What Is New in Nuendo 12

Highlights

Clear speech is the most essential element in the audio narrative of streamed content, film and television. Nuendo 12 includes many new features and improvements to help make sure that dialogue is not only clearly heard, but sound designers and post-production studios can work as quickly, accurately and efficiently as possible. With headline new features for dialogue recording and editing, producing headphone-based binaural mixes and more, Nuendo 12 can truly be called the Home of Dialogue.

Dialogue Editing

Nuendo 12 brings major improvements to cleaning up and editing dialogue tracks, helping you to deliver clear, natural-sounding speech stems while minimizing the time spent editing dialogue. New features and enhancements which address the challenges faced by sound editors include AI-powered Dialogue Detection, a single keystroke feature to remove unwanted noise from a track and leave only the dialogue parts. Nuendo 12 also adds the ability to align multiple clips from location recordings to multiple references, make subtle timing corrections without convoluted workarounds and effortlessly integrate third-party technologies designed to make the lives of sound editors easier.

Dialogue Detection

We’ve introduced a new Dialogue Detection mode in the Detect Silence window where, instead of analysis based on the signal level, edits are determined by the presence or absence of dialogue in the clip. The AI-powered Dialogue Detection algorithm will reliably detect spoken dialogue, regardless of any background noise, and a new Detect Silence Using Last Used Settings command lets you execute the processing using the most recent values. It can be accessed with the Audio menu or a user-defined key command, without having to open the Detect Silence window.

Auto-Align® Post support

The distance between lavalier microphones and the boom may vary as actors move around, shifting the phase over time. Nuendo 12 features seamless integration with Auto-Align Post 2, making time and phase alignment of continuously moving microphones much easier. Integrated as an ARA 2 plug-in extension, it is sim ply a matter of engaging Auto-Align Post and selecting a reference audio track. The process is non-destructive, with the original audio always intact and ready to be instantly recalled or reprocessed.

Audition tool and Fades

With the Detect Silence window’s new audition tool, you can click anywhere in the waveform display…

Multiple reference clips for Audio Alignment

In Nuendo 12 we have improved the Audio Alignment functionality, allowing you to use multiple…

Free Warp in the Project window

With the new Free Warp tool in Nuendo 12, you can now make subtle timing corrections to the audio…

ARA improvements

The production sound has captured a great performance, but unwanted background noise is making it…

Even more editing improvements

o Nuendo 12 offers many new detail tools and shortcuts for audio event fade editing, including the new size with fade modifier key.
o You can now also use key commands to increase or decrease a range selection in all four directions, including moving the range selection itself.
o There is a new option to create or modify fade in/out length while resizing events by holding a modifier key and using the Select tool.
o You can now assign key commands for slip editing besides using the mouse and tool modifiers.

Dialogue Recording

As the Home of Dialogue, in Nuendo 12 we have paid special attention to the challenges of dialogue recording. Not only have we revamped the user interface of the ADR Taker, we have added new features and smart improvements, whether you are preparing for an ADR session, a language dubbing project for Netflix or using third-party applications whose scripts you want to import quickly and easily into Nuendo. These features will save you hours of time and make tasks less repetitive, radically enhancing your workflow.

Netflix’s TTAL dialogue script support

Nuendo 12 supports the import and export of TTAL files, Netflix’s proprietary script format for working on language dubbing projects. The TTAL script content is converted to record-ready ADR markers, including the dialogue text, characters and useful metadata, such as on/off screen notices, etc. Script change decisions made during the ADR production can be documented within the Nuendo marker editor and brought back to the workflow through the TTAL export function.

Connection to EdiCue

Nuendo 12 supports EdiCue v4, the award-winning ADR cueing application.Creating cues in Nuendo with the EdiCue Project Interface window allows dialogue supervisors to load character text from PDF shooting scripts and apply the required properties to enable a smooth recording session. Cue data is stored in Nuendo’s cycle markers, allowing for instant record. Alternatively, EdiCue can import cue data from EdiCue PDF cue sheets to send directly to Nuendo, ready for recording. You can also import data from Nuendo’s cycle markers direct into EdiCue and export customized cue sheets as PDFs.

ADR API

The ADR API enables external programs, such as taker systems and dialogue script editors, to…

Create Markers from Events

If a project needs ADR, but there isn’t a tabular script available to import ADR markers, the new…

Marker window attribute filters

The improved ADR Marker Panel in Nuendo 12 now features attribute filters that can be combined…

Marker handling improvements

Nuendo 12 includes a number of improvements to marker handling, including Sync Selection in the…

Immersive Mixing

Nuendo has always been at the vanguard of immersive sound mixing. It was the first application to implement a whole feature set for VR content authoring and the first DAW to offer complete in-the-box Dolby Atmos content creation. Now, Nuendo 12 takes another major step forward by offering the most comprehensive environment for binaural mixing with headphones. And with new improvements to volume automation, remote object panning, spatial monitoring and more, Nuendo 12 is the application you need for every immersive mix.

Space Controller OSC Control support

Nuendo 12 also includes full support for Space Controller OSC. Developed by Sound Particles — the specialists in disruptive immersive audio tools — 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 by simply pointing the phone to where the user wants sounds to come from.

Headphones Match

When listening through headphones the sound is affected by many factors, including intended use build quality, materials and more. To truthfully judge the frequency and spatial domain of binaural content on headphones, a neutral frequency response is vital. The Headphones Match plug-in uses an FFT-based spectral operator to apply an accurate compensation curve to the monitor output for 387 different models of headphones from a hundred manufacturers. It is measured in a controlled, identical environment with more than 500 frequency-points per curve. You can also emulate the sound of a different pair of headphones within this plug-in.

Dolby Atmos Setup Assistant

With the new Setup Assistant, the steps to convert a channel-based project to a Dolby Atmos mixing…

Binaural Downmix for Dolby Atmos Renderer

If a Dolby Atmos speaker setup is not available, binaural sound mixing over headphones can be used…

Sample-accurate volume automation

In Nuendo 12, volume automation is now near-sample accurate and completely independent from the…

Channel freeze improvements

Several new options are now available for freezing Audio, Sampler and Instrument channels. You can…

VST AmbiDecoder improvements

Binaural monitoring of Ambisonics mixing through VST AmbiDecoder must provide the immersive sound…

Left total Right total Mixes

When creating a downmix from 5.1 surround to stereo with the MixConvert V6 plug-in, you now have…

Export audio mixdown with sidechain

Audio export of individual channels or stems now allows you to print audio, including taking…

New SuperVision Modules

Leq(a):

This meter applies an A-weighting and is used to check the conformity of sound for broadcast. Applied to measured sound levels, it accounts for the relative loudness perceived by the human ear, which is less sensitive to low audio frequencies.

Sound Design & Music Features

Nuendo 12 comes with enhanced features for sound design and music. There are new and improved FX plug-ins, better integration with external controllers and, of course, all the music features of Cubase 12. This ensures Cubase projects will work seamlessly in Nuendo, with no loss of data or audio information when crossgrading.

New MIDI Remote system & API

In Nuendo 12 we have implemented a completely new way of integrating and using third party MIDI…

Raiser

Raiser is a new dynamics processing tool with ultra-fast attack times to let you dramatically…

FX Modulator

The new FX Modulator plug-in provides an arsenal of effect modules and a comprehensive envelope…

StepFilter

The StepFilter plug-in has been updated with two additional parameters. The Cutoff and Resonance…

Create Chord Events from Audio Events

The new Create Chord Events from Audio Events feature blurs the line between audio and MIDI…

Scale Assistant in VariAudio

The Scale Assistant in VariAudio brings two powerful tools together to make pitch editing quicker…

Logical Editor and Input Transformer improvements

With improvements to the Project and MIDI Logical Editors, the Input Transformer, the Transformer…

Workflow and Productivity Improvements

Whether you work in film, television, game audio or any other audio discipline, we are always listening to our Nuendo users to learn about the new features and improvements they need in the world’s leading sound design and post-production software. Nuendo 12 includes several user-requested updates which will improve the workflow and productivity of a wide range of different tasks throughout the application.

New licensing system

Replacing the familiar USB-eLicenser, we are introducing the new Steinberg Licensing system to…

Performance metering

The Audio Performance Meter gives you the best possible feedback about the load on the audio…

SpectraLayers One improvements

Nuendo’s integrated spectral editor now includes a new Cursor Crosshair to help easily locate the…

Invert the color on selected events

Nuendo users can choose to have events displayed in inverted colors to indicate selection (instead…

Move Events to Cursor

The existing Move Events to Cursor functionality has been extended to support both alignment of…

Native Apple silicon support

Nuendo 12 natively supports the Apple silicon architecture for Macs using M-series processors and…

Windows Bluetooth-MIDI support

Nuendo now supports MIDI over Bluetooth in Windows (WinRT MIDI). The benefits include enhanced…

Even More Improvements

Smooth waveform drawing

Waveform drawing is now much smoother, making it easier to look at and to edit audio with pinpoint accuracy.

Performance improvements

We have upgraded Nuendo’s performance for navigating and zooming within large projects, making it faster and snappier than ever before.

New Nudge Cursor key commands

Key commands can be assigned to jump backwards or forwards by 5, 10 or 20 seconds in the timeline.

Sample Editor: User interface improvements

The Sample Editor now also uses updated UI controls for the different sections, further improving consistency within the application.

Audio Event display options

There is a new preference to show or hide the audio file name in addition to the selectable attribute. The clip name (generally the file name) is displayed beside the selected event attributes in brackets.

Zoom and scroll with trackpad, Magic Mouse and mouse wheel

Zoom and scroll behavior with a mouse wheel or trackpad has been improved in all editor windows, the MediaBay and the MixConsole.

Video Engine update

The Video Engine in Nuendo 12 features performance and stability improvements. For macOS users it no longer requires OpenGL, allowing native Apple silicon support.

Freeze Detection (Windows only)

Freeze Detection checks if the main UI thread is hanging for an extended amount of time at regular intervals. If a freeze is detected, Freeze Detection creates a dump file.

Audio Engine improvements

The performance of all actions involving routing changes has been improved. Nuendo 12 now also supports High Core Count CPU on the latest AMD Threadripper generation.

Independent Grid Settings for Nudge edit operations

You can now decouple editing operations using Nudge commands from the Snap/Grid settings, letting you work with a bars/beats grid for mouse-based editing, but the Nudge key commands to adjust positions and lengths.

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