VCA - Nuendo 7 vs Cubase 8

Are the VCA’s in Nuendo completely “free standing”?

In C8 the VCA’s are an extention to the regular grouping/linking system (which is NOT a real VCA system/function IMO). Is this, as announced, working different in Nuendo 7?

Any Cubase 8, and now Nuendo 7 user, in here that have tested and/or compared the two?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, VCA’s are completely independant of the grouping system.
Nuendo VCA’s are different to these in C8.

Fredo

I did not know this…Now that is interesting.

And necesarry IMO…

I also like how the VCA linking has got their own area in the “Rack Space”. Looks much cleaner IMO…

VCAs in a rack space don’t make much sense to me unfortunately. It’s something which is pretty fundamental to a mix session so you should be able to see that information at-a-glance rather than having to open/close a rack space for it. I actually prefer the way Cubase shows you the VCA link right above the fader.

Why are they implemented differently in cubase? Will the cubase functionality be changed to N7 style in the future?

I don’t know if the Cubase implementation will be changed in the future.
What I do know is that the Cubase VCA’s (VCA as being part of the linking features) created a much too complex situation which has : “pilot error” written all over.

The use cases in audio post, how things are mixed, are very different than music mixing.
VCA’s are used for very different things than linking groups of faders. The connections don’t always stay throughout the project and they must be usable in ad hoc style. Etc …

Current Nuendo VCA implementation is not entirely finished, but that should be solved in the first maintenance release, which is in the making right now.

Fredo

Another function that appears to be missing is the ability to have one track belong to several VCAs.

In Pro Tools for example you create groups of tracks (“linked tracks”, god, I wish SB didn’t use the word “group” for “auxes”), and then the VCA selects a group to control. As soon as a group is controlled by a VCA the regular group behavior is suspended in favor of the VCA. But this also means that I can create groups like this:

Track 1: Group 1 / Group “odds”
Track 2: Group 1 / Group “even”
Track 3: Group 1 / Group “odds”
Track 4: Group 2 / Group “even”
Track 5: Group 2 / Group “odds”
Track 6: Group 2 / Group “even”

VCA 1 controls Group 1
VCA 2 controls Group 2
VCA 3 controls Group “odds”
VCA 4 controls Group “even”

Seems we now would have to get into some intricate nesting in order to achieve the same, if possible at all, in Nuendo. Seems it’s a direct result of ditching groups (“linking”) in favor of a new system.

My thoughts and point exactly.

This is why this thread were started :wink:

Where do you get that from?
The traditional linking /grouping is still there.
It wasn’t removed in favor of VCA’s.
In fact, having them both, and being able to use both independant of each other, makes it much more powerful.

Fredo

I meant ditching groups (“linking”) being tied to VCAs for them to work in favor of a new system in which VCAs work independently.

Because it breaks the basic functionality of what VCA’s are suppose to do.
I’ll get back to taht later.

Fredo

I know. I’m not disagree with you.

Agree with you on that. Nuendo could easily retain separate VCA and Linking functionality but show the VCA channel assignments in a strip above the faders (like ProTools). IMO VCA channel assignments belong in the fader section and not in the rack section.