Media Bay - for what/how to use?

Steinberg Lounge
#1

Well, because this is not directly a N5 topic but N4 and Cubase as well I will use the Media Lounge for this topic :slight_smile:

One day there was the Media-Bay introduced. Because I usually don’t read the manual and because of the fact that I was fine before I never used it.

So - for what is the Media Bay for? Is anyone using it?

The only use I have with it is that I need to rescan those cryptic preset folders - hoping to eventually find at least a few of my presets again. They get lost all the time as well as I never was 100% able to port them from older systems… As it seems to me the Media Bay is perfectly made for managing presets and stuff - sadly I was never be able to 100% handle presets anymore since it was implemented. So, the idea behind seems to be good, but I just don’t get it how to use. If I need to browse samples and stuff I usually do that in the import-audio dialoge for example.

Brandy

#2

Mh, well - why not having a Medabay-Expansion Kit in Nuendo? For 150 Bucks? MEK? I will happily drop this in the NEKst update. Instead of that I will happily buy a N3+4 VST Preset Import Kit. Called PIK.

“Gaston, one Nuendo for me, with NEK and with PIK, but please without MEK”

#3

Well, you might see me as a fanboy, but in all honesty … Mediabay is a blessing for us.
We have +3TB of Soundeffects on shares which we can tag and search through mediabay.
This avoids having to buy 5 Soundminers or Baseheads. (Sorry Steve …)
Granted, both have more features than Mediabay, but Mediabay does the job perfectly.

Then as far as presets go, I think it is something you need to get used to.
And I see no difference as to how -for example- Kontakt does categorise their presets.

Fredo

#4

Ah, ok - so you organize Post-Pro Sounds with Mediabay. That makes sence. Well, those drumsamples I have I usually organise the basic way using the explorer.

And does the Mediabay actually work?

I have the feeling that it forgets stuff all the time, recently I had a crash during closing and bang, all the presets were gone. Panic. Rescan that Mediabay… Ok, some of them found … somewhere… :unamused:

#5

Yes, the Media Bay actually works. I love this feature. And I’m still on N4 where it’s slow and unimproved…

Seemed somewhat counterintuitive for presets when I was just getting started with it, but after working with it for a while… it’s really handy.

Chewy

#6

So I should give it a chance!

Is this explained in the docs? Maybe this will be more reliable to use when I actualy know the stuff :slight_smile:

#7

Just keep you hands off the application while it scans your HD’s.
And don’t set the results too high, because the more results, the more RAM is used.

Fredo

#8

…besides sluggishness with large database.

#9

Dear lieber Christoph,

it was the same here, I never touched the MediaBay until some accident in January 2011 forced me to do so. The system seemd to be far too complex in the beginning, and yes, there is a lot of work to do to have it soroughly organized.

But the same effort of work went into organizing my HDs and folder structures before.

The MediaBay is extremely powerful, and lightyears faster than any well-thought structure on your system. It’s like having a Google function inside of Nuendo. Ok, the search algorithm is not as powerful (it will not accept typos…), but it works fine.

Drag and Drop only parts of audio to the project, no problem. (Pre-)Listen to audio or VSTi patches during playback, with adjusting functions, no problem.

There are some issues. Any VSTi that will not use the fxp/fxb format will give you headache when transforming the patches. You need to do it one for one… but okay, this is not Steinbergs fault. Another thing is that you will not have any folder structures anymore. That means if you have 50 files that are your favourites, you cannot built a “favourite” folder to easily find them, you need to use the ranking system or tag the files elsewhere in the database.

But my recommendation is: Give it a try. It’s really worth spending a weekend with it, you will probably never work without it anymore.

Beeest greetings to sunny Freiburg,
Matthias

#10

Yes, the Ukrainian vote is correct :slight_smile:

MediaBay tends to get some hiccup if it’s getting large. Under some circumstances it will freeze Nuendo.

#11

That only happens when you are out of RAM.


We haev about 3.5 TB of SFX and samples on different Shared discs, accessed by 6 systems.
Up until 2TB of “regular” SFX, there is no problem at all, the system is lightning fast and smooth.
Only when we add the share of instrument samples, loops and other musical things (an insane amount of small samples, over a million I think) the system gets somewhat slow.

Fredo

#12

You are lucky! MB is sluggish here, I am waiting for at least 10-15 seconds until list of plugin’s presets gets loaded. Searching is also quite slow (windows explorer search is much faster). Sometimes it’s beginning to add some files to the DB on project close and it takes about 1 file per 2-3 seconds! And so on. My DB is about 2 TB.

#13

I do audio post production for commercials and indie movies and I’ve been using the Media Bay more and more, and I love it!

I am constantly searching for alternate takes and sound effects so the keyword and metadata search functions are perfect for that. If I want to sift through 96K samples I can specify that. Or, if I just want 16-bit, 44.1 samples, I can specify that as well. Or, just do a keyword search and it pops up all the results.

I’ve never had an issue with it locking up or freezing.

#14

Well, and what about plugin presets? I just was angry because AGAIN I was not able to find some not-that-old plugin-presets coming from Nuendo4. Mediabay just is not able to list them, they are not in the plugin when I go to “load preset” they are there in the explorer. Aaaah I hate it. Damn. I loose older work all the time with this damn solution.

#15

Ha, I also feel the same, I only find annoying cause I sometimes click it by accident
instead of audio pool !

Of course this must be great for people in post production or who have massive samples/audio files
that they drag in for various production work.