While traditionally Steinberg serves the musician market with Cubase, Nuendo takes existing features up a notch, particularly in hardware/software integration. With Nuendo 12, Steinberg added what are currently the hottest trends in music production, such as headphone response adjustments and emulations for monitoring from anywhere - and that of course includes monitoring immersive audio directly on headphones - which is something that typical Nuendo users would never do, because they usually work in studio environments that benefit from real multichannel/multispeaker calibrated monitors. But because consumers in general are now encouraged to believe that Dolby Atmos/spatial audio is something that can be experience with selected headphones/in-earphones, mainly from Apple, audio professionals also need to monitor those reduced binaural experiences accurately.
Nuendo 12 mainly added new voice and dialog recording and editing features and enhancements, but clearly the main new features are the binaural renderer for Dolby Atmos and the new Headphones Match plug-in that compensates and/or emulates the frequency response curve of 387 different models of headphones from a hundred manufacturers — a direct response to the increased use of external plugins from Sonarworks, etc.
First revealed in March as beta, Steinberg confirmed immediate availability of Nuendo 12, emphasizing a clear focus on speech — the most essential element of voice overs, dubbing and dialog for games, movies, and television, with features especially designed for sound designers and post-production studios working in this domain.
Those new features include an AI-powered Dialogue Detection algorithm that detects speech and removes silent parts from recordings, and a new audition tool enabling users to listen to the displayed waveform detected as dialogue or silence, prior to editing. There’s also an enhanced Audio Alignment capability, with precise timing applied to multiple reference clips, and a new Free Warp tool that allows subtle time correction of dialogue clips from within the Project window. Nuendo 12 now also integrates seamlessly with Auto-Align Post 2, aligning time and phase of moving microphones. Nuendo’s ADR system has also received an overhaul.
And Nuendo 12 now provides a top selection of binaural mixing tools. The new Headphones Match plug-in compensates and/or emulates the frequency response curve of 387 different models of headphones from a wide range of manufacturers. The Nuendo Renderer for Dolby Atmos now offers a binaural downmix for immersive sound mixing over headphones with the required spatial accuracy, while its new Setup Assistant automatically converts a channel-based project to a Dolby Atmos mixing project. The processing algorithm used in VST AmbiDecoder for converting from Ambisonics to stereo binaural has also been significantly improved, so that it is now possible to build a monitoring chain from channel-based immersive sound to Ambisonics to stereo binaural.
Nuendo 12 also supports Space Controller OSC by Sound Particles. Space Controller OSC connects a mobile device to Nuendo and links the physical movements of the device to the software, enabling full control over its panning tools.
For musicians and sound designers, Nuendo 12 includes the FX Modulator plug-in with many effects and a comprehensive envelope editor, the Raiser dynamics processing tool and the Lin One dithering plug-in by MAAT. Users can now create chord progressions from audio events, while the ability to import tempo and signature tracks allows for seamless exchange between different projects. The new MIDI Remote system allows third-party MIDI controllers to integrate easily into the Nuendo environment. Also part of this feature set is Verve, Steinberg’s new felt piano recorded at the Yamaha Studios in Los Angeles.
Additional workflow and productivity enhancements in Nuendo 12 include new metering modules, video and audio engine performance improvements, MIDI over Bluetooth support in Windows, and native Apple Silicon support for Mac computers.
Nuendo 12 is available from resellers and through the Steinberg Online Shop. The suggested retail price for Nuendo 12 is 999 USD/EUR. Various downloadable updates and upgrades, crossgrades and education versions are exclusively available through the Steinberg Online Shop.
www.steinberg.net/nuendo
www.steinberg.net
