Steinberg Nuendo 5 Manual

2
System requirements and installation 

12
System requirements and installation
About this chapter
This chapter describes the requirements and installation 
procedures for the Windows version and the Mac version 
of Nuendo. 
Minimum requirements
To use Nuendo, your computer must meet the following 
minimum requirements:
Windows
• Windows XP (Home or Professional, Service Pack 2, 32-bit), 
or Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), or Windows 7 (32-bit 
and 64-bit)
• 2 GHz processor (Dual Core processor recommended)
•1024 MB RAM
• Windows DirectX...

13
System requirements and installation
• Windows Vista/Windows 7 – If there is no dedicated ASIO 
driver available, you can also use the Generic Low Latency 
ASIO Driver.
• Mac – The audio hardware must be supplied with Mac OS X-
compatible drivers (CoreAudio or ASIO). 
Using the built-in audio hardware of the Macintosh  
(Mac only)
Although Nuendo is designed with multi-channel input 
and output in mind, it is of course possible to use the pro
-
gram with “basic” stereo inputs and outputs. As of this...

14
System requirements and installation
Hardware installation
Copy protection
Many Steinberg products use the USB-eLicenser (also 
referred to as a “dongle”), a hardware copy protection de
-
vice. Nuendo will not run if there is no USB-eLicenser 
containing an activated license.
The USB-eLicenser is a USB device on which your Stein-
berg software licenses are stored. All hardware-protected 
Steinberg products use the same type of device, and you 
can store more than one license on one device. Also, li
-...

15
System requirements and installation
Testing the card
To make sure that the audio card works as expected, per-
form the following tests:
•Use any software included with the audio card to make 
sure that you can record and play back audio without 
problems.
•If the card is accessed via a standard operating system 
driver, try playing back audio using the computer’s stan
-
dard audio application (e. g. Windows Media Player or 
Apple iTunes).
Installing a MIDI interface/synthesizer card
Installation...

3
Setting up your system 

17
Setting up your system
Setting up audio
Connecting audio
Exactly how to set up your system depends on many dif-
ferent factors, e. g. the kind of project you wish to create, 
the external equipment you want to use, or the computer 
hardware available to you. Therefore, the following sec
-
tions can only serve as examples.
How you connect your equipment, i. e. whether you use 
digital or analog connections, also depends on your indi
-
vidual setup.
Stereo input and output – the simplest connection
If...

18
Setting up your system
•When using the Mixer inside Nuendo, you can use the 
inputs on your audio hardware to connect microphones 
and/or external devices. Use the outputs to connect your 
monitoring equipment.
You can create very complex setups using external instruments and ex-
ternal effects, and integrate Nuendo seamlessly with all your external 
equipment using the Control Room feature (see the chapters “VST Con-
nections” on page 27 and “Control Room” on page 179).
Mixing inside Nuendo...

19
Setting up your system
Making settings for the audio hardware
Most audio cards come with one or more small applica-
tions that allow you to configure the inputs of the hard-
ware to your liking. This includes:
• Selecting which inputs/outputs are active.
• Setting up word clock synchronization (if available).
• Turning monitoring via the hardware on/off (see “About moni-
toring” on page 21).
• Setting levels for each input. This is very important!
• Setting levels for the outputs, so that they match...

20
Setting up your system
5.Bring up the control panel for the audio hardware and 
adjust the settings as recommended by the audio hard
-
ware manufacturer.
•Under Windows, you open the control panel by clicking 
the Control Panel button.
The control panel that opens when you click this button is provided 
by the audio hardware manufacturer – not Nuendo (unless you use 
DirectX, see below). Hence it will be different for each audio card brand 
and model.
 
The control panels for the ASIO DirectX driver...