as desired (see “The Offline Process His-
tory dialog” on page 251).
5.In the Process History Dialog, click “Save As Batch”, 
and then type in a name for the batch process in the dia-
log that appears and click OK.
Regardless of which of the above two methods you use, 
the batch process is now saved and available for use:
6.In the Project window, select all the audio events you 
want to process.
You can also make a selection range that spans multiple tracks and 
batch process the selection for all the audio events.
7.Pull down the Audio menu and open the Batch Pro-
cesses submenu.
At the top of the menu you can now find the name of the batch process 
you created. The menu will list the names of any batch processes you 
create, until you delete them (see below).
8.Select the batch process you want to apply from the 
menu.
All the selected events will now be processed accordingly.
ÖNote that even if you clear the Offline Process History 
dialog of all the operations that make up a batch process, 
this will not affect the saved batch process. It will still con-
tain and perform the operations on which it was based 
when created. 
						

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Audio processing and functions
Managing Batch Processes
You can delete and rename created batch processes in 
the Manage Batch Processes dialog.
Open the Audio menu and select “Manage…” from the 
Batch Processes submenu to open the Manage Batch 
Processes dialog.
The created batch processes are listed in the left column, and the oper-
ations each batch process contains are listed in the right column.
To remove a batch process, just select it in the list and 
click “Delete”.
To change the name of a batch process, select it in the 
list and click “Rename” and enter the new name.
Freeze Edits
The Freeze Edits function on the Audio menu allows you 
to make all processing and applied effects permanent for 
a clip:
1.Select the clip in the Pool or one of its events in the 
Project window.
2.Select “Freeze Edits…” from the Audio menu.
If there is only one edit version of the clip (no other clips 
refer to the same audio file), the following dialog will ap-
pear:
If you select “Replace”, all edits will be applied to the original audio file 
(the one listed in the clip’s Path column in the Pool). If you select “New 
File”, the Freeze Edits operation will create a new file in the Audio folder 
within the project folder (leaving the original audio file unaffected).
If the selected clip (or the clip played by the selected 
event) has several edit versions (i.e. there are other clips 
referring to the same audio file), the following alert will ap-
pear:
As you can see, you don’t have the option to Replace the original audio 
file in this case. This is because that audio file is used by other clips. Se-
lect “New File” to have a new file created in the Audio folder within the 
project folder.
!After a Freeze Edits, the clip refers to a new, single 
audio file. If you open the Offline Process History di-
alog for the clip, the list will be empty. 
						

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Audio processing and functions
Detect Silence
The Detect Silence function on the Advanced submenu of 
the Audio menu searches for silent sections in an event 
and either splits the event, removing the silent parts from 
the project, or creates regions corresponding to the non-
silent sections. Proceed as follows:
1.Select the event in the Project window or the Audio 
Part Editor.
You can select several events if you like, in which case you will be al-
lowed to make separate settings for each selected event.
2.Select “Detect Silence” from the Advanced submenu 
of the Audio menu.
The Detect Silence dialog appears.
3.Adjust the settings in the Detection section to the left.
They have the following functionality:
4.Click the “Compute” button.
The audio event is analyzed, and the waveform display is redrawn to indi-
cate which sections will be considered “silent”, according to your set-
tings. Above the Compute Button the number of detected regions is 
displayed.
If you activate the “auto” checkbox next to the Compute 
button, the audio event will be analyzed (and the display 
will be updated) automatically every time you change the 
settings in the Detection section of the dialog.
Please note that you should not activate this option when you are work-
ing with very long files, as this process might take some time.
Setting Description
Open
ThresholdWhen the audio level exceeds this value, the function will 
“open”, i.e. let the sound through.
Set this low enough to open when a sound starts, but 
high enough to remove unwanted noise during “silent” 
sections.
Close 
ThresholdWhen the audio level drops below this value, the function 
will “close”. This value cannot be higher than the Open 
Threshold value. 
Set this high enough to remove unwanted noise during 
“silent” sections.
Linked If this checkbox is ticked, Open and Close Threshold will 
have the same value.
min. time 
openDetermines the minimum time that the function will re-
main “open” after the audio level has exceeded the Open 
Threshold value.
If the audio contains repeated short sounds, and you find 
that this results in too many short “open” sections, try 
raising this value.
min. time 
closedDetermines the minimum time that the function will re-
main “closed” after the audio level has dropped below 
the Close Threshold value.
Usually you would want to set this to a low value, to avoid 
removing sounds.
Pre-Roll Allows you to have the function “open” slightly before the 
audio level exceeds the Open Threshold value. In other 
words, the start of each “open” section is moved to the 
left according to the time you set here.
This is useful to avoid removing the attack of sounds.
Post-Roll Allows you to have the function “close” slightly after the 
audio level drops below the Close Threshold value.
This is useful to avoid removing the natural decay of 
sounds. Setting Description 
						

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Audio processing and functions
You can use the Preview function to listen to the result.
The event is played back repeatedly in its entire length, but with the 
“closed” sections silenced.
5.Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you are satisfied with the 
result.
6.Select the desired result, by activating either the “Add 
as Regions” or the “Strip Silence” checkbox, or both.
“Add as Regions” will create regions according to the non-silent sec-
tions. “Strip Silence” will split the event at the start and end of each non-
silent section, and remove the silent sections in between.
7.If you activate “Add as Regions”, you can specify a 
name for the Regions in the Region Name field.
In addition to the name, the regions will be numbered, starting with the 
number specified in the Auto Number Start field.
8.Click “Process”.
The event is split and/or regions are added.
The result of the “Strip Silence” option.
If you selected more than one event in step 1 above, you 
can activate the “process all” checkbox to apply the same 
settings to all selected events. If you don’t activate this, 
the dialog will appear again, allowing you to make sepa-
rate settings for each event.
The Spectrum Analyzer
This function analyzes the selected audio, computes the 
average “spectrum” (level distribution over the frequency 
range) and displays this as a two-dimensional graph, with 
frequency on the x-axis and level on the y-axis.
1.Make an audio selection (a clip, an event or a range se-
lection).
2.Select “Spectrum Analyzer” from the Audio menu.
A dialog with settings for the analysis appears.
The default values give good results in most situations, but 
you can adjust the settings if you like:
Setting Description
Size in Samples The function divides the audio into “analysis blocks”, the 
size of which is set here. The larger this value, the higher 
the frequency resolution of the resulting spectrum.
Size of Overlap The overlap between each analysis block.
Window used Allows you to select which window type should be used 
for the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform, the mathematical 
method used for computing the spectrum). 
Normalized 
ValuesWhen this is activated, the resulting level values are 
scaled, so that the highest level is displayed as “1” 
(0 dB).
From Stereo When analyzing stereo material, there is a pop-up menu 
with the following options:
Mono mix – the stereo signal is mixed to mono before an-
alyzing.
Mono left/right – the left or right channel signal is used 
for analysis.
Stereo – both channels are analyzed (two separate spec-
trums will be displayed). 
						

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Audio processing and functions
3.Click the “Process” button.
The spectrum is computed and displayed as a graph.
4.You can adjust the display with the settings in the dis-
play window:
5.If you move the mouse pointer over the graph, a 
crosshair cursor follows the graph curve and the display in 
the upper right corner shows the frequency/note and level 
at the current position.
To compare the level between two frequencies, move the pointer to one 
of the frequencies, right-click once and move the pointer to the second 
frequency. The delta value (the difference in level between the current 
position and the right-click position) is displayed in the upper right corner 
(labeled “D”).
If you analyze stereo audio and selected the “Stereo” op-
tion in the first dialog, the graphs for the left and right chan-
nel are superimposed in the display, with the left channel 
graph in white and the right channel graph in yellow.
The display in the upper right corner shows the values for the left channel 
– to see the right channel values, hold down [Shift]. An “L” or “R” is dis-
played to indicate which channel values are shown.
6.You can leave the window open or close it by clicking 
the “Close” button.
If you leave it open and the “Active” checkbox is ticked, the result of the 
next Spectrum Analysis will be displayed in the same window.
Statistics
The Statistics function on the Audio menu analyzes the 
selected audio (events, clips or range selections) and dis-
plays a window with the following information:
Setting Description
dB When this is activated, the vertical axis shows dB values. 
When it is deactivated, values between 0 and 1 are 
shown.
Freq. log When this is activated, frequencies (on the horizontal 
axis) are displayed on a logarithmic scale. When it is de-
activated, the frequency axis is linear.
Precision Indicates the frequency resolution of the graph. This 
value cannot be changed here, but is governed by the 
Size in Samples setting in the previous dialog.
Frequency/
NoteAllows you to select whether you want the frequencies to 
be displayed in Hertz or with note names.
Min. Sets the lowest frequency shown in the graph.
Max. Sets the highest frequency shown in the graph. By ad-
justing the Min and Max values, you can take a closer look 
at a smaller frequency range.
Active When this is activated, the next Spectrum Analysis will 
appear in the same window. When deactivated, new 
Spectrum Analysis results will appear in separate win-
dows.
Item Description
Min. Sample 
ValueThe lowest sample value in the selection, as a value be-
tween -1 and 1 and in dB.
Max. Sample 
ValueThe highest sample value in the selection, as a value be-
tween -1 and 1 and in dB.
Peak Amplitude The largest sample value (in absolute numbers) in the se-
lection, in dB.
DC Offset The amount of DC Offset (see “Remove DC Offset” on 
page 247) in the selection, as a percentage and in dB.
Estimated 
ResolutionEven though an audio file is in 16 or 24 bits, it may have 
been converted from a lower resolution. The Estimated 
Resolution value makes an educated guess about the ac-
tual audio resolution, by computing the smallest level dif-
ference between two samples. 
						

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Audio processing and functions Estimated Pitch The estimated pitch of the audio selection.
Sample Rate The sample rate of the audio selection.
Min. RMS 
PowerThe lowest loudness (RMS) measured in the selection.
Max. RMS 
PowerThe highest loudness (RMS) measured in the selection.
Average The average loudness over the whole selection. Item Description 
						

							18
The Sample Editor 
						

							259
The Sample Editor
Background
The Sample Editor allows you to view and manipulate au-
dio at the audio clip level, by cutting and pasting, removing 
or drawing audio data, processing or applying effects (see 
“Audio processing and functions” on page 238). This ed-
iting can be called “non-destructive”, in the sense that you 
can undo changes or revert to the original versions at any 
time, using the Offline Process History (see “The Offline 
Process History dialog” on page 251), and because the 
actual audio file (if created or imported from outside the 
project) will remain untouched.
The Sample Editor also contains most of the Audio Warp 
related functions, i.e. the realtime time-stretching and 
pitch-shifting functions in Nuendo. These are useful to e.g. 
tempo-match any audio loop to the project tempo (see 
“Audio Warp realtime processing / Tempo matching audio 
to the project tempo” on page 272).
Another special feature of the Sample Editor is hitpoint 
detection. Hitpoints allow you to create “slices”, that are 
useful, if you want to e.g. change the tempo without af-
fecting the pitch (see “Working with hitpoints and slices” 
on page 278).
Opening the Sample Editor
You open the Sample Editor by double-clicking an audio 
event in the Project window or the Audio Part Editor, or by 
double-clicking an audio clip in the Pool. You can have 
more than one Sample Editor open at the same time.
Note that double-clicking an audio part in the Project 
window will open the Audio Part Editor, even if the part 
only contains a single audio event.
This is described in a separate chapter, see “The Audio Part Editor” on 
page 290. 
						

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The Sample Editor
Window overview
The Elements menu
If you right-click in the Sample Editor to bring up the 
Quick menu, you will find a submenu called “Elements”. 
By activating or deactivating options on this submenu, you 
specify what is shown in the editor window. Some of 
these options are also available as icons on the toolbar.
The toolbar
The toolbar contains the tools…
… and information about the edited audio clip:
The Sample Editor tools Audition, Loop & 
Volume controls
Show 
regions
Autoscroll
Show InspectorUse SnapShow Au-
dio event
Global Transport status
Audio format and length
Realtime status
Selected display format 
(for info line and ruler)
Current selection range
Number of edits 
made to the clip
Zoom factor