Software Installation
In this section we will go over all the steps taken during installation of Nuendo on both Apple OS X and Windows systems. This includes pre-configuration of the computer prior to installing Nuendo.
Operating Systems
Let’s start with the operating system. There are fundamentally three choices for operating systems compatible with Nuendo:
Windows XP—This Microsoft OS has been a workhorse for Steinberg from the beginning. Much of the VST world has been coded in Windows XP for Cubase over the years. The limitation of this OS is 32-bit memory addressing, limiting you to 3–4 GB of memory for Nuendo (depending on your system configuration) or any other application running in XP. Service Pack 2 (SP2) is recommended.
Windows 7—This newest OS from Microsoft features 64-bit memory addressing and has many improvements for multi-channel audio performance. Understand that all hardware drivers must be 64-bit compatible to work in Windows 7 with Nuendo.
Apple’s OS X—Versions of OS X above 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) are now 64-bit. This will require that all hardware drivers be 64-bit compatible. Older versions of OS X can be used with the 32-bit version of Nuendo, but as Apple’s software updates march relentlessly on, going with the current version is my recommendation.
It should be understood that any of the possible OS choices can work reliably and effectively with Nuendo. Any myths that one OS is better than the other when strictly dealing with the operation of Nuendo should be dispelled right away. It is up to you to properly install and maintain your operating system and computer hardware. Leaving any system recklessly open to the Internet invites disaster in the form of viruses and malware running rampant online. Treat your Nuendo computer as a dedicated piece of sensitive hardware and protect it from harm.
The choice of an operating system has much more to do with personal preference and working methods than it does with straight performance. Your DAW computer should be viewed as a “one-trick pony” and not a “jack of all trades” device if possible. This will ensure years of trouble-free operation. In a professional environment, downtime due to computer problems wastes time and money.
Windows on a Mac?
Using an alternate boot disk, or software such as Boot Camp, Apple computers can run Windows operating systems because Intel processors are being used in all Macs these days. Apple hardware is second to none and uses a great many high-performance components. This will benefit any OS installed on the computer. If you prefer a Windows environment or want to be able to run Windows alternately on Apple hardware, it is possible and works quite well.
Caution Do not confuse software such as Parallels that emulates a Windows operating system inside OS X with actually running Windows as the main operating system. While Parallels is a very helpful program, allowing you to run Windows software while running OS X, it will not allow the kind of interface between the software and hardware peripherals that is necessary for Nuendo or any DAW. In order to boot into Windows on a Mac, OS X must first be shut down. They cannot be running at the same time for this to work with Nuendo.
32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Nuendo
The first and most basic question for installation of Nuendo is the choice between the 32-bit or the 64-bit version of Nuendo. Looking forward, the best choice is to move into the 64-bit world because that’s where things are heading. But for many users, tools they have come to depend on may not yet have moved to a 64-bit version. This changes every day, so check the websites of your favorite providers for the latest updates. Also, the choice of computer hardware and operating system must be 64-bit capable to begin with.
The 64-bit version of Nuendo is capable of addressing much more memory than the 32-bit version. This is very helpful to those who use large VSTi sample/instrument libraries. Many sample-based VSTi’s pre-load portions of their sample data into memory for faster access. This eats up usable memory. Having 64-bit access to memory solves this problem by giving you access to almost unlimited memory.
Also, users in the feature film post-production world can often have projects in excess of 400 tracks. Add to that external control surface usage and a pile of editing and you can chew through memory fast. This type of use will also benefit from the 64-bit version of Nuendo.
Caution Understand that the 64-bit version of Nuendo does not sound or operate any differently than the 32-bit version. The only difference is in how much computer memory the application can access. The audio engine always uses a 32-bit floating-point audio signal format that should not be confused with 32-bit memory addressing from Windows XP and older versions of OS X (pre-Snow Leopard).
This is also true for other audio hardware being used in conjunction with 64-bit Nuendo. The drivers for audio interfaces, PCI cards, and DSP accelerators must also be 64-bit even if the audio they process is still 32-bit floating-point.
Configuring the Computer
Once you have chosen a computer for your Nuendo system, it will need to be configured properly for use with Nuendo. This includes installation of hardware drivers for sound cards, audio interfaces, DSP accelerators, and any other special devices or software you plan on using in your system.
In this section, I will go over these items using a checklist format like that used before takeoff in an airplane. Making sure the computer is ready to go before installation of Nuendo can help prevent problems later on (in flight, if you will). I also recommend performing a complete backup of your computer system at each stage of installation and just prior to installing Nuendo as this may be useful later if you wish to reinstall Nuendo from scratch.
Clean OS Install
If you have purchased a computer new for the purpose of creating a DAW system with Nuendo, it is a good idea to install the OS from scratch. This involves erasing the data on the boot drive and installing from the DVDs for either OS X or Windows. This gives you a chance to only install the basic operating system without any add-ons that might hinder performance of Nuendo. This can take anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple of hours to do (depending on hardware speed) but will guarantee that you have a clean install of the OS to start with.
Caution For Windows users, this is the time to configure the BIOS of your motherboard. You can optimize each individual BIOS in several ways, depending on the motherboard. The best advice is to turn off any unnecessary ports and devices on the motherboard such as parallel ports, floppy drives, and onboard audio devices because these will take up resources for no reason. This is general advice as each system has its own peculiarities.
Especially with Windows, all sorts of extra software (known as “bloatware”) may have been installed at the factory, enticing you to buy products, getting you to go to certain websites, or installing programs that needlessly drain system resources. Many of these software programs, especially antivirus/security suite software, can interfere with the performance of your DAW system. Installing clean from the DVD allows you to choose what is installed and avoid this unneeded material. With OS X, you can avoid installing extra software such as GarageBand, iDVD, and other items that can take up space if you do not intend to use them.
Note Back up your system using a disk-imaging type of software such as Apple’s Time Machine or Acronis for Windows. If you need to restore a hard drive back to a particular state, imaging software can do this much more quickly than if you install from scratch. Think of it as taking a picture of the state of your hard drive. That picture can then be restored later if needed.
Back up your hard drive right now with a freshly installed OS. If you have any problems later, this state can be restored quickly, saving you valuable time. Keep notes on the various backups you make during this installation process. The ability to “start over” at a known point in your installation can save valuable time when under pressure of deadlines and studio time.
Install Hardware Drivers
The next step is to install all the hardware devices that you will use in your system. This includes the audio interface, MIDI interface, video cards, USB keyboards/controllers, and DSP accelerators (UAD, TC Powercore, etc.). This step includes installing drivers for video cards, especially HD video cards used for dedicated video playback such as a Blackmagic DeckLink.
Caution For Windows users, any motherboard drivers should be installed first because they affect the basic performance of the computer and need to be in place before you install any other drivers.
With DSP accelerators, VST plug-ins may be installed as part of the driver installation process. Follow the instructions with the installer to place the plug-ins in the appropriate folder. The installer may create a folder since Nuendo has not yet been installed. Allow it to do this if the installer asks.
Back up your system. This is a very useful backup point because the system is ready for a fresh installation of Nuendo.
Install Hard Drives
Depending on your system configuration, you may need to install internal hard drives for audio recording, video, and sample library storage. For laptop systems, these may be external drives. Here are some guidelines for hard drives:
Use drives with speeds of 7200 rpm or greater.
Have separate physical drives for audio recording, video files, sample libraries, and backups.
For most applications, a SATA 3 GB/s interface is sufficient. For huge track counts (+250) and moderate track counts at higher sample rates (+100 @ 96 kHz), it might be necessary to go to a RAID array for greater disk throughput. A 32-MB cache on your audio/video/sample SATA 3 GB/s drive will have a dramatic effect on track counts.
Use more drives with less space per drive rather than one larger drive. One terabyte per drive is a good size. Larger drives can exhibit performance issues once they get over 50 percent full, depending on their physical platter and head design.
Have duplicates of each drive for backups. Hard drives are cheap. Redoing work due to a hard drive failure without a backup is much more expensive.
Keep a spare unused drive around for emergencies.
Tip With several internal hard drives and then duplicates for backups, the number of hard drives one needs to deal with gets larger and larger every year. One item I have found extremely handy in dealing with so many hard drives is a disk docking station. These units (see Figure 1.4) usually have one or two slots in which you can insert a SATA hard drive. They can have USB 2.0, FireWire, and/or eSATA interface connections on them to use with your computer. It is possible to “hot swap” drives in and out of the bays without shutting down your computer. This also eliminates the need to temporarily install hard drives in your computer just to see what’s on them. Your costs go down since you do not need to buy an external enclosure for each drive.
Some units can also accommodate the smaller 2.5-inch drives used in laptops. For backup drives, this is a very handy tool. When used with good backup software, these docking stations can make life much easier when dealing with many different hard drives. Using the eSATA interface, any hard drive in the docking station will perform just as well as an internal drive, allowing you to record audio directly to them.
Figure 1.4 Thermaltake SATA Hard Drive disk docking station.
Install Nuendo
Using the install disks you received with Nuendo, install the software following the instructions given in the installer application. If you have the Nuendo Expansion Kit (NEK), install this next. The NEK provides a suite of production tools and options specifically geared toward music recording.
Back up your system. Once again, each step in the installation process should be backed up independently because it is a very good starting place in case you have any troubles or system instability and need to revert to a known stable system.
Tip This point in the installation is where you have the most stability with the hardware you have installed in your system. Creating a backup here ensures that you have a stable system to revert to in case of problems in the future. Most system instability problems are due to the interaction between various plug-ins and Nuendo. If a serious system stability problem occurs that cannot be solved otherwise, revert to this system backup to regain stability. You may then add plug-ins one by one to see where the problem lies.
Install Third-Party Plug-Ins
Now you should install any third-party plug-ins you know to be stable and which are ones you plan on using often. Refrain from installing any demos or unknown plug-ins at this stage so that you can establish a very stable system to start out with. Once you have confirmed that the system is stable and have created a backup of it, then you can experiment with demos of new plug-ins and ones by lesser-known creators.
Back up your system yet again.
Caution The creation of these incremental system backups is useful when the computer is only being used for audio work. If you revert to a previously backed-up system image, all other data will be lost. If you have email, photos, or any other sort of data on your system drive, they will be removed if you revert to a previous backup disk image.
It is advisable to keep all other files on a separate drive so that the system drive can be wiped without any critical loss of data. In a professional environment, downtime due to technical issues costs money, and that is why the DAW computer should really be a dedicated system that does not perform any other duties.
Your system is now complete and ready to be configured and used. In the next chapter, we will launch Nuendo for the first time and configure the system to meet your needs.