Audio effects

About this chapter

Nuendo comes with a number of effect plug-ins included. This chapter contains general details about how to assign, use and organize effect plug-ins. The effects and their parameters are described in the separate manual “Nuendo Expansion Kit – Cubase Music Tools for Nuendo 4”.

This chapter describes audio effects, i.e. effects that are used to process audio, group, VST Instrument and ReWire channels.

Overview

There are three ways to use audio effects in Nuendo:

• As insert effects.

Ö Please note that this functionality is provided to allow you to load older projects including their original plug-ins on current computers. However, the plug-ins will require higher CPU performance when compared to their native platform. Therefore, it is recommended to use 64 bit versions or Intel Mac (Universal Binary) versions of such plug-ins or instruments once available.

In the program, effects compatible with previous VST versions will be easily recognized:

An insert effect is inserted into the signal chain of an audio channel, which means that the whole channel signal passes through the effect. This makes inserts suitable for effects for which you don’t need to mix dry and wet sound, e.g. distortion, filters or other effects that change the tonal or dynamic characteristics of the sound. You can have up to eight different insert effects per channel (and the same is true for input and output busses

– for recording with effects and “master effects”, respectively).

• As send effects.

Each audio channel has eight effect sends, each of which can be freely routed to an effect (or to a chain of effects). Send effects are practical for two reasons: you can control the balance between the dry (direct) and wet (processed) sound individually for each channel using the sends, and several different audio channels can use the same send effect. In Nuendo, send effects are handled by means of FX channel tracks.

• By using offline processing.

You can apply effects directly to individual audio events – this is described in the chapter “Audio processing and functions” on page 238.

About VST 3

The new VST 3 plug-in standard offers many improvements over the previous VST 2 standard, yet retains full backwards compatibility, i.e. you will still be able to use your previous VST effects and presets.

Nuendo is able to run plug-ins originally developed for different platforms: you can use a 32-bit plug-in under Windows Vista 64 bit, and you can use plug-ins developed for Mac PPC on MacIntel systems.

As the use of 32-bit plug-ins on 64-bit computers affects the computer performance, these will be marked by an icon in the plug-in menus.

VST Preset management

From a user perspective, the main difference between VST 2 and VST 3 is in the effect preset management. The “.fxp/.fxb” files used in VST 2 have been replaced by VST 3 Presets (extension “.vstpreset”). Using the preset management features, you can assign various attributes to your effect presets to help you quickly find the right patch. You can also preview effect presets before you load them. A large number of presets for effects are included with the program. If you have any previous VST plug-ins installed on your computer, you can still use them, and you can also convert their programs to VST 3 presets. See “Effect presets” on page 183 for details.

Smart plug-in processing

Another feature of the VST3 standard is “smart” plug-in processing. Previously, any loaded plug-in was processing continuously, regardless of whether a signal was present or not. In VST3, processing by a plug-in can be disengaged if there is no signal present. This can greatly reduce the CPU load, thus allowing for more effects to be used.

This is achieved by activating the option “Deactivate VST3 Plug-in when silence is detected” in the Preferences dialog (VST – Plug-ins page).

When this is activated, VST 3 plug-ins will not consume CPU power on silent passages, i.e. when no audio data runs through them.

Be aware, however, that this can lead to a situation where you added more plug-ins on "transport stop" than the system can handle on playback. Therefore, you should always find the passage with the largest number of events playing simultaneously to make sure that your system offers the required performance.

Ö Activating this option can increase your system performance a lot in certain projects, but it also makes it more unpredictable whether the project can play back fine on any timecode position of the project.

About side-chain inputs

Several VST3 effects feature side-chain inputs. This means that the operation of the effect can be controlled via external signals routed to the side-chain input. The effect processing is still applied to the main audio signal. See “Setting up side-chain” on page 180.

About plug-in delay compensation

A plug-in effect may have some inherent delay or latency. This means that it takes a brief time for the plug-in to process the audio fed into it – as a result, the output audio will be slightly delayed. This especially applies to dynamics processors featuring “look-ahead” functionality.

However, Nuendo provides full plug-in delay compensation throughout the entire audio path. All plug-in delays are compensated for, maintaining the sync and timing of all audio channels.

Normally, you don’t have to make any settings for this. However, VST3 dynamics plug-ins with look-ahead functionality have a “Live” button, allowing you to disengage the lookahead to minimize latency, if they are to be used during realtime recording (see the separate manual “Nuendo Expansion Kit – Cubase Music Tools for Nuendo 4”).

You can also constrain the delay compensation, which is useful to avoid latency when recording audio or playing a VST Instrument in real time. See “VST Instruments and Instrument tracks” on page 189.

About tempo sync

Plug-ins can receive timing and tempo information from the host application (in this case, Nuendo). Typically, this is used to synchronize certain plug-in parameters (such as modulation rates or delay times) to the project tempo.

•This information is automatically provided to any VST (2.0 or later) plug-in that “requests it”.

You don’t need to make any special settings for this.

•You set up tempo sync by specifying a base note value.

You can use straight, triplet or dotted note values (1/1 - 1/32).

Please refer to the separate manual “Nuendo Expansion Kit – Cubase Music Tools for Nuendo 4” for details about the included effects.

Insert effects

Background

As the name implies, insert effects are inserted into the audio signal path – this means that the audio channel data will be routed through the effect. You can add up to eight different insert effects independently for each audio channel (audio track, group channel track, FX channel track, VST Instrument channel or ReWire channel) or bus. The signal passes through the effects in series from the top downwards, with the signal path shown below:

Input gain

Insert effect 1

Insert effect 2

Insert effect 3

Insert effect 4

Insert effect 5

Insert effect 6

EQ

Volume (fader)

Insert effect 7

Insert effect 8

As you can see, the last two insert slots (for any channel) are post-EQ and post-fader. Post-fader slots are best suited for insert effects where you don’t want the level to be changed after the effect, such as dithering (see “Dithering” on page 173) and maximizers – both typically used as insert effects for output busses.

Ö Applying several effects on several channels may be too much for your CPU to handle!

If you want to use the same effect with the same settings on several channels, it may be more efficient to set up a group channel and to apply your effect only once, as a single insert for this group. You can use the VST Performance window to keep an eye on the CPU load.

Routing an audio channel or bus through insert effects

Insert effect settings are available in the mixer (in extended mode), the Channel Settings window and the Inspector. The examples below show the Channel Settings window, but the procedures are the same for all three inserts sections:

1.Bring up the Channel Settings window, the Inserts pane in the extended mixer, or open the Inspector’s Inserts section.

In the Channel Settings window, the inserts are located to the far left by default.

2.Pull down the effect type pop-up for one of the insert slots, and select an effect.

The effect is loaded and automatically activated and its control panel opens. You can open or close the control panel for an effect by clicking the “e” button for the insert slot.

•If the effect has a dry/wet Mix parameter you can use this to adjust the balance between the dry signal and the effect signal.

See “Making settings for the effects” on page 182 for details about editing effects.

•To remove an effect, pull down the effect type pop-up menu and select “No Effect”.

You should do this for all effects that you don’t intend to use, to reduce the CPU load.

•You can add up to 8 insert effects per channel this way.

•You can reorder the effects by clicking in the area above the name field and dragging the effect onto another slot.

•You can copy an effect into another effect slot (for the same channel or between channels) by holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] and dragging it onto another effect slot.

Deactivating vs. bypassing

If you want to listen to the track without having it processed by a particular effect, but don’t want to remove this effect completely from the insert slot, you can either deactivate or bypass it:

•To deactivate an effect, click the blue button on the left above the insert slot.

•To bypass an effect, click its Bypass button (the middle button above the insert slot).

When an effect is bypassed, this button is yellow.

This effect is activated, and its control panel is open.

This insert effect is bypassed.

Deactivating means to terminate all processing, whereas bypassing means to play back only the unprocessed original signal – a bypassed effect is still processing in the background. Bypassing allows for crackle-free comparison of the original (“dry”) and the processed (“wet”) signal.

• To bypass all inserts for a track, click the global bypass button.

This button can be found at the top of the Inserts section in the Inspector or the Channel Settings window. It lights up in yellow to indicate that the inserts of this track are bypassed. In the track list and the channel strip in the mixer, the Inserts State button will also light up in yellow.

However, you may want to apply the effect to other speaker channels. This is done in the Channel Settings window:

1.Right-click somewhere in the Channel Settings window (except the EQ display) to open the Channel Settings context menu.

2.Select “Customize View” from the menu, and select “Insert Routing” from the submenu.

The Insert Routing section appears to the left of the EQ display. It contains a row of small signal diagrams.

Insert effects in the channel overview

If the “Channel” section is selected in the Inspector or the “Channel Overview” view mode is selected in the extended mixer, you will get an overview of which insert effects, EQ modules and effect sends are activated for the channel.

You can activate or deactivate individual insert effect slots by clicking the corresponding number (in the top part of the overview).

The blue color of inserts 1 and 2 and the blue Inserts State button in the channel strip indicate that this track has active inserts.

The channel overview in the Inspector.

Using mono or stereo effects with a surround channel

Whether your effect supports mono, stereo or multi-chan- nel processing, depends entirely on the effect plug-in.

Normally, when you apply a mono or stereo insert effect to a surround (multi-channel) track, the first speaker channels of the track (often L and/or R) are routed through the effect’s available channels, and the other channels of the track are left unprocessed.

3. Double-click on the small signal diagram for the effect to open the Routing Editor window.

The Routing Editor window.

The columns in the diagram represent the channels in the current configuration, with signals passing from top to bottom. The gray field in the middle represents the actual effect plug-in.

•The squares above the effect represent inputs to the effect plug-in.

•The squares below the effect represent outputs from the effect plug-in.

•A line that passes through the effect (with no square input/ output indicators) represent a bypass connection – the audio on that speaker channel passes the effect without being processed.

•A “broken” line indicates a broken connection – the audio on that speaker channel will not pass on to the output at all.

Here, the effect will process the L and R channels. The Ls, Rs and C channels are not processed, while the Lfe connection is broken.

Operations

You can move connections to the effect inputs and outputs sideways to route the audio to/from inputs/outputs other than the standard configuration. To do this, click the arrow buttons to the right.

• The upper two arrows move the input connections, and the lower two arrows move the output connections.

If the “Link” checkbox is activated, the input and output connections will be moved at the same time. This is the mode to use when you simply want to process other channels than the default, without any cross-connections.

• Clicking Reset takes you back to the original standard connection.

Ö Changes you make in this window are audible immediately.

Adding insert effects to busses

All input and output busses have eight insert slots, just like regular audio channels. The procedures for adding insert effects are the same.

•Adding insert effects to an input bus allows you to record with effects.

The effects will become a permanent part of the recorded audio file (see the chapter “Recording” on page 64).

•Insert effects added to an output bus will affect all audio routed to that bus, like a “master insert effect”.

Typically you would add compressors, limiters, EQ or other plug-ins to tailor the dynamics and sound of the final mix. Dithering is a special case, as described below.

Ö Please note that the input/output busses only appear as tracks in the Track list, when their automation W(rite) buttons have been activated once. I.e. you can only use the Inspector section to make Inserts settings for the busses if you have activated Write automation for the respective bus beforehand.

However, you can always make Inserts settings in the Channel Settings window and the extended mixer.

• If you move inputs or outputs independently of each other, this means you create a “cross-connection”.

The audio on the Ls-Rs channels is processed in the plug-in and output on the L-R channels. Since the L-R channels are bypassed, this means the final L-R output will contain both the original L-R signals and the processed Ls-Rs signals.

• If a channel is bypassed (a straight line is shown through the plug-in) you can click the line to break the connection.

Click again to replace the broken connection with a bypass.

Dithering

Dithering is a method for controlling the noise produced by quantization errors in digital recordings. The theory behind this is that during low level passages, only a few bits are used to represent the signal, which leads to quantization errors and hence distortion.

For example, when “truncating bits”, as a result of moving from 24 to 16 bit resolution, quantization errors are added to an otherwise immaculate recording. By adding a special kind of noise at an extremely low level, the effect of these errors is minimized. The added noise could be perceived as a very low-level hiss under exacting listening conditions. However, this is hardly noticeable and much preferred to the distortion that otherwise occurs.

When should I use dithering?

• Consider dithering when you mix down to a lower resolution, either in real-time (playback) or with the Export Audio Mixdown function.

A typical example is when you mix down a project to a 16-bit stereo audio file for audio CD burning.

What is a “lower resolution” then? Well, Nuendo uses 32bit float resolution internally, which means that all integer resolutions (16 bit, 24 bit, etc.) are lower. The negative effects of truncation (no dithering) are most noticeable when mixing down to 8 bit, 16 bit and 20 bit format; whether to dither when mixing down to 24 bits is a matter of taste.

Applying dithering

1.Open the VST Output Channel Settings window by clicking the “e” button for the Output channel in the mixer.

You can also display the Inserts section in the extended mixer pane.

2.Open the Inserts pop-up menu for slot 7 or 8.

The two last Insert effect slots (for all channels) are post-fader, which is crucial for a dithering plug-in. The reason is that any master gain change applied after dithering would bring the signal back to the internal 32 bit float domain, rendering the dithering settings useless.

3. Select the included UV22HR dithering plug-in from the pop-up menu.

The included dithering plug-ins and their parameters are described in the separate manual “Nuendo Expansion Kit

– Cubase Music Tools for Nuendo 4”. If you have installed another dithering plug-in that you prefer, you can of course select this instead.

4.Make sure the dithering plug-in is set to dither to the correct resolution.

This would be the resolution of your audio hardware (on playback) or the desired resolution for the mixdown file you want to create (as set in the Export Audio Mixdown dialog, see the chapter “Export Audio Mixdown” on page 437).

5.Use the other parameters in the control panel to set up the dithering to your liking.

Using group channels for insert effects

Like all other channels, group channels can have up to eight insert effects. This is useful if you have several audio tracks that you want to process through the same effect (e.g. different vocal tracks that all should be processed by the same compressor).

Another special use for group channels and effects is the following:

If you have a mono audio track and want to process this through a stereo insert effect (e.g. a stereo chorus or an auto panner device), you cannot just insert the effect as usual. This is because the audio track is in mono – the output of the insert effect will be in mono as well, and the stereo information from the effect will be lost.

One solution would be to route a send from the mono track to a stereo FX channel track, set the send to prefader mode and lower the fader completely for the mono audio track. However, this makes mixing the track cumbersome, since you cannot use the fader.

Here’s another solution:

1.Create a group channel track in stereo and route it to the desired output bus.

2.Add the desired effect to the group channel as an insert effect.

3.Route the mono audio track to the group channel.

Now the signal from the mono audio track is sent directly to the group, where it passes through the insert effect, in stereo.