I have a solid template for Dolby Atmos music stem mastering in Pro Tools, but I’m struggling to replicate it properly in Nuendo.
The Pro Tools template works like this: predefined object groups are already linked to the renderer, each with fixed binaural distance settings (near/mid/far) baked in. You can see at a glance when a group is already occupied — it turns orange. All the actual work (panning, routing) happens on the audio tracks, which route into these predefined groups.
Trying to rebuild this in Nuendo with group tracks runs into three problems:
1. No occupancy indicator. Nuendo has no built-in way to visually flag “this bus/group already has a track routed to it” — no equivalent to Pro Tools’ orange highlighting.
2. No routing safeguard. Since I’m not using Dolby beds, my “object groups” are just regular group tracks (stereo busses used as Dolby multi-object busses). Nuendo’s exclusive object-bus lock (where a VST MultiPanner claims a bus and drops the previous connection if another channel grabs it) only applies to actual object busses assigned through the ADM Authoring window — not to plain group busses. So nothing stops two tracks from accidentally routing to the same group.
3. Panning ends up on the wrong “layer”. If I want real 3D/object panning per stem, that only becomes available once a track is assigned as an object source track via ADM Authoring — which switches its channel panner to Object Mode. But my groups are meant to double as the actual objects (with fixed near/mid/far settings) AND host the mastering insert chain. Doing full object panning on individual audio tracks feeding into a fixed-position group doesn’t make sense, but panning on the group itself feels wrong too, since the group is really acting as a “master channel.”
On top of that: is there any way to make binaural/object settings (near/mid/far) and the renderer connection persist as part of a reusable template — so I don’t have to redefine object assignments via ADM Authoring for every new song?
Is there a cleaner, more “template-friendly” way to achieve this in Nuendo, or is this just a structural limitation compared to Pro Tools’ object-group workflow?
In my book ‘Stereo Was A Nice Try’ I describe in detail such a template for Nuendo (I use Nuendo as my go to immersive DAW). Here is the short version: Nuendo is one of the few (the only if I’m correct) to have sort of ‘multichannel-objects’ (technically Atmos only has mono or stereo object, but the behavior is the same).
So just make a 9.1.6 multichannel track, and in the ADM Authoriser you can turn this one into 15 objects with just one click. All channels will have a dedicated output, and can be panned easily with the VST multipanner.
Only downside are the binaural settings: you have to choose one of the whole ‘multichannel object’. When in mastering (Wavelab 13) you can change these settings.
For me this is a very easy and clear workflow.
Hope this helps.
Because ProTools has Master-Fader for the Channel, in Nuendo it must be a Group in this case (if its a Stereo like in the PT-Template) the Panning is in the Group not in the Audio.
Thank you very much for your answer. In this case it’s possible to do the mastering thing in the 9.1.6 multichannel-group (in my case I can do 3 of it - near, mid, far in binaural settings - so it works like the PT template). Are there any quality limitations if you go this route and don’t have direct objects? I also assume that all the streaming providers use a channel-based track for streaming, similar to TrueHD. But is there any verified information on this?
Sorry, I still don’t understand. If you need to sum signals before you apply mastering plugins on inserts and you’re using a group track in Nuendo for that wouldn’t that be the same in PT using an AUX? And then you’d still pan on the source audio tracks into the group/AUX in both cases?
I guess I’m not understanding how the “Master-Fader for the Channel” (audio track I presume) changes things with regards to panning.
You can do it this way: three multichannel busses (near, mid, far) and do processing on those (you can use wrapper like Fiedler’s Armada so the plugins communicate with each other and react on all three busses at the same time).
This way you can do mastering in Nuendo easily, but only for channel-based immersive formats. When you work with lot’s of moving objects (seperate objects besides the main multichannel busses), this will not do (then Wavelab is a better solution). But at the end it’s a delicate discussion: what is the real plus of a moving objects; how far can you do with speaker-based objects? That another discussion far beyond this topic, but something I’m digging into more and more.