Steinberg Cubase Le 8 Manual

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MIDI Clock Destinations
Some MIDI devices like drum machines can match their tempo and location to 
incoming MIDI clock. Select any MIDI ports that you wish to output MIDI clock.
MIDI Clock Follows Project Position
Activate this option to ensure that the MIDI clock device follows Cubase when 
looping, locating, or jumping while playing.
NOTE
Some older MIDI devices might not respond well to these positioning 
messages and could take some time synchronizing to the new location.
Always Send Start Message
MIDI clock transport commands include Start, Stop, and Continue. However, 
some MIDI devices do not recognize the Continue command. By activating 
the “Always Send Start Message” option, you can avoid this problem with 
specific MIDI devices.
Send MIDI Clock in Stop Mode
Activate this option if you are working with a device that needs MIDI clock to 
run continuously in order to operate arpeggiators and loop generators.
Synchronized operation
Once you have connected all the devices that will be synchronized, it is important 
to understand how Cubase operates in Sync mode. Sync mode is enabled by 
activating the Sync button on the Transport panel. 
						

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Sync mode
When you activate the Sync button, the following happens:
• Cubase awaits incoming timecode from the chosen timecode source defined 
in the Project Synchronization Setup dialog in order to play.
Cubase will detect incoming timecode, locate to its current position, and start 
playback in sync with the incoming timecode.
Working with VST System Link
VST System Link is a network system for digital audio that allows you to have 
several computers working together in one large system. Unlike conventional 
networks it does not require Ethernet cards, hubs, or CAT-5 cables; instead it uses 
the kind of digital audio hardware and cables you probably already possess in your 
studio.
VST System Link has been designed to be simple to set up and operate, yet give 
enormous flexibility and performance gains in use. It is capable of linking computers 
in a “ring” network (the System Link signal is passed from one machine to the next, 
and eventually returns to the first machine). VST System Link can send its 
networking signal over any type of digital audio cable, including S/PDIF, ADAT, 
TDIF, or AES, as long as each computer in the system is equipped with a suitable 
ASIO compatible audio interface.
Linking up two or more computers gives you vast possibilities:
• Dedicate one computer to running VST instruments while recording audio 
tracks on another (not in Cubase LE).
• If you need lots of audio tracks, you may simply add tracks on another 
computer.
• You could have one computer serve as a “virtual effect rack”, running 
CPU-intensive send effect plug-ins only.
• Since you can use VST System Link to connect different VST System Link 
applications on different platforms, you can take advantage of effect plug-ins 
and VST instruments that are specific to certain programs or platforms.
Requirements
The following equipment is required for VST System Link operation:
• Two or more computers.
These can be of the same type or use different operating systems – it does 
not matter. For example, you can link an Intel-based PC to an Apple 
Macintosh without problems.
• Each computer must have audio hardware with specific ASIO drivers. 
						

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• The audio hardware must have digital inputs and outputs.
To be able to connect the computers, the digital connections must be 
compatible (i.
 e. the same digital formats and connection types must be 
available).
• At least one digital audio cable must be available for each computer in the 
network.
• A VST System Link host application must be installed on each computer.
Any VST System Link application can connect to another.
Additionally, use of a KVM switchbox is recommended.
Using a KVM switchbox
Whether you want to set up a multi-computer network or a small network in a limited 
space, it is a good idea to invest in a KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switchbox. 
With one of these you can use the same keyboard, monitor, and mouse to control 
each computer in the system, and you can switch between computers very rapidly. 
If you decide not to go this route, the network will function just the same, but you 
may end up doing a lot of jumping from one machine to the other while setting up!
Making connections
Below, we assume that you are connecting two computers. Should you have more 
than two computers, it is still best to start with two and add the others one by one 
once the system is working – this makes troubleshooting easier if you run into 
problems. For two computers, you will need two digital audio cables, one in each 
direction:
PROCEDURE
1. Use the first digital audio cable to connect the digital output of computer 1 to 
the digital input of computer 2.
2. Use the other cable to connect the digital output of computer 2 to the digital 
input of computer 1.
If a card has more than one set of inputs and outputs, choose whichever one that suits 
you – for simplicity usually the first set is best.
Synchronization
Before you proceed, you need to make sure that the clock signals on your ASIO 
cards are synchronized correctly. This is essential when cabling any kind of digital 
audio system, not just VST System Link. 
						

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IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
All digital audio cables by definition always carry a clock signal as well as audio 
signals, so you do not have to use a special word clock input and output for this 
(although you may find that you get a slightly more stable audio system if you do, 
especially when using multiple computers).
The clock mode or sync mode is set up in the ASIO control panel of the audio 
hardware. Proceed as follows:
PROCEDURE
1. From the Devices menu, open the Device Setup dialog.
2. On the VST Audio System page, select your audio interface from the ASIO 
Driver pop-up menu.
In the Devices list, the name of the audio interface now appears as a subentry to the 
“VST Audio System” entry.
3. In the Devices list, select your audio interface.
4. Click the Control Panel button.
The ASIO control panel appears.
5. Open the ASIO control panel on the other computer as well.
If you are using another VST System Link host application on that computer, check 
its documentation for details on how to open the ASIO control panel.
6. Now you need to make sure that one audio card is set to be the clock master 
and all other cards are set to be clock slaves (i.
 e. they listen for the clock 
signal coming from the clock master).
The naming and procedure for this differs depending on the audio hardware – consult 
its documentation if required. If you are using Steinberg Nuendo ASIO hardware, all 
cards default to the AutoSync setting. In this case you must set one of the cards (and 
only one) to “Master” in the Clock Mode section of the control panel.
RESULT 
Typically, the ASIO control panel for an audio card contains some indication of 
whether or not the card receives a proper sync signal, including the sample rate of 
that signal.
This is a good indication that you have connected the cards and set up clock sync 
properly. Check your audio hardware’s documentation for details.
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
It is very important that only one card is the clock master, otherwise the network 
cannot function correctly. Once you have set this up, all the other cards in the 
network will take their clock signal from this card automatically.
The only exception to this procedure is if you are using an external clock 
						

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VST System Link and latency
T h e  g e n e r a l  d e f i n i t i o n  o f  l a t e n c y  i s  t h e  a m o u n t  o f  t i m e  i t  t a k e s  a n y  s y s t e m  t o  r e s p o n d  
to whatever messages are sent to it. For example, if your system’s latency is high 
and you play VST instruments in realtime, you will get a noticeable delay between 
when you press a key and when you hear the sound of the VST instrument. 
Nowadays, most ASIO-compatible audio cards are capable of operating with very 
low latencies. Also, all VST applications are designed to compensate for latency 
during playback, making the playback timing tight.
However, the latency time of a VST System Link network is the total latency of all 
the ASIO cards in the system added together. Therefore it is extra important to 
minimize the latency times for each computer in the network.
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
The latency does not affect the synchronization 
						

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2. Set things up so that computer 1 plays back some audio.
For example, you could import an audio file and play it back in Cycle mode.
3. In the Inspector or MixConsole, make sure that the channel containing the 
audio material is routed to one of the digital output busses.
4. On computer 2, open the MixConsole and locate the corresponding digital 
input bus.
The audio being played back should now “appear” in the program running on 
computer 2. You should see the input bus level meters moving.
5. Reverse this procedure so that computer 2 plays back and computer 1 
“listens”.
RESULT 
Now you have verified that the digital connection works as it should.
NOTE
From this point on in this chapter, we refer to the busses connected to the digital 
inputs and outputs as “VST System Link busses”.
Settings for the audio hardware
When you exchange VST System Link data between computers, it is important that 
the digital information is not changed in any way between the programs. Therefore, 
you should open the control panel (or additional application) for your audio 
hardware and make sure that the following conditions are met:
• If there are additional “format settings” for the digital ports that you use for 
VST System Link data, make sure that these are turned off.
For example, if you are using an S/PDIF connection for VST System Link, 
make sure that “Professional format”, Emphasis, and Dithering are turned off.
• If your audio hardware has a mixer application allowing you to adjust the levels 
of digital inputs and outputs, make sure that this mixer is disabled or that the 
levels for the VST System Link channels are set to ±0
 dB.
• Similarly, make sure no other forms of DSP (pan, effects, etc.) are applied to 
the VST System Link signal.
Notes for Hammerfall DSP users
If you are using RME Audio Hammerfall DSP audio hardware, the Totalmix function 
allows for extremely complex signal routing and mixing in the audio hardware. This 
can in some situations lead to “signal loops” in which case the VST System Link will 
not work. If you want to make absolutely sure this will not cause any problems, 
select the default or “plain” preset for the Totalmix function. 
						

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Activating VST System Link
Before you proceed, you need to make sure that VST System Link is set as the 
timecode source in the Project Synchronization Setup dialog and that the desired 
Sync options are activated.
After setting up the inputs and outputs, you now need to define which input/output 
will carry the actual VST System Link information.
The VST System Link networking signal is carried on only one bit of one channel. 
This means that if you have an ADAT-based system which normally carries eight 
channels of 24-bit audio, once you activate VST System Link you will have seven 
channels of 24-bit audio and one channel of 23-bit audio (the least significant bit of 
this last channel will be used for networking). In practice this makes no discernible 
difference to the audio quality, since you will still have around 138 dB headroom on 
this channel.
To set things up, open the VST System Link panel:
PROCEDURE
1. From the Devices menu, open the Device Setup dialog.
2. In the Devices list to the left, select the “VST System Link” entry.
The VST System Link settings are shown to the right of the Devices list.
3. Use the ASIO Input and ASIO Output pop-up menus to define which channel 
is the networking channel.
4. Activate the Active checkbox at the top left of the panel.
5. Repeat the steps above for every computer in the network. 
						

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RESULT 
As the computers are made active, you should see the Sending and Receiving 
indicators flashing on each active computer, and the name of each computer should 
appear in the list at the bottom of the pane. Each computer is assigned a random 
number – do not worry about this, it is just so the network knows internally which 
one is which.
• You can double-click on the name in bold (which is the name of the computer 
you are currently working on) and set it to whatever other name you wish.
This name will appear in the VST System Link window of every computer on 
the network.
NOTE
If you do not see the name of each computer appearing once you have made it 
active, you need to check your settings. Go through the procedure above again and 
make sure that all ASIO cards are listening to the digital clock signals correctly, and 
that each computer has the correct inputs and outputs assigned to the VST System 
Link network.
RELATED LINKS
Timecode Preferences on page 569
Putting the network online
After each computer’s name you will see whether it is online or not. When a 
computer is online, it will receive transport and timecode signals, and its sequencer 
application can be started and stopped by remote control. If it is off-line, it can only 
be started from its own keyboard – it is effectively an independent machine, 
although it is still on the network.
NOTE
Note that any computer can control any and all of the others – VST System Link is 
a peer-to-peer network and there is no absolute “master” computer.
To put all computers online, proceed as follows:
PROCEDURE
1. For all computers, activate the Online checkbox on the VST System Link 
page.
2. Start playback on one computer to check that the system is working – all 
computers should start almost instantly and play perfectly in time, with 
sample-accurate precision.
• The Offset Samples setting allows you to adjust whether one machine will play 
slightly ahead or behind the rest.
This is normally not needed, but occasionally with some hardware you may find 
that the lock is a few samples out. For now, leave it set to 0 – it will most likely 
be what you want. 
						

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• The Transfer Bits setting allows you to specify whether you want to transfer 24 
or 16 bits. This allows you to use older audio cards which do not support 
transfer of 24 bits.
RESULT 
VST System Link sends and understands all transport commands (such as play, 
stop, fast forward, rewind, etc.). This allows you to control the entire network from 
one computer without a problem – try it! If you jump to a locator point on one 
machine, all other machines will also instantly jump to that locator point.
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
Make sure that all computers have their tempos set to the same value, otherwise 
your synchronization will be seriously skewed.
Scrubbing via VST System Link
You can scrub on one computer and have the video and audio on another computer 
scrub along. However, the playback on the linked systems may not be perfectly in 
sync while scrubbing and there are some further restrictions you should bear in 
mind when scrubbing via VST System Link:
• Use the jog/shuttle control on the Transport panel or a remote controller for 
scrubbing.
Scrubbing with the Scrub tool does not work over a VST System Link 
connection.
• Always use the system where you started scrubbing to control the scrubbing, 
e.
 g. change the scrub speed or stop scrubbing.
Changing the scrub speed on a remote system will only change the speed on 
the local system.
• You can start playback on all systems.
This stops scrubbing and enters playback on all systems in sync.
Using MIDI
As well as supplying transport and sync control, VST System Link also supplies up 
to 16 MIDI ports, with 16 channels each.
PROCEDURE
1. Use the MIDI Inputs and MIDI Outputs value fields to specify the number of 
MIDI ports you need.
The default value is 0 MIDI In and 0 MIDI Out ports.
2. In the Project window, create a MIDI track and open the Inspector (top 
section). 
						

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3. If you now open the Input or Output Routing pop-up menu, you will find the 
specified System Link ports added to the list of MIDI inputs or outputs.
This allows you to route MIDI tracks to VST instruments running on another computer, 
as described in the application examples.
RELATED LINKS
Using one computer for VST instruments (not in Cubase LE) on page 583
The “Use Selected ASIO Ports for Data only” setting
If you are sending huge amounts of MIDI data at once, there is a small possibility 
that you might run out of bandwidth on your VST System Link network. This will 
manifest itself by notes “choking” or timing becoming erratic.
If this happens, you can devote more bandwidth to MIDI by activating the “Use 
Selected ASIO Ports for Data only” option on the VST System Link page of the 
Device Setup dialog. When this is activated, the VST System Link information will 
be sent on the entire channel instead of just one bit, more than enough for all the 
MIDI you could ever hope to use. The downside is that you can no longer use this 
ASIO channel for audio transfer (do not connect it to a speaker!), thus leaving you 
with only 7 audio channels in our ADAT cable example. Depending on how you 
work, this might be a reasonable compromise.
Hearing the network audio
If you are using an external mixing desk, hearing your audio really is not an issue – 
just plug the outputs of each computer into the desired channels on the external 
mixing desk, start playback on one of the computers, and you are good to go.
However, many people prefer to mix internally inside the computer and just use a 
desk for monitoring (or maybe not use any external mixer at all). In this case you will 
need to select one computer to be your “main mix computer” and send the audio 
from your other computers into this.