I’m not a frequent poster here but a regular Nuendo user, so permit me to post some of my thoughts please.
Since 2 ou 3 years, everytime I had the chance to talk directly to a Steinberg team member I asked more or less the same question : "When are you/why are you not providing Nuendo with new or more flexible surround options/panning configurations to be able to work with, let’s say up to an NHK 22.2 surround sound configurations ?
The answer was always the same : because at this point in time there is no normalization for such format.
Even though unsatisfactory for me I accepted the answer. But… now not only a norm, at least for speaker assignement, exist as part of the UHDTV protocol but DOLBY is now promoting it’s new ATMOS sound system with up to 64 channels of mixing !
So, my answer is simple dear Steinberg Team, what are your plans for bringing Nuendo up-to-date with these new surround sound formats ? Will it happen in N5 lifespan or do you have plans for the next version Nuendo 6 (as it may require bigger changes to the software core) ?
I would be more than happy if you could lighten me up on this matter.
Fellow Nuendo users, what do you think about this ?
I can confirm that no new formats will be introduced within the N5 cycle.
And I can not officially confirm that new formats will be included within N6.
It makes me sad because I prefer to use Nuendo over any other DAW but I share the same feelings and I’m sure I’m not the only one here.
Please Steinberg team, put a bit of spice in your communication plan ! Or at least say something like : “if there is enough requests we will seriously think about it”
To me it looks the same as when there is a strike in France : “service minimum”.
A bit more boldness wouldn’t hurt if you want to really be number one in the native DAW community, prove that you’re still the leader ahead of competition and listen to your customer requests !
Depends on what you mean by ambisonics - proper implementation would be very interesting for sure (and Dave Malham might be the man to talk to about this) but there have been issues with the swiss tools since N3 release broke some fundamental part that was needed for them to work properly, from memory (which is based on loose recollections of conversations held several years ago so take this into account please).
However, I have various VST plugin tools of the LCR from LR variety based on Gerzon equations, a developer called Farina (Angelo, maybe?) and something called Multisonic. I never did remember where I got these & who did them, but as I am about to take the leap to 64-bit it would be great to get them working in that environment.
Must write some emails…
As far as panners go, have you tried the IOSONO AnyMix yet? This can replace the standard panner as the default panner, or get used as a plugin. Worth a look - we love it.
FYI … I went to a Dolby Atmos Demo at Dolby HQ in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. The good news is that it sounds great , the overhead speaker array works really well and the additional speakers make for terrific smooth front>rear movement without the usual dead areas you usually run into.
The bad news is that for the moment it’s very much in Beta. The basic idea is that you have a basic 5.1 ( or 7.1 I suppose …) mix that you layer separate Mono panned “Atmos” elements on top of. From what I understand you will have 64 of these elements to play with . All of the panning for each track is handled within a Dolby Atmos panner plug in that for this moment seems to be Pro Tools only. Due to the additional work involved in prepping what is basically a different mix from the 5.1 or LT/RT I would imagine we will only see Atmos being used in event films that can afford a few extra weeks of mix time.