Steinberg Cubase 6 Manual
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21 Setting up your system The MIDI signal from the keyboard will be recorded in Cubase and at the same time be re-routed back to the instrument so that you hear what you are playing, without the keyboard “trig - gering” its own sounds. • If you use a separate MIDI keyboard – one that does not pro- duce any sounds itself – MIDI Thru in Cubase should also be activated, but you don’t need to look for any Local On/Off set - ting in your instruments. • The only case where MIDI Thru should be deactivated is if you use Cubase with only one keyboard instrument and that in - strument cannot be set to Local Off mode. • MIDI Thru will be active only for MIDI tracks that are record en- abled and/or have the Monitor button activated. See the chap- ter “Recording” on page 89 for more information. Setting up MIDI ports in Cubase The Device Setup dialog lets you set up your MIDI system as follows: ÖWhen you change MIDI port settings in the Device Setup dialog, these are automatically applied. Showing or hiding MIDI Ports The MIDI ports are listed in the Device Setup dialog on the MIDI Port Setup page. By clicking in the “Visible” column for a MIDI input or output, you can specify whether or not it is listed on the MIDI pop-up menus in the program. If you are trying to hide a MIDI port which is already se- lected for a track or a MIDI device, a warning message will appear, allowing you to hide – and disconnect – the port or to cancel the operation and keep the MIDI port visible. Setting up the “All MIDI Inputs” option When you record MIDI in Cubase, you can specify which MIDI input each recording MIDI track should use. How - ever, you can also select the “In ‘All MIDI Inputs’” option for an input port, which causes any MIDI data from any MIDI input to be recorded. The “In ‘All MIDI Inputs’” option on the MIDI Port Setup page allows you to specify which inputs are included when you select All MIDI Inputs for a MIDI track. This can be es - pecially useful if your system provides several instances of the same physical MIDI input – by deactivating the dupli - cates you make sure only the desired MIDI data is recorded. ÖIf you have a MIDI remote control unit connected, you should also make sure to deactivate the “In ‘All MIDI In - puts’” option for that MIDI input. This will avoid accidentally recording the data from the remote control when the “All MIDI Inputs” option is selected as input for a MIDI track. When “MIDI Thru” is active in Cubase, MIDI data received is immediately “echoed” back out. When you press a key, it is sent out via MIDI to Cubase.MIDI data coming in to the instrument is played by the “Synth” inside it. When Local Control is turned on in the instrument, the keys you press will be played by the “Synth” inside the instrument. When Local Control is turned off, this connection is cut off.“Synth”
22 Setting up your system Connecting a synchronizer When using Cubase with external tape transports, you will most likely need to add a synchronizer to your system. All connections and setup procedures for synchronization are described in the chapter “Synchronization” on page 493. Setting up video Cubase plays back video files in a number of formats, such as AVI, QuickTime, or MPEG. QuickTime is used as playback engine. Which formats can be played back de - pends on the video codecs installed on your system, see the chapter “Video” on page 509. There are several ways to play back video, e. g. without any special hardware, using a FireWire port, or using dedicated video cards, see “Video output devices” on page 511. If you plan to use special video hardware, install it and set it up as recommended by the manufacturer. Before you use the video hardware with Cubase, we rec- ommend that you test the hardware installation with the utility applications that came with the hardware and/or the QuickTime Player application. Optimizing audio performance This section gives you some hints and tips on how to get the most out of your Cubase system, performance-wise. Some of this text refers to hardware properties and can be used as a guide when upgrading your system. This text is very brief. Look for details and current information on the Cubase web site! Two aspects of performance There are two distinct aspects of performance with re- spect to Cubase. Tracks and effects Simply put: the faster your computer, the more tracks, ef- fects and EQ you will be able to play. Exactly what consti- tutes a “fast computer” is almost a science in itself, but some hints are given below. Short response times (latency) Another aspect of performance is response time. The term “latency” refers to the “buffering”, i. e. the temporary stor- ing, of small chunks of audio data during various steps of the recording and playback process on a computer. The more and larger those chunks, the higher the latency. High latency is most irritating when playing VST instru- ments and when monitoring through the computer, i. e. when listening to a live audio source via the Cubase Mixer and effects. However, very long latency times (several hundred milliseconds) can also affect other processes like mixing, e. g. when the effect of a fader movement is heard only after a noticeable delay. While Direct Monitoring and other techniques reduce the problems associated with very long latency times, a sys - tem that responds fast will always be more convenient to work with. •Depending on your audio hardware, it may be possible to “trim” your latency times, usually by lowering the size and the number of buffers. For details, refer to the audio hardware documentation, or, if you are us- ing a DirectX driver under Windows, the dialog help. System factors that affect performance RAM Generally speaking, the more RAM is installed in your computer, the better. This limitation is imposed by the operating system, and it is independent of the amount of RAM that you may have installed in your computer! !Make sure that all equipment is turned off before making any connections! !On computers running a Windows 32-bit operating system, a running application can address a maxi - mum of 2 GB of RAM. On a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X, this limit is 4 GB. The 64-bit versions of Windows and Mac OS X are able to assign considerably more than 4 GB of RAM to a running 64-bit application.
23 Setting up your system Some program functions may “eat up” all the available memory, e. g. recording, the use of effect plug-ins, and the pre-loading of samples (see also “RAM requirements for recording” on page 92 and “Smart plug-in processing” on page 188). Always keep in mind the RAM limitation of your operating system when setting up your projects. CPU and processor cache It goes without saying that the faster the computer proces- sor, the better. But there are a number of factors that affect the apparent speed of a computer: the bus speed and type (PCI is strongly recommended), the processor cache size and of course, the processor type and brand. Cubase relies heavily on floating point calculations. When shopping for a processor, please make sure that you get one that is pow - erful in calculating floating point arithmetics. Note also that Cubase features full support for multi-pro- cessor systems. So, if you own a computer system with more than one processor, Cubase can take advantage of the total capacity and evenly distribute the processing load to all available processors. For further information, see “Multi processing” on page 24. Hard disk and controller The number of hard disk tracks you can record and play back at the same time also depends on the speed of your hard disk and hard disk controller. If you use E-IDE disks and controllers, make sure that the transfer mode is DMA Busmaster. Under Windows, you can check the current mode by launching the Windows Device Manager and looking for properties of the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller’s primary and secondary channel. DMA transfer mode is en - abled by default, but may be turned off by the system should hardware problems occur. Audio hardware and driver The hardware and its driver can have some effect on re- gular performance. A badly written driver can reduce the performance of your computer. But where the hardware driver design makes the most difference is with latency. This is especially true when using Cubase for Windows: •Under Windows, ASIO drivers written specifically for the hardware are more efficient than the Generic Low La - tency ASIO Driver or a DirectX driver and produce shorter latency times. •Under Mac OS X, audio hardware with properly written Mac OS X (Core Audio) drivers can be very efficient and produce very low latency times. However, there are additional features currently only available with ASIO drivers, such as the ASIO Positioning Protocol. Making settings that affect performance Audio buffer settings Audio buffers affect how audio is sent to and from the au- dio hardware. The size of the audio buffers affects both the latency and the audio performance. Generally, the smaller the buffer size, the lower the latency. On the other hand, working with small buffers can be demanding for the computer. If the audio buffers are too small, you may get clicks, pops or other audio playback problems. •Under Mac OS X, you can adjust the size of the buffers on the VST Audio System page in the Device Setup dia - log. You may also find buffer settings in the control panel for the audio hard- ware. •Under Windows, you adjust the buffer size settings in the control panel for the audio hardware (opened by click - ing the Control Panel button on the driver page in the De- vice Setup dialog). !When a function has used up all the memory made available by the operating system, the computer will crash.!Again, we strongly recommend that you use audio hardware for which there is a specific ASIO driver!
24 Setting up your system Optimizing processor scheduling (Windows only) To get the lowest possible latencies when using ASIO un- der Windows (on a single-CPU system), the “system per- formance” has to be optimized for background tasks: 1.Open the Control Panel and select the System settings. 2.On the left, select the “Advanced system settings” option. The System Properties dialog opens. 3.Select the Advanced tab and click the “Settings…” button in the Performance section. The Performance Options dialog opens. 4.Select the Advanced tab and activate the “Adjust for best performance of: Background services” option. 5.Click OK to close the dialogs. Multi processing On the VST Audio System page you will find the “Ad- vanced options” section. Here you find advanced settings for the VST Engine, including a Multi Processing option. When this is activated and there is more than one CPU in your system, the processing load is distributed evenly to all available CPUs, allowing Cubase to make full use of the combined power of the multiple processors. About the VST Performance window The VST Performance window is opened from the De- vices menu. The window shows two meter displays: The ASIO meter, which indicates CPU load, and the Disk me - ter, which shows the hard disk transfer rate. It is recom- mended that you check this from time to time, or keep it always open. Even if you have been able to activate a number of audio channels in the project without getting any warning, you may run into performance problems when adding EQ or effects. •The ASIO meter (at the top) shows the ASIO time us- age, i. e. the time required to complete the current pro- cessing tasks. The more tracks, effects, EQ, etc. you use in your project, the longer processing will take, and the longer the ASIO meter will show activity. If the overload indicator (on the far right) lights up, you need to decrease the number of EQ modules, active effects, and/or audio channels playing back simultaneously. •The lower bar graph shows the hard disk transfer load. If the overload indicator (on the far right) lights up, the hard disk is not supplying data fast enough to the computer. You may need to reduce the number of tracks playing back by using the Disable Track function (see “About track disable/enable” on page 86). If this does not help, you need a faster hard disk. ÖThe overload indicator may occasionally blink, e. g. when you locate during playback. This does not indicate a problem, but happens because the program needs a mo - ment for all channels to load data for the new playback po- sition. ÖThe ASIO and Disk load meters can also be shown on the Transport panel (as “Performance”) and on the Project window toolbar (as “Performance Meter”). There they are shown as two miniature vertical meters (by default at the left side of the panel/toolbar).
26 VST Connections About this chapter This chapter focuses on the settings you can perform in the VST Connections window. Here you can set up input and output busses, group and FX channels, external ef - fects, and external instruments. Furthermore you can use this window to configure the Control Room (Cubase only) and access the Control Room itself. Since input and output busses are vital for working with Cubase, a large part of this chapter concentrates on bus - ses and this is also the reason why you find this chapter at the beginning of the Operation Manual. How to use the busses is described in detail in the section “Routing” on page 164. The VST Connections window The VST Connections window is opened from the De- vices menu. It contains the following tabs: • The Inputs and Outputs tabs allow you to set up and configure input and output busses, see “Setting up busses” on page 26. • 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 29. • 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. For further information, see “External instruments/ef- fects (Cubase only)” on page 30 and “Using external effects (Cubase only)” on page 200. • The External Instruments tab (Cubase only) allows you to cre- ate input/output busses for connecting external instruments. For further information, see “External instruments/effects (Cu- base only)” on page 30 and the chapter “VST instruments and instrument tracks” on page 206. • The Studio tab (Cubase only) is where you enable and config- ure the Control Room, see “VST Connections – Studio tab” on page 174. Setting up busses 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. Once you understand 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). Strategies 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 Tem- plate” on page 51). When you start working on new projects, you start from this template. That way you get your standard bus config - uration without having to make new bus settings for each new project. If you need to work with different bus config - urations in different projects, you can either create several different templates or store your configurations as presets (see “Presets” on page 29). 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.
27 VST Connections 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). In this sce - nario, you may want to add the following busses: Input busses • Most likely you need at least one stereo input bus assigned to an analog input pair. This will 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 can be assigned to an analog input to which you have connected a dedicated microphone pre-amp, for exam - ple. 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 will 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. Preparations Before you set up busses, you should name the inputs and outputs on your audio hardware. For example, if you are using a 5.1 surround speaker setup, you should name the outputs according to which speaker they are con - nected 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 re- cord without having to change the settings. To assign names to the inputs and outputs of your audio hardware, proceed as follows: 1.Open the Device Setup dialog from the Devices menu. 2.On the VST Audio System page, make sure that the correct driver for your audio hardware is selected. If this is the case, your audio card is listed in the Devices list on the left of the Device Setup window. 3.In the Devices list, select your audio card. The available input and output ports on your audio hardware are listed on the right. 4.To rename a port, click on its name in the Show As column and enter a new name. •If needed, you can also disable ports by deactivating them in the Visible column. Disabled ports are not shown in the VST Connections window. If you at- tempt 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. ÖIf 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 Missing Ports dialog will appear. This allows you to manually re-route ports used in the project to ports available in your system. !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 enables you to listen to stereo mixes without having to reconnect your speakers.
28 VST Connections 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 output ports are active. This allows you to use the Microphone input instead of the Line input or even to deactivate the audio card input or output completely, if re - quired. ÖThis function is only available for Built-In Audio, stan- dard USB audio devices and a certain number of other audio cards. Adding input and output busses Depending on whether you have selected the Inputs or the Outputs tab in the VST Connections window, the cor - responding busses are listed, with the following informa- tion: To add an input or output bus, proceed as follows: 1.Open the Inputs or Outputs tab depending on the type of bus that you want to add. 2.Click the Add Bus button. A dialog opens. 3.Select a (channel) configuration. The Configuration pop-up menu contains a Mono and a Stereo option as well as several surround formats (Cubase only). Additional surround for -mats are listed on 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.For each of the speaker channels in the bus, click in the Device Port column to select a port on your audio hardware. The pop-up menu that opens lists the ports with the names you have as-signed in the Device Setup dialog. Setting the Main Mix bus (the default output bus) The Main Mix is the output bus that each new audio, group or FX channel is automatically routed to. 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 it as the Main Mix bus. Setting the default output bus. ColumnDescription Bus NameLists the busses. You can select and rename busses by clicking on them in this column. SpeakersIndicates the speaker configuration (mono, stereo, sur-round formats (Cubase only)) of each bus. Audio DeviceThis shows the currently selected ASIO driver. Device PortIf a bus entry is expanded to show all speaker channels, this column shows which physical inputs/outputs on your audio hardware are used by the bus. If the bus entry is collapsed, only the first port used by this bus is visible here. Click (Outputs tab only)You can route the click to a specific output bus, regard-less of the actual Control Room output, or even when the Control Room is disabled. !The Main Mix is indicated by an orange colored speaker icon next to its name.
29 VST Connections Adding child busses (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. Proceed as follows: 1.In the Bus Name column, select the surround bus and right-click on it to open the context menu. 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 that you created will be available for routing in the Mixer. It is a part of the parent surround bus, which means that it has no separate channel strip. 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. 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 startup, Cubase analyzes the physical inputs and outputs provided by your audio hardware and creates 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). •Your own user presets that you can save by clicking the Store button (“+” symbol). You can then select the stored configuration directly from the Presets pop-up menu at any time. To remove a stored preset, select it and click the Delete button (“-” symbol). 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 cor - responding 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 165 and the chapter “Audio effects” on page 187). However, the VST Connections window also allows you to create child busses for group and FX channels (Cu - base only). This is useful if you have group or FX channels in surround format and want to route stereo channels to specific channel pairs in these. Creating a child bus for a group or FX channel in surround format is similar to creating a child bus for input and out - put busses, see “Adding child busses (Cubase only)” on page 29.
30 VST Connections About monitoring The VST Connections window allows you to set up the busses used for monitoring, activate/deactivate the Con - trol Room and open the Control Room Mixer. For details about using the Control Room and setting up the Studio tab in the VST Connections window, see the chapter “Control Room (Cubase only)” on page 172. When the Control Room is disabled on the Studio tab of the VST Connections window, the Main Mix bus is used for monitoring. In this case you can adjust the monitoring level in the regular Project Mixer, see the chapter “The Mixer” on page 145. ÖIn Cubase Artist, the Main Mix bus is always used for monitoring. 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 follows: 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. 2.Connect an unused input pair on your audio hardware to the output pair on your hardware device. Once the external device is connected to the audio hard- ware of your computer, you have to set up the input/out- put busses in Cubase. Setting up external effects To set up an external effect in the VST Connections win- dow, proceed as follows: 1.Open the External FX tab and click the “Add External FX” button. A dialog opens. 2.Enter a name for the external effect and specify the send and return configurations. Depending on the type of effect, you can specify mono, stereo or sur- round configurations. !External instruments and effects are indicated by an “x” icon in the list next to their names in the respec - tive pop-up menus. !Please note that it is possible to select input/output ports for external effects/instruments that are already used (i. e. that have been selected as inputs/outputs in the VST Connections window). If you select a used port for an external effect/instrument, the exist - ing port assignment will be broken. Note that you will not get a warning message!