Shadow Cut Function - Solved

I’m not sure if this is the right spot to make a request but it would be wonderful to have a “shadow cut” function in Nuendo for checker boarding audio.

By this I mean that if you had clips on one track, you could place a long clip or bunch of clips on another track/tracks and the shadow cut function would cut holes in the clips on the new track wherever clips appeared in the original reference track. This would be incredibly useful for cutting ambience tracks to picture.

I have many macros in place to speed up my workflow and use EDL’s to create range marker tracks already but this would be a dream.

I remember seeing this on some other DAW I used some time ago and thinking it was pretty great.

Would anyone else find this useful?

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If I understand correctly you want Nuendo to delete clips on tracks B as you insert them on a set of tracks A. So A is interior scene and B is exterior for example?
I don’t know how that should work automagically… how would nuendo know how to choose and cut all the clips on the tracks?
A workaround for background editing: Create 2 folders with identical tracks (folder A + folder B).
First lay out all the tracks in A+B overlapping all the necessary A+B scenes on both sets of tracks. Then delete selections in A according to your cycle markers on start/end of the scene (from EDL) minding 1 or 2 frames to fade.
This way (if i describe this correctly) you should not get sounds playing in folder A when a B scene is on screen.
This is how I work in Pro Tools (in other studios for TV shows). All the fading is done at the end (batch fade).
You can also try to enable ‘group tracks’ for editing (at least in PT) but that I never use that, I need to look into that though (for Nuendo).
Perhaps look for the other DAW that does that and show us a video?

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I’ll try to find it. I think was Fairlight, maybe the MFX3 or the Dream, I can’t quite remember. I’ll do a bit more historical research. I do have fairly quickish methods of doing this but to have it as a built in function would be brilliant.

Well this is embarrassing! I just found the easiest way possible to do this.

Just cut the A tracks, enable Delete Overlaps in the preferences and move track/s A onto track/s B and there is your checker boarding as everything under the moved clips will be erased. You could crossfade then and move audio A back to track/s A or move audio A back to track/s A and extend and crossfade track/s A & B then if that’s how you prefer your scene cuts.

Silly me.

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I was about to suggest it this very moment. :smiley: It’s my typical workflow when I mix live recordings and want to fill gaps between edits with some “clean” ambience signal.

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Can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner, it’s so great and so fast! Go Nuendo!!

ha I did not know that option existed, thanks for finding it!

My pleasure! It’s so good :slight_smile: So fast! Of course I now have that option saved as a key command. Nuendo wins again!!

It’s so simple, yet so brilliant. Never thought of that.