So was I, and I have been playing around with it already (… I’m in the middle of a 3D mix, actually). It leaves more than a few details to be desired in this area, and I’m not even talking about Atmos, but plain 5.1.4, for now.
Ahh gotcha gotcha.
Never felt a need for PT like clip gain and personally for me clip anchor node and draw was sufficient nevertheless I have uploaded a short video that highlights some of the alternative ways a novice user can use Nuendo;s to achieve fast results. (pardon my English)
Sorry, Rajiv, but that’s really not it. The Pro Tools-style clip gain is not track automation, but acts on the clip and shows its effect on the waveform. A bit like the one you show before, with the pencil, but the Nuendo one 1) is only reductive (no increase), then 2 (shows nothing in db, not even in the data window. Clip gain as offered by Pro Tools, but also SO, Samplitude, Reaper and everyone else outside SB, is really one of the 3 or 4 most useful tools for precisely adjusting a consonant or vowel (strong or not strong enough), a declination, etc., in a voice. I’ve explained it all many times, on this thread and others.
Kind regards.
HI
Draw is used in conjunction to clip/event handles as shown in clip1 below. here its used in a corrective mode.
Personaly they are just different ways PT and Nuendo/Cubase approach to achieve clip based edit including gain normalisation and envelopes.
The same is true when using draw on automation lane with VT turned on as shown in the previous example. I call it clip or event based gain because as you move the event/clip the draw automation follows the clip/event.
In clip 2 you can use gain and Event Envelopes
From the guide:
The envelope curve is a part of the audio event. If you move or copy the event, the event envelope follows.
- In the Project window, select the event.
- Select Audio > Process > Envelope.
- In the Envelope dialog, make your settings, and click Process.
To remove an event envelope curve from a selected event, select Audio > Remove Volume Curve.
Infarct I am quite impressed how SB has programmed the various dependency graph as they all can be used simultaneously.
PT clip gain will add another layer of complexity on the dependency graph but can be done I suppose.
Is it needed…its subjective as one can already do clip gain and draw envelopes.
I use Resolve along with Nuendo and it has even more impressive implementation of clip gain than PT but nothing like event based corrective draws and VT.
Can Nuendo be a Behemoth with have all…sure.
I know all this very well, but it’s not that, I repeat. I don’t want to increase the clip gain in order to better reduce it and increase it with a pencil, without any markings. I prefer SB to create a true negative + positive clip gain. It’s as if your faders were capped at 0 and I asked you to manipulate the file volume to create a higher space. You’d say to me: please set your faders to +6 db, it’s more natural and normal.
On F7 envelope, which is an incredibly backward and outdated function, especially on high-definition screens, where it’s the size of a pack of matches, it still has no markers or gradation, it’s imprecise, it requires several manipulations and the opening of an additional window with very little functionality, which is part of what SB should throw away, because clip editing functions should be accessible directly via a panel, as in PT, Samplitude, Studio One and no doubt others.
Here’s a video capture. I’m a little out of practice with PT, since I’ve been using Nuendo for over a year for Atmos projects, but it’s easy to see the quick and precise adjustments that are easily possible, directly on the clip, with no detours and no complications. I’m only showing the basic functions, there’s more with the dead keys.
(The conversion slowed down the video, I’m sorry).
It will not because the basic functionality is already there. What is being requested is to allow the event based envelope gain to also increase the level, not only to decrease it. Furthermore it would be nice to make the nodes bigger so that they can more easily selected and to have a dB display for the value of the nodes.
The “layer of complexity” is already there.
I have rather another suspicion: Steinberg used a number format for the values of the envelope which allows it to be from 0 to 1 (because negative gain is reached my multiplying the signal with a factor smaller than 1). For a gain increase they would need the factor to go above 1. Changing that would lead to incompatibility with current and older versions of Nuendo.
In short: positive gain is not added because of backwards compatibility.
I personally wouldn’t want to deal with clip volumes the way shown in the video.
This is an example on the fly, of no consequence. But the idea is to work on micro-adjustments, which are very important for singing, before any compression. Lengthen the ending of a syllable, the attack of a consonant. But if you don’t want to, that’s okay. That doesn’t prevent others from doing it (in PT), or from wanting the function (in Nuendo).
A prediction: one day SB will arrive with this clip gain. There’s no way around it.
The draw tool adheres to clip gain ceiling set by the clip anchor point as shown in the first video clip which acts as a parent to the draw . They have a child parent relation. So I doubt it could be merged into one.
DOP adds another abstraction layer over and above the clip gain structure. thus the template and workflows that we device takes all this under consideration. So once we know what Nuendo is doing most problems dissolves away. And so we nolonger miss PT or Sequoia.
The things that surprised us lately didn’t come from old school PT but the new AI enabled flex bus in Fairlight that automatically sets object and channel bus for Atmos or simultaneously provides binaural stereo and surround monitoring from Dolby Atmos internal renderer. The integration of ‘Audio Vivid’ and pre support for open source exchange OTIO and others.
So to sum up PT clip gain (rubber banding) is only an issue if you insist that it is.
You suggest workarounds. We suggest a workflow enhancement.
Just to make this entirely clear: We are not asking for a new feature. We are asking for the refinement of an existing feature.
I think its not a workaround but a normal workflow as it never slowed down my work.
In Nuendo we usually normalise dialogue first, set the gain stage and then dynamically tweak the gain levels to match. (as showed in the short tutorial and more are coming)
Regarding a wish-list I would personally prefer to have Reapers Clip/take envelop as workflow enhancement with volume pan, pitch and mute rather than PT Clip gain
Why we don’t have it, I can only guess is…Dependency Graphs are designed and set very early on in the development cycle and that is the reason Apple still does not have a clip gain (rubberband style)
Regarding DAW specific workflows, Clients bring PT projects regularly and we also receive a lots of projects in logic and you should try logics clip gain
Reapers take envelop is superb and my wife uses it occasionally for audiobooks and VO but prefers to cut and gain for speed (audiobooks can be 14 to 20 hours long)
To sum it…would I like to have Reapers style Clip/take envelop of course I would.
Oh, I see. You homed in o the fact that Pro Tools was mentioned as the way to go.
I guess that just happened because the OP is familiar with PT rather than other DAWs. (Thus the use of the term CLIP gain.)
On the Cubase forum there is the same thread running but people used Studio One’s implementation as the role model of what we’d like to see in Cubendo.
You can also ask for Reaper’s integration. It doesn’t matter. All of them are better than Cubendo (except Logic as per your statement).
You don’t get it. I am not asking for Reaper or Protools integration, the demand that Nuendo or logics region automation is inferior and should mirror any one of them is to miss the unique ways each DAW’s have evolved to achieve proper gain staging and there is nothing wrong with SB’s implementation of it. It’s just different. You normalise to 0 and now the draw, works just like PT’s clip gain.
The staging is different. Thats all.
I am so happy for you that these methods work well for you.
But for somebody like me they are inferior to what we are asking for.
The DOP volume envelope area is too small to do any fine work. IMO this is for coarse work only.
The DOP Normalize and then lower the volume with the event volume envelope was somewhat acceptable if the event would be on its own. But often it is a take and there are several other recordings around it. Then I would have to adjust the volume after normalization so that it is in line with the other events again. It is do-able but a very cumbersome workflow and slows me down.
Thank you for trying to help by showing ways to achieve what is being requested here but unfortunately these ways are not satisfactory to, well, at least me. So the request remains.
Indeed, good answer. Normalize? What a strange solution! You have a symphony orchestra session with several mics per section, then distant mics for the hall or even Atmos. Then you think: Nuendo doesn’t have a clip gain (or clip event, for that matter), it doesn’t matter, I’ll just normalize the volumes! Ouch! The recording engineers are going to get out their guns. The same goes for in situ dialogue. Source volumes are a big deal. It’s information that forms part of the architecture of the work (we’re not all in multi-cabin popular music).
I’m the one who opened this thread, so I’ve read and reread it. What astonishes me, as with our friend Rajiv, who has great technical insights on other subjects, is to go to the point of absurdity not to understand or concede that Nuendo, despite its undeniable qualities, is handicapped on this point (as indeed is the impossibility of modifying the track order in the Mixconsole…). It’s like a leap of faith to save the beast. Yet it’s so simple…
That’s why, several times in this thread, I’ve been discouraged and silent for long moments. I’m at a loss to understand why…
I can sympathise with the fact that you miss PT clip gain. It will come when it will come. It’s fine asking for it. But you are making nervous and alarming statements. For example most of the times you would be handed dry and wet location audio and often with decent headroom by the recording engineer, whats the issue here., he has given you the headroom for a specific reason hasn’t he. Also Normalize help’s you catch those jumpy peaks, use pencil/draw or your favourite compressor to tame them, gain reduce to make them sit back in the mix or match it to the original to please your recording engineer. In the end you anyway have to loudness normalize it to standards.
Just think how the best film composers and dialogue editors have done it in Cubase and Nuendo.
Our dialogue usually goes through Izotope Rx preparatory stage including eq and ambience match, it also has an excellent clipgain band just like PT. I suggest you should use it. Prepare it in Wavelab or Hindenburg AI enabled magic leveler. Every video NLE has clipgain band and often the film editor would have already done the clipgain and levelling before handing it to you.
Getting back to fast turn around times here is a little trick you can do to get you started. Use Waves Vocal Rider to write the automation for you, copy the automation to fader track automation lane and now tweak the ones you are not satisfied with.
Tools are getting smarter and smarter and there are several ways to skin the cat. Try double compressor followed by dual limier trick, if nothing works try tackling the audio in PT intro and then export it to Nuendo. I have PT11 which no longer works in Mac M1 and now prefer using the tools available in Nuendo but had none of the issues that you have highlighted. I am talking about 2 day deadlines to deliver a 30 min radio play.
As I said it will come when it will come. I wont be surprised if we get an AI enabled clipgain which is trained on thousands of the finest dialogue and orchestral mix to get you started. All power to you.
Can you just gain it down instead of normalizing it? If so you could gain down all equally, right?
You still offer many workarounds. Like a complete bag of tools to replace a small screwdriver. As for the rest of your advice, I know it all perfectly well. That’s not the point. I think we have to stop here. We’re going round in circles and you and I have better things to do. Best regards.
Hi Mattias. That would mean turning up the clip by 6 db, for example; then placing your pencil roughly (because there’s no reference point) at -6 db. This for each clip (hundreds, thousands?). I’ll let Johnny answer in his own way, but I don’t think it’s a good way. The only way is to get a breakthrough from SB. In the meantime, for my part, I go to Wavelab and come back. It’s not ideal, but Wavelab works well. Why, by the way, is there a clip gain in Wavelab? Because it’s necessary. Why isn’t it in Nuendo? I don’t know. Why is it absent in Nuendo?