Who uses Nuendo to master? Would you mind sharing some of your workflows? Right now, I use Samplitude for mastering but mainly because you can burn cd’s directly in the project. I’m curious how mastering in Nuendo would work.
Thanks!
Eric
I’ve done a lot of mastering in Nuendo. The combination of Nuendo and UAD-1 has been great for me; I basically set up a couple of group channels for insert FX, and use the master bus (never to leave unity gain) for metering. Cambridge for sonic microsurgery, Pultecs, various compressors. Other stuff as appropriate.
“Mastering” means so much more (and less) than it used to… mostly don’t have to worry about needles jumping out of the groove anymore; sometimes there’s actual stem mixing involved… sometimes aligning multiple wild sources for live stuff… it all depends on what exactly you’re talking about, mastering-wise. All directly relevant to “workflow”.
So, when you ask how mastering in Nuendo would work, just what do you mean? Bounce your tracks, import them into Bias Peak, WaveLab or Jam to create a sequence and go? That’s a basic, no-frills or special extras approach.
Is this what you’re asking, or am I completely missing the point? Apologies in advance, if so.
Chewy
Wavelab here.
Cheers,
Bernard
Hi Chewy,
I guess my question was a little open, huh? I was just curious what people do if they master in Nuendo or just bounce the mix and master in another program like CD architect. Right now, I’ve been bouncing the mix and using Samplitude and want to make sure there isn’t a better way. Like you said, some could bounce out stems and master in another program. Just curious mostly, I’m still pretty new to Nuendo, but I’ve used most of the stuff out there and in MHO, for mixing Nuendo can’t be beat.
I would like to see Wavelab features integrated into Nuendo. That would be killer. I tried the demo, and never really got the hang of it before the demo expired. It is impressive though.
I use Nuendo for playback/capture dsp processsing, it is perfect for this.
I PQ in either SADiE or Wavelab dependent on job difficulty.
With the price of Nuendo: It should include all functions that Wavelab have.
Is there any reason that Nuendo should not be a mastering software?
Yes. If it was a mastering software, nobody would buy Wavelab as well. 
DG
I prefer to master in WL since the final product can come directly from there. But sometimes it is more powerful to do an intermediate step in Nuendo and use AES export to WL. It would be really nice if the integration went beyond AES which can be a PITA sometimes. I do what ever is expedient.
I don’t mind them being separate products, but the trend is for much tighter integration within the same product.
Only Nuendo, because WL is not able to do stem mastering, which I do 80% of the time. Plus, the plugin chaining in Nuendo is far superior to WL.
For the final CD, I usually do all fades and gaps in Nuendo, too. The final DDP is done by Sonoris DDP Creator.
I have been mastering in Nuendo for years. It is extremely flexible and lets me work as I want. Since Wavelab hasn’t been available for me until recently, I never tried it. I like the ability to instantaneously switch between the track I’m working on and any number of comparison tracks.
I currently use Waveburner for PQ and burning. It has one or two quirks but generally works well.
I always do the work in Nuendo.
About all I ever do outside it is the actual CD or DVD creation, and for CD I use WaveLab because of it’s excellent PQ setup & the fact I can pull track markers in via AES import.
Nuendo gives me both 5.1 & stereo in the same project so no problems at all.
What would be great is a PQ dialogue, but in all honesty I can live without this or CD burning (still cannot get CD Import to work in N5 here)
yea… dito.
But CD/Stereo only. All done in Nuendo (lately Cubase) - PQ and stuff in Wavelab.
Which the AES import/export makes a snap too.
Yes! This I use when working on for example a live CD - when working with individual tracks I usually just export 32bit float Master Files in Nuendo and then use a nice Montage to line everything up etc. If songs have x-fades or some other multitrack kind of stuff I do everything in Nuendo.
Mastering today can end up in a mix-session… Using parallelcompression, complexer routing, reverb, additional sounds / overdubs / samples, all kind of stuff - so I am much faster and more flexible when doing that in Nuendo. I never felt comfortable with multitrack processing in a WL montage.
Absolutely.
I agree - sort of - with the last comment too, with the sole caveat that this is probably because I never got around to really learning how to get the best from it.
Nuendo scores heavily for the surround mastering use too - it’s very simple to emulate all sorts of bass management (without ever endangering the mix) via the CR, and with WaveLab I could never get the same level of control.