Hi,
Does anyone have experience with (the necessity for) external synchronizers for Nuendo? If so I would appreciate any comments you would like to share.
I have a suspicion that Nuendo is drifting slightly in playback speed - is that possible at all, and would an external synchronizer solve the issue (if it’s there)?
Thanks for your assistance.
Cheers, Mikaeal
Why should that happen?
Only needed if you want to sync to external hardware, like tape recorders, video systems, broadcast environments…
Is this just a gut feeling, or something you detected by measurements? Are talking about audio playback, or MIDI? What’s the word clock source?
… I don’t say that you’re wrong, but this would be a severe bug that would concern all of us.
In my experience, synching Nuendo has always been very solid. I’ve synched it to 2" tape machines, and other DAWs like Pro Tools and other Cubase and Logic Pro, via SMPTE and word clock.
What is the issue you are experiencing with drift? Can we replicate it?
How are you synchronizing your Nuendo right now, and to which equipment?
What is your suspicion based on, did you have a session get weird on you?
Come to think of it, I’ve never seen Steinberg’s printed spec for Nuendo wow/flutter 
As an aside, I use external synchronizers (master) to slave multiple Nuendo13’s to my jh24 tape machines as well as to two addl pc slaves running older smpte stuff.
Being the sync is framerate, I know (by nature of putting Cubendo in slave mode) that the slaves vary microscopically in order to stay locked. As do the two 24trks. Nature of the historical beast, but I only do sound…no film/video or anything where I necessarily need samplelock accuracy.
I’m not a believer in using master clocks for singular systems myself.
Dear friends,
I really appreciate your comments, and especially the ones on an actual need for external synchronizers. I haven’t measured any drift, but only something I felt (a disturbance in the Force, perhaps) - it’s probably nothing. I will leave this topic alone for now - thanks again for taking the time to comment.
Sincerely, Mikael
jh24 tape machines. Wow. How many do you have? Do they work well? Have you restored them?
I don’t know if this is Nuendo or just the nature of MIDI, but I notice that the Midi tempo displayed on my external devices sometimes drifts slightly from the set Project tempo set in Nuendo. For example, the project I am looking at now has a midi tempo of 132 but the tempo display on the devices is randomly drifting between 132 and 131. Not drastic by any means, but the perfectionist in me would like them to always remain the same.
I assume that this value would always be the same if both devices follow the same word clock (+/- the typical MIDI jitter).
Both devices do follow the same Word Clock signal but the tempos do not change in tandem - sometimes device A might drop to 131 and sometimes device B will do it. Weird. The clock signal is fed to a 4-output Midi Thru box which then feeds the clock to the individual devices. Using different outputs or cables does not solve the issue. (but I’m living with it!).
… errr … a MIDI Thru Box with a Word Clock splitter? That would be a rare device. Mind you, I’m not talking about MIDI Clock.
Oops! My confusion - I was referring to Midi Clock.
That’s what I thought. I’m pretty sure that the phenomenon you’re describing is actually just the result of a slight difference of two independent word clocks. That’s why it’s so important to resolve MTC, SMPTE etc. to the clock (or actually vice versa).
You may want to invest in a master wordclock synchronizer at some point if you’re syncing multiple computers. If for no other reason than to experiment.
I use the same master dtp clock synchronizers that I’ve been using since 1999
Everything from wordclock to incoming smpte to 9pin to clock redistribution to the tape machines synchronizers etc is much easier to keep track of if you have a dedicated rocksolid clock master imo.
I use Nuendo on a film mix stage, in sync with at least one Pro Tools acting as a stem recorder. Until recently we were always using 9 pin (rs422) sync with a Steinberg Syncstation, a Colin Broad SR4 or RM6 9 pin synchroniser, and of course the PT uses a Sync HD and CB Rs422 adapter.
Everything is locked for Video to our Antelope Trinity video ref, and everything is wordclocked.
I have noticed that 9 pin sync is not as tight as it used to be, and punching in on the recorder shows some variation on the sync which is getting to the point of not being acceptable. I have not managed to explain why this happens, and which system is responsible for the sync not being as good. It used to be rock solid.
However, we have also done extensive tests with the Mac OS network MIDI, and it has been a great surprise as Nuendo and PT stay in VERY close, reproduceable sync. Only thing is that you can’t have MIDI MTC on the PT and use the sync HD for video ref, so it’s not absolutely kosher in terms of “normal” ref setup.