N8, not much finesse

Nuendo
#1

I spent my 1st full day working entirely in Nuendo 8.1.10. I’m in pre-production on an orchestral piece I’m doing for a Romantic Trailer. As I’m basically in song construction mode, all I’m using is the MIDI section right now. The 2 things that drove me crazy were 1) getting used to the new “Edit In Place” Zone (not a fan) and 2) the calibration of the cursor (REALLY NOT A FAN)!

Trying to do the simplest thing, like moving a track to a specific place in the project window was a real PITA! :angry: The movement was always so extreme. I need it to move a half inch up and it would go 12 inches! It was a lot worse editing the MIDI data. I’d want to back up to the beginning of measure 17 and it would jump back to measure 2! There is no finesse at all in the calibration between the trackball and the execution. Is there something I have to set to get it to make small subtle moves, like in N7?

As for the Edit Zone, that thing is cumbersome as hell! In N7, I’d have several tracks open in edit mode. I could see several lines at once and I could move data quickly and easily between various tracks. But with this Zone method, I can only see the track I’m working on and when I copy and paste parts, I have to open and close each track to move the notes. This is NOT efficient at all. It actually makes the process much more tedious than it needs to be!

Based on this first impression of really getting into N8, I’m inclined to do my programming in N7 and JUST MIX in N8. :cry: I would really prefer not having to work that way. Splitting a project between iterations opens up a plethora of possible errors, going back and forth between 7 & 8. Anybody got any work-arounds for dealing with the MIDI editing? I really need access to multiple lines at once to be efficient in this stage of production.

#2

Do you have multiple monitors? If so, is the Project Window on Display 1? I find that if the Project Window is not on Display 1 and designated as Main Display what you describe happens. On my system, N7 and N8 have the same sensitivity. Hope that helps.

#3

I have 3 monitors. My project window is in the middle (display no. 2). I’ll see if moving it to the left makes a difference. Even so, I don’t have this problem with N7 and there’s still the issue of being able to open/edit multiple tracks simultaneously. That makes another point for just going back to programming in that version.

#4

I have multiple monitors as well and don’t use rhe bottom Zone at all on N8. I have that switched off in Prefs so that clicking on an audio object opens a new Full Editor the same as N7.

#5

Well, that definitely helps! Thanks a lot! :smiley:

#6

Mouse scrolls way too fast on Mac too. Only solution I found (I have a Logitech mouse) was in the mouse driver to set scrolling speed to nearly zero for the Nuendo application. Works fine everywhere else. But Nuendo jumps several tracks at a time when touching the mouse wheel. Of course this doesn‘t help wirh drag and drop.

Would be nice if devs would pay attention and fix it.

#7

Yes, mouse scrolling is way too sensitive.
Please Steinberg, address this.

#8

So, I spent a week forcing myself to work in N8 programming this orchestral piece. I was determined to get used to the changes and quirks, just like I had to when switching from 6.5 to 7. But this morning, I just decided to see how it would go if I just went back to N7. The difference was like comparing chicken salad to chicken crap!

I was moving 75% faster in N7 from just little things, like a track ball that moved at the speed I needed to go to accurately navigate the project window. I didn’t have to work like some R.A.F. Pilot from 1939 lining up that freaking “Iron Cross” Cursor with the time line. When I needed to see the marker page, I didn’t have to stop and change to the locate page on my MC Control to find something. All I had to do was activate the Show Markers Tab on the transport window, which allowed me to leave the Controller page open to something I needed to see constantly. It was ridiculous how much simpler and streamlined things seemed!

For my workflow, I will definitely be doing all of my “heavy lifting” in N7. I’ll be programming and doing all of my song construction there. Then I’ll try mixing in N8, so I’ll have access to all of the “new toys.” I am assuming that Nuage owners don’t have to put up with most of these annoyances because all of the stuff they need is readily available on their hardware and N6, 7 or 8 just respond identically and exactly as expected. Nothing changes, so you become lightning fast working from the console. But if you have to work from the DAW, each iteration becomes more and more of a hassle (I’m still finding those attention windows a major PITA, compared to 6.5!) and my Artist Series rigg just cannot compensate for the changes.

Besides mixing, for me at least, it looks like I’ll be waiting out this period for Nuendo 9. :angry: :cry: I hope to have the Nuage hardware by then and hopefully, that will make the “required consistency” difference!