I have two questions about MediaBay in Nuendo 15. I am not sure whether these are bugs, changed behavior, or if I am missing some setting.
1. Dragging a selected range from the MediaBay waveform
In earlier versions, as far as I remember, it was possible to select a specific region directly in the waveform preview at the bottom of MediaBay and drag only that selected fragment to the project timeline.
In Nuendo 15, I can still select a region in the waveform preview, but when I drag it to a track, Nuendo imports the entire audio file instead of only the selected range.
I have tried different modifier keys and drag combinations, but so far I cannot make it work as before.
Is this behavior changed in Nuendo 15, or is there a specific setting/shortcut that controls this?
Or could this be a bug?
2. Monitoring stereo library sounds while working in a 5.1 / Center-channel workflow
The second issue is related to film post-production workflows.
When working in 5.1, I often work specifically on the Center channel, especially for dialogue, sync sounds, noise work, and other elements that need to be controlled in the Center speaker. In this mode, I usually solo or monitor the Center channel through Control Room.
However, when previewing sounds in MediaBay, many sound libraries are stereo. If I am monitoring only the Center channel, I cannot hear those stereo sounds in MediaBay. So every time I need to search or preview sounds, I have to disable Center-only monitoring or switch back to listening to all channels.
For film work this feels quite inconvenient. It would be useful if MediaBay preview could have an independent monitoring/downmix option, for example allowing stereo preview material to be heard while the project monitoring remains focused on the Center channel.
Is there already a technical way to solve this in Nuendo?
For example, through Control Room routing, a MediaBay preview bus, a plugin, or some additional setup?
Or is this something that would need to be considered as a feature request?
I agree with your feature-request to maybe separate the audition channel more. For now though, you could consider using a different, mono path as a source for your editing as it should play back center-only by default. All my speech tracks, so narration and dialog tracks, eventually also goe to a speech output bus that is mono, and it is available as a source in Control Room in my default preset. When I select that I get center only. It’s also convenient because selecting it I get dialog only no matter what (instead of soloing he monitor which gets me anything in the mix going to that speaker).
I know that’s a workaround but I thought it might be worth mentioning in cases you haven’t considered it.
Thx for your reply. If I understand you correctly, you suggest creating an additional source/path in Control Room via Audio Connections, similar to how we create 5.1, mono, or other monitoring sources, and then using a mono path for dialog/speech monitoring, routed to the Center speaker.
I had not really considered this approach before. At the moment, I am using a workaround through TotalMix FX routing/matrix on my RME interface, but if I understood your setup correctly, your method could probably work inside Nuendo itself.
It would be very interesting if you could describe your routing a bit more precisely — especially how your mono Speech bus is connected to the 5.1 mix and how exactly it is added as a Control Room source.
Best Regards
I set up a mono output bus that I called “DG Edit” (for dialog), and I send to it from my dialog tracks. I suppose you could also do this from your dialog submix group track if you preferred since that would yield a different result if you have processing on that submix.
Anyway, the DG Edit bus has no output assigned.
In Control Room: my default has DG Edit set as one of the available sources. My Main Out bus (that you designate in “Audio Connections”) is 5.1 and is also available as a source, but my actual mixes are separate outputs that are not the Main Out. So I have printmasters, mix minus narration, M&E etc. all for both stereo and 5.1 surround set up as individual output buses some of which are available as sources in CR - obviously the full mixes are for example.
In practice I can now select the Main Out whenever I want to audition imported sounds from an AAF for example, since that always defaults to new tracks and they default to the Main Out. And by doing it this way I never have to worry that my imported AAFs make it into the mix by accident which can happen when you get supplemental materials etc. I select the DG Edit when I want to do my production sound edit, and by default since this source is mono it will automatically route to the center channel as long as my output speaker selection is set to my 5.1 setup. This is great if I’m working on a mix and want to quickly audition a dialog edit that I think was funky, because I can quickly toggle to that source and get dialog-only playing back in only the center. No need to solo anything. And then, of course, I can select my other output buses that are available as sources, and I typically have the 5.1 and stereo print masters available as well as Music, SFX and M&E. The stereo print master source automatically routes to front L/R, so I don’t even have to touch the speakers output selection - it stays 5.1 throughout the process.
I think our requirements are slightly different, though. In your case, you need to monitor the Dialog Edit bus, while in my case I need to monitor the actual Center channel of the 5.1 Printmaster, or the Center channel of the 5.1 M&E bus, specifically for working with Center-channel noise and production sound elements. That was actually the original reason for my question.
I have to admit that I did not immediately notice the Monitor Source feature in Control Room. I cannot even say for sure whether it existed in earlier versions, but I had never really used it before.
Now I understand that if I create an additional bus, I can listen to it separately through Monitor Source. Previously, when I needed to listen to individual buses separately, I usually used Listen in the mixer, very much like on analog consoles. This is a very convenient function, but in this particular case it probably does not solve the MediaBay monitoring issue in the same way as a dedicated Control Room Monitor Source might.
I still need to test whether MediaBay will behave correctly in mono in this case, but the routing itself is not fully clear to me yet.
As I understand it, I would need to create a mono bus in the same general way as we create other buses, such as your Dialog Edit bus, M&E, stereo printmaster, or 5.1 printmaster.
The difference is that in my case the signal I want to monitor already exists inside the 5.1 Printmaster bus, or inside the 5.1 M&E bus, and I need to extract or monitor only its Center channel.
Ideally, I would like to do this without using third-party plugins or adding extra processors directly on the 5.1 Printmaster or M&E insert.
For example, creating a duplicate 5.1 Printmaster bus and then using an insert plugin on that duplicate to isolate the Center channel feels like a rather complicated and unnecessarily heavy routing structure.
At the moment, the only method I can think of is sending from the 5.1 Printmaster, or from the 5.1 M&E bus, to a mono bus and using the internal panner / MixConvert V6. But I have a feeling that this may not be the correct or cleanest way to do it.
So maybe I am still looking in the wrong direction.
Is there a Nuendo-native way to monitor only the Center channel of a 5.1 Printmaster or 5.1 M&E bus through Control Room / Monitor Source, without building a fragile workaround with duplicate buses and insert processing?
Well, if you normally work with templates then you just set this up once and it’ll work moving forward. You can definitely use MixConvert to silence the other channels from what I can tell. You could also make this dedicated monitoring source a 5.1 bus and simply put the MixerDelay plugin on it and mute everything but the center, and then just use that as a source.
Either way, I think the basic idea is to just use a dedicated source (or two) to get it done. You can make it accessible via key commands so it’s quick to switch.