AKAIF it has been moved to next year due to the additional problems they ran into with the quick time bomb that apple dropped and made the new video engine necessary sooner than we all hoped.
I think workflows are very individual. Somebody might experience no problems, others might run into constant problems using that other feature, and it totally kills their workflow or what they established in years of work. Sure, one could probably work around it, but when old projects don’t work anymore because something is broken, it even kills your project or crashes loading it, or when file exchange with Cubase you depend on doesn’t work, or VCA flagship-functions you used for years elsewhere don’t work, this is a pretty deep hole in my opinion. In a current project you can work around an issue, but when you depend on recent / past projects you occasionally have to open and it doesn’t work, it’s not so easy. When this, of all things, happens before a deadline… and you spend the night hunting for that crash bug, disabling plugins, functions, this that, reverting to an old version, getting backups, only to find out something changed in the last stability update that just kills your project. This is not fun.
My projects are quite basic and I really like using Nuendo 7. It’s been stable and the functions I use are great for what I need. No other software has these, and I’m thankful for them. There remains a love / hate relationship though as Nuendo to me feels old, many things need more clicks than necessary, which slows me down and annoys me. Stuff that could be done better and has been done better in other DAWs. And the VCA debacle doesn’t render confidence in Steinberg as a company. But all in all I could not do the work the way I do it without Nuendo 7, so I’m happy.
Funny, I thought there were some OK workflow improvements in Cubase 8.5, but THIS was definitely NOT one of them. In fact I think this is horrible! It’s exactly what I think is a huge problem with Nuendo and Cubase. Decade old software, getting some facelifts. But it’s time to re-think some workflows and user paradigms.
Example: If you right-click on a clip, the menu is longer than my arm. And because Steinberg didn’t know where to put some of the options, there’s an “Advanced” menu with even more things in it. By version 9, we’ll look at “Advanced 2” and “Advanced 3” menu items… Time to swipe the floor and clean up!
These “hot zones” are exactly along those lines. Window config has a button in the toolbar, it sits top left. In every window there’s this menu where you can alter window config. Why have a second extra menu pop up? Especially when you don’t have to do anything for it to pop up? You don’t have to click, you just hover your mouse INCIDENTALLY over a screen edge and that damned menu pops up without asking. It FORCES itself onto you and screams “HEY! WANNA CHANGE WINDOW CONFIG? EY? EY??!”. No thanks. I tried a demo of Cubase 8.5 and this abomination of a dialog popped up all the time when I had my mouse near a window edge. It was distracting and unnecessary. And this is the direction many stuff seems to go at Steinberg. No idea what to do next, let’s invent some other hover popup menu and call it “Workflow Improvement” when in fact it’s just a “Usability Nightmare”.
I’m really glad they killed the last hover menu in the 7.1 update, the one they had in the Nuendo 7.0.x mixer channel strip where you had to hover over a plugin to get to the bypass controls etc. This was a mess, too. Glad they killed it.
But as I said, workflows and taste are different and maybe, Oliver, this menu would work for you. I don’t know. For me, it absolutely didn’t.
Chris,
I have to admit that I do not have Cubase, I am still waiting for those things to be in Nuendo. I was judging from what i saw in the interesting marketing videos (that have improved a lot by the way!). Obviously they will not market new features as: sorry we got that one wrong.
I do believe very strongly that Steinberg is heading in the right direction.
There may be some things that we think is wrong, and the hot zones might be a step in the right direction that does not go far enough yet or is just a complete waste of time. However - I get the job done with Nuendo for a fraction of the price that I would have to pay for insert other audio post DAW here
Until that changes, I’m happy to throw my money at them every now and then. But I can wait when more important things need to be resolved first (like the video engine quicktime nightmare that apple have caused)
Yeah, I like watching them because they’re really well made.
Haha, would be a funny turn of events though: “VCA faders. After 2 updates, we FINALLY got them right. (We think. Maybe.)”
I’m not seeing it. They have better videos, but from my very personal customer point of view, they’re leaving many opportunities on the table. Maybe it’s budget limitations or just the fact that many people working on it developed tunnel vision over all the past years with not a lot of inspiration for the future. But I thought that’s what the community is for. It’s a really vivid and constructive community that I encounter here. And for Steinberg staff not to engage, discuss, talk more here on these forums is a wasted opportunity I think.
Maybe they tried it in the past and it didn’t work out. I don’t know. But when I worked in an enterprise software company 10 years ago, our forum was one of the best tools. We engaged with our customers. Half of the developer staff and many tech supporters and other staff hang around the forums, solving problems, talking about ideas and innovative new ways of doing things. It was a very positive experience from both sides and everybody profited.
I’ve heard here somewhere on the forums that Steinberg develops Cubase first to release features in their music product and when it’s time-tested and bugs eliminated, it’ll come to Nuendo. Well with VCA we know it’s not the case. There are bugs all over the place. Nuendo is not a time tested Super Cubase. And other companies also manage to release one software that’s stable without having a “lower priced version to test things on”. I think this argument is just incorrect and to me it feels Nuendo is a second class citizen. Also, many bugs users have been reporting and features they’ve been asking for for years here on these forums are not fixed / implemented. Does anybody listen? Or is this not a priority? But hover popups for window configuration is?
I think software development changed in the past 10 years to be much more interactive with your user base now that everybody is connected to the internet 24/7. Developing software in an ivory tower should drop out of fashion. Apple does this famously, never giving out any info on upcoming releases. And they’re getting criticized for it all the time, and rightly so! How can a professional, who’s job and income depends on this one tool, be in the dark about the future direction the software will take? You have to make decisions and prepare yourself for things to come to stay ahead of the competition. Workflows and the world changes. The professionals working in the field are the most qualified people to see where the industry is heading, what the big customers demand, and how their tool of choice could help get their job done more effectively. Why not tap into that resource?
Me too, absolutely! If a tool helps me to be more productive, I’ll gladly send money their way! If it’s FUN and EFFECTIVE and I don’t have to look for workarounds all the time and waste time that way, I’m happy to send even more money their way and even tell other people about it, because it’s a joy to work with!
If it’s only: “Meh, well, it works better than other tools, but it’s still a hassle.” Then not so much. You’d also rather eat in a nice, clean restaurant with friendly staff and good food rather than in a restaurant where waiters and waitresses are cranky, food from previous customers still lies on all tables, nobody cleans up. Sure, you can eat and get some calories into your system, but it’s not that much of a pleasure.
Software should and CAN be a joy to use. And with good service you can turn your users into advocates, enthusiasts, evangelists. Not people scrambling for the next workaround.
Nuendo helps me be more productive than any other tool. And I love it for that. It has 3 or 4 critical features for audio post and game work for me specifically that no other DAW has.
I believe that they monitor the forums closely, they probably just don’t take a lot time to post things.
Let’s hope you’re right. And let’s hope they act more on posts they read from their user base in the future.