Hi, multipart question! I’m currently a PT11HD/12V user trying to fully get away from Avid - I’m now using Cubase Pro 8.5 for my composition stuff but still mixing & doing a bit of post in HD. I don’t ‘need’ Nuendo but I do like the extra post stuff (esp. the ADR tools) and the sale price seems like too good an opportunity to get on the Nuendo path.
Is the current NEK price (223 AUD) a sale price or is that regular?
I presume I’d be fine holding off activation on Nuendo itself until 7.5 regardless?
If I got Nuendo & the NEK (presuming thats a sale price) now, I’d be OK holding off activation on both until 7.5 is here - not quite sure how the NEK licensing works.
Really, am I better off just keeping Cubase current and using Nuendo with no NEK & opening either/or as required? I realise that the NEK is about a .5 version behind Cubase but to be honest I haven’t even bothered going up to 9 as there’s not a whole lot in there I thought worth the upgrade tbh (extra marker tracks is about all for me). I see that the Nuendo upgrade if you have the NEK is quite a bit more than just a Nuendo upgrade itself.
People only see their own currency off the Steinberg site but the price looks like the standard non-discounted one for NEK.
Yes you would be fine holding off on activation for the reason stated. Your point on the NEK licensing is a good one. Not sure of the answer. You could phone up your local Yamaha Steinberg rep (as opposed to a dealer/seller), they will probably tell you the real deal on licensing and holding off on activation. They have been candid and forthcoming with me when I have phoned them.
On your last point you will probably be in a better position to answer that once you start using the DAW. You may find that you simply want to live in Nuendo due to the post add-ons and want the NEK for finessing your midi composition or Cubase may be fine for your needs. It’s a tough call but know that if you use the NEK type of functionality in Cubase and move your file into Nuendo you at the very least will not be able to edit the NEK styled data and it might not even come over. Someone else who has direct experience with this should chime in.
Sounds like you have a good grasp of the important questions but only you will really know the answer once you start learning it and using it.
That’s good to know (& somewhat disappointing) about NEK editing not opening in Cubase - in fact that might well be a deal breaker on getting the NEK at all. At least it’s not on sale so I’m not actually missing a deal on it & can take my time evaluating.
I may not have been clear enough. Let me try again. NEK in Nuendo essentially gives you parity with Cubase, it adds a lot of midi tweakability, like per note editing through expression maps. If you don’t have NEK in Nuendo and you import Cubase files you will loose the ability to edit the expression maps in Nuendo. If you want full interoperability between Cubase and Nuendo files you want NEK. I don’t see this as a bad thing. You simply need NEK to guarantee this.
Ok… so you just loose the editing ability - you don’t lose the expression maps themselves for example? Ie. the project will still sound the same regardless of what MIDI/VI’s you have, you just lose the advanced MIDI editing ability? To be honest, by the time I got a project into Nuendo it’d probably be all audio stems by then anyway. As long as a Cubase project, regardless of content still opens in Nuendo that’s fine.
Still not sure the extra cost of the Nuendo+NEK upgrade fees are worth it over just the Nuendo upgrade. I guess it’d be different if I didn’t already have Cubase but I’m still also a bit put off the NEK always being .5 or so behind where Cubase is.
All this is eerily reminiscent of the old Pro Tools HD vs LE+CPTK. Not sure I want to get back on that train!
Just a quick update in case anyone else is in the same boat. Yamaha Australia got back to me and said I should be fine holding off on activation until the grace period is announced. Also, looking at the new news on the Steinberg site, the NEK is no more! So that saves that headache as well. Congrats all round to Steinberg all round!
I do feel sorry for anyone who bought Nuendo 7 in the sale and has already activated though, unless Steinberg offer the grace period back to today’s date which I assume is the ‘official’ Nuendo 8 announcement (the day after the Nuendo 7 sale ended…).
It was mentioned by a Steinberg employee that Nuendo is being PREVIEWED at GDC in March. The release date is off into Q2, so it is a ways off. This means Nuendo may not release until late June which is when Nuendo 7 was released almost 2 years ago.
So if Nuendo 8’s release date becomes June 25th this year that would mean based on prior releases that the grace period would not begin until May 25th or thereabouts.
I’m transitioning from Pro Tools HD though & already use Cubase Pro so I’m not leaving myself short. I’m right in the middle of a couple of projects anyway so it wouldn’t get used until end of March at the very earliest. For the sake of a couple of months I’d rather just hold off activating and get 8 with the grace period.
Have to say I’m really impressed with the info announced for 8, especially the dropping of the NEK. Hopefully Steinberg will look after those who already have it with the upgrade pricing (unlike Avid did with us CPTK owners).
The way I see it NEK was really more about not having some people pay for features they didn’t want. So, I would fully expect N8 to be priced as N7+NEK was before. So I don’t really think there’s a “look after” in this case, it’s just that some lose the ability to pay less.
Although as some of us pointed out years ago there’s a case to be made for getting rid of NEK and lowering the price at the same time, yet still giving Steinberg an increase profit.
Either way NEK was a nuisance and now it’s gone, so that’s good.
Oh, I’m quite sure N8 upgrades will reflect at least partly, that all the NEK features have been included. I just hope that Steinberg look after the users who own the NEK currently as opposed to those that don’t. I’ve had enough of that kind of thing with Avid, I’d hate to think I’m jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
As per my first post in the topic, when I was looking into getting on board with Nuendo the upgrade price for NEK vs no NEK was quite significant considering people had to actually buy the NEK in the first place. Again, all very reminiscent of the DVToolkit/CPTK/HD fiasco that Avid created.
It just remains to be seen with the upgrade pricing as to whether they’re ‘doing an Avid’. Personally, coming so late to the Nuendo party I have hopefully avoided any such repeat this time round!
Valid point though regarding users who have no interest in the NEK features - it just remains to be seen on the pricing as to how much extra the upgrades will be I guess. But yes on the face of it at least, getting rid of the NEK seems like a positive move - certainly as from my perspective anyway, if I didn’t compose and had no interest in the NEK features I may have had a different viewpoint - all depends on the pricing, as unfortunately most things do.
Having been bitten badly before, these kinds of moves from various companies have me keeping a very close eye on how they handle such matters, even if I’m not directly affected.
But those of us who own both would pay more regardless is all I’m saying. We’ve always paid more.
From what I recall the Avid DVToolkit/CPTK/HD issue was far bigger where users got ‘no credit’ for their extra investment when moving on. But we have to remember that even PTLE+CPTK didn’t equal HD, so they were left in the dust or had to pay to catch up. We on N7+NEK on the other hand already have the HD-equivalent solution. In addition Avid managed to make everything “worse” recently when they made prices better in general, in the sense that some people who jumped on the upgrades earlier but weren’t professionals could have waited and saved money.
I think the only way Steinberg can mess this up is to charge more for an N8 upgrade than N7+NEK. I do think that would be a mistake though, because looking briefly at what they’ve supposedly included in the new version I’m only moderately interested in it, and I do actually suspect that people on the fence won’t find that many new great features to make it worth while if the price is higher than it used to be.
Yep, full understand that - all I’m saying is I hope Steinberg offer version 8 at a lower upgrade fee to those who already own the NEK. Exactly the opposite of what Avid did. As I say, I don’t have a horse in that particular race but it’ll be interesting to see how Steinberg handle it.
As for the CPTK fiasco, it really all started whn the CPTK superseded the DVToolkit. It also wasn’t so much the way they railroaded users onto the HD upgrade pricing path when they discontinued the CPTK (which was made immeasurably worse once the subscription plan was unveiled) but the reasons given for abolishing it in the first place. We were told it was because of stability & compatibility. This of course was proved completely unfounded when only 18 months or so later a lot of the CPTK functions appeared in the non-HD version and continue to do so with every new version.
I do find it somewhat amusing Steinberg have announced the new direction with upgrades moving forward. When Avid announced their ‘support’ plan pricing they cited the exact same thing as the main benefit, which of course hasn’t materialised; more frequent updates. I feel a lot more confident in Steinberg following through with it than Avid however!
Actually, I think the only issue here will be just how much impact the new features will have in the new version, since they’re now skipping the cheaper .5 upgrades. To me the value proposition might be on the edge, even though some improvements are of some value to me.
you can be sure that the updates will have a reasonable price, with regards to the value of all the features coming to Nuendo 8 and even more compared to what ProTools users have to pay for PTHD software updates. And no, update prices won’t be higher than previous Nuendo+NEK updates.
Personally, coming so late to the Nuendo party I have hopefully avoided any such repeat this time round!