About earlier VST Instrument presets

You can use any VST 2.x Instrument plug-ins in Nuendo. Installing VST Instrument plug-ins works the same way as for audio effects – see “Installing additional VST plug-ins” on page 186.

When you install a VST 2 instrument, any previously stored presets for it will be of the old FX program/bank (.fxp/.fxb) standard. You can import such files, but the preset handling will be slightly different. You will not be able to use the new features like the Preview function or the Tag editor until you have converted the old “.fxp/.fxb” presets to VST 3 presets. If you save new presets for a VST 2 plug-in these will automatically be saved in the new “.vstpreset” format in the default location.

Importing and converting FXB/FXP files

To import .fxp/.fxb files, proceed as follows:

1.Load any VST 2 instrument you may have installed, and click on the VST Sound button to open the Preset Management pop-up menu.

2.Select “Import FXB/FXP” from the pop-up menu.

This menu item is only available for VST 2 instrument plug-ins.

3. In the file dialog that opens, locate the .fxp file and click “Open”.

If you load a bank (.fxb), it will replace the current set of all effect programs. If you load a single program, it will replace the currently selected effect program only. Note that such files exist only if you created your own .fxp/fxb presets with a previous version of Nuendo (or any other VST 2 application).

• After importing, you can convert the current program list to VST presets by selecting “Convert Program List to VST Presets” from the Preset Management pop-up.

When the presets are converted, they will be available in the preset browser, and you can use the Tag Editor to add attributes and audition the presets. The presets will be stored in the VST3 Preset folder.

About latency

Depending on your audio hardware and its ASIO driver, the latency (the time it takes for the instrument to produce a sound when you press a key on your MIDI controller) may simply be too high to allow comfortable real-time VST Instrument playback from a keyboard.

If this is the case, a workaround is to play and record your parts with another MIDI sound source selected, and then switch to the VST Instrument for playback.

Ö You can check the latency for your audio hardware in the Device Setup dialog (VST Audio System page).

The input and output latency values are shown below the ASIO Driver pop-up menu. For live VST Instrument playing, these values should ideally be a few milliseconds (although the limit for “comfortable” live playing is a matter of personal taste).

Constrain Delay Compensation

Nuendo features full delay compensation throughout the entire audio path. This means that any delay inherent in the VST plug-ins you use will automatically be compensated for during playback, so that all channels are kept in perfect sync (see “About plug-in delay compensation” on page 170).

However, when you play a VST Instrument in real time or record live audio (with monitoring through Nuendo activated), this delay compensation may sometimes result in added latency. To avoid this, you can click the Constrain Delay Compensation button on the Project window toolbar. This function tries to minimize the latency effects of the delay compensation, while maintaining the sound of the mix as far as possible.

• In the Preferences dialog (VST page) you will find a setting called Delay Compensation Threshold. Only plug-ins with a delay higher than this setting will be affected by the Constrain Delay Compensation function.