You can switch multiple channels at once, and even select multiple destinations, and it's all automatable. Next up is Direct Routing, enabling you to designate eight possible output destinations for each channel, and then flick between them with a single click. It doesn't show the channel's output data, though, and while that does mean you can see what's coming up in advance, it still feels like an underdeveloped idea - you can't adjust the speed or scrub by dragging, for instance. New in the mixer is the Wave Meters view, which shows a visual recreation of the clips on the audio tracks scrolling upwards. Many music producers create beats with samples on audio tracks, and we found Clip Packages to be a great way of stashing away such 'composite beats' for later use. Also new are Clip Packages, whereby you select a bunch of related audio clips and export them - you can later pull them from the MediaBay to recreate the original structure of clips. You need to tag all your data for it to be of much use, but that chore could well be worth the effort for post-production houses.

The layout has been refined and it just seems more logical and friendly, not to mention swifter overall, making it something we actually want to use.

It's been overhauled for Nuendo 5 (and Cubase 5.5) and we're pleased to say, it's really making more sense now. The idea is that you use it to index all the relevant data (audio, MIDI, projects, plug-in presets, etc) on your drives, so that you can browse, filter and preview it all at your leisure. The Cubase/Nuendo MediaBay is something that, until now, hasn't really clicked with us.

Nuendo 5.5