N5.5 - C6 Lane edit observations

Nuendo
1

My natural home is N4.3 - there is nothing in N5 which I need at present. So I got C6 to try out the new features which will be coming to N5.5.

This week I was editing multiple drum takes in C6. In general the new C6 lanes and edit system is a welcome upgrade to the old one. But I REALLY hope that when it appears in N5.5, the GUI is better than the present C6.

So what’s wrong with C6 in this respect?

Firstly, the waveforms are less detailed. At any given zoom factor, there is much less detail. The waveforms look ‘dumbed down’.

Secondly, the colours, or lack of them. A part/event is light grey with black waveform (unless you have it tinted with a colour). When selected, this is reversed - black part, white waveform. This would be OK, though it’s unsubtle to say the least. It hits you in the eye, but it’s usable.

Thirdly, I don’t like it that the handles are invisible until you hover over them, instead of visible on the selected part.

The big problems start when parts in Lanes are overlapped (not very visible diagonal hatching), active/not active (at the top and therefore audible or underneath) - different shades of grey) or muted/unmuted - yet different shades of grey.

It is VERY hard to distinguish between these different shades of grey. After 1/2 day my head hurt and I was getting in all kinds of mess with overlapping/active/inactive/muted/unmuted parts.

It is really a mess and badly needs a re-think. It’s a great pity because the actual functionality is really good and well thought out.

There is also a problem at present (listed as a bug I think) which prevents parts in Lanes from Bounce Select. This makes editing/comping Lanes even worse. Presumably this will be fixed by N5.5.

The whole C6 look is cool, but it is harder to see what’s going on - buttons are white when On and background colour when Off. For some reason, this is less intuitive than previously.

I’m posting this here because I want to get N5.5 when it comes out and I really hope the GUI is better than C6.

2

Firstly, the waveforms are less detailed. At any given zoom factor, there is much less detail. The waveforms look ‘dumbed down’…

Hmmm… I wonder if this was a response to the waveform memory consumption? To use less ram??

The big problems start when parts in Lanes are overlapped (not very visible diagonal hatching), active/not active (at the top and therefore audible or underneath) - different shades of grey) or muted/unmuted - yet different shades of grey.

Nuendo 5 is kind of this way too and for me it makes it hard the way everything is viewed in multiple stacked takes. Haven’t tried Cubase 6 yet to see how close. I do have eye strain doing editing due to overlaps and takes that fall under the top takes making viewing the top take waveform when not in lane mode.

3

I haven’t had an opportunity to compare N5 to C6, but my colleague has both. He finds C6 considerably worse than N5 in this respect.

Hadn’t thought about the waveform memory problem being behind the nasty new C6 waveforms - you may have a point there.

4

+1. I hope Nuendo 5.5 doesn’t take on the C6 comp methods as I found those considerably worse than N5 too.

5

Can you please elaborate on this? I have found the C6 comping to be far superior than N5. The lanes are larger and easier to see, I can use edit groups in a folder and work with multiple tracks much easier, I don’t need to mute multiple takes (or move lanes up and down) to hear an earlier one, it is much easier to move the edit around when auditioning the comp, and delete overlaps works much better.

6

I must admit you’re actually the first person I’ve found who prefers the C6 comping but here are the main issues for me:

  • Too easy to destroy a comp. If you have 30 takes in lanes with a detailed comp then accidentally selecting another take to maybe move etc destroys the comp you had. Particularly troublesome if you want to record a new part over top to ammend your comp as this new event will destroy your current comp.

  • Not possible to select and perform an action (select + resize, select + move etc) on an event without activating it. A workflow killer when you have to perform edits prior to audition (align ends of phrases, apply timestretch) without ruining the comp that’s there.

  • Delete overlaps doesn’t only occur on events selected but on your entire comp

  • Alt + clicking on an event to cut it cuts ALL events across the lanes. This is a big no-no in my workflow.

etc…

7

I find there are good and bad points in C6 lanes and comping. As I said above I find the many shades of grey difficult.

Also agree that selecting a part automatically activates it can be awkward - but this is also useful to select one take out of multiple tracks. Not sure how this can be got round.

There should be an Alt-Cut method which cuts only one of the lanes, but of course that would put the whole lot out of sync as far as group editing goes… difficult…

I hope SB don’t consider the lanes/editing system to be finished just yet, it needs more work.

8

The simple solution would be a modifer + click to activate instead of modifier + click to select.