Steinberg Cubase 6.0 User manual

Operation Manual

Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Marion Bröer, Sabine Pfeifer, Heike Schilling

Thanks to: Ashley Shepherd

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. Registered licensees of the product described herein may print one copy of

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cense. Macintosh and Power Macintosh are registered trademarks. MP3SURROUND and the MP3SURROUND logo are

registered trademarks of Thomson SA, registered in the US and other countries, and are used under license from Thomson

Licensing SAS.

Release Date: December 16, 2010

Table of Contents

4

Table of Contents

11 Part I: Getting into the details

12 About this manual

13 Welcome!

14 Setting up your system

15 Setting up audio

20 Setting up MIDI

22 Connecting a synchronizer

22 Setting up video

22 Optimizing audio performance

25 VST Connections

26 About this chapter

26 The VST Connections window

26 Setting up busses

29 Setting up group and FX channels

30 About monitoring

30 External instruments/effects (Cubase only)

34 Editing operations

36 The Project window

37 Window Overview

39 The track list

39 The Inspector

42 The toolbar

43 The status line

43 The info line

44 The overview line

44 The ruler

45 The Snap function

47 Auto-Scroll

48 Working with projects

49 Creating new projects

50 Opening projects

50 Closing projects

50 Saving projects

52 The Archive and Backup functions

54 Startup Options

54 The Project Setup dialog

56 Zoom and view options

58 Audio handling

58 Auditioning audio parts and events

59 Scrubbing audio

59 Editing parts and events

66 Range editing

68 Region operations

68 The Edit History dialog

69 The Preferences dialog

71 Working with tracks and lanes

72 Setting up tracks

74 Editing tracks

76 Working with lanes

79 Organizing tracks in folder tracks

81 Dividing the track list

82 Playback and the Transport panel

83 Background

84 Operations

86 Options and Settings

88 The Virtual Keyboard

89 Recording

90 Background

90 Basic recording methods

92 Audio recording specifics

100 MIDI recording specifics

105 Options and Settings

108 Quantizing MIDI and audio

109 Introduction

110 Quantize functions

110 Advanced Quantize functions

111 The Quantize Panel

114 Quantizing multiple audio tracks (Cubase only)

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117 Fades, crossfades and envelopes

118 Creating fades

120 The Fade dialogs

121 Creating crossfades

121 The Crossfade dialog

122 Auto fades and crossfades

123 Event envelopes

124 The arranger track

125 Introduction

125 Setting up the arranger track

126 Working with arranger events

128 Flattening the arranger chain

129 Live mode

130 Arranging your music to video

131 The transpose functions

132 Introduction

132 Transposing your music

135 Other functions

138 Using markers

139 Introduction

139 The Marker window

141 The marker track

143 Marker key commands

143 Exporting and importing markers

145 The Mixer

146 Overview

148 Configuring the Mixer

152 Basic mixing procedures

155 Audio-specific procedures

164 Routing

166 MIDI-specific procedures

167 Utilities

169 VST Mixer Diagrams

172 Control Room (Cubase only)

173 Virtual Control Room – The concept

173 Configuring the Control Room

177 The Control Room Mixer

182 Studios and Studio Sends

185 The Control Room Overview

186 Direct Monitoring and latency

187 Audio effects

188 About this chapter

188 Overview

189 Insert effects

194 Send effects

198 Using the side-chain input

200 Using external effects (Cubase only)

200 Editing effects

200 Effect presets

203 Installing and managing effect plug-ins

206 VST instruments and instrument

tracks

207 Introduction

207 VST instrument channels vs. instrument tracks

207 VST instrument channels

209 Instrument tracks

211 What do I need? Instrument channel or instrument

track?

211 Instrument Freeze

212 VST instruments and processor load

212 Using presets for VSTi configuration

215 About latency

216 External instruments (Cubase only)

217 Surround sound (Cubase only)

218 Introduction

219 Preparations

220 Using the SurroundPanner V5

226 Exporting a surround mix

227 Automation

228 Introduction

228 Working with automation curves

228 Enabling and disabling the writing of automation

data

229 Writing automation data

230 Editing automation events

232 Automation track operations

235 The Automation panel (Cubase only)

241 Automation Preferences

241 Hints and further options

241 MIDI controller automation

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244 Audio processing and functions

245 Background

245 Audio processing

253 Applying plug-ins (Cubase only)

254 The Offline Process History dialog

255 Freeze Edits

256 Detect Silence

257 The Spectrum Analyzer

259 Statistics

259 About time stretch and pitch shift algorithms

261 The Sample Editor

262 Window overview

266 General functions

272 Warping audio

276 Working with hitpoints and slices

281 VariAudio (Cubase only)

292 Flattening realtime processing

294 The Audio Part Editor

295 Background

295 Opening the Audio Part Editor

295 Window overview

296 Operations

298 Options and Settings

299 The Pool

300 Background

300 Window overview

302 Operations

311 The MediaBay

312 Introduction

313 Working with the MediaBay

314 The Define Locations section

315 The Locations section

316 The Results list

318 Previewing files

321 The Filters section

323 The Attribute Inspector

327 The Loop Browser, Sound Browser, and Mini

Browser windows

327 Preferences

328 Key commands

328 Working with MediaBay-related windows

329 Working with Volume databases

331 Working with track presets

332 Introduction

332 Types of track presets

333 Applying track presets

335 Creating a track preset

336 Creating tracks from track presets or VST presets

337 Track Quick Controls

338 Introduction

338 Assigning parameters to quick controls

339 Connecting quick controls with remote controllers

340 Quick controls and automatable parameters

342 Remote controlling Cubase

343 Introduction

343 Setting Up

344 Operations

345 The Generic Remote device

347 Track Quick Controls

347 Apple Remote (Macintosh only)

348 MIDI realtime parameters and effects

349 Introduction

349 The Inspector – general handling

349 The Inspector sections

353 MIDI effects

355 Managing plug-ins

356 Using MIDI devices

357 Background

357 MIDI devices – general settings and patch

handling

362 About Device panels (Cubase only)

364 About Studio Connections

366 MIDI processing

367 Introduction

368 Making your settings permanent

369 Dissolve Part

370 Bounce MIDI

370 Repeat Loop

371 Other MIDI functions

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374 The MIDI editors

375 Introduction

375 Opening a MIDI editor

377 The Key Editor – Overview

380 Key Editor operations

396 The In-Place Editor

397 The Drum Editor – Overview

398 Drum Editor operations

400 Working with drum maps

403 Using drum name lists

404 The List Editor – Overview

405 List Editor operations

407 Working with SysEx messages

409 Recording SysEx parameter changes

409 Editing SysEx messages

411 The basic Score Editor – Overview

412 Score Editor operations

419 Expression maps (Cubase only)

420 Introduction

421 Using expression maps in Cubase

424 Creating and editing expression maps

428 Note Expression (Cubase only)

429 Introduction

430 Setting up the Note Expression Inspector tab

431 Mapping controllers

432 Recording

434 Editing Note Expression data

437 Note Expression and MIDI

439 HALion Sonic SE

440 The Logical Editor, Transformer, and

Input Transformer

441 Introduction

441 Opening the Logical Editor

442 Window overview

442 Setting up filter conditions

447 Selecting a function

447 Specifying actions

450 Applying the defined actions

450 Working with presets

450 The Input Transformer

452 The Project Logical Editor

(Cubase only)

453 Introduction

453 Opening the Project Logical Editor

453 Window overview

454 Setting up filter conditions

458 Specifying actions

460 Selecting a function

460 Applying Macros

460 Applying the defined actions

460 Working with presets

462 Editing tempo and signature

463 Background

463 Tempo and signature display

465 Editing tempo and signature

467 Process Tempo (Cubase only)

467 The Process Bars dialog (Cubase only)

468 The Beat Calculator

469 Merge Tempo From Tapping (Cubase only)

469 The Time Warp tool (Cubase only)

473 Tempo Detection (Cubase only)

476 Adjusting the audio to the project tempo

477 The Project Browser (Cubase only)

478 Window Overview

479 Editing tracks

484 Export Audio Mixdown

485 Introduction

485 Mixing down to audio files

486 The Export Audio Mixdown dialog

489 The available file formats

493 Synchronization

494 Background

494 Timecode (positional references)

496 Clock sources (speed references)

496 The Project Synchronization Setup dialog

500 Synchronized operation

500 Example scenarios (Cubase only)

501 Working with VST System Link

503 Activating VST System Link

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Table of Contents

509 Video

510 Introduction

510 Before you start

511 Preparing a video project in Cubase

513 Video files in the Project window

514 Playing back video

516 Editing video

516 Extracting audio from a video file

516 Replacing the audio in a video file

517 ReWire

518 Introduction

518 Launching and quitting

519 Activating ReWire channels

519 Using the transport and tempo controls

520 How the ReWire channels are handled in Cubase

520 Routing MIDI via ReWire2

520 Considerations and limitations

521 File handling

522 Importing audio

525 Exporting and importing OMF files (Cubase only)

527 Exporting and importing standard MIDI files

529 Exporting and importing MIDI loops

529 Exporting and importing track archives (Cubase

only)

531 Customizing

532 Background

532 Workspaces

534 Using the Setup options

535 Customizing track controls

536 Appearance

537 Applying colors in the Project window

539 Where are the settings stored?

541 Key commands

542 Introduction

542 Setting up key commands

545 Setting up tool modifier keys

546 The default key commands

550 Part II: Score layout and printing

(Cubase only)

551 How the Score Editor works

552 About this chapter

552 Welcome!

552 How the Score Editor operates

552 MIDI notes vs. score notes

553 Display Quantize

555 Entering notes by hand vs. recording notes

556 The basics

557 About this chapter

557 Preparations

557 Opening the Score Editor

557 The project cursor

557 Playing back and recording

558 Page Mode

558 Changing the zoom factor

559 The active staff

559 Making page setup settings

559 Designing your work space

561 About the Score Editor context menus

561 About dialogs in the Score Editor

562 Setting clef, key, and time signature

565 Transposing instruments

566 Printing from the Score Editor

566 Exporting pages as image files

567 Working order

567 Force update

568 Transcribing MIDI recordings

569 About this chapter

569 About transcription

569 Getting the parts ready

569 Preparing parts for score printout

570 Staff settings

570 Situations which require additional techniques

571 Inserting Display Quantize changes

572 The Explode function

572 Using “Scores Notes To MIDI”

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Table of Contents

573 Entering and editing notes

574 About this chapter

574 Score settings

575 Note values and positions

576 Adding and editing notes

578 Selecting notes

579 Moving notes

580 Duplicating notes

580 Cut, copy, and paste

581 Editing pitches of individual notes

582 Changing the length of notes

582 Splitting a note in two

583 Working with the Display Quantize tool

583 Split (piano) staves

583 Strategies: Multiple staves

584 Inserting and editing clefs, keys, or time signatures

585 Deleting notes

586 Staff settings

587 About this chapter

587 Staff settings

587 Making settings

587 Working with staff presets

588 Staff names

588 Key and clef

588 Display Quantize and Interpretation Options

591 Display Transpose

591 The Options tab

592 The Polyphonic tab

592 The Tablature tab

593 Polyphonic voicing

594 About this chapter

594 Background: Polyphonic voicing

595 Setting up the voices

597 Strategies: How many voices do I need?

597 Entering notes into voices

597 Checking which voice a note belongs to

598 Moving notes between voices

599 Handling rests

599 Voices and Display Quantize

600 Creating crossed voicings

601 Automatic polyphonic voicing – Merge All Staves

602 Converting voices to tracks – Extract Voices

603 Additional note and rest formatting

604 About this chapter

604 Background: Note stems

604 Setting stem direction

605 Stem length

606 Accidentals and enharmonic shift

606 Changing the note head shape

607 Other note details

608 Coloring notes

608 Copying settings between notes

608 Handling beaming

612 About tied notes

614 Graphic moving of notes

614 Cue notes

615 Grace notes

616 Tuplets

618 Working with symbols

619 About this chapter

619 Background: The different layers

620 The Symbols Inspector

621 Important! – Symbols, staves, and voices

622 Adding symbols to the score

628 Selecting symbols

629 Moving and duplicating symbols

632 Changing length, size, and shape

633 Deleting symbols

633 Copy and paste

633 Alignment

634 Symbol details

640 Working with chords

641 About this chapter

641 Inserting Chord symbols

643 Global chord settings

645 Working with text

646 About this chapter

646 Adding and editing text symbols

648 Different types of text

652 Text functions

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Table of Contents

655 Working with layouts

656 About this chapter

656 Background: Layouts

656 Creating a layout

656 Opening a layout

656 Layout operations

657 Using layouts – an example

658 Marker Track to Form

659 Working with MusicXML

660 Introduction

661 Importing and exporting MusicXML files

663 Designing your score:

additional techniques

664 About this chapter

664 Layout settings

665 Staff size

665 Hiding/showing objects

666 Coloring notes

667 Multiple rests

667 Editing bar lines

668 Creating upbeats

669 Setting the number of bars across the page

670 Moving bar lines

670 Dragging staves

672 Adding brackets and braces

672 Auto Layout

674 Reset Layout

674 Breaking bar lines

676 Scoring for drums

677 About this chapter

677 Background: Drum maps in the Score Editor

677 Setting up the drum map

679 Setting up a staff for drum scoring

679 Entering and editing notes

679 Using “Single Line Drum Staff”

680 Creating tablature

681 About this chapter

681 Creating tablature automatically

682 Creating tablature manually

682 Tablature number appearance

683 Editing

683 Note head shape

684 The score and MIDI playback

685 About this chapter

685 Scores and the Arranger mode

685 Working with mapped dynamics

688 Tips and Tricks

689 Overview

689 Useful editing techniques

690 Frequently asked questions

692 If you wish you had a faster computer

693 Index

Part I:

Getting into the details

1

About this manual

13

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 Artist, 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.

Some features and settings are also specific to one of the

platforms. This is clearly stated in the applicable cases. If

nothing else is said, all descriptions and procedures in the

documentation are valid for all Cubase versions for both

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 This manual often refers to right-clicking, for example, to

open context menus. If you are using a Mac with a single-

button mouse, hold down [Ctrl] and click.

2

Setting up your system

15

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 you only use a stereo input and output from Cubase, you

can connect your audio hardware, e. g. the inputs of your

audio card or your audio interface, directly to the input

source and the outputs to a power amplifier and speaker.

A simple stereo audio setup

This is probably the simplest of all setups – once you have

set up the internal input and output busses, you can con

-

nect your audio source, e. g. a microphone, to your audio

interface and start recording.

Multi-channel input and output

Most likely however, you will have other audio equipment

that you want to integrate with Cubase, using several in-

put and output channels. Depending on the equipment

available to you, there are two ways to go: either mixing

using an external mixing desk, or mixing using the Mixer in

-

side Cubase.

• External mixing means having a hardware mixing device

with a group or bus system that can be used for feeding

inputs on your audio hardware.

In the example below, four busses are used for feeding signals to the au-

dio hardware’s inputs. The four outputs are connected back to the mixer

for monitoring and playback. Remaining mixer inputs can be used for

connecting audio sources like microphones, instruments, etc.

A multi-channel audio setup using an external mixer

Ö When connecting an input source (like a mixer) to the

audio hardware, you should use output busses, sends or

similar that are separate from the mixer’s master output to

avoid recording what you are playing back. You may also

have mixing hardware that can be connected via FireWire.

!

Make sure that all equipment is turned off before

making any connections!

16

Setting up your system

• When using the Mixer inside Cubase, you can use the

inputs on your audio hardware to connect microphones

and/or external devices. Use the outputs to connect your

monitoring equipment.

Cubase only: You can create very complex setups using external instru-

ments and external effects, and integrate Cubase seamlessly with all

your external equipment using the Control Room feature (see the chap

-

ters “VST Connections” on page 25 and “Control Room (Cubase only)”

on page 172).

Mixing inside Cubase

Connecting for surround sound (Cubase only)

If you plan to mix for surround sound, you can connect the

audio outputs to a multi-channel power amplifier, driving a

set of surround channels.

A surround sound playback configuration

Cubase supports surround formats with up to 6 speaker

channels. The figure above shows a 5.1 surround setup.

Recording from a CD player

Most computers come with a CD-ROM drive that can also

be used as a regular CD player. In some cases the CD

player is internally connected to the audio hardware so

that you can record the output of the CD player directly

into Cubase (consult the audio hardware documentation if

you are uncertain).

• All routing and level adjustments for recording from a

CD (if available) are done in the audio hardware setup ap-

plication (see below).

• You can also grab audio tracks directly from a CD in

Cubase (see the chapter

“File handling” on page 521).

Word clock connections

If you are using a digital audio connection, you may also

need a word clock connection between the audio hard-

ware and external devices. Please refer to the documenta-

tion that came with the audio hardware for details.

About recording levels and inputs

When you connect your equipment, you should make sure

that the impedance and levels of the audio sources and in

-

puts are matched. Typically, different inputs may be de-

signed for use with microphones, consumer line level

(-10

dBV) or professional line level (+4 dBV), or you may

be able to adjust input characteristics on the audio inter-

face or in its control panel. Please check the audio hard-

ware documentation for details.

Using the correct types of input is important to avoid dis-

tortion or noisy recordings.

!

It is very important that word clock synchronization is

done correctly or there might be clicks and crackles

in recordings that you make!

!

Cubase does not provide any input level adjustments

for the signals coming in to your audio hardware,

since these are handled differently for each card. Ad

-

justing input levels is either done in a special applica-

tion included with the hardware or from its control

panel (see below).

17

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 19).

• Setting levels for each input. This is very important!

• Setting levels for the outputs, so that they match the equip-

ment you use for monitoring.

• Selecting digital input and output formats.

• Making settings for the audio buffers.

In many cases all available settings for the audio hardware

are gathered in a control panel, which can be opened from

within Cubase as described below (or opened separately,

when Cubase isn’t running). In some cases, there may be

several different applications and panels – please refer to

the audio hardware documentation for details.

Plug and Play support for ASIO devices

The Steinberg MR816 hardware series supports Plug and

Play in Cubase. These devices can be plugged in and

switched on while the application is running. Cubase will

automatically use the driver of the MR816 series and will

re-map the VST connections accordingly.

Steinberg cannot guarantee that this will work with other

hardware. If you are unsure of whether your device sup

-

ports plug and play, please consult its documentation.

Selecting a driver and making audio settings

in Cubase

The first thing you need to do is select the correct driver in

Cubase to make sure that the program can communicate

with the audio hardware:

1. Launch Cubase and select Device Setup from the

Devices menu.

2. In the Devices list to the left, click on “VST Audio Sys-

tem”.

The VST Audio System page is shown.

3. On the ASIO Driver menu, select your audio hardware

driver.

There may be several options here that all refer to the same audio hard-

ware. When you have selected a driver, it is added to the Devices list.

4. Select the driver in the Devices list to open the driver

settings for your audio hardware.

5. Bring up the control panel for the audio hardware and

adjust the settings as recommended by the audio hard-

ware manufacturer.

!

If a device that does not support Plug and Play is

connected/disconnected while the computer is run

-

ning, it may get damaged.

!

Under Windows, we strongly recommend that you ac-

cess your hardware via an ASIO driver written specifi-

cally for the hardware. If no ASIO driver is installed,

we recommend that you check with your audio hard-

ware manufacturer if they have an ASIO driver avail-

able, for example, for download via the Internet. You

can use the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver if no

specific ASIO driver is available.

18

Setting up your system

• 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 Cubase (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 and the Generic Low La-

tency ASIO Driver (Windows only) are exceptions, in that they are pro-

vided by Steinberg and described in the dialog help, opened by clicking

the Help button in the dialog. See also the notes on DirectX below.

• Under Mac OS X, the control panel for your audio hard-

ware is opened by clicking the “Open Config App” button

on the settings page for your audio device in the Device

Setup dialog.

Note that this button is available only for some hardware products. If

“Open Config App” is not available in your setup, refer to the documen

-

tation that came with your audio hardware for information on where to

make hardware settings.

6. If you plan to use several audio applications simultane-

ously, you may want to activate the “Release Driver when

Application is in Background” option on the VST Audio

System page. This will allow another application to play

back via your audio hardware even though Cubase is run

-

ning.

The application that is currently active (i. e. the “top window” on the desk-

top) gets access to the audio hardware. Make sure that any other audio

application accessing the audio hardware is also set to release the ASIO

(or Mac OS X) driver so Cubase can use it when it becomes the active

application again.

7. If your audio hardware receives clock signals from an

external sample clock source, you may want to activate

the “Externally Clocked” option on the page for the driver.

This is described in detail in the section “If your hardware setup is based

on an external clock source” on page 18.

8. If your audio hardware and its driver support ASIO

Direct Monitoring, you may want to activate the Direct

Monitoring checkbox on the page for the driver.

Read more about monitoring later in this chapter and in the chapter “Re-

cording” on page 89.

9. Click Apply and then OK to close the dialog.

If your hardware setup is based on an external clock

source

For proper audio playback and recording, it is essential

that you set the project’s sample rate to the sample rate of

the incoming clock signals. If you load a project with a

sample rate that is different from your clock source, the

program will try to change the settings of the clock

source, which may not be what you want.

By activating the “Externally Clocked” option, you “tell”

Cubase that it receives external clock signals and there

-

fore derives its speed from that source. The program will

not try to change the hardware sample rate any longer.

The sample rate mismatch is accepted and playback will

therefore be faster or slower. For more information about

the Sample Rate setting, see

“The Project Setup dialog”

on page 54.

Ö When a sample rate mismatch occurs, the Record

Format field on the status line is highlighted in a different

color.

If you are using audio hardware with a DirectX driver

(Windows only)

Cubase comes with a driver called ASIO DirectX Full Du-

plex, available for selection on the ASIO Driver pop-up

menu (VST Audio System page).

Ö To take full advantage of DirectX Full Duplex, the audio

hardware must support WDM (Windows Driver Model) in

combination with DirectX version 8.1 or higher. In all other

cases, the audio inputs will be emulated by DirectX (see

the dialog help for the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Setup di

-

alog for details about how this is reported).

Ö During the installation of Cubase, the latest DirectX

version will be installed on your computer.

!

A DirectX driver is the next best option to a specific

ASIO driver and the Generic Low Latency ASIO

driver.

19

Setting up your system

When the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex driver is selected in

the Device Setup dialog, you can open the ASIO Control

Panel and adjust the following settings (for more details,

click the Help button in the control panel):

• Direct Sound Output and Input Ports

In the list on the left in the window, all available Direct Sound output and

input ports are listed. In many cases, there will be only one port in each

list. To activate or deactivate a port in the list, click the checkbox in the

left column. If the checkbox is ticked, the port is activated.

• You can edit the Buffer Size and Offset settings in this

list if necessary, by double-clicking on the value and typ-

ing in a new value.

In most cases, the default settings will work fine. Audio buffers are used

when audio data is transferred between Cubase and the audio card.

While larger buffers ensure that playback will occur without glitches, the

latency (the time between the moment Cubase sends out the data and

when it actually reaches the output) will be higher.

• Offset

If a constant offset is audible during playback of Audio and MIDI record-

ings, you can adjust the output or input latency time using this value.

Setting up the input and output ports

Once you have selected the driver and made the settings

as described above, you need to specify which inputs and

outputs will be used and name these:

1. In the Device Setup dialog, select your driver in the

Devices list on the left to display the driver settings for

your audio hardware.

All input and output ports on the audio hardware are listed.

2. To hide a port, click in the “Visible” column for the port

(deselecting the checkbox).

Ports that are not visible cannot be selected in the VST Connections

window where you set up your input and output busses – see the chap

-

ter “VST Connections” on page 25.

3. To rename a port, click on its name in the “Show as”

column and type in a new name.

• It is a good idea to give your ports names that are re-

lated to the channel configuration (rather than to the ac-

tual hardware model)!

For example, if you are using a 5.1 surround audio setup (Cubase only),

you could name the six ports Left, Right, Center, Lfe, Left Surround, and

Right Surround. This makes it easier to transfer your projects between

different computers, e.g. in different studios – if the same port names are

used on both computers, Cubase will automatically handle the bus con

-

nections properly when you open the project on the other computer.

4. Click OK to close the Device Setup dialog and apply

your changes.

About monitoring

In Cubase, monitoring means listening to the input signal

while preparing to record or while recording. There are

three ways to monitor:

External monitoring

External monitoring (listening to the input signal before it

goes into Cubase) requires an external mixer for mixing

the audio playback with the input signal. This can be a

classic mixing desk or a mixer application for your audio

hardware, if this has a mode in which the input audio is

sent back out again (usually called “Thru”, “Direct Thru” or

similar).

Via Cubase

In this case, the audio passes from the input into Cubase,

possibly through Cubase effects and EQ and then back to

the output. You control monitoring via settings in Cubase.

This allows you to control the monitoring level from Cu-

base and add effects to the monitored signal only.

!

If you attempt to hide a port that is already used by a

bus you will be asked whether this is really what you

want – note that this will disable the port!

20

Setting up your system

ASIO Direct Monitoring

If your audio hardware is ASIO 2.0 compatible, it may sup-

port ASIO Direct Monitoring (this feature may also be

available for audio hardware with Mac OS X drivers). In

this mode, the actual monitoring is done in the audio hard

-

ware, by sending the input signal back out again. How-

ever, monitoring is controlled from Cubase. This means

that the audio hardware’s direct monitoring feature can be

turned on or off automatically by Cubase.

Monitoring is described in detail in the chapter “Record-

ing” on page 89. However, when setting up, there is one

thing to note:

• If you want to use the external monitoring via your audio

hardware, make sure that the corresponding functions are

activated in the card’s mixer application.

Ö If you are using RME Audio Hammerfall DSP audio

hardware, make sure that the pan law is set to -3

dB in the

card’s preferences.

Setting up MIDI

This section describes how to connect and set up MIDI

equipment. If you have no MIDI equipment, you can skip

this section. Note that this is only an example – you might

need or want to hook things up differently!

Connecting the MIDI equipment

In this example we assume that you have a MIDI keyboard

and an external MIDI sound module. The keyboard is used

both for feeding the computer with MIDI messages for re

-

cording and for playing back MIDI tracks. The sound mod-

ule is used for playback only. Using Cubase’s MIDI Thru

feature (described later) you will be able to hear the cor-

rect sound from the sound module while playing the key-

board or recording.

A typical MIDI Setup

If you want to use even more instruments for playback, sim-

ply connect MIDI Thru on the sound module to MIDI In on

the next instrument, and so on. In this hook-up, you will al

-

ways play the first keyboard when recording. But you can

still use all your devices for providing sounds on playback.

Setting MIDI Thru and Local On/Off

On the MIDI page in the Preferences dialog (located on

the File menu under Windows and on the Cubase menu

under Mac OS X), you will find a setting called “MIDI Thru

Active”. This is related to a setting in your instrument

called “Local On/Off” or “Local Control On/Off”.

• If you use a MIDI keyboard instrument, as described earlier in

this chapter, MIDI Thru should be activated and that instru

-

ment should be set to Local Off (sometimes called Local Con-

trol Off – see the instrument’s operation manual for details).

!

Make sure that all equipment is turned off before

making any connections!

!

If you plan to use more than three sound sources, we

recommend that you either use an interface with

more than one output, or a separate MIDI Thru box

instead of the Thru jacks on each unit.

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Steinberg Cubase 6.0 User manual

Steinberg Cubase 6.0 User manual

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