Steinberg Cubase 5.0 User manual

Operation Manual

Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Marion Bröer, Sabine Pfeifer

Thanks to: Georg Bruns

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part

of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement

and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publica-

tion may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission

by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.

All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. Windows XP is a trademark of

Microsoft Corporation. Windows Vista is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United

States and/or other countries. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. Macintosh and Power Macintosh are

registered trademarks.

Release Date: January 07, 2009

Table of Contents

4

Table of Contents

10 Part I: Getting into the details

11 About this manual

12 Welcome!

13 VST Connections: Setting up input and

output busses

14 About this chapter

14 Setting up busses

18 Using the busses

20 Setting up Group and FX channels

20 About monitoring

20 External instruments/effects (Cubase only)

25 The Project window

26 Background

28 Window Overview

34 Operations

56 Options

59 Playback and the Transport panel

60 Background

61 Operations

63 Options and Settings

65 The Virtual Keyboard

66 Recording

67 Background

67 Basic recording methods

69 Audio recording specifics

79 MIDI recording specifics

84 Options and Settings

87 Recovery of audio recordings after system failure

88 Fades, crossfades and envelopes

89 Creating fades

91 The Fade dialogs

92 Creating crossfades

93 The Crossfade dialog

94 Auto Fades and Crossfades

95 Event Envelopes

96 The Arranger track

97 Introduction

97 Setting up the Arranger track

98 Working with arranger events

100 Flattening the Arranger chain

101 Live Mode

102 Arranging your music to video

103 The Transpose functions

104 Introduction

104 Transposing your music

107 Other functions

109 The mixer

110 About this chapter

110 Overview

112 Configuring the mixer

116 The audio-related channel strips

117 The MIDI channel strips

117 The input and output channels

117 Basic mixing procedures

121 Audio-specific procedures

128 MIDI-specific procedures

129 Utilities

132 VST Mixer Diagrams

135 Control Room (Cubase only)

136 Background

137 Control Room operations

137 Configuring the Control Room

140 The Control Room Overview

141 The Control Room Mixer

146 Studios and Studio Sends

149 Direct Monitoring and latency

150 Audio effects

151 About this chapter

151 Overview

152 Insert effects

157 Send effects

161 Using the Side-Chain input

163 Using external effects (Cubase only)

163 Editing effects

164 Effect presets

166 Installing and managing effect plug-ins

5

Table of Contents

169 VST Instruments and Instrument

tracks

170 Introduction

170 VST Instrument channels vs. instrument tracks

170 VST Instrument channels

172 Instrument tracks

174 What do I need? Instrument channel or Instrument

track?

174 Instrument Freeze

175 VST instruments and processor load

175 Using presets for VSTi configuration

178 About latency

179 External instruments (Cubase only)

180 Surround sound (Cubase only)

181 Background

182 Operations

188 Automation

189 Introduction

189 Enabling and disabling the writing of automation

data

190 What can be automated?

191 The Automation panel

191 Automation modes

193 Automation performance utilities

195 The Settings section

196 Hints and further options

196 Automation track operations

199 Working with automation curves

202 MIDI Controller automation

204 Audio processing and functions

205 Background

205 Audio processing

213 Applying plug-ins (Cubase only)

214 The Offline Process History dialog

215 Freeze Edits

216 Detect Silence

217 The Spectrum Analyzer (Cubase only)

218 Statistics (Cubase only)

219 The Sample Editor

220 Background

221 Window overview

224 General Operations

230 Options and settings

231 AudioWarp: Tempo matching audio

234 Working with hitpoints and slices

238 Free Warp

241 Flattening the realtime processing

243 VariAudio (Cubase only)

254 The Audio Part Editor

255 Background

255 Opening the Audio Part Editor

255 Window overview

257 Operations

258 Common methods

259 Options and Settings

260 The Pool

261 Background

261 Window overview

263 Operations

273 The MediaBay

274 Introduction

276 Window overview

276 Browsing for media files

279 Finding files in the Viewer section

283 Previewing files in the Scope section

284 The Tag Editor (Cubase only)

288 Working with Track Presets

289 Introduction

289 Types of track presets

290 Applying track presets

292 Creating a track preset

293 Creating tracks from track presets or VST presets

293 Previewing MIDI, instrument and VST presets

independently of tracks

295 Track Quick Controls

296 Introduction

296 Setting up the Quick Controls tab

297 Setting up quick controls on an external remote

controller

298 Quick controls and automatable parameters

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Table of Contents

299 Remote controlling Cubase

300 Introduction

300 Setting Up

301 Operations

302 The Generic Remote device

304 Track Quick Controls

304 Apple Remote (Macintosh only)

305 MIDI realtime parameters and effects

306 Introduction

306 The Inspector – General handling

306 The Inspector sections

310 MIDI effects

313 Managing plug-ins

314 Using MIDI devices

315 Background

315 MIDI devices – general settings and patch handling

320 About Device panels (Cubase only)

323 About Studio Connections (Cubase only)

325 MIDI processing and quantizing

326 Introduction

326 The Quantizing functions

331 Making your settings permanent

332 Dissolve Part

333 Bounce Selection

333 Repeat Loop

333 Other MIDI functions

337 The MIDI editors

338 Introduction

338 Opening a MIDI editor

340 The Key Editor – Overview

342 Key Editor operations

356 The In-Place Editor

358 The Drum Editor – Overview

359 Drum Editor operations

361 Working with drum maps

364 Using drum name lists

365 The List Editor – Overview

365 List Editor operations

368 Working with System Exclusive messages

370 Recording System Exclusive parameter changes

370 Editing System Exclusive messages

372 VST Expression

373 Introduction

374 VST Expression in Cubase

377 Creating and editing Expression Maps

380 The Logical Editor, Transformer and

Input Transformer

381 Introduction

381 Opening the Logical Editor

382 Window overview

382 Setting up filter conditions

386 Selecting a function

387 Specifying actions

389 Applying the defined actions

389 Working with presets

389 The Input Transformer

391 The Project Logical Editor

392 Introduction

392 Opening the Project Logical Editor

392 Window overview

393 Setting up filter conditions

397 Specifying actions

399 Selecting a function

399 Applying Macros

399 Applying the defined actions

399 Working with presets

401 Editing tempo and signature

402 Background

402 Tempo and signature display

404 Editing tempo and signature

406 Process Tempo (Cubase only)

406 The Process Bars dialog (Cubase only)

407 The Beat Calculator

408 Merge Tempo From Tapping

408 The Time Warp tool

413 The Project Browser

414 Window Overview

415 Editing tracks

419 Export Audio Mixdown

420 Introduction

420 Mixing down to audio files

422 The available file formats

7

Table of Contents

427 Synchronization

428 Background

428 Synchronization signals

429 Synchronizing the transport vs. synchronizing audio

430 Making basic settings and connections

431 Synchronization settings

436 Machine Control

437 Sync Options

438 Working with VST System Link

438 Preparations

440 Activating VST System Link

443 Application examples

445 Video

446 Background

446 Before you start

448 Operations

451 ReWire

452 Introduction

452 Launching and quitting

453 Activating ReWire channels

453 Using the transport and tempo controls

454 How the ReWire channels are handled in Cubase

454 Routing MIDI via ReWire2

454 Considerations and limitations

455 File handling

456 Working with Projects

459 Importing audio

462 Exporting and importing OMF files (Cubase only)

464 Exporting and importing standard MIDI files

465 Exporting and importing MIDI loops

466 Exporting and importing tracks (Cubase only)

467 Other Import/Export functions

467 Cleanup

468 Customizing

469 Background

469 Workspaces

471 Using the Setup options

472 Customizing track controls

473 About preference presets (Cubase only)

474 Appearance

475 Applying track and event colors

478 Where are the settings stored?

479 Key commands

480 Introduction

480 Setting up key commands

483 Setting up tool modifier keys

484 The default key commands

487 Part II: Score layout and printing

488 How the Score Editor works

489 About this chapter

489 Welcome!

489 How the Score Editor operates

489 MIDI notes vs. score notes

490 Display Quantize

492 Entering notes by hand vs. recording notes

493 The basics

494 About this chapter

494 Preparations

494 Opening the Score Editor

494 The project cursor

494 Playing back and recording

495 Page Mode

495 Changing the Zoom factor

496 The active staff

496 Making page setup settings

496 Designing your work space

498 About the Score Editor context menus

498 About dialogs in the Score Editor

499 Setting key, clef and time signature

503 Transposing instruments

503 Printing from the Score Editor

503 Exporting pages as image files

504 Working order

504 Force update

505 Transcribing MIDI recordings

506 About this chapter

506 About transcription

506 Getting the parts ready

506 Strategies: Preparing parts for score printout

507 Staff settings

507 Situations which require additional techniques

508 Inserting Display Quantize changes

509 Strategies: Adding Display Quantize changes

509 The Explode function

510 Using “Scores Notes To MIDI”

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Table of Contents

511 Entering and editing notes

512 About this chapter

512 Score settings

513 Note values and positions

514 Adding and editing notes

516 Selecting notes

517 Moving notes

518 Duplicating notes

518 Cut, copy and paste

519 Editing pitches of individual notes

520 Changing the length of notes

521 Splitting a note in two

521 Working with the Display Quantize tool

521 Split (piano) staves

522 Strategies: Multiple staves

522 Inserting and editing clefs, keys or time signatures

523 Deleting notes

524 Staff settings

525 About this chapter

525 Staff settings

525 Making settings

525 Working with staff presets

526 Staff names

526 Key and clef

526 Display Quantize and interpretation Options

529 Display Transpose

529 The Options tab

530 The Polyphonic tab

530 The Tablature tab

531 Polyphonic voicing

532 About this chapter

532 Background: Polyphonic voicing

533 Setting up the voices

535 Strategies: How many voices do I need?

535 Entering notes into voices

535 Checking which voice a note belongs to

536 Moving notes between voices

537 Handling rests

537 Voices and Display Quantize

538 Creating crossed voicings

539 Automatic polyphonic voicing – Merge All Staves

539 Converting voices to tracks – Extract Voices

540 Additional note and rest formatting

541 About this chapter

541 Background: Note stems

541 Setting stem direction

542 Stem length

542 Accidentals and enharmonic shift

543 Changing the note head shape

544 Other note details

545 Coloring notes

545 Copying settings between notes

545 Handling beaming

549 About tied notes

550 Graphic moving of notes

551 Cue notes

552 Grace notes

552 Tuplets

555 Working with symbols

556 About this chapter

556 Background: The different layers

557 The Symbols Inspector

558 Important! – Symbols, staves and voices

559 Adding symbols to the score

565 Selecting symbols

566 Moving and duplicating symbols

569 Changing length, size and shape

570 Deleting symbols

570 Copy and paste

570 Alignment

570 Symbol details

576 Working with chords

577 About this chapter

577 Inserting Chord symbols

579 Global chord settings

580 Working with text

581 About this chapter

581 Adding and editing text symbols

583 Different types of text

587 Text functions

9

Table of Contents

590 Working with layouts

591 About this chapter

591 Background: Layouts

591 Creating a layout

591 Opening a layout

591 Layout operations

592 Using layouts – an example

592 Marker Track to Form

593 Working with MusicXML

594 Introduction

595 Importing and exporting MusicXML files

597 Designing your score: additional

techniques

598 About this chapter

598 Layout settings

599 Staff size

599 Hiding/showing objects

600 Coloring notes

600 Multiple rests

601 Editing bar lines

602 Creating upbeats

602 Setting the number of bars across the page

603 Moving bar lines

604 Dragging staves

605 Adding brackets and braces

606 Auto Layout

607 Reset Layout

608 Breaking bar lines

609 Scoring for drums

610 About this chapter

610 Background: Drum maps in the Score Editor

610 Setting up the drum map

612 Setting up a staff for drum scoring

612 Entering and editing notes

612 Using “Single Line Drum Staff”

613 Creating tablature

614 About this chapter

614 Creating tablature automatically

615 Creating tablature manually

615 Tablature number appearance

615 Editing

616 Note head shape

617 The score and MIDI playback

618 About this chapter

618 Scores and the Arranger mode

618 The MIDI Meaning function

619 Dynamic crescendo symbols

620 Tips and Tricks

621 Overview

621 Useful editing techniques

622 Frequently asked questions

624 If you wish you had a faster computer

625 Index

Part I:

Getting into the details

1

About this manual

12

About this manual

Welcome!

This is the Operation Manual for Steinberg’s Cubase.

Here you will find detailed information about all the fea-

tures and functions in the program.

About the program versions

The documentation covers two program versions; Cubase

and Cubase Studio, for two different operating systems or

“platforms”; Windows and Mac OS X.

Some features described in the documentation are only

applicable to the Cubase version. Whenever this is the

case this will be clearly indicated in the heading of the re-

lated subject.

Similarly, some features and settings are specific to one of

the platforms, Windows or Mac OS X. This is clearly

stated in the applicable cases. In other words:

Ö If nothing else is said, all descriptions and procedures in

the documentation are valid for both Cubase and Cubase

Studio, under Windows and Mac OS X.

The screenshots are taken from the Windows version of Cubase.

Key command conventions

Many of the default key commands in Cubase use modifier

keys, some of which are different depending on the oper-

ating system. For example, the default key command for

Undo is [Ctrl]-[Z] under Windows and [Command]-[Z] un-

der Mac OS X.

When key commands with modifier keys are described in

this manual, they are shown with the Windows modifier

key first, in the following way:

[Win modifier key]/[Mac modifier key]-[key]

For example, [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Z] means “press [Ctrl]

under Windows or [Command] under Mac OS X, then

press [Z]”.

Similarly, [Alt]/[Option]-[X] means “press [Alt] under Win-

dows or [Option] under Mac OS X, then press [X]”.

Ö Please note that this manual often refers to right-click-

ing, e.g. to open context menus. If you are using a Mac with

a single-button mouse, hold down [Ctrl] and click.

2

VST Connections: Setting up input and

output busses

14

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

About this chapter

Cubase uses a system of input and output busses to trans-

fer audio between the program and the audio hardware.

• Input busses let you route audio from the inputs on your audio

hardware into the program. This means that when you record

audio, you will always do this through one or several input

busses.

• Output busses let you route audio from the program to the

outputs on your audio hardware. When you play back audio,

you will always do this through one or several output busses.

As you can see, the input and output busses are vital when

you work with Cubase. This is why you find this chapter at

the beginning of the Operation Manual – once you under-

stand the bus system and know how to set up the busses

properly, it will be easy to go on with recording, playing

back, mixing and doing surround work (Cubase only).

Setting up busses

Strategies

In Cubase, you can create any number of busses. A num-

ber of surround formats are supported (Cubase only). In

Cubase Studio, busses are in mono or stereo.

Ö The bus configuration is saved with the project –

therefore it is a good idea to add and set up the busses

you need and save these in a template project (see “Save

as Template” on page 457).

When you start working on new projects, you start from this template.

That way you get your standard bus configuration without having to make

new bus settings for each new project. If you need to work with different

bus configurations in different projects, you can either create several dif-

ferent templates or store your configurations as presets (see “Other bus

operations” on page 17). The templates can of course also contain other

settings that you regularly use – sample rate, record format, a basic track

layout, etc.

So, which type of busses do you need? This depends on

your audio hardware, your general audio setup (e.g. sur-

round speaker setup) and what kind of projects you work

with.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you are using audio hardware with eight analog

inputs and outputs and digital stereo connections (10 in-

puts and outputs all in all). Furthermore, you work with a

surround setup in 5.1 format (Cubase only). Here’s a list

of busses you may wish to add:

Input busses

• Most likely you need at least one stereo input bus assigned to

an analog input pair. This would let you record stereo material. If

you want to be able to record in stereo from other analog input

pairs as well, you add stereo input busses for these, too.

• Although you can record mono tracks from one side of a ste-

reo input, it may be a good idea to add a dedicated mono in-

put bus. This could be assigned to an analog input to which

you have connected a dedicated microphone pre-amp for ex-

ample. Again, you can have several different mono busses.

• You probably want a dedicated stereo input bus assigned to

the digital stereo input, for digital transfers.

• Cubase only: If you want to transfer surround material directly

to a surround track, e.g. from surround-configured location re-

cording equipment, you need an input bus in that surround

format – in this example, this would be a 5.1 input bus.

Output busses

• You probably want one or several stereo output busses for

monitoring and listening to stereo mixes.

• For digital transfers, you need a stereo bus assigned to the

digital stereo output as well.

• Cubase only: You need a surround bus in the format of your

speaker configuration (in this example, 5.1) assigned to the

correct outputs (which in turn are connected to the correct

speakers). You may want additional surround busses if you

tend to work in different surround formats.

!

Different busses can use the same inputs/outputs on

the audio hardware! For example, you may want a

stereo output bus assigned to the same outputs as

the front stereo channels in your surround bus – this

makes it easy to listen to stereo mixes without having

to reconnect your speakers.

15

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Preparations

Before you set up busses, you should name the inputs and

outputs on your audio hardware. For example, if you are us-

ing a 5.1 surround speaker setup, you should name the

outputs according to which speaker they are connected to

(Left, Right, Center and so on).

The reason for this is compatibility – it makes it easier to

transfer projects between different computers and setups.

For example, if you move your project to another studio,

the audio hardware may be of a different model. But if

both you and the other studio owner have given your in-

puts and outputs names according to the surround setup

(rather than names based on the audio hardware model),

Cubase will automatically find the correct inputs and out-

puts for your busses and you will be able to play and

record without having to change the settings.

Use the Device Setup dialog to assign names to the in-

puts and outputs of your audio hardware:

1. Open the Device Setup dialog from the Devices menu.

2. Make sure that the correct driver for your audio hard-

ware is selected on the VST Audio System page, so that

the audio card is listed in the Devices list.

3. Select your audio card in the list.

The available input and output ports on your audio hardware are listed on

the right.

4. To rename a port, click its name in the “Show as” col-

umn and enter a new name.

• If needed, you can also disable ports by deactivating

them in the “Visible” column.

Disabled ports will not show up in the VST Connections window when

you are making bus settings. If you attempt to disable a port that is used

by a bus, you will be asked whether this is really what you want – note

that this will remove the port from the bus!

5. Click OK to close the Device Setup dialog.

Ö If you open a project created on another computer and

the port names do not match (or the port configuration is

not the same – e.g. the project is created on a system with

multi-channel i/o and you open it on a stereo in/out system),

the Pending Connections dialog will appear.

This allows you to manually re-route ports used in the project to ports

available in your system.

Mac OS X only: Retrieving channel names

For some audio cards, you can automatically retrieve the

ASIO channel names for the ports of your audio hardware:

1. Open the Device Setup dialog via the Devices menu.

2. On the VST Audio System page, select your audio

card on the “ASIO driver” pop up menu.

3. In the Devices list to the left, select your audio card.

The available settings are displayed.

4. In the settings section to the right, click the Control

Panel button.

This opens the control panel for your audio hardware.

5. Activate the “Use CoreAudio Channel Names” option.

6. When you now open the VST Connections window to

set up the busses in your system, you will find that the port

names in the Device Port column correspond to the names

that are used by the CoreAudio driver.

Ö If you want to use the project later on with an earlier

version of Cubase, you will have to re-assign the port con-

nections in the VST Connections window (see below).

Mac OS X only: Port selection and activation

On the settings page for your audio card (opened via the

Device Setup dialog, see above), you can specify which

input and which output port should be active. This allows

you, for example, to use the Microphone input instead of

the Line input or even to deactivate the audio card input or

output completely, if required.

Ö This function is only available for Built-In Audio, stan-

dard USB audio devices and a certain number of other au-

dio cards (e.g. Pinnacle CineWave).

16

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

The VST Connections window

You add and set up busses in the VST Connections win-

dow, opened from the Devices menu.

This window contains the following tabs:

• The Inputs and Outputs tabs are for viewing input busses or

output busses, respectively.

• The Group/FX tab allows you to create Group and FX chan-

nels/tracks and to make output assignments for these. See

“Setting up Group and FX channels” on page 20.

• The External FX tab (Cubase only) allows you to create effect

send/return busses for connecting external effects which can

then be selected via the effect pop-up menus from inside the

program. See “External instruments/effects (Cubase only)” on

page 20 and “Using external effects (Cubase only)” on page

163 for further information.

• The External Instruments tab (Cubase only) allows you to cre-

ate input/output busses for connecting external instruments.

See “External instruments/effects (Cubase only)” on page 20

and the chapter “VST Instruments and Instrument tracks” on

page 169 for further information.

• The Studio tab (Cubase only) is where you enable and config-

ure the Control Room. See the chapter “Control Room (Cu-

base only)” on page 135.

For the time being, we shall focus on how to set up input

and output busses.

Depending on which tab you have selected, Inputs or Out-

puts, the window lists the current input or output busses,

with the following columns:

Adding a bus

1. Click the Inputs or Outputs tab depending on which

you want to add.

2. Click the Add Bus button.

A dialog appears.

3. Select the desired (channel) configuration.

The pop-up menu contains Mono and Stereo options as well as several

surround formats (Cubase only). To select another surround format, use

the “More…” submenu.

• Alternatively you can right-click in the VST Connections

window and add a bus in the desired format directly from

the context menu.

The new bus appears with the ports visible.

4. Click in the Device Port column to select an input/out-

put port for a channel in the bus.

The pop-up menu that appears lists the ports with the names you have as-

signed in the Device Setup dialog. Repeat this for all channels in the bus.

Adding a child bus (Cubase only)

A surround bus is essentially a set of mono channels –

6 channels in the case of the 5.1 format. If you have a

mono track in the project, you can route it to a separate

speaker channel in the bus (or route it to the parent sur-

round bus and use the SurroundPanner to position it in the

surround image). But what if you have a stereo track that

you simply want to route to a stereo channel pair within the

bus (Left and Right or Left Surround and Right Surround

for example)? For this you need to create a child bus.

Column Description

Bus Name Lists the busses. You can select busses and rename

them by clicking on them in this column.

Speakers Indicates the speaker configuration (mono, stereo, sur-

round formats) of each bus.

Audio Device This shows the currently selected ASIO driver.

Device Port When you have “opened” a bus (by clicking its + button

in the Bus Name column) this column shows which phys-

ical inputs/outputs on your audio hardware are used by

the bus.

Click You can route the click to a specific output bus, regard-

less of the actual Control Room output, or indeed when

the Control Room is disabled.

Column Description

17

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

1. Select the surround bus in the list and right-click on it.

A pop-up menu appears.

2. Select a channel configuration from the “Add Child

Bus” submenu.

As you can see, you can create stereo child busses (routed to various

speaker channel pairs in the surround bus) or other surround bus formats

(with fewer channels than the “parent bus”).

The child bus you created will be available for direct rout-

ing in the mixer. It is a part of the parent surround bus,

which means there will be no separate channel strip for it.

Although child busses are probably most useful in output

busses, you can also create child busses within a sur-

round input bus – for example if you want to record a ste-

reo channel pair (e.g. front left-right) in the surround bus

to a separate stereo track.

Setting the Main Mix bus (the default output bus)

The Main Mix is the output bus that each new channel in

the mixer will be assigned to when it is created.

Any of the output busses in the VST Connections window

can be the default output bus. By right-clicking on the

name of an output bus, you can set this bus as the Main

Mix bus.

Setting the default output bus in the VST Connections window.

When creating new audio, group or FX channels in the

mixer, they will automatically be routed to the default bus.

Presets

On the Inputs and Outputs tabs, you will find a Presets

menu. Here you can find three different types of presets:

• A number of standard bus configurations.

• Automatically created presets tailored to your specific

hardware configuration.

On each startup, Cubase will analyze the physical inputs and outputs

provided by your audio hardware and create a number of hardware-

dependent presets with the following possible configurations:

• one stereo bus

• various combinations of stereo and mono busses

• a number of mono busses

• Cubase only: one 5.1 bus (if you have 6 or more inputs)

• Cubase only: various combinations of 5.1 and stereo busses

(if you have 6 or more inputs)

• Cubase only: various combinations of 5.1 and mono busses (if

you have 6 or more inputs)

• You can also save your own setups as presets.

To store the current configuration as a preset, click the Store “+” button

and enter a name for the preset. You can then select the stored configu-

ration directly from the Presets pop-up menu at any time. To remove a

stored preset, select it and click the “-” button.

Other bus operations

• To change the port assignment for a bus, you proceed

as when you added it: Make sure the channels are visible

(by clicking the “+” button next to the bus, or by clicking

the “+ All” button at the top of the window) and click in the

Device Port column to select ports.

• To remove a bus you do not need, select it in the list,

right-click and select “Remove Bus” from the pop-up

menu, or press [Backspace].

!

The default bus is indicated by an orange colored

speaker icon next to its name in the VST Connec-

tions window.

18

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Using the busses

This section describes briefly how to use the input and out-

put busses you have created. For details refer to the chap-

ters “Recording” on page 66 and “The mixer” on page 109.

Routing

When you play back an audio track (or any other audio-re-

lated channel in the mixer – VST Instrument channels,

ReWire channels, etc.), you route it to an output bus. In

the same way, when you record on an audio track you se-

lect from which input bus the audio should be sent.

• You can select input and output busses in the Inspec-

tor, using the Input and Output Routing pop-up menus.

• You can also select busses in the Routing panel at the

top of each channel strip in the mixer.

Ö If the Routing panel is not shown, click the Show Rou-

ting button in the extended common panel or open the

Mixer context menu and select “Show Routing View” from

the Window submenu (see “Normal vs. Extended channel

strips” on page 112).

Ö For audio-related channel types other than audio track

channels (i.e. VST Instrument channels, ReWire channels,

Group channels and FX channels), only the Output Rou-

ting pop-up menu is available.

• If you press [Shift]-[Alt]/[Option] and select an input or

output bus in the Track list or the Mixer Routing View (Cu-

base only), it will be chosen for all selected channels.

This makes it easy to quickly set several channels to use the same input

or output. Similarly, if you press [Shift] and select a bus, the following se-

lected channels will be set to use incrementing busses – the second se-

lected channel will use the second bus, the third will use the third bus

and so on.

When selecting an input bus for a track you can only se-

lect busses that correspond to the track’s channel config-

uration. Here are the details for input busses:

• Mono tracks can be routed to mono input busses or individual

channels within a stereo or surround input bus (Cubase only).

• Mono tracks can be routed to External Inputs configured on

the Studio tab of the VST Connections window. These can be

mono or individual channels within a stereo or surround bus

(Cubase only). They can also be routed to the Talkback input.

• Mono tracks can also be routed to mono output busses, mono

group output busses or mono FX channel output busses, pro-

vided that these will not lead to feedback.

• Stereo tracks can be routed to mono input busses, stereo in-

put busses or stereo child busses within a surround bus (Cu-

base only).

• Stereo tracks can be routed to External Inputs that are config-

ured in the Studio tab of the VST Connections window. These

can be mono input busses or stereo input busses. They can

also be routed to the Talkback input.

• Stereo tracks can also be routed to mono or stereo output

busses, mono or stereo group output busses and mono or

stereo FX channel output busses, provided that these will not

lead to feedback.

• Surround tracks can be routed to surround input busses (Cu-

base only).

• Surround tracks can be routed to External Inputs that are con-

figured in the Studio tab of the VST Connections window, pro-

vided that these have the same input configuration.

• Surround tracks can also be routed to output busses, provided

that these have the same input configuration or will not lead to

feedback.

For output busses any assignment is possible.

To disconnect input or output bus assignments, select

“No Bus” from the corresponding pop-up menu.

!

Assignments that will lead to feedback are not avail-

able in the pop-up menu. This is also indicated by a

one-way symbol.

19

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Viewing the busses in the mixer

In the mixer, busses are represented by input and output

channels (shown in separate panes to the left and right in

the window). You can show or hide these independently

by clicking the Hide Input Channels and Hide Output

Channels buttons in the common panel:

Ö In Cubase Studio, only the output busses are visible in

the mixer!

The input busses you have created in the VST Connections window are

available for selection on the Input Routing pop-up menus, but you will

not be able to make any specific mixer settings for the input busses.

Input channels (Cubase only)

The input channels are shown to the left in the mixer. As

you can see, each input channel resembles a regular mixer

channel strip.

Here you can do the following:

• Check and adjust the recording level using the Input

Gain knobs and/or the level fader.

See “Setting input levels” on page 71.

• Change the phase of the input signal.

This is done by clicking the Input Phase button next to the Input Gain

control.

• Add effects or EQ to the input bus.

See “Recording with effects (Cubase only)” on page 78 for an example

of how to add effects to your recording at the input bus stage.

Output channels

The output channels are shown to the right in the mixer.

Here you can do the following:

• Adjust the output level for the busses with the faders.

• Open the Channel Settings window to add effects or EQ.

These will affect the whole bus. Examples of effects you may want to add

here include compressors, limiters and dithering. See the chapter “Audio

effects” on page 150.

Hide Input Channels

(Cubase only)

Hide Output Channels

!

The settings you make in the input channel strip will

be a permanent part of the recorded audio file!

20

VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Setting up Group and FX channels

The Group/FX tab in the VST Connections window shows

all Group channels and FX channels in your project. You

can create new Group or FX channels by clicking the corre-

sponding Add button. This is the same as creating Group

channel tracks or FX channel tracks in the Project window

(see “Using group channels” on page 127 and the chapter

“Audio effects” on page 150).

However, the VST Connections window also allows you to

create child busses for Group and FX channels (Cubase

only). This is useful e.g. if you have Group or FX channels in

surround format and want to route stereo channels to spe-

cific channel pairs in these.

To create a child bus for a Group channel or FX channel in

surround format, proceed as follows:

1. Open the VST Connection window and select the

Groups/FX tab.

2. Select the Group or FX channel in the list and right-

click it.

3. Select a channel configuration from the “Add Child

Bus” submenu.

The child bus you created will be available for direct rout-

ing in the mixer. It is a part of the parent Group or FX

channel, which means there will be no separate channel

strip for it.

About monitoring

By default, monitoring is done via the Control Room (see

the chapter “Control Room (Cubase only)” on page 135).

When the Control Room is disabled on the Studio tab of

the VST Connections window, the Main Mix bus (see “Set-

ting the Main Mix bus (the default output bus)” on page 17)

will be used for monitoring.

Ö In Cubase Studio, the Main Mix bus is always used for

monitoring.

Setting the monitoring level

When you are using the Control Room for monitoring, this

is set in the Control Room Mixer, see “The Control Room

Mixer” on page 141. When you are monitoring via the Main

Mix bus, you can adjust the monitoring level in the regular

Project Mixer.

External instruments/effects

(Cubase only)

Cubase supports the integration of external effect devices

and external instruments, e.g. hardware synthesizers, into

the sequencer signal flow.

You can use the External Instruments tab and the External

FX tab in the VST Connections window to define the

necessary send and return ports and access the instru-

ments/effects through the VST Instruments window.

Requirements

• To use external effects, you need audio hardware with

multiple inputs and outputs. To use external instruments, a

MIDI interface must be connected to your computer.

An external effect will require at least one input and one output (or input/

output pairs for stereo effects) in addition to the input/output ports you

use for recording and monitoring.

• As always, audio hardware with low-latency drivers is a

good thing to have.

Cubase will compensate for the input/output latency and ensure that the

audio processed through external effects is not shifted in time.

Connecting the external effect/instrument

To set up an external effect or instrument, proceed as fol-

lows:

1. Connect an unused output pair on your audio hard-

ware to the input pair on your external hardware device.

In this example, we assume that the hardware device has stereo inputs

and outputs.

!

External instruments and effects are indicated by an

“x” icon in the list next to their names in the respec-

tive pop-up menus.

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