Well…
After much hemming and hawing (old guy speak) I’ve decided to jump into Nuendo.
I’ve been demoing it on an M1 Mac Mini with 16gb of ram.
I opened up a fairly large session and was shocked at how well it ran under rosetta.
The tipping point for me was the fairly fast rate of development, the reasonable price
(vs Protools Ultimate) and some announcement awhile back regarding your change of copy protection.
Definitely not a fan of yet another key.
I look forward to asking a plethora of silly questions and learning a lot.
Cheers
Stephen
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Welcome to the forum I think you will like Nuendo very much.
Greetings @stephenfalk1!
Excellent choice! Old Pro Tools HD/HDX user here also. I was a die-hard Pro Tools evangelist for so many years. But my growing frustrations with Avid and their pricing policies was making it impossible to stay on PT. Nuendo has so many incredible features that no other DAW has. You’re gonna love it! 
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Great to have you guys onboard the NUENDO family!
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Not to want to hijack this thread, but coming from PC world, what does a new M1 Mac with basic Thunderbolt, graphics card etc., cost these days in US terms, and does it work out cheap enough with a laptop?
Example hardware, might be: Motu, RME, SonicCore or Prism Audio so how well are drivers supported these days, or will I be up for a new platform the following year?
Too many Laptops, exhibit high DPC, so how is the new chip?
Cheers
I used Nuendo and Pro Tools side by side and this August, I dumped Pro Tools. The speed of executing tasks in Nuendo compared to PT was a decisive factor. I was like, how the heck would I continue to pay subscription while I have something much better here with me. So I had to trash PT, and for a substitute I went for Reaper (just for the mere fantasy of being a multi-DAW user and not for anything else). So I now use Nuendo as primary DAW and Reaper as a secondary DAW. The reason for Reaper is that it allows me to take work anywhere. It’s extremely light and efficient, doesnt require a dongle, extensively customizable ( I use my Nuendo keyboard shortcuts in Reaper too) and it runs on my laptop without an external soundcard. You can mix multiple projects in Reaper at the same time using project tabs, and you can flip from project to project for the fun of it if you get tired of one. Reaper really kicks a lot of *** But Nuendo is the heavyweight, with a lot of features. When travelling, I go with my laptop and Reaper is ready to run anywhere. I don’t like moving my Steinberg Dongle, so I dont forget or lose it anywhere; When back to my studio, Nuendo is king.
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You can price macs on the Apple website directly, and even customize them, if options are available for the model you are looking for.
I bought Nuendo last year during lockdown and really like it. I’m still not comfortable yet because I have projects coming in that have to be done in PT. How long did it take you to break your PT dependence? I’m still struggling here with key commands and new workflows. Old habits die hard and I’m finding it to be a difficult transition - not because of Nuendo, but more because I have to work in PT everyday to get the paid projects done. At this point, it’s more about ripping the band-aid off and jumping in head first. It’s purely a fear thing for me now.
I too play around with Reaper and find that’s been a bit easier to master, but I spend more time tweaking than getting work done.
Any advice would be helpful…
Thanks,
tg
I have caused a few converts over the years.
I’d say six months daily full time use to become proficient.
To be able to use Nuendo effectively is faster than that for most users, but I’d say six months is reasonable to expect to let go of most of the old baggage.
We decided back in 2007 to develop a totally unique keyboard layout that doesn’t at all look like the standard Steinberg one. And that is a lot more like PT.
was it a good choice? I think so. Why?
Well it makes it faster for PT converts to get going, it makes it easier for Nuendo users to do the occasional fix in PT. But the main win was not it’s similarity to PT but that we only kept the most used commands from PT and totally ignored all the default Steinberg choices as they are based on cubase, and we built ours first on PT yes, but it has evolved into a layout that is focused on all our needs while working in post and not producing music. Thus we have a lot of direct access to features that are more “hidden” in the Steinberg layout.
Drawbacks of outlet layout? Users that started using the cubase layout just can’t work with ours. However since it can be changed at will that is not a problem either.
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I know opinions over this differ, but I chose to NOT adapt the PT key commands, and instead spent some time on learning Cubendo’s own keys. The program’s “logic” is a bit different from PT, so that everything doesn’t exactly translate the same way – although you will find some great videos on Nuendo’s YouTube channel about jumping from another DAW (actually Pro Tools).
I find the key commands to be well thought out, but I have made a few modifications to fit my workflow. I am really happy with this setup with LogicKeyboard (with proper keys that you can actually press down a bit more than Apple’s own) and in addition a StreamDeck XL which is great for mapping a few extra functions and macros that I myself use a lot. Currently I use a “PT-esque” F1–F4 system for different snap and grid modes, placed just above the F1–F4 keys, for instance. This is how it looks:
I think you can summarize two different philosophies of PT vs Nuendo a bit this way:
- Pro Tools: It’s the same program on every system, but you can’t change anything (like key commands). The upside: You can always “jump right in” to a PT workstation everywhere you find one. The downside: You can’t change anything.
- Nuendo: You can spend time customizing and molding the program into being exactly what you want it to be. The upside: Just that – and that’s awesome! The downside: If you rely heavily on jumping from studio to studio instead of being the master of your own rig.
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@eirik_myhr indeed
Nuendos flexivility to adapt is what I love about it.
My brain isn’t big enough to remember two full sets of keycommand so having some resemblance helps me :-).
The great thing with Nuendo is that you can choose.
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Very soon, Nuendo won’t need a dongle either
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That would be marvelous and would tie me to Nuendo when am on the move…and definitely get me more hooked to one DAW… can’t wait.
