Oh yea!
Well, I was quite busy to record a three-week session (Thrash Metal Album). Well, I have quite some news for you. Unfortunately missed I to make notes when I stepped over issues - otherwise I would now be able to write down a complete list of all mis-behaviours of features which should work different/ok.
First:
Cubase vs Nuendo. I try to recall.
I recorded the drums of the first 2 songs in Cubase 6.5, I felt uncomfy all the time because of the event GUI, the inverted color of the highlighted event made it difficult to apply editing. When I did fine editing (moving single hits) for example in a fill in where I already stacked a couple of overdubs the whole GUI nearly freezes. It gets so slow when I have a lot of takes stacked, a lot of cuts and a fair amount of zoom-in.
The event order thing was the same - even worser.
Nuendo: It was a pleasure to work here - since latest versions everything is quite cool over here, the event GUI is quite close or at least similar to Nuendo 4 - at least the way how “transparency” appears - well, here I have advantages AND disadvanges compared to Cubase… In Cubase you can see the grid ALL the time… Even when 20 takes are stacked on each other. In Nuendo the transparancy is only there when there is no overlapping - as soon as we have overlapps or stacked events the events are gray and not transparent anymore.
In V N5.0 they stayed transparent but when they are stacked they became “darker” - so you can see the events below. Well, this was cool on one hand, but nasty on the other - because the wave forms were transparent as well and what you see was a mix out of all the takes/waveforms which are stacked. This made eding and judging a take impossible. Cool is that now a small gap is between the tracks where you can see the grid between the events, even when they are NOT transparent. That enables me to edit even with no transparency - in V5.0 they removed the gab and when you switched back from transparent to non-transparent you were not able to see any grid lines anymore - in case of lets say 20 track drums very nasty… I had to insert empty “dummy” tracks between drum tracks - for example between the kick mics and snare top - just to see the lines.
This is not necessary anymore. Please keep it that way!!!
Only thing to fix: When I record with transparency I can’t see the wave-forms because you still see the waveforms of the take below - or to be precise - a mix between the stuff below and the new stuff - that makes it difficult to “judge” a take by eye during recordin. It is always a good orientation to “remember” and control the take optically while hearing it. Of course this is not a problem when using lanes. Now please do not tell me “when using tape 20 years ago you had to judge by ear only and this was way better”…
Well those lanes combined with the comp-tool and with folder group editing is a mighty thing!! The best feature in current version - I was even able to record and compile multitrack guitars easily this way. Old lanes (I mean old lanes, not the broken ones from original 5.5) were only capable for one track stuff - which is quite rare, exept when recording vocals. At least here I usually never have just “one” track for an instrument.
Weeeellll… now lets come to the Event-Order thing.
I was NOT able to track it down… While I was writing the initial post I was upset because of that. Later, during recording, everything had correct behaviour - if I moved overlapping (or lets say “underlapping”) drum-snippets - the underlying part of it stays were it belongs to. But NOT all the time, the day after I edited stuff from day before and I had the miss-behaviour again. I do not get it… I can not tell exactly when it works and when not…
Well, when recording an album, straight for 18 days, you usually do not spend to much time with bugs and issues… You step over them, fiddle around, forget again… you focus on the music, not on tracking down issues.
There is a BIG issue regarding the status of muted/disabled events.
I often use it, via a shortcut. Now a take which is “on top” drops behind when you mute it (via keystroke) - so it is invisible and physically behind the other material. That makes it impossible to un-mute it again as soon as you have deselect the events…
It is NOT a good idea to move the events back in order when they are disabled. Maybe this is a “feature”. But it is just not good! I used that mute-thing to compare takes - quickly disabling a overdub via shortcut to check out the stuff below - instead of moving it to another track first. Well, this is a thing which bugged me. Then there were more things, I can’t recall, I made some notes, I have to check.
So - regarding Cubase vs Nuendo:
In the end I prefered Nuendo WAY over Cubase - at least when using versions with same features and same fixes. I recorded and edited the full session in Nuendo after I switched to Nuendo with song 3. Nuendo is just way cooler 
And close to perfect… At least when you know the issues and when you know how to deal with them.
Nasty is, that “small things” are changed all the time… small things which needs you to find a dedicated workflow, things which are an important part of a workflow… then - all of a sudden - they “fixed” or “changed” something - and your workflow is broken. Maybe not a big deal for a programmer who just “tests” the feature - here is everything fine - but it is like swapping the pedals in your car while the car is in the garage for some mainetaince. If you are just the developer you might think “cool, I have more power in the left feet, it makes sence” - this might be true, but when it comes to the professional 10 hours a day driver it will be nasty for him…
I am quite curious about new Cubase/Nuendo… I am not sure if I like the new concept yet, most likely it is just awesome when you get used to it - talking mainly of the mixer… I can get used to everything here - but please do not mess up the project window again!! Please no new “behaviours” regarding “lanes” or “event GUI” or what else… I do not like the fact that it took 2 years till everything finally runs fine and then you have a “fine” status for 2 months - till a new version messed up everything again…
Brandy
