Thanks for the heads up Luis! Good to know.
-Andrew
That doesn’t mean much - ‘…assuming that all QA tests are successful’ is the get-out. It could therefore be much longer than another four weeks!
And if QA tests are so vital now, why were they not important when N8 was released in the first place?
Would you guys rather have another “not finished and well tested” product?
All fixes mean new possible bugs… its not like setting the eq on a vocal track 
Was the release of N8 too early? Yes… But I hope the Steinberg team has learned its lesson.
I appreciate the attempt to get it right this time.
Apparently everybody is right all of the time …
When it’s released on time it’s: HOW CAN THEY RELEASE THAT WITH THIS AND THAT BUG REMAINING!!!
When they try to fix a few critical things and burn the deadline: BROKE A PROMISE!!!
Look, when a version doesn’t pass QA, then it means that something “critical” is causing instability or that at functionality is broken without workaround. I am sure that nobody wants such a version to be released.
And then the circle is round: More people, more programmers, work around the clock to combine both above.
All without an increase of price of the software of course …
Sorry for being cynical.
Fredo, you’ve right! BUT - we BOUGHT Nuendo version 8 update in JUNE 2017! 8 months ago! And software UPDATE which I bought (for almost half the price of Cubase Pro 9.5 btw!!!) stil doesn’t work as it should! After 8 months!
Because of GUI issues is for us, MAC users almost unusable on large projects!
Man … I wonder if anyone at Steinberg is testing the software before it is placed on the market. Sorry for being cynical but - after 9 months I expect a version without ANY bugs.
Increase price of the software that I cannot use?? Come on! I expect at least 2 YEARS I will not pay for any updates. I don’t trust Steinberg anymore. Sorry.
The least Steinberg could do is - to offer a trial license version of a (now) full working Cubase 9.5 (I speak for MAC platform!) for the time we wait for “working” version of Nuendo.
Such a version was released, it’s called Nuendo 8, and that was 9 months ago, when we paid to beta-test it for Steinberg, then came 8.1, so are we gama testing now or is it a case of perpetual beta? Fact is the gold version seems like a pipe dream, but that’s what we paid for.
dito.
Of course, that’s what users do! 
However, I find it curious that apparently, the release version got through all those rigorous testing procedures that take weeks. But it still was released with some apparent bugs and especially UI problems that made it barely usable, at least on Mac. Now, it’s 8 months in, and there’s still no fix for us. Since then, we’re waiting and hoping it gets resolved. We’re sitting on red hot coal, which feels quite uncomfortable And now, after 8 months, where there was finally light at the end of the tunnel, there’s just a statement, sorry guys, we found something, we have to fix this and then start testing from scratch, which takes another month. ANOTHER MONTH?
Look every Software has bugs, I get it. Software development is hard. But Steinberg has built up a consistent history by now of releasing major new versions with a lot of problems for many people and then taking months, three quarters of a year, to fix the initial bugs. One would think their planning would improve so they could get much needed fixes to their customers quicker. And in this light, pushing the update back another month just adds to the frustration that built up over the past 8 months. It’s human feelings. Has nothing to do with technical software development but people and expectations.
Both of your points above are right. But there’s a middle ground. How about releasing a major version that mostly works, and then issue quick hot fixes fast one after another to mitigate the release bugs that cannot be avoided. So that hopefully, after 2 months, the version your users paid for runs smoothly. Then one can concentrate on further development.
I’m just surprised it takes another 4 weeks to fix a QA showstopper and test everything again. Must be one hell of a testing procedure. Which then brings me back to the first point. Why haven’t all the annoying bugs we experience been found and fixed earlier, prior to release of 8 maybe, if they’re testing that thorough. Because to me it seems like we now get the worst of both worlds. First, a very buggy major release, and then huge waiting times for fixes to show up.
But I’m just a paying customer. What do I possibly have to add to that discussion.
(Sorry for being cynical.)
It will take 4 weeks because they decided to include more bug fixes that were scheduled for the next maintenance update, since the update is being sent back to testing anyway.
You guys are focusing too much on dates and ignoring the rest of the post. You want a bug free Nuendo 8, right? They’re trying to give you that.
No, actually I’m not. I’m just already waiting for a very long time to get a Nuendo version that works well, not with tons of workarounds. Just works. As advertised. All the functions. Even works great. Is that too much to ask?
It is possible. I use other complex software. Those work really, really well and also, features work as advertised, and if there are kind of critical bugs, hot fixes are issued pretty quickly. It doesn’t take 8 months. It’s a reasonable thing to ask in most places.
I’m not pointing to a date and cry like a child because I’m not getting it. I’m annoyed because the annoyance has built-up for 8 months. It’s a lot of annoyance!
And not a vote of confidence if it takes 8 months to fix what’s been broken from the initial release.
No, I agree that the fixes are coming more slowly than desirable, but this next update was found to have issues so it will have to be delayed a bit, like it or not. They really have no other option, so might as well take the chance to fix even more bugs, no? This extends the testing period by a few more days, which I knows is annoying, but in return you wont have to wait months for these extra bugs to be fixed.
Correct, it’s a ‘no’, the other option would be to actually do the work at the appropriate time and release a stable version (very minor bugs granted). The option they chose was to get us guinea pigs to front cash for a beta version.
And you know, I get it, some people think we are moaners, but let’s look at it this way, there is nothing more frustrating than music/audio tech stuff not working when you are trying to just get on with things and maintain productivity, there are enough creative challenges to have to deal with without having to then struggle with dysfunctional tech.
I can’t disagree with that.
Exactly.
+1000!!!
It was enough!
We always get a very bad beta version.
The last working version was the N4 32 bit.
Long time ago.
Anyway the C9.5 also dont’t work.
Right, personally, I don’t like it.
But don’t get me wrong.
Do I think Steinberg should release a stable patch? Sure.
Do I think it’s OK to take more time because a critical bug was found? Absolutely!
However
Do I think that after 8 months it’s about time to finally release a patch that (hopefully) fixes what’s been broken in the original release of N8? Yep.
I think the real crux of everything hinges upon one key question: Can development be sped up with more resources available?
I have a very hard time thinking the answer to that is “no”, because it implies that no matter the organization or amount of assets spent on development the peak development speed has been reached for Nuendo. It would mean that no entity, not even one like Apple or Mircrosoft with their vast resources, could ever make development go faster.
Now, if you agree that that’s an absurd proposition, and that it could be faster given more resources, then the question for us consumers is the prioritization of resources by Steinberg. Yet whenever this is brought up the answer amounts to that previously absurd proposition, that no matter how Steinberg decides to spend it’s assets there is no way at all ever to speed up Nuendo development.
It’s obviously a cop out, and every single time I see Steinberg output something else while what I’ve paid for is unfixed I cringe. I cringe because I know assets - my money - actually goes to fixing or creating other stuff rather than fixing what I paid for as fast as possible.
Having said all of that however I don’t have a problem with version 8, because I didn’t upgrade yet… because I learned my lesson last time!
It can be done and there are plenty of examples out there. Logic for one (just because I know it). Its team isn’t big either I think, but they manage to release very stable versions where major features work like a charm, and have a few patch and additional feature releases in a year. Same goes for Final Cut. They put out very solid releases with good new features about once a year, with minor patches and fixes during the year. I use them both regularly and also foolishly rush to install every new version the moment they are released. In the last years I haven’t had a single issue with any new release. New versions have been improvements all around, from the first minute.
The wildest thing I’ve seen is DaVinci Resolve 14 where they put so many huge features in a release, it’s mind-boggling. I haven’t used Resolve in a while but I heard from peers it’s been working well. Resolve must be a hugely complex project, and since v14.0 was released September 2017 they had 6 update releases with looong lists of fixes, improvements and new features.
Somehow other companies seem to manage this just fine.
So why don’t I switch you may ask, if the grass is greener everywhere else and Steinberg seems to annoy me so much?
-
Nuendo does things no other software does for my field of work. If I switch, my everyday tasks get more tedious. These comfortable time-saver functions come at a high price though, namely Nuendo’s buggyness, that consistently interrupts my workflow, whereas all other software I use around Nuendo don’t seem to suffer from it to that degree. A steep price given that Nuendo is easily the most expensive software I use.
-
I paid a lot for this software and integrated it into my workflow, bought hardware for it, switching is not that easy. I bought into this ecosystem.
-
And Timo in his posts gave me a straw of hope to hold on to, namely more devs coming to Nuendo, possible improvements in UX and GUI consistency, and a more modern copy protection somewhen in the future. It’s a thin straw for now, we’ll see how it pans out in the future.
There you have it. If there would be an alternative that would work better for me / or similar but with fewer bugs, I’d be gone. But Nuendo is currently the better option. It’s the lesser evil than switching to something that lowers my productivity. Which doesn’t make all of this less annoying.
I also still have hope for nuendo, but releasing such version as 8 and not fixing it for 8 months is unacceptable. Someone should be fired 
I still can’t quite believe that a top post production DAW like Nuendo doesn’t have a way to export audio to movie files, and according to the devs, will not have this functionality until version 9. Nuendo has a lot going for it, but that’s a killer to me. I understand the workarounds using other software, but for a lot of my work, it just doesn’t cut it.
I also agree with the slow update cycle comments - seems painfully slow compared to the competition.
I must say that with the NEK policy(RIP) this is the most ridiculous thing about Nuendo. One of te most advanced DAWs and still, on friday a director told me “OK. just finish asap, I dont have time and men to take audio from u, just send me a quick video for rejections”.
and I was like “mmmm…Joe, sorry man I cant do it on the fly maybe youd like me to finish first and then?”
not much to say about it but this is absurd.
Exactly right - I will work on just a section of a film or commercial or whatever, and the director wants to see that scene - in almost any other DAW I can just highlight the scene and bounce to quicktime - it will make a new copy of just that section in 1 shot. Super convenient.
Like I said, Nuendo has a lot of good - I’m not complaining because it does what it does quite well for the most part. But a post production DAW, and an expensive one, that can’t export audio to video, is pretty strange to me. And I understand the end of life for Quicktime and re-built video engine, but still. I very much doubt that I am going to wait for yet another paid upgrade until this becomes more feasible when others already do it.