S3 with Nuendo

[KeyplayerG]

Anyone here using an S3 with Nuendo or Cubase? Is it fully functional or "Pro Tools centric?"

[J-S-Q]

I use an S3 with Cubase and it's excellent. I would definitely recommend it. Unless you have the money and space for an S6 or Nuage I think this is the best controller you can get for Cubase/Nuendo. I've owned Mackie Control Pro, Avid Artist Mix, Steinberg CC-121 and Steinberg CMC controllers in the past and the S3 is by far the best (although obviously it's more expensive than all those). I also briefly used an SSL Nucleus and much prefer the S3.

Here are a few good and bad things about the S3 with Cubase:

THE GOOD THINGS:
1. Basically everything works as you would expect and it's been 100% solid and stable for me with Cubase 7, 8 and 8.5. When you put the S3 in EQ mode, your mixer/inspector will automatically open the EQ tab. Put the S3 in Sends mode, and your sends tab will automatically display. etc. You really don't feel like you are using a compromised controller that was designed for another DAW.

2. Almost all the buttons can be assigned to any key command or macro that you want. You have 22 buttons that are useable plus 4 buttons on the touch strip. Each button has a shift layer so you can potentially assign two functions. (Only the 'Solo Clear', 'Mix To Mons', 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons can not be assigned and are therefore currently useless). You also have Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and Command modifier keys.

3. Plugin editing is excellent. You can customise the parameter layout for your plugins (not sure if this is even possible with Pro Tools? Or maybe they've fixed that now?). e.g. I have all my compressors set so that Threshold is always on knob #1, ratio is always on knob #2 etc. Using the Cubase plugin manager to organise your plugins in folders makes it really quick to instantiate plugins from the S3. You also have full control over VSTi parameters although there are so many parameters on a typical synth that this will involve lots of scrolling through pages of parameters so I prefer to use the mouse for synth editing most of the time.

4. Colour coded channel LED's is a major plus on any controller and this works perfectly with Cubase. Great for finding tracks quickly. I have also edited the Cubase colour settings to match the various S3 modes which makes things more intuitive. e.g. My Aux sends are yellow. (The S3 knobs light up in yellow when in sends mode. Turquoise for inserts, purple for EQ's etc. It's not just about looking pretty, it makes things more intuitive because you can see at a glance what mode you are in without having to think.

5. I have a monitor directly at the back of my S3 and I have it scaled so that 16 channels on the Cubase mixer line up perfectly with the S3 channels. This is great for getting loads of visual feedback on what you are doing. Similar to an S6 or Nuage setup.

6. The OLED screens actually show a good amount of characters which means you don't have the problem of identifying severely abbreviated track names. Probably up to 10 depending on exactly which letters are being displayed. Way better than an MCU or controller which has a limit of 6 characters.

7. The metering is useful. It's not very high resolution but it's more valuable in terms of helping to quickly find the track you are looking for.

8. The S3 has a Quick Controls mode which lets you change/automate Cubase Quick Controls.

THE BAD THINGS:
1. This is the first of two significant negatives for me: When you hide tracks in Cubase, they are still shown on the S3. Maybe this will be fixed one day by Steinberg but impossible to know if they will do this. However, I've found a pretty good workaround for this using some software called Autohotkey that is enabling me to more or less achieve the same thing (I'll post details of it here at some stage. Just fine tuning the method at the moment). Not quite as good as the real deal but it's pretty close.

2. The second significant negative is that the Cubase mixer doesn't scroll when you bank the S3, although as soon as you select an S3 channel or touch a fader, the mixer will scroll. My Autohotkey workaround mentioned above is also helping in this department.

3. If like me, you use the Cubase channel EQ a lot, it only spills across 8 knobs rather than 16. This means you have to press a button to switch the knob between Q and Frequency which is a bit frustrating when there are 8 empty knobs that could perform that function. Hopefully Steinberg will sort this out one day.

4. The responsiveness of the knobs could be improved (This is not specifically a Cubase issue, it's the same with any DAW). The knobs have a degree of acceleration which can make it harder to adjust a parameter accurately if you are in a rush. Hope to see this addressed in a future EuControl update, as it has been on the S6 recently.

5. Again, not a Cubase specific issue but the built in AVB audio interface does not work with Windows currently but personally I prefer to use my existing Steinberg MR816CSX audio interface anyway. I believe you can still use the S3 as a monitor controller (to switch between two sets of monitors and control their volume) but I haven't actually tried this yet.

6. There can be a small discrepancy in channel volume when you first touch a fader to write automation. i.e. say your fader is at 0dB in Cubase. You play your session in write mode. As soon as you touch the fader and begin writing, the data written may not start at 0dB but maybe +0.05dB, or -0.1dB. A 0.2dB error is about the worst case scenario here and it's not something which I find hugely problematic personally. No idea if this happens with other DAWs.

[domilik]

https://www.steinberg.net/forums/vie...508958#p508958

[antonis]

I am thinking about purchasing an S3 for combined use with Nuendo 7 and 12HD. Possibly (but doubt it) might be selling a D-Command for the S3 plus Dock. At any rate, can anyone here confirm if any of the problems in Nuendo have been solved?

[Brandonx1]

I don't know why avid doesn't support windows! It's supported under the avb standard.

[antonis]

Originally Posted by Brandonx1

I don't know why avid doesn't support windows! It's supported under the avb standard.

Perhaps I should have clarified: I am happy with the Mac and OS X. I got Nuendo via crossgrade and now I am contemplating on the S3 to be able to use the same controller with both DAWs. But apparently there have been quite a few issues with the Steinberg/ Eucon implementation. Would anyone know more about it?

[J-S-Q]

Originally Posted by antonis

Perhaps I should have clarified: I am happy with the Mac and OS X. I got Nuendo via crossgrade and now I am contemplating on the S3 to be able to use the same controller with both DAWs. But apparently there have been quite a few issues with the Steinberg/ Eucon implementation. Would anyone know more about it?

Are there specific issues that you're talking about? Nothing has changed since my post above but it really depends how you view the issues I highlighted. For me, it's a great controller to use with Cubase (and I'm pretty sure the functionality is identical with Nuendo). Outside of an S6 or Nuage, I really don't think there's a better option for Cubase/Nuendo unless maybe you like the idea of the touchscreen stuff e.g. Slate/DTouch.

Will Steinberg develop it much further? Really not sure how motivated they are to do that so I wouldn't hold your breath. Already though, the integration is excellent and in some ways it's better than with Pro Tools e.g. the ability to create custom plugin parameter layouts is a MAJOR feature which is not possible with Pro Tools.

[domilik]

Originally Posted by domilik

Simple Volume-Control with faders (and that's propably the most used part on a fader-controller) is not working in a professional sense:

First, the 0dB-position of the fader does not send a 0db-Signal to Nuendo. Means, that every time you touch a fader without moving it(!), on purpose or not, a parameter is written in volume automation, mostly -0.2dB, but it varies up to -0.7dB. That is awful, even if you nearly cannot hear a 0.2dB-amount, you have your project full of unintended automation data. And an unintended volume-automation of 0.3 or more can be heard properly and is absolutely inacceptable.

Then, trimming volume with S3 is also not working like it should. In Nuendo the faders switch to a middle position, this is of course also reflected by the faders on S3, but the parameter feedback on S3 does not follow this. When you want to make a slight adjustment of lets say 1 or 2dB, the S3 reports you adjustments of more than 10 or 12dB. And on dialog mixing I have to admit I almost never leave the trim modus. So I have to deal with this bug all the time.

A 5000$ Fadercontroller which can not control volume in a professional way is indeed a major issue for me.
In PT it work as it should, but in Nuendo it doesn't (at least in my place).
Only did some short mixes in Nuendo, and this volume thing drives me nuts. Most other features work great.

[J-S-Q]

Originally Posted by domilik

A 5000$ Fadercontroller which can not control volume in a professional way is indeed a major issue for me.
In PT it work as it should, but in Nuendo it doesn't (at least in my place).
Only did some short mixes in Nuendo, and this volume thing drives me nuts. Most other features work great.

I totally agree. This should NOT be happening. At the same time though, I do feel it's one of those issues that when you SEE it with your eyes, you think NO WAY THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE, but when you LISTEN with your ears it's unlikely you'll notice. (although I can't say I'm seeing errors of 0.7dB! Pretty much always under 0.2dB here).

Of course if you don't touch the fader until you are about to write your automation then you are moving the fader to a new value immediately anyway so the 'error' probably only lasts half a second.

Just to clarify for those reading, this issue only happens immediately after the fader repositions itself (e.g. by banking or entering trim) -the first time you touch the fader, it will likely send s slightly inaccurate value as described in this thread. Touching it a 2nd/3rd/4th time, the value is 100% accurate.

[antonis]

Thanks for the input. This is exactly what I have been looking for. I am new in the world of Nuendo so I haven't been following this at all.

So, should I assume now that the ball is in the ball of Steinberg/ Yamaha to further implement the Eucon/ Nuendo integration or is it something from Avid's behalf to help sorting this out?

Is there anyone else around here that might have jumped from ICON and PTHD to Nuendo + S3?