Music Tech Magazine reviews of Steinberg’s Nuendo 3: “Nuendo 3 is designed primarily to meet the demands of sound designers, composers and mixers working in post-production film, TV and other related media.” Everything about Nuendo 3 looks geared to multimedia work, so pure sound people might be happier with the more audio-oriented Cubase. Still, they like Nuendo’s ease of use: “Nuendo 3 is intuitive and logical to use, so tucking into the manual is unnecessary for most operations.”

Sound import and export has been improved. “Nuendo 3 now implements the new AAF format, which is designed to transfer sound and project metadata (such as fade, processing and automation) more efficiently. OMF export now has more definable options and exporting to other programmes also worked well.” However, they also noted that there were some problems exporting to OMF format.

Nuendo comes with bundled effects and instruments, but the reviewers say that for the price, they would expect a better reverb in particular, and more instruments.

Other features discussed include the “sophisticated” Fade window, which lets you draw “unusual fades and crossfades on your sound. These can be saved as templates and recalled for use on other clips.” They also discuss the Audio Warp tool new in Nuendo 3. This lets you stretch and pitchshift audio to accompany a video track. “The degree and accuracy can de defined by breakpoints in the audio clip and various Warp settings such as grain size and variance can help make the audio sound natural — or not! Aside from its uses in flexing rhythmic material, this tool really comes into its own when fitting replacement dialogue to picture, a process that is essential to audio post-production. It really feels as if you are moulding audio clay.”

Overall they give it 9 out of 10. Their verdict: “Nuendo 3 is a forward-thinking improvement to an already popular programme. With its easy-to-use tools and screens it can hold its head up high as a fast and creative platform”