Steinberg Nuendo is a digital audio workstation built for sound in film, television, games and other picture-based media. It records, edits and mixes audio against video, handles dialogue replacement, authors immersive mixes and exchanges assets with game audio middleware. Nuendo runs on Windows, including Windows on Arm, and on macOS for Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. It is commercial software that requires a paid license activated through Steinberg’s activation system.
Dialogue replacement and dubbing
ADR, or automated dialogue replacement, lives in Nuendo’s Markers/ADR window. Each line to re-record is a cycle marker with a start, an end and attached text. A guide track plays the original dialogue for the actor.
Recording uses three states: rehearse, record and review. In automatic mode Nuendo starts at a pre-roll point and records only between the selected marker’s boundaries. It stops after the post-roll, so each take fits its marker. Free Run mode starts at the cursor and runs until the operator stops it.
Nuendo can import cue text from CSV scripts, with or without timecode, or from Netflix TTAL files for language dubbing. A speech-to-text Dialogue Transcription function writes spoken lines into ADR markers. Cue text can appear as a video overlay. The ADR Script Reader shows the dialogue in a web browser on another computer or mobile device on the local network. Third-party ADR systems connect through an ADR API.
Working with production sound
Nuendo’s Field Recorder Audio Import searches folders of Broadcast Wave files from the set. It reads their iXML metadata such as scene, take and recording date. It finds the original recordings behind events in an edited project. Where a clip lacks metadata, Nuendo can derive scene, take or tape values from file names. Nuendo places matches on new lanes of the corresponding tracks. It splits polyphonic recordings into mono files that keep their metadata.
When the picture edit changes after sound work has started, ReConform compares old and new edit decision lists. It adapts the existing audio to the new cut. Audio Alignment shifts the timing of similar audio events, such as a re-recorded line and its original, so they play in sync.
Sessions from video editors and other workstations arrive through AAF, which carries media with fades and automation. Nuendo also supports DAWproject files.
Loudness, cleanup and dialogue mixing
A Loudness track records and displays loudness for the whole project or chosen sections. An Analyzer track measures both loudness and dialogue intelligibility. The SuperVision plug-in adds further metering modules.
Adaptive Background Attenuation writes volume automation that lowers background material, such as music, while a foreground signal like dialogue is present. For repair, Nuendo includes SpectraLayers Go for spectral editing and WaveLab Go. WaveLab Go applies WaveLab’s editing, repair and analysis tools to individual events. Stem separation splits a mixed event into separate tracks by instrument type.
Immersive mixing: Dolby Atmos and MPEG-H
Nuendo’s ADM Authoring window defines the object structure of an immersive mix. A track becomes the source for a bed, a channel-based layer of the mix, or for an object, an individual sound with its own position metadata. When a track is chosen as an object source, its VST MultiPanner switches to object mode.
For Dolby Atmos, Nuendo monitors through its internal renderer plug-in, which receives beds and objects automatically. Alternatively, it monitors through an external Dolby renderer with output busses mapped to object IDs. The result exports as an ADM Broadcast Wave file containing object audio and beds.
For MPEG-H Audio, a setup assistant creates a renderer channel and a standard bed. The Renderer for MPEG-H plug-in then handles interactivity, gain, loudness, localization, downmixing and monitoring. It exports the authored scene. Nuendo can also send object data over Open Sound Control. It can import ADM and MPEG-H material from MPF and MXF/S-ADM files.
Game audio with Wwise
Game Audio Connect links Nuendo to Audiokinetic Wwise. Nuendo renders audio dropped onto the Game Audio Connect window and exports it into the game audio project. Selecting an asset in Wwise opens the Nuendo project that contains it. In preview mode, Wwise remotely controls Nuendo to play items from its audio hierarchy without exporting them first. A Perforce integration adds version control for Nuendo projects.
Video playback and export
Video tracks in Nuendo play MOV, MP4 and AVI files. Nuendo can import MXF files with AVC-Intra or MPEG2 video. Playback handles files up to 8K with color space management. Video export sets resolution and encoding presets and can burn ADR text overlays into the picture.
Music, MIDI and mixing
Nuendo also covers music production with MIDI and score editing. It includes a drum track built around a drum machine and Pattern Editor, plus effects plug-ins. You can write music in the same project as dialogue and effects. The MixConsole provides routing, automation and a Control Room section for monitoring. Folder tracks can carry their own summing group channel for building stems.
