I’m contemplating purchasing the upgrade but the only thing that I really have a problem with in N13 is that the mute on the VCA fader doesn’t work. Is this finally fixed in N14?
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As i said in some other thread, vca mute is the most used and fundamental part of a vca.
I realy hope steinberg will invest some rnd to vca and automation in near future.
We dont need fancy new features for vca, just rock solid volume controll and mutes
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VCA works fine on my side you just have to ensure the channels you are using have an initial automation point on them. Not sure I see the value of mute but seems easy enough to add maybe
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Great that they work for you but here they’re still plagued with bugs that have never been fixed. Here’s an easy one. Why enabling the tempo track should affect your slave track levels that are connected to a VCA is beyond me.
One might ask what’s the value of solo then too? Would be a welcome addition here and not sure why they weren’t added from the start.
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yeah totally odd! didn’t know that one, thanks for sharing. Out of curiosity if you set the an initial automation point on the volume as 0db does it still do that behavior? For me VCA is useless without setting inital volume automation i’ve learned the hard way when using it without etc as it had no point of recollection.
Initial automation points are a work-around for a flawed system. It will behave differently if they’re created but creating them is not an ideal workflow for many reasons.
I just wish Steinberg would make VCAs work how they should have since their introduction.
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It is normal to use the VCAs to control the balance of the basic ingredients of a mix on pretty much any decent console. Not so much in Nuendo because the VCAs are extremely poorly implemented.
While getting the mix together, it is very useful to be able to quickly mute some elements so that they don’t mask whatever you are tweaking. Probably the most basic example is muting the vocals when focusing on the instruments. Yes, you can use solo, but you’ll loose the context. Listening in isolation isn’t that great, especially when you are dealing with lots of bleed.
Pretty much the only solution in Nuendo to quickly mute a group of tracks is to use the folder tracks. The problem is that you can’t use the folder tracks to adjust the level so you end up with 2 tracks - one for mutes, the other for level control. Not only does this take a twice as much time to set up, it’s more difficult to find the correct track and more importantly, it is super inefficient when using a controller.
Group tracks allow you to control both the levels and mutes but then you can’t use global effects because the sends will effectively end up being post-fader.
I also don’t understand why Nuendo’s VCAs operate in what some console manufactures would call “motors mode”. This is a usable option but IMO moving the VCA master shouldn’t move the channel faders let alone the channel automation lanes by default. Attenuating something with the VCA puts the channel faders in the position where their resolution is unusably low. Now in N14 comes with a new volume control plugin which offers a very poor workaround for this problem.
I do not understand how a super advanced DAW in 2025 fails to implement a very basic function that was available on mixers in the early 80’s, maybe even earlier.
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I am very invested in Steinberg software, because I use MIDI to write songs however when I first tried to use a VCA, mute did not work and I remember wondering in bemusement, that nothing happened.
If that is the case for Solo, then that constitutes just as much of a joke, as Mute.
Please share the video where it allows the browser to use ad-blockers.
yeah interesting some good points for needing mutes on VCA. Possible work around for now might be to link the channels you want to quickly mute in the mix console or use the Q-link option on selected channels and mute. So when you create a VCA for Vocals you also make a Link of channels that can be just for mute. Again workaround but at least some possibilities
Strange - worked fine for me with an ad blocker I don’t use a browser without them.
This “solution” (which it isn’t, it actually does make a lot of sense) has been mentioned a gazillion times, but always gets undersnowed by the comments of people who don’t want that.
Most negative comments come from Cubase users, who are used to a different/simplified automation system.
Fredo
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I don’t really understand what I’m supposed to be seeing in that video.
I’ll respectfully disagree there. I think most people here who understand the automation system and VCAs are coming from large format consoles or are comparing to other DAWS (e.g. Pro Tools) where it does work as you would expect. The Steinberg workaround is not desired behaviour.
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Looks like IMGUR cuts the video off at a certain point. I’m afraid you’ll have to use the other link and temporarily disable the adblocker at your end if you want to see it.
Nope- Mutes are still not working here in may '25 . And I am not talking automation.
I actually need the mute button working in realtime like my old SSL and all the other old classic VCA boards.
Weird
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In many ways, if the proposed “solution” is really a solution it should be documented and communicated officially. But maybe it is? I don’t know. I always get confused about this topic so I stopped using VCAs completely.
They would be convenient, that’s for sure.