I don’t use the Production Suite, but with the DEE/DRP every channel will play back as it was intended before. 
The order of a 7.1 bed output via Nuendo’s built-in Atmos renderer is in the DAMF metadata: L / R / C / LFE / Lss / Rss /Lsr / Rrs.
In the ADM BWF metadata, the order is also: “LeftSideSurround” / “RightSideSurround” / “LeftRearSurround” / “RightRearSurround”.
Thank-you for the confirmation MAS!!!
@TimoWildenhain Dear Timo could you please make an official statement on Steinberg channel order policy going forwards?
I am new Nuendo user, specifically for the Atmos features, but Nuendo’s incompatibility with the majority of 3rd party multichannel plugins is making my mixing life too stressful. Everywhere in my projects I am having to cross route sides and rears into and out of plugins that are very popular in the industry, from vendors such as Nugen, Cargo Cult, and Liquidsonics. Frankly, issues like this, lack of ripple edit, mixer snapshots not storing mute states, is pushing me toward PT - something I really tried to avoid.
Thanks
Also trying to wrap my head around this. Does this only affect the monitoring or is this also an issue internally when routing to multichannel plugins which might expect a different channel order (as the last post from Sep 19 suggests)?
I can’t answer this question for every plug-in, but it works for Exponential Audio’s 3-D reverb, for example. In the example below, a mono source is routed to a 7.1.6 FX bus with “Stratus 3D”, which goes to the Atmos renderer via Send.
(I already wrote above that the Atmos renderer outputs the channels correctly.)
I am quite sure that the “big” manufacturers of Surround and Atmos tools know about this “weakness” of Nuendo. As long as you take the fact of swapped channels into account when assigning the audio outputs, there should be no problems. If your interface/sound card allows it, you should label the inputs/outputs accordingly so that there is no misunderstanding:
But no matter how well you know about it, these different labels are extremely annoying.
Does “Sl” in the renderer now mean “Side Left” or “Surround Left”? Does “Rs” now mean “Right side” or “Right surround”?
Also because the designations are so ambiguous, it is so confusing. 
I thought the VST spec means that the host flags the correct channel order to the plugin ?
if the plugin gets it wrong -which isn’t unknown 
- then the mixerdelay plugin can reassign the channel order
It’s an issue internally with many multichannel plugins from major plugin devs. But not all (as MAS helpfully reported, EA reverbs get it right in Nuendo).
@Dr.Strangelove yes there are workarounds like MixerDelay and Plogue Bidule. But in a complex mix, that’s an unnecessary headache.
The monitoring order is not a problem for me. Soft patch it once, save, move on. But having said that, it should all be straightened out together.
It’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with this. However, it has to be that way, because every DAW works a bit differently. But since there is only one version of a plug-in at a time (and not every DAW gets its own variant), it makes sense if the DAW is “the boss” and sets the rules for the plug-in.
I remember a problem with Altiverb XL that wouldn’t work properly in Sequoia. The problem was that passing the surround format to the plug-in was not working correctly. The problem had to be fixed in Sequoia. And not in the plug-in.
I’m not sure if the problem can be fixed. Not even Dolby uses consistent naming. Then each plug-in uses its own labels. Just an example: the top right rear speaker is sometimes called Tbr (Top back right), sometimes Rtr (Right top rear) or Trr (Top rear right) or Rrh (Right rear height) or TpRR. Really?! 
The fact that Nuendo has established its special order for the rear channels fits in perfectly.
Maybe we should make a list of all the plug-ins that work correctly in Nuendo. And a list of those where there are problems.
I was suggesting this a workaround for plugins that get the order wrong - which I’m suggesting is a plugin problem NOT a nuendo problem.
I believe so - the DAW tells the plugin what the channel order is (or more likely the plugin knows what host is in working with and adjusts). Some plugins definitely get this correct so I would strongly suggest that any issues with plugins are for the plugin vendor to resolve.
It also probably means that if Nuendo ‘fixes’ this that all the atmos plugins will then need an update - as per the link below plugin devs are aware of Nuendo’s ‘quirks’ ?
Also I just noticed that different bus-formats handle the panning differently. I set up pink noise into both a 7.1.2 and a 7.1.4 bus, both of which go to the standard 7.1.2 atmos bed and the send panners are linked. The 7.1.4 does what I would expect it to, i.e. if I pan to a specific speaker location only that channel plays. Except the center channel gets no signal, which is weird. The 7.1.2 bus however always also plays the adjacing channels except for the sides, where only this one channel gets a signal. The center channel does get a signal but the L&R are very loud as well.
This probably sounds confusing – and I certainly am confused about this behaviour. Hopefully the screenshots help. Is this how it’s supposed to work?
Well let’s test some plugins then! I set up a 7.1 bus to my Fireface UCX II since it has hardware output monitoring so it is easy to visually check it vs supervision in Nuendo itself. Outputs are hooked up in the Nuendo order 1/2 - L/R, 3/4 - C/s, 5/6 -Ls/Rs, 7/8 -Sl/Sr.
Basic Panning with VST Multipanner - Works properly.
Basic Panning with dearVR PRo - Incorrect. It pans to the surrounds when you pan to the sides and vice versa. You can see it both on Supervision and the hardware outs.
Basic Panning with Anymix Pro - Works properly.
Monitoring with dearVR Monitor - Probably incorrect. No way to 100% measure since it is HRTF, but it sounds wrong, sound like sides and rears are reversed.
Stratus3D Reverb as a panned send - Works properly, output is correct, and it shows the correct input with the VST multipanner.
Symphony3D Reverb as a panned send - Works properly, unsurprisingly since it is a sister to Stratus.
Voxengo CurveEQ as a panned send - Can work properly. In default mode, where it EQs all channels it is fine. If you break it in to groups it incorrectly identifies sides as back and vice versa. You can change which it identifies as which though, and it controls the channels correctly.
Frequency as a panned send - Works properly, near as I can tell you can’t change it to only operate on one channel or M/S in 7.1 mode so it doesn’t matter, all channels get the same EQ.
Izotope Insight 2 - Works correctly. It shows the channels in a different order than Supervision, but identifies a left side pan as “Lss” and a left rear pan as “Lsr” and things pan properly through the channels.
Melda MBitFun as a panned send - Works correctly when set to surround mode. Everything passes through to the correct output, and if you edit the surround settings it correctly identifies the side channels (it calls them center surround).
Superior Drummer 3 as a rack instrument - Works, but it only supports stereo outputs so you manually pan them where you want so not really a useful test.
So in my testing the answer is that some plugins work, and some don’t, which is kind of annoying. I don’t have that many that support 7.1 (never mind more) so I can’t really test a ton of them. Unsurprisingly the Steinberg ones work properly. DearVR doesn’t, which is annoying because their monitoring for surround in headphones is pretty great. iZotope seems fine, both their regular line and their exponential audio line. Melda plugins all seem fine, though since they are doing equal processing on all channels in most cases it doesn’t really matter.
It seems like the biggest thing to watch out for is panners. Those are where you can really go wrong. Other things like EQs are also something to keep an eye on, however since they mostly do either all-channel or pair-wise processing it will work, even if they mix up the pairs, so long as you are aware of that. With CurveEQ you could change its settings to get it to label surround and surround back correctly, but if you didn’t it isn’t a big deal just remember which is which.
Reverbs would be another area that could really cause issues. The only ones I have to test in 7.1 are the exponential audio ones at the moment, and they work right. I don’t know about LiquidSonics since I don’t own their products, yet. There aren’t a whole lot of 7.1 or 3D reverbs out there, Waves is only 5.1 max.
It would be interesting to see what results others get. I’m also going to harass dearVR and see if they’ll fix it, since they do officially support Nuendo.
EDIT: updated with versions and new Slapper test.
Can I play this fun game? Testing in a simple 7.1 output buss.
Zplane PPMulator v3.6.1 Win VST3. Correct output, though the channel mapping settings for 7.1 contradicts itself:
5/6 = Left/Right Surround Side
7/8 = Left/Right Surround Rear
But audio enters and emerges in Nuendo’s channel order, it’s just contrary to what PPMulator’s settings says. OK in Sequoia & Reaper too, just have to re-label channels to be correct.
Cargo Cult Slapper v2.19 Win VST3. Identifies 7.1 buss ok. In Slapper, inputs are mono summed. Outputs are “wrong”: sides channels go to Nuendo’s rears, and vice versa. Version 2.19 now correctly mapping outputs in Nuendo. 
And consequently broke routing in Sequoia and Reaper: it now thinks they are Nuendo. 
Nugen Halo Upmix v1.6.1.1 Win VST3. on a straight 7.1 MIX Surprise, is matching Nuendo’s sides/rear order. Also, the label conventions Nugen and Steinberg devs are using are wildly different. It doesn’t help. Update: Now also broke routing in Sequoia and Reaper. Sides <> Rears.
Nugen Halo Upmix v1.6.1.1 Win VST3. on a 7.1.2 ATMOS BED Broken. Sides <> Rears. Incredibly frustrating that the plug/host combo gets it right above on a 7.1 bus, and breaks on a 7.1.2 Atmos bed.
Voxengo 8ch capable plugs. Win VST2/3. Works correctly as it’s basically 1:1 in out routing. Small point: when using the Routing 7.1 (Groups), the groups are miss-labelled (SUR = rears / SURB = sides), which makes you think it’s wrong but it isn’t. You just need to re-label correctly.
Flux Verb v21.12.0.50123 Win VST2. identifies Nuendo’s order. Helpfully, follows correctly in Sequoia and Reaper too. Has configurable I/O and routing presets. Other Flux plugs like Epure include some internally configurable routing also.
SIR Audio Standard EQ v1.6.004 Win VST2.. Fail, has sides and rears counter to Nuendo.
Dirac Live Processor v1.6.3 Win VST3. Most recent update aligned with Nuendo’s order (previously it wasn’t). But broke the order using Dirac in Sequoia and Reaper (previously it was correct).
My Liquisonics demo has expired. It would be great if someone could test again.
So I may of somewhat overstated this issue in previous posts - that was after a frustrating effort to set up an Atmos mix where the first three plugins I reached for were clashing with Nuendo’s order. It’s still clearly an issue though. You never see PT users struggling with this issue between plugins.
At any rate can I just say: looking at Supervision during this test drove a simple point home: having the sides come after the rears in order visually is bloody un-intuitive.
all great testing 
might be worth putting version number next to plugin tests - I know Justin fixed some issues with the incorrect channel order in Slapper in Nuendo recently.
I realize my posts might have been somewhat off topic (so I deleted two of them to avoid clutter), but then the underlying panning certainly must be correct before any plugins can work with a panned signal. Now my issues from yesterday are mostly gone once I now cranked the “width” parameter all the way up and then down again. Even though it’s clear from the screenshots it was at zero at the time. Don’t know what was going on there.
However. I’ve now tested FX channels in 5.1, 7.1, 7.1.2, 7.1.4 and 7.1.6, all going into a standard 7.1.2 bed and they all behave the same except for said width control, most obvious in the center channel. When I crank up the width with the signal front centered, only the 7.1.2 fx bus keeps sending to the center channel. All other configurations move towards to a phantom center. Also when the signal is rotated 360 degrees the 7.1.2 behaves differently from all other fx bus sizes.
Now one might argue that cranking the width way up is not necessarily a good idea anyway, but it dows make me wonder why the 7.1.2 behaves differently and whether this is a bug or a feature.
+++
That being said I also did some plugin testing:
Toneboosters V1.6.6 as panned sends - they work fine and just pass on the channels. But there are also no labels on the meters and I don’t think they really do anything that would require specific channels to be identified.
Thanks to all who tested your surround plug-ins.
Since I just have it open in a project, I immediately took screenshots of NUGEN Halo Vision (v1.0.1.1):
Unfortunately a NUGEN plug-in that does NOT work correctly. 
And here is LiquidSonics Cinematic Rooms (v1.2.0):
The program only distinguishes between “front” and “back”, but this works CORRECTLY.
Interesting. The newest plug-in in the range of NUGEN unfortunately does not work correctly. (See above .)
I would not rely on the information in SuperVision. I have already found that there are circumstances where the display does not match the final Atmos mix.
Dolby Atmos is always 9.1.6 in the home theater (i.e., at the consumer), and that’s how the signal is processed by the Atmos renderer. (No matter what Nuendo displays.) The renderer only stores the metadata of an object anyway. And aside from the LFE, Nuendo also converts a bed into objects. The Dolby Media Encoder (DME) or the Encoding Engine (DEE) always distributes the metadata of these objects to a signal with 16 channels (9.1.6). This is the maximum for Atmos in home theater. (Dolby Atmos is only truly object-based in cinema playback.)
I have opened a separate thread on this topic here in the forum. In it I am also concerned with such things. Unfortunately I haven’t found the time to write more about it yet. Maybe we should move the topic there or open a separate thread.
has anybody contacted the plugin developers for their input.
Matt @ Liquidsonics and Simon @ Nugen are both fairly responsive to emails, although it seems that Liquidsonics have probably got it right.
I have pointed out the problem before in conjunction with another plug-in from NUGEN. Unfortunately, I never received an answer to my e-mail. (Is also not necessary. If the problem is fixed with the next update, then that’s quite enough for me. ) But I will try my luck again.
I don’t understand this anyway: there aren’t that many DAWs that can do Atmos/object-based audio. You’d think such specialized plug-ins would at least be tested in Pro Tools and Nuendo beforehand. Especially since surround/atmos plug-ins are usually quite expensive. (NUGEN is usually at the top of the price range.)
I took the opportunity to demo Acon Digital’s Verberate Immersive 2. And it’s either broken in Nuendo or I’m completely not getting it. When inserted in a 7.1.4 fx channel as a send (i.e. the dry signal muted) there is no panning information going on whatsoever. All channels get the same amount of reverb. The dry signal gets sent to the correct speakers in the weird Nuendo order, but the wet signal has no location information at all. Also the panners in the interface don’t do anything.
I’ll contact the people at Acon and edit this post if I’m just being stupid. But to me this feels non-functional.
I think you might be surprised or more likely disappointed. The developers I’ve spoken to have be much more focused on Pro Tools compatibility.
I think I have most of the various Atmos plugs so I’ll check some if/when I get a chance. Although it’s obviously not just Atmos plugins that are affected - Cargo Cult Slapper was broken on just about every Nuendo surround format until recently.
Anybody checked the new Waves Spherix (which I don’t have yet) ?
We’re probably pretty off topic for the original intention of this thread - might be worth starting a new one with a list of plugins (and versions) that get the channel order wrong ? a Wiki ?
Updated my test post of a couple days ago with version numbers and some updates.
Take-away for me is that, while the compatibility of channel order is pretty evenly split, as some plugins** in my folder become compatible in Nuendo, they then break the routing (were previously correct) in two other DAWs I use every day: Sequoia and Reaper. To say this makes me cross is to put it very mildly. This is the chaos sown by Steinbergs silent stubbornness on this issue.
You’d think a bunch of professionals in a small industry sector could get together and agree on a standard, wouldn’t you?. And don’t @ me with that 15 competing standards meme!
** Slapper / Halo / Dirac Live.
