Steinberg Cubase 4 Getting Started Manual

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Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)
Setting up a surround mix
We have our inputs and outputs set up in the “VST Con-
nections” window, now we need to set up the tracks in Cu-
base so that they’ll be properly named, have the right inputs 
and will output the audio correctly to our audio card.
Setting up the track inputs
1.Close the “VST Connections” window and create 6 
mono audio tracks.
2.Rename the tracks “Left”, “Right”, “Center”, “LFE”, 
“Left Surround” and “Right Surround”.
Remember that naming your tracks before you record is the recom-
mended way of recording. This allows your audio files to have proper 
names like “Left Surround_01” and “LFE_01” instead of “Audio 07_09” 
which can lead to confusion.
3.We now need to give each track its proper input. Set 
the track named “Left” to the “Left” input on the “Input 
Routing” pop-up menu. Set the track “Right” to the 
“Right” input and so on.At this point we’ve made a lot of changes to our tracks. 
Feel free to load the project called “Surround 3” found in 
the “Tutorial 7” folder. This will make sure your project 
corresponds to this tutorial.
Setting up the track outputs
1.Open the “Output Routing” pop-up menu for each of 
the tracks and assign them to their corresponding outputs. 
“Left” to the “Left” output, “Right” to the “Right” output, etc.
!Load the project called “Surround 2” found in the 
“Tutorial 7” folder.
!Load the project called “Surround 3” found in the 
“Tutorial 7” folder.
Step 1 - Select the track.
Step 2 - Open the “Input Routing” pop-up menu and 
select the input for the track.
Step 1 - Select the track.
Step 2 - Open the “Output Routing” pop-up 
menu and select the output for the track. 
						

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Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)
Alternatively you can select the “5.1” output for each of 
the tracks.
In this case you could have a surround panner for each 
track.
Make sure you look up the chapter “Surround Sound” in the Operation 
Manual for more detailed information on the surround panner.
We now have all the inputs and outputs set up. Move on 
to the next section for information on surround recording.
Recording in surround
We are now ready to record in surround sound. This 
means we are going to record 6 channels at a time. These 
channels are routed to the 5.1 output we’ve set up in the 
“VST Connections” window. We have 6 mono inputs as 
the inputs. We could have used one audio track that is 
configured as a 5.1 track as discussed previously, but us-
ing 6 mono tracks allows us flexibility for future changes 
and edits.
The basic recording procedures are described in the 
chapter “Tutorial 1: Recording audio” on page 23. For 
more detailed information see the “Recording” chapter 
in the Operation Manual.
Behind the scenes we have 6 channels of audio (a sur-
round sound mix) coming in our 6 mono inputs. You’ll be 
able to hear this once you load the next project.
1.Activate the “Record Enable” and “Monitor” buttons for 
the tracks.
!Load the project called “Surround 4” found in the 
“Tutorial 7” folder.
Record EnableMonitor 
						

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Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)
2.Make sure “Cycle” is turned off (not highlighted) and 
that you are starting recording at bar 1.
3.Click the “Record” button to record.
4.Click the “Stop” button when you are finished record-
ing.
5.Turn off the “Record Enable” and “Monitor” buttons for 
all the tracks so that we don’t hear the inputs or record on 
the tracks any more.
Congratulations! You have just recorded a 5.1 mix in Cu-
base. Move ahead to the next section to learn how to ex-
port a surround file.
Exporting a surround file
Now that we have a surround mix recorded, we will want 
to export it so that we can import it into another program 
such as a DVD authoring application.
Before we can export the surround mix to another pro-
gram, we need to tell Cubase how many bars to export. 
We accomplish this by setting the locators.1.Set the left locator to bar 1 and the right locator to bar 
26 on the Transport panel. This will make sure we have all 
the music for export.
2.Next, open the File menu, and on the Export submenu, 
select “Audio Mixdown…”.
!Load the project called “Surround 5” found in the 
“Tutorial 7” folder.
Left Locator
Right Locator 
						

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Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)
3.The “Export Audio Mixdown” dialog opens.
This is described in detail in the chapter “Export Audio Mixdown” in the 
“Operation Manual”. Please refer to this for more complete information.
4.“File Name” is for naming the file for export. Let’s name 
ours “Surround Tutorial Export”.
5.The “Path” is where you wish to save the exported file 
on your computer. Use the “Choose” button to navigate to 
the folder you wish to save to. For convenience, there is 
the option “Use Project Audio Folder” which stores the 
exported file in your project’s audio folder. This is one of 
the best places to keep it, so it won’t accidentally become 
erased or lost. Make sure “Use Project Audio Folder” is 
activated for this export.
6.Normally you’ll want to save your exported file as a 
“Wave File” under “File Format”. This of course chiefly de-
pends on what file format the other application such as a 
DVD authoring program requires.7.You can choose whether you want a complete 5.1 ex-
ported mix by selecting “5.1 Out (5.1)”. This means the 
exported file will be generated through the main 5.1 out-
puts that we see in the Mixer. You can also choose the in-
dividual outs of each audio channel for flexibility in your 
export. Let’s choose “5.1 Out (5.1)”.
8.Choose the “Sample Rate” and “Bit Depth” that will 
be required for your export.
9.Select the three options in the bottom left corner as 
these will import the audio back into Cubase after you ex-
port it and automatically create an audio track. The “Export 
Audio Mixdown” window will also close after export.
10.When you are done making all your settings, click the 
“Export” button.
11.You will now see your newly exported surround mix on 
one audio track as a 5.1 multiple channel audio file.
!Load the project called “Surround 6” found in the 
“Tutorial 7” folder to see the results of this export.
Individual audio channel export 5.1 main output export 
						

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Tutorial 8: Editing audio II - tempo and
groove 
						

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Tutorial 8: Editing audio II - tempo and groove
Background
In this section we’ll walk you through various examples of 
audio files that have no tempo information and will show 
you how they can follow the project tempo of Cubase in a 
few simple steps.
Example 1: Drum loop, tempo 
known
In this example we have imported a drum loop and we 
know its tempo. This is one of the quickest ways to match 
the tempo of the drum loop with the project tempo.
Here we have a drum loop and we know its tempo, 100 
beats per minute. 
The project tempo of Cubase is 120 bpm, different from 
the drum loop.
We are going to set the tempo of the drum loop to match 
the project tempo.
1.Activate Start on the Transport panel.
You will hear that the drum loop is off time with the click.
2.Activate Stop on the Transport panel and deactivate 
the Click.
3.Double-click on the drum loop and the Sample Editor 
will open.
4.Click on the Definition tab, and in the tempo field, 
enter 100.
This way Cubase knows that the tempo of this audio file is 100 bpm. 
With this information Cubase can then time stretch the audio properly. In 
addition to typing in the tempo, you can type in the number of bars - 
whatever is known. In both cases, the audio will be stretched properly.
!Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 1” found 
in the “Tutorial 8” folder.
120 bpm
Definition tab
Enter the 
tempo of the 
drum loop
Number of bars 
						

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Tutorial 8: Editing audio II - tempo and groove
5.Activate Preview.
The drum loop is now matched to the tempo of the project.
6.Close the Sample Editor.
7.Select the drum loop in the project window and select 
Loop Selection from the Transport menu.
You can also use the corresponding key command [Shift]+[G].
You can now hear that the drum loop is in perfect time 
with the project tempo. Feel free to change the tempo on 
the Transport panel by deactivating the Tempo Track. The 
drum loop will follow.
Example 2: Drum loop, Auto Adjust
In this example we have imported a drum loop and we do 
not know the tempo. This is one of the quickest ways to 
match the tempo of the drum loop with the project tempo.
1.Activate Start on the Transport panel.
You will hear that the drum loop is off time with the click.
2.Activate Stop and deactivate the Click.
3.Double-click on the drum loop.
The Sample Editor will open.
4.Click on the Definition tab and activate Preview.
Activating Preview allows you to hear any tempo changes directly.
5.Zoom in on the first bar.
You can use the zoom slider on the bottom right. Zoom in so that you can 
see about 18 waveform shaker hits.
Activate Preview
!Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 2” found 
in the “Tutorial 8” folder.
Definition tab
Activate Preview
Zoom slider
1-8 9-16 17-18 
						

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Tutorial 8: Editing audio II - tempo and groove
6.Select the first bar of the loop (the first 16 hits, up to 
the 17th). Activate Audition Loop and click the Audition 
button.
7.As you listen back you may need to tweak the end of 
the loop to get it to loop smoothly.
8.Zoom out and click Auto Adjust on the Definition tab.
9.Close the Sample Editor and listen to the loop play in 
time!Example 3: Drum loop, Manual 
Adjust
This builds on what we have learned already in the previ-
ous examples. In this example we have a drum loop of un-
known tempo and with timing issues that need to be 
corrected. You will learn how to manually correct this by 
adjusting the Timing Grid in the Sample Editor.
1.Activate Start on the Transport panel.
You will hear that the drum loop is off time with the click.
2.Activate Stop.
3.Double-click on the drum loop.
The Sample Editor will open.
4.Open the Definition tab and activate Preview.
Activating Preview allows you to hear any tempo changes directly.
5.Enter the number of bars the drum loop’s length 
equals. In our case it’s 4.
The drum loop is now matched to the project tempo.
6.Activate Playback on the Transport panel.
You will hear that the drum loop doesn’t exactly match with the Click. It’s 
close, but not exact. This is because the loop has timing variations. Let’s 
correct them.
Audition Loop
Audition
Auto Adjust
!Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 3” found 
in the “Tutorial 8” folder.
Activate Preview 
						

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Tutorial 8: Editing audio II - tempo and groove
7.Activate Manual Adjust.
This allows us to manually adjust the Timing Grid to correct any timing 
variations.
8.Zoom in to the bars of the drum loop. In our case it will 
be bars 2, 3 and 4.9.Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and move the bar Grid lines 
close to the beginning of the attacks of the waveform dis-
play. Make sure you are only moving the Grid lines that are 
on Bars 2, 3 and 4. You should see the flag “Stretch Pre-
vious - Move Next” appear.
Holding down [Alt]/[Option] and moving the Grid lines at bar positions 
allows us to change the tempo of the previous bar while the following 
bars will be moved.
10.Now hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] to move the beat 
grid lines close to the beginning of the attacks of the 
waveform display. 
Zoom in to line up the beat grid lines exactly. Do this for the entire drum 
loop in all the locations that appear to be off time.
11.Close the Sample Editor.
Manual Adjust
!Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 4” found 
in the “Tutorial 8” folder to see the bar grid line ad-
justments.
Click on the Definition Tab in the Sample Editor and 
activate Manual Adjust.
!Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 5” found 
in the “Tutorial 8” folder to see the beat grid line ad-
justments.
Click on the Definition Tab in the Sample Editor and 
activate Manual Adjust. 
						

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Tutorial 8: Editing audio II - tempo and groove
12.Click on the drum loop and select Loop Selection from 
the Transport menu.
You can now hear that the drum loop is in perfect time 
with the project’s tempo. Feel free to change the tempo 
on the Transport by first deactivating the Tempo Track and 
notice that the drum loop will follow.
Example 4: Working with selections
In this example we have an audio file with unknown tempo. 
We only want to use a small section of the audio file to 
create a drum loop.
1.Activate Start on the Transport panel and hear that the 
drum loop is off time with the click.
2.Activate Stop and deactivate the Click.
3.Double-click on the drum loop.
The Sample Editor will open.
4.We are going to create a 2-bar loop from this audio 
file. Make sure the Range Selection tool is selected. Click 
and drag to make a selection to a portion of the audio file 
that you will use as a drum loop. Somewhere just after bar 
5 and just after bar 7.To get the selection to match our example click on the 
Range tab and enter 411427 in the Start field and 
616843 in the End Field.
5.Click on the Hitpoints tab and choose Slice & Close.
You now have a loop that is cut to the selection you made and can now 
loop to the project tempo. The Sample Editor will close and you will be 
returned to the Project window.
6.Click on the drum loop and select Loop Selection from 
the Transport menu.
You can now hear that the drum loop is in perfect time 
with the project’s tempo. Feel free to change the tempo 
on the Transport by first deactivating the Tempo Track and 
notice that the drum loop will follow.
!Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 6” found 
in the “Tutorial 8” folder.
Range Selection tool
Range tab
Hitpoints tab
Slice & Close