Steinberg Nuendo 5 Manual

							231
Surround sound
The plug-in panel
Double-click on any of the miniature panner controls to 
open the plug-in panel in a separate window.
The SurroundPanner V5 plug-in offers numerous possibili-
ties to position any supported type of sound source, 
whether mono, stereo, or multi-channel. If you work visually 
oriented, you can simply drag the sound source around in 
the pan area. To help you execute very exact movements 
you can use modifier keys to limit the movement direction 
(e.
 g. for straight front/rear panning). 
To perform rotating movements that you cannot achieve 
by dragging the mouse, you can use the powerful rotation 
and orbit controls below the pan area. Here you will also 
find parameters for controlling the signal distribution to the 
different speaker channels and the advanced scaling con
-
trols with which you can influence the size of the sound 
source itself.
To the left and right of the surround field there are volume 
meters, showing the input and output levels of all speaker 
channels. For a detailed description of all the panning op
-
tions available in the SurroundPanner V5, see below.
Positioning signals in the pan area
In the pan area, you see a graphical representation of the 
sound source, with the different input channels shown as 
gray balls – except for the left and right front channels that 
are shown in yellow and red. Here, you can position the 
sound source using the mouse:
•By clicking at the desired position in the pan area.
When you release the mouse button, the sound source jumps to that po-
sition (with the positioning handle, i. e. the circle located in the center of 
the sound source, ending up where you clicked).
•By clicking and dragging the positioning handle.
Note that you do not have to click exactly on the handle in order to move 
it. You can click anywhere in the pan area and start moving the mouse, 
the handle then moves in the same direction as the mouse.
The pan area showing a 5.1 sound source
The positioning handle can be positioned freely in the pan 
area and even be moved out of the pan area. The panning 
balls, though, will never move further out than the edge of 
the surround field (which is indicated by a gray line). Mov
-
ing the positioning handle out of the pan area can be use-
ful for extreme panning positions, such as panning all 
channels hard right.
ÖFor mono channels there is no positioning handle. 
Click and drag the input channel to position it.
Left and right front channels
Positioning 
handle 
						

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Surround sound
Speaker channels – Solo and Mute vs. Disabling
The speakers that are distributed around the surround 
field represent the output configuration. You can disable 
speakers or solo/mute them.
•[Alt]/[Option]-click on a speaker symbol to disable that 
speaker (the speaker symbol is grayed out) so that no au
-
dio will be routed to this surround channel. The signal that 
would otherwise be sent to this speaker is distributed to 
the other speakers instead. For example, you can disable 
the center speaker for all stems of a film mix except the di
-
alogue to make sure that only dialogue is sent to that 
speaker.
Note that the signal is distributed in such a way that the power level stays 
constant all the time (see 
“Constant power” on page 237).
•Click on a speaker symbol to solo that speaker (the 
speaker symbol turns red). That way you will only hear the 
signal sent to this speaker. All other speakers are muted 
(yellow speaker symbol). This can be used for testing pur
-
poses, e. g. to make sure that a signal is sent to a specific 
speaker as intended.
Note that you can solo several speakers at the same time by clicking on 
them one after the other. By [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking on a speaker sym
-bol, this speaker is soloed exclusively, and all other speakers are muted.
ÖSolo and Mute cannot be automated!
Restricting movement
By default, you can click anywhere in the pan area and 
drag the mouse to move the sound source. If you want the 
positioning handle to jump to a specific position, you can 
click once at that position.
However, you can also limit movement to a specific direc-
tion, using the corresponding modifier keys (or the arrow 
icons above the pan area). That way you can scale down 
your movements, or have the sound source move along a 
certain axis (e.
 g. from bottom left to top right).
•When you press a modifier key (e. g. [Ctrl]/[Command]), 
the corresponding icon above the pan area is highlighted 
with a lighter border, indicating that this mode is active.
As soon as you release the modifier key, you return to standard mode.
•By clicking on one of the icons above the pan area, the 
corresponding positioning mode is activated persistently. 
That way you do not have to keep the corresponding mod
-
ifier key pressed all the time.
To deactivate the selected positioning mode, switch back to standard 
mode.
The following modes are available:
Panning the left and right channels independently with 
the mouse
At the top right of the plug-in window you will find the but-
ton for the independent positioning mode. If this is acti-
vated, you can adjust the front left and right input channels 
(yellow and red balls) independently by clicking and drag
-
ging. This is similar to using the two surround pan joysticks 
found on some hardware consoles.
This speaker 
is muted.This speaker 
is soloed.This speaker 
is disabled.
IconModifier key(s)Description
-Standard mode, no restrictions apply.
[Shift]Mouse movements are scaled to allow 
very fine movements. This is useful when 
panning in the miniature display in the 
channel strip, for example.
[Ctrl]/[Command]Horizontal movements only.
[Ctrl]/[Command]-
[Shift]Vertical movements only.
[Alt]/[Option]Diagonal movements only (bottom left to 
top right).
[Alt]/[Option]- [Shift]Diagonal movements only (bottom right to 
top left).
[Shift]- [Ctrl]/[Command]- [Alt]/[Option]
In this mode the mouse pointer immedi-ately jumps to the positioning handle even 
if it is located outside the pan area (only 
visible in Overview Mode).
The independent 
positioning mode 
is activated.
The right front channel is panned independently with the mouse. 
						

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Surround sound
ÖTo move one of the panning balls in this mode, you do 
not have to click directly on them. You will always move the 
panning ball that is nearer to the position of the mouse 
pointer.
Overview Mode
When moving the sound source in the pan area, you will 
notice that the positioning handle can leave the visible pan 
area (although the channel panning balls cannot). It can 
be moved so far outside that all channels end up on the 
perimeter where the positioning handle left the area. If you 
now use one of the rotation controls, for example, it can be 
quite hard to understand what is happening, i.
 e. why the 
panning balls are moving the way they are.
To get a better understanding of this behavior, you can 
switch to Overview Mode. Here you can see where the po
-
sitioning handle is actually located and where the panning 
balls would be (if they could leave the pan area). These vir
-
tual or “ghost” positions are connected to the actual pan-
ning balls inside the surround field by a thin line to help you 
understand complex movements.
•To switch to Overview Mode, click on the eye icon 
above and to the left of the pan area.
ÖThe Overview Mode is only used for visualizing the 
complex scenarios that you can create with the Surround
-
Panner V5. The actual panning is done in the standard 
view. Therefore, the speakers are visible in this mode, but 
cannot be soloed/muted or disabled.
Left-right and front-rear panning
These two controls are used to pan the sound source 
from left to right and front to rear, and vice versa. This can 
be useful when an object moves through the scene, e.
 g. a 
car driving through from the left to the right or a spaceship 
passing overhead.
ÖThis is the same as restricting the movement direction 
using the [Ctrl]/[Command] and [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Shift] 
modifiers.
Rotating signals
The Rotate Signal control is used to rotate the source 
channels around the positioning handle. All input channels 
circle around the handle (but they cannot move beyond 
the borders of the surround field).
Usually, you would use this control on a premixed stem, 
i.
 e. a group channel that already has surround qualities. 
For example, if you are working on a scene where the 
camera turns around, you can rotate the surround sound 
source within the surround field of the output bus to imi
-
tate this behavior.
!When panning in independent positioning mode, au-
tomation data is written for several parameters. Due 
to this, special automation rules apply, see 
“A u t o m a-
tion” on page 236.
!Automation data for the independent positioning 
mode is always written for the complete sound 
source, not for individual channels. This means it is not 
possible to record automation for one stereo channel 
and then add automation for the other stereo channel 
in a second go, for example. 
The left and right channels cannot leave the pan area.
The positioning handle is 
located outside the pan 
area. “Ghost” images of the 
panning balls. These are the 
theoretical positions outside 
the visible pan area. 
						

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Surround sound
Orbit controls
The Orbit controls are used to rotate the sound source 
(including all input channels and the positioning handle) 
around the center of the surround field.
Orbit Center
This is the main control that allows you to perform the ro-
tation. For example, you can use this if a person walks 
around in a scene and can still be heard when walking 
“behind the audience”.
Counter Shot
The Counter Shot control is used to rotate the sound 
source by exactly 180°, thereby “flipping” the surround im
-
age to the opposite side. 
For example, this can be used when working on a close-
up scene of two people sitting face to face with a lot of re
-
verse shots. With the Counter Shot button you can then 
flip the surround field each time that the camera switches 
from perspective A to perspective B or back. 
ÖThis control is best applied to premixes (e. g. the ambi-
ence stem) so that you only have to press the button once 
for each cut.
Tip: When panning a scene with reverse shots with less 
than 180° (so that you cannot use the Counter Shot but
-
ton) you can make the necessary adjustments for the first 
perspective of the reverse shot manually, write this as au
-
tomation and use the punch log function to save this 
setup. Repeat this for the second perspective, and after
-
wards use the punch log entries to switch between the 
two perspectives with just a click. For more information 
about this, see 
“The Punch Log section” on page 259.
Radius
When using the Orbit Center control, the Radius encoder 
allows you to control the distance of the sound source 
from the center of the surround field (without changing the 
angle).
An example:
The gray circle shows the theoretical path of the sound 
source when orbiting the center. Since the sound source 
cannot leave the pan area, it moves along the perimeter in
-
stead. At the maximum radius setting (a) the theoretical 
path lies outside the pan area so that the sound source 
stays on the perimeter all the time; at a smaller setting (b) 
the circle is smaller and the sound source moves inside 
the pan area in the corners.
ÖThe Rotate Signal, Orbit Center, and Radius controls 
are endless rotary encoders so that there is no limit as to 
how far left or right you can rotate the sound source.
The LFE encoder
Use the LFE encoder in the plug-in panel to set the signal 
amount sent to the LFE (Low Frequency Effects) channel. 
You can also set this using the LFE level slider to the right 
of the panner in the Mixer channel strip, or by typing in a 
number in the LFE value field in the panner shown in the 
extended Mixer view.
Orbit Center
Counter ShotRadius
!In terms of automation, the Orbit Center, Counter 
Shot, and Radius controls are not independent pa
-
rameters as such. Instead, a combination of different 
automation parameters is used. For more informa
-
tion, see “A u t o m a t i o n ” on page 236.
a) Radius = 141.4 b) Radius = 116.5 
						

							235
Surround sound
•If the selected input already contains an LFE channel 
(x.1 configuration), it is routed through the SurroundPan
-
ner V5 and the LFE encoder is used to control the volume 
of this channel.
•If the selected input does not contain an LFE channel 
(x.0 configuration), all input channels are distributed 
evenly to the output LFE channel. In this case, it might be 
useful to raise the volume of this “downmix” using the LFE 
encoder.
ÖThe LFE channel is used as a full range channel, no 
low-pass filtering is applied.
Center Distribution
The Center Distribution control is used to distribute part or 
all of the center signal to the left and right front speakers.
For example, this can be useful in the following situation: 
The center signal is panned directly to the center speaker 
and the Center Distribution is set to 0
 %. However, the 
signal is too discrete for your liking, and you want to add 
part of the signal to the left and right front speakers to 
widen it. You can do this by raising the Center Distribution 
value. At 100
 %, the center source is provided entirely by 
the phantom image created by the left and right speakers 
and using a value in between you can distribute the signal 
to the three speakers.
A blue line at the top of the surround field indicates the 
distance up to which a phantom signal is added. If you po
-
sition the source signal inside this range, the signal is sent 
to all three channels.
Divergence controls
The three divergence controls (Front, F/R, and Rear) deter-
mine the attenuation curves used when positioning sound 
sources for X-axis front, Y-axis (front/rear), and X-axis back. 
If all three controls are set to 0
 %, positioning a sound 
source on a speaker sets all other speakers to zero level. 
With higher values, the other speakers receive a percent
-
age of the sound source.
Blue horizontal and vertical lines visualize the effects when 
changing the divergence settings.
For example, by using the front divergence, you can 
acoustically intensify the distance from the action on 
screen as perceived by the viewer.
•At 0 % the perception is very focussed (concentrated in one 
spot). This can be used for movements close to the camera to 
intensify the feeling that something is taking place right in front 
of the viewer.
•At 100 % the perception is very diffuse (hard to locate). This 
can be used for actions that are taking place at the far back of 
the scene, giving the audience the feeling that it is far away 
from the action.
ÖThe Center Distribution value and the front divergence 
are combined. If the front divergence is set to 100
 %, the 
Center Distribution has no effect.
Scaling
The Scale controls allow you to control the horizontal 
(Width) and vertical (Depth) expansion of the sound 
source. 100
 % corresponds to the complete width or 
depth of the surround field. If you reduce both values to 
0
 %, the distance is reduced to zero and all source chan-
nels are centered in one spot.
!Note that for this to work, the front speaker configu-
ration needs to be symmetrical and there can never 
be more than 3 speakers involved. 
						

							236
Surround sound
These controls influence the perception of spatiality and 
ambience, as well as the traceability of signals.
•At 100 % you get a very transparent, clear sound that conveys 
much spatiality.
•At 0 % the signal is less transparent and movements cannot 
be traced easily.
ÖThe Depth parameter is only available for configura-
tions with front and rear channels.
Input and output level meters
The meters to the left and right of the pan area show the 
volume of all input and output speaker channels, respec
-
tively. The numeric values below the meters indicate the 
peak level that has been measured for any of the channels.
General plug-in controls
The Bypass Effect button
At the top left of the plug-in panel you will find a button to 
bypass the SurroundPanner V5. If this is activated, the in
-
put signals are directly routed to the output channels (in 
case of an identical input and output configuration). If the 
output configuration is different from the input configura
-
tion, the panner attempts to route the input signals to the 
appropriate output channels (e.
 g. the left and right front 
speakers if panning a stereo signal to a 5.1 configuration).
ÖWhen using the SurroundPanner V5 as an insert ef-
fect, this button has the same function as the Bypass Ef-
fect button available for all audio plug-ins (see 
“Deactivating vs. bypassing” on page 198).
Mute/Solo buttons
At the top of the plug-in panel you will find a Mute and a 
Solo button that are identical with the channel’s Mute/
Solo controls (see 
“Using Solo and Mute” on page 159). 
ÖThese buttons are not present when the Surround-
Panner V5 is used as an insert effect.
Read/Write buttons
Like any other effect plug-in, the SurroundPanner V5 has 
Read and Write buttons at the top of the window to apply 
and record automation data (see below). When the pan
-
ner is used on an output channel, these buttons are iden-
tical with the channel’s Read and Write buttons. When 
used as an insert effect, automation data for this insert is 
written separately.
Automation
Most of the parameters in the SurroundPanner V5 plug-in 
can be automated just like any other channel or insert pa
-
rameter (see “Enabling and disabling the writing of auto-
mation data” on page 240).
Recording automation for the Orbit controls and the inde-
pendent positioning mode is handled differently, however. 
Automation data for these parameters is written as a com
-
bination of the front-rear panning, left-right panning and 
the Rotate Signal parameters. For the independent posi
-
tioning mode, Scaling is added. Due to this you cannot 
easily modify existing automation data since this would in
-
volve too many different parameters. If an automation pass 
did not yield the desired result, simply try again.
Resetting all parameters
[Alt]/[Option]-click the Reset button in the lower right cor-
ner of the plug-in panel to reset all controls to their default 
values.Bypass Effect button 
						

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Surround sound
Pinning the SurroundPanner V5 window
When working with multiple channels in a surround con-
figuration, the screen might become overcrowded with 
plug-in windows and you can easily lose track of where 
each panner window belongs.
If you want to work with only one panner window at a time, 
you can open the SurroundPanner V5 for one of your chan
-
nels and activate the “Pinned window follows VST channel 
selection” button at the top of the plug-in panel. When you 
now select a different channel or bus, the settings for the 
new channel are displayed in the same window.
“Pinned window follows VST channel selection” is activated
Standard panners and the MixConvert plug-in are also 
shown in the pinned window. However, if you select a 
channel for which no panner view is available, the pinned 
window continues to show the last available panner view. 
In this case the panner view will not be consistent with the 
selected channel.
•If necessary, you can still open additional SurroundPan-
ner windows by double-clicking the corresponding minia-
ture panner view in the Mixer channel strip (or the extended 
Mixer view).
These “auxiliary” panner views will have no “Pinned window follows 
channel selection” indicator.
Constant power
“What goes in, must come out again.” This principle can 
be taken literally with regard to the SurroundPanner V5. It 
means that the power of a source channel is identical to 
the power of the corresponding output signal.
The advantage of this is that the overall volume as per-
ceived by the listener (= the power) is always the same, 
regardless of the signal panning, e.
 g. when you move the 
sound source in the pan area, disable specific speaker 
channels, or use the divergence controls.
Using older projects with the 
SurroundPanner
 V5
If you load a project that was created with a previous ver-
sion of Nuendo and still uses the old SurroundPan plug-in, 
you can either continue using the old panner plug-in or 
switch to the SurroundPanner V5 plug-in. To do this, right-
click the miniature panner view of the corresponding track 
in the Mixer and select the “SurroundPanner V5” option 
from the context menu.
Switching to the SurroundPanner V5.
Using the MixConvert plug-in
MixConvert is a special plug-in that converts one multi-
channel audio source into another multi-channel destina
-
tion. It is most frequently used to “downmix” a multi-chan-
nel surround mix into a format with fewer channels (a 5.1 
surround mix into a stereo mix for example).
This plug-in can be used as an insert effect in the Mixer like 
other plug-ins but it also has special functions. Nuendo au
-
tomatically inserts MixConvert instead of the SurroundPan-
ner V5 when the channel (audio track, group channel, etc.) 
is routed to a destination with fewer audio paths. MixCon
-
vert is also inserted in place of any aux send panner when 
the destination has a different audio path than the source.
!A panner instance cannot be opened in more than 
one window at once. If “Pinned window follows VST 
channel selection” is activated and you step through 
your channels (e.
 g. in the Mixer), those channels with 
“auxiliary” windows are skipped.
!The automation data for the SurroundPan plug-in 
and the SurroundPanner V5 are not compatible. If 
you switch to the new panner, you will have to delete 
any existing panner automation for the correspond-
ing track and write new automation data. If you want 
to keep working with the existing data you have to 
use the SurroundPan plug-in! 
						

							238
Surround sound
The MixConvert plug-in is described in detail in the sepa-
rate PDF document “Plug-in Reference”.
ÖThere is one exception to this behavior. When a stereo 
channel is routed to a mono destination through the chan
-
nel routing or an aux send routing, a normal stereo panner 
will appear. However, this panner will control the balance 
of the left and right channels as they are blended into the 
mono destination. The center position blends both chan
-
nels together by equal amounts. With the pan set all the 
way to the left, only the left channel can be heard, and vice 
versa.
Exporting a surround mix
When you have set up a surround mix, you can choose to 
export it using the Export Audio Mixdown function. 
You have the following export options when working with 
a surround configuration:
•Export to “split” format, resulting in one mono audio file 
for each surround channel.
•Export to interleaved format, resulting in a single multi-
channel audio file (e.g. a 5.1 file, containing all six surround 
channels).
•Under Windows you can also export a 5.1 surround mix 
to a file in Windows Media Audio Pro format.
This is an encoding format tailored for 5.1 surround – see “Windows Me-
dia Audio Pro files (Windows only)” on page 480.
For details about exporting to files, see the chapter “Export 
Audio Mixdown” on page 473. 
						

							18
Automation 
						

							240
Automation
Introduction
In essence, automation means recording the values for a 
particular Mixer or effect parameter. When you create your 
final mix, you will not have to worry about having to adjust 
this particular parameter control yourself – Nuendo will do 
it for you. Automation is a key feature when mixing in com
-
plex, multi-track projects.
Working with automation curves
Within a Nuendo project, the changes in a parameter 
value over time are reflected as curves on automation 
tracks. 
About automation curves 
There are two kinds of automation curves: “ramp” and 
“jump”:
•Jump curves are created for on/off parameters such as 
Mute.
•Ramp curves are created for any parameter that gener-
ates continuous multiple values, such as fader or encoder 
movements, etc. 
Examples of jump and ramp automation curves 
About the static value line
When you are not using virgin territory (see “Virgin terri-
tory vs. the initial value” on page 245) and you open an 
automation track for the first time, it does not contain any 
automation events (unless you have previously adjusted 
the corresponding parameter with Write automation acti
-
vated). This is reflected in the event display as a straight 
horizontal black line, the “static value” line. This line repre
-
sents the current parameter setting.
•If you have manually added any automation events or 
used write automation for the corresponding parameter 
and then disable the reading of automation data, the auto
-
mation curve will be grayed-out in the event display and 
the static value line will be used instead.
As soon as Read is enabled, the automation curve will become available.
Enabling and disabling the writing 
of automation data
You can automation enable tracks and Mixer channels in 
Nuendo by activating their automation Write buttons. 
Write (W) and Read (R) buttons for all plug-in effects and 
VST instruments can be found on the corresponding con
-
trol panels.
•If you activate Write for a channel, virtually all Mixer pa-
rameters you adjust during playback for that specific 
channel are recorded as automation events.
•If Read is activated for a channel, all your recorded Mixer 
actions for that channel are performed during playback.
The Read and Write buttons for a track in the track list are 
the same as the Read and Write buttons in the corre
-
sponding channel strip in the Mixer.
ÖNote that the Read button is automatically enabled 
when you enable the Write button. This allows Nuendo to 
read existing automation data at any time. You can sepa
-
rately deactivate Write if you want to only read existing 
data. It is not possible to activate Write and deactivate 
Read at the same time.
There are also global Read and Write indicator buttons 
(“Toggle Read/Write for all tracks”) in the common panel 
of the Mixer and at the top of the track list:
These buttons light up as soon as there is an enabled Read 
or Write button on any channel/track within your project. 
Furthermore, they can be clicked to activate or deactivate 
the Read/Write buttons of all tracks simultaneously.
The Write and Read buttons for a channel in the Mixer 
and for an automation track in the track list
The global Read/Write buttons in the Mixer, and in the 
track list