Steinberg Nuendo 5 Manual

91
Recording
Background
This chapter describes the various recording methods 
that you can use in Nuendo. As it is possible to record 
both audio and MIDI tracks, both recording methods are 
covered in this chapter.
Before you start
This chapter assumes that you are reasonably familiar with 
certain basic recording concepts, and that the following 
initial preparations have been made:
•You have properly set up, connected and calibrated 
your audio hardware. 
•You have opened a project and set the project...

92
Recording
Manually activating recording
You activate recording by clicking the Record button on 
the Transport panel or toolbar or by using the correspond
-
ing key command (by default [*] on the numeric keypad).
Recording can be activated in Stop mode (from the current 
cursor position or from the left locator) or during playback:
•If you activate recording in Stop mode, and the “Start 
Record at Left Locator” option is activated on the Trans
-
port menu, recording will start from the left locator....

93
Recording
•To record in cycle mode, you can start recording from 
the left locator, from before the locators or from within the 
cycle, in Stop mode or during playback.
As soon as the project cursor reaches the right locator, it will jump back 
to the left locator and continue recording a new lap.
•The results of cycle recording depend on the selected 
cycle record mode and are different for audio (see 
“Re-
cording audio in cycle mode” on page 99) and MIDI (see 
“Recording MIDI in cycle mode” on page...

94
Recording
•The higher the bit resolution, the larger the files and the 
more strain is put on the disk system.
If this is an issue, you may want to lower the record format setting.
RAM requirements for recording
When recording live music performances, or during large 
postproduction projects, you will often simultaneously 
record on a large number of tracks at the same time.
Each track on which you record requires a certain amount 
of RAM, and the memory usage increases the longer the 
recording...

95
Recording
•In the Inspector, you select an input bus on the Input 
Routing pop-up menu in the top section.
As described in the section “The Inspector” on page 41, the Inspector 
shows the settings for the selected track.
•In the Mixer, you select an input bus on the Input Rout-
ing pop-up menu at the top of the track’s channel strip.
If this pop-up menu is not shown, you need to open the Mixer Routing 
View by clicking the “Show Routing” button in the extended Mixer com
-mon panel or by selecting...

96
Recording
Setting input levels
When recording digital sound, it is important to set the in-
put levels correctly – loud enough to ensure low noise and 
high audio quality, but not so loud that clipping (digital dis
-
tortion) occurs.
Clipping typically occurs in the audio hardware when a 
too loud analog signal is converted to digital in the hard
-
ware’s A/D converters. 
•It is also possible to get clipping when the signal from 
the input bus is written to a file on your hard disk.
This is because in...

97
Recording
Monitoring
In this context, “monitoring” means listening to the input 
signal during recording. There are three fundamentally dif
-
ferent ways to do this: via Nuendo, externally (by listening 
to the signal before it reaches Nuendo), or by using ASIO 
Direct Monitoring (which is a combination of both other 
methods – see below).
Monitoring via Nuendo
If you monitor via Nuendo, the input signal is mixed in with 
the audio playback. The advantage of this is that you can 
adjust the monitoring...

98
Recording
ASIO Direct Monitoring
If your audio hardware is ASIO 2.0 compatible, it may sup-
port ASIO Direct Monitoring (this feature may also be avail-
able for audio hardware with Mac OS X drivers). In this 
mode, the actual monitoring is done in the audio hardware, 
by sending the input signal back out again. However, moni
-
toring is controlled from Nuendo. This means that the audio 
hardware’s direct monitoring feature can be turned on or off 
automatically by Nuendo, just as when using internal...

99
Recording
•In “Normal” or “Merge” mode, recording where some-
thing has already been recorded creates a new audio 
event that overlaps the previous one(s).
When you record audio, there is no difference between “Normal” and 
“Merge” mode – the difference only applies to MIDI recording (see 
“About overlap and the Record Mode setting” on page 104).
•In “Replace” mode, existing events (or portions of 
events) that are overlapped by the new recording will be 
removed.
This means that if you record a...

100
Recording
To select another take for playback, proceed as follows:
1.Holding [Alt]/[Option], right-click the event and select 
“To Front” on the context menu.
Whether a right click opens the context menu or the toolbox is deter-
mined by the “Popup Toolbox on Right Click” option in the Preferences 
dialog (Editing–Tools page). Depending on this setting the context menu 
is opened by right-clicking or by right-clicking holding any modifier key.
The “To Front” submenu, listing all the other (obscured)...