What will I lose if I 'crossgrade' to Nuendo?

Cubase
1

I’m sure that this has been asked and answered here before (I couldn’t find anything that was both recent and helpful on the rest of The Internets), but the Forum’s search engine won’t allow searches for the most important words in my questions, so please forgive any redundancy…

I’m living a relatively happy and stable life with Cubase Pro 9.5.41 on a Win 10 (x64) PC, i7-3930K and 16GB RAM.

I want to cross-grade to Nuendo, to take advantage of its post-pro features, its more robust surround sound capabilities, etc.

. . . but the requirement that I relinquish my Cubase license has me worried, and raises a number of questions . . .

I’ve used Cubase exclusively since the days when I had to have this little bugger connected to my printer’s parallel port:

Cubase VST~32 parallel port dongle (small).jpg
I have some very old projects, which I still reference with some regularity.

Will Nuendo be able to open and play Cubase projects dating back to Cubase VST/32?

If not that far back… how far back?

It says on the Steinberg website that “Nuendo 8 will include ‘out-of-the-box’ all-musical features from Cubase, previously available in the Nuendo Expansion Kit (NEK).” Does that really mean ALL of Cubase 10’s ‘musical features’, or does the NEK only contain a subset of Cubase’s ‘musical features’, and Nuendo only has that subset??

Are there any ‘non-musical’ Cubase features that are either absent from, or handled differently in, Nuendo?

I’m breaking out in a cold sweat just imagining opening up a 50-track project and discovering that (for example) the instrument/plugin automation is all screwy, or missing entirely…

Will all of my hand-made drum maps, expression maps and project templates work in Nuendo, right out of the box, or will they need tweaking/reformatting/re-assigning?

What (if anything) will I no longer be able to do in Nuendo that I can currently do in Cubase Pro?

On a Win 10 (x64) PC, running on an i7-3930K and 16GB RAM, would Nuendo 8’s CPU/RAM usage be greater than/less than/generally comparable to that of Cubase Pro 9.5?

Thank you for any and all advice, guidance, URLs, etc.!!

— Alan

2

Try the trial version to see if it meet your needs/expectations.

Regards. :sunglasses:

3

Um, thanks PRock, but I’d really prefer a substantive reply, as opposed to the unhelpful suggestion that I spend the rest of eternity (or until the trial version’s expiration date, whichever comes first) trying to figure out which of Cubase’s thousands of audio/MIDI/workflow functionalities are either missing or implemented differently in Nuendo — a decidedly complex program with which I am utterly unfamiliar . . .

At the very least, can you (or anyone) offer a pointer to another thread where these questions have already been answered?

[as I mentioned above, the Forum’s search feature won’t allow for ‘common’ terms like “Nuendo”]

4

Regardless of features it is also worth considering that Nuendo upgrades are more expensive. So if you buy a lot of post features you don’t end up using you will continue to pay for it down the line. And there’s adding needless clutter. Losing the Cubase license makes it not worth considering for me. Cubase has everything needed for music production.

I know this doesn’t answer your features question but it’s still a factor in switching to a more expensive product.

5

Please don’t “thank” me if you consider my suggestion “unhelpful”. :unamused:

I sincerely hope you get a response from someone that can answer your concern.

FWIW… there are some posts about this topic in the CB 10 General forum section that may help you a bit.

Regards. :sunglasses:

6

unfortunately the forum members cannot know what you “need” in a DAW. Procks suggestion to try the trial to evaluate the product is the best advice as we cannot do your research for you. there are details of whats included in each product on the product pages you will have to compare the two products. asking whats different for 1000 different features is impossible to answer.

Audio Post-Production / general
• Extended surround capabilities with up to 13.1 support
• Anymix Pro advanced surround panner including automatic distant-dependent features
• Nuendo V5 advanced surround panner
• Re-conforming solution for fully integrated automatic audio-to-picture alignment
• Two video tracks and further capabilities such as picture follows editing and video pull up/down
• Video engine: text overlay, count-in
• Integrated loudness processing toolset, normalization to integrated loudness values and true peak level export
• Loudness Track: Loudness curve written on a dedicated loudness track including true peak indication
• Advanced Control Room capabilities, up to eight monitor sources and VU output channel
• Automated Batch Export for exporting several versions of a mix in one go
• Cycle Marker Batch Export support
• Film-mixing automation system with passes technology and enhanced automation panel
• Multitrack audio-to-picture editing, including playlists and video-follows-audio editing functions
• Advanced editing capabilities including track sheet and 2x Range tool
• ProTools multi-mono to stereo interleaved file conversion and Multitrack to mono split
• Render Export to bounce MIDI and audio parts with FX
• Automatable naming scheme for easy export of a large number of audio files
• More plug-ins, including Pitch Driver, Nuendo Post Filter, Bass Manager, MixConvert, Matrix decoder/encoder
• Clip packages: audio clips can be saved to individual packages
• More markers and dedicated features
• Extended Project Logical Editor
• Extended file format support: AAF, MXF audio, AES31
• Auro3D, Barco Wavefield Synthesis system support
• Support for wavefield synthesis sound creation (Barco Spatial Audio Workstation)
• Extended synchronization/machine control options
• Nuendo SyncStation synchronizer support
• Enhanced EuCon support
• Networking Collaboration features LAN/WAN
• 1.5 GB post-production sound library by ProSoundEffects

Game audio
• Game Audio Connect toolset for connection with Audiokinetic Wwise
• Transfer sounds to Wwise using drag & drop and batch export functionality
• Naming scheme toolset for exporting large numbers of game audio assets with individual naming parameters
• Perforce Helix version control system support
• More than 80 plug-ins and virtual instruments for creative sound design
• Clip packages for saving clusters of audio files as one package
• Direct rendering to disk thanks to the new Render Export function
• Advanced multi-format support (Barco Proximity)

Automatic dialog replacement (ADR)
• Fully integrated Automatic Dialog Replacement system
• Makes professional recording of dialog for multiple roles, scenes and actors easy and fast
• Up to 32 marker tracks for easy scene spotting
• Professional foley recordings thanks to useful options in the ADR panel
• EDL (CSV/CMX) format support for utmost flexibility and compatibility on import
• Dialog text overlaying the picture allowing the artist to fully focus on the displayed picture
• Powerful naming scheme including individual attributes for different characters/roles
• Video count-in and different swipes allowing for accurate, lip-sync performances

7

https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/knowledgebase_new/show_details/kb_show/compatibility-and-interchangeability-of-project-files/kb_back/2020.html

This chart shows that Nuendo will open Cubase projects back to Cubase 4 (at least). Older Cubase versions is not in the chart, so I don’t know about even older versions. (The chart is not updated and is up to N7, but I don’t expect removed compatibility in the newer versions.)

8

The info here is very helpful. Thank you all.

I did download the trial as suggested in another thread and am trying to rebuild my set up (outboard gear, etc.) within Nuendo to give it a thorough test.

One more question if you don’t mind…does Nuendo support expression maps as implemented in Cubase? I can test later, but I’m not in front of my computer and won’t be for a bit so I thought I’d simply ask.

Thanks.