Nuendo Tips And Tricks

It is good practice to check your mixes on a variety of playback systems to see how your mixes will translate. Using an impulse file and some creative use of the Cubase and Nuendo Control Room functionality, you can create a monitor path which simulates your mix through an Auratone speaker.

Here’s how you do it!

(1) Open your “VST Connections” window (F4) and making sure your Control Room is enabled, go to the “Studio” tab. In here we will create 2 monitors paths which are both assigned to the same physical outputs on our sound device.

VST Connections

(2) Open your Control Room mixer and make sure you have expanded the view to show inserts for your monitor paths. Using the A/B button, switch to your 2nd monitor path (B) and insert a convolution reverb processor on one of the inserts. Load the Auratone impulse into the convolution processor and set the wet/dry mix to 100% wet. Also switch the down-mix preset to “mono” for this monitor path.

That’s it! Now you can switch between A/B monitor paths. Path A will be your clean sounding mix and Path B will be a mono mix which sounds as though it is coming through an Auratone.

Monitor Path A

Monitor Path B

There are many convolution processors available (both commercial and freeware), however I recommend one which has 0 processing latency so this technique doesn’t add to the overall latency on your system.

Many VSTi (Virtual Instruments) offer the ability to drag ‘n’ drop MIDI information directly from the VSTi to the project window. Some preferences have changed in Nuendo 4.1 with regards to how Nuendo handles the import of MIDI files so to ensure things “work as expected” go to:

File -> Preferences -> MIDI -> MIDI Import Options and uncheck “Import To Instrument Tracks” and “Auto Dissolve Format 0”.

This will ensure that when you drag MIDI information from the VSTi to the project window it will end up on the track you drag it to without creating a new MIDI track or a new Instrument track in the process.

Inserting named markers on the fly:

Click on “Show Markers” on your transport bar to open up the Markers window (or select “Project -> Markers“).

With the Markers window open you can press the key command for “Insert Marker” (default key command is “Insert”) and immediately type a marker name. This is a very quick method for playing through the song and inserting named markers for verse/chorus/bridge etc- all on the fly.

Open focused Sample Editor macro:

This macro will allow you to select a range in the project window (an area with a click or unwanted breath noise for example) and with a single keystroke, zoom to that range selection in your sample editor window.

(1) Transport -> Locators To Selection
(2) Edit -> Open
(3) Zoom -> Zoom To Locators
(4) Edit -> Select In loop
(5) Zoom -> Zoom To Selection