Steinberg Cubase 4 Getting Started Manual

21
Setting up your system
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 (see “How you can reach us” on page 7)!
Two aspects of performance
There are two distinct aspects of performance in respect 
to Cubase:
Tracks and...

22
Setting up your system
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
Choosing a driver for your audio hardware
As described in the section “Selecting a driver and making 
audio settings in Cubase” on page 16, it is recommended 
to install and use...

4
Tutorial 1: Recording audio 

24
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
Creating a new project
In this section we are going to explain how to create a new 
project, save a project and open a saved project.
When you first open Cubase an empty screen appears 
before you. You need to either create a new project or 
open an existing one.
To create a new project
1.Let’s create a new project by selecting “New Project” 
from the “File” Menu.
2.The Templates dialog box will open up. 
Templates are discussed in the “File Handling” section of the...

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Tutorial 1: Recording audio
To save a project
1.Select “Save As…” from the File menu.
The difference between Save and Save As are discussed in the chapter 
“File Handling” in the Operation Manual.
2.You will notice that Cubase is in the “My First Project” 
folder that you created earlier. This is where you want to 
save your project. Type in a name for your Project – you 
can use “My First Cubase Project” for example.
3.Click “Save” – and that’s it!
To close a project
1.Make sure the Project window is...

26
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
3.Now click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Stereo” for 
configuration and “1” for count and click OK.
This has now added a new stereo bus (Left and Right) allowing us to 
have audio in Cubase route to our audio hardware.
4.Since we mainly listen to our music as a stereo mix, all 
we need is a stereo output. 
We can listen to our music with more than 2 channels. If we for example 
had a surround sound setup. 
5.Depending on your audio hardware, your outputs 
should be setup...

27
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
3.Click on the new track you’ve created and make sure 
the Inspector is shown.
The Inspector allows us to see and manipulate a lot of information for the 
selected track.
4.Make sure that “Mono In” is selected for the audio 
track’s input and that “Stereo Out” is selected for the au-
dio tracks output.
You may have different inputs and outputs based on your audio hardware. 
See the chapter “VST Connections” in the Operation Manual for more de-
tailed information. By setting...

28
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
2.Now click the “Record Enable” button on the track.
Setting the track to Record Enable lets Cubase know that you want to 
record on this track and no other one. You can have many tracks Record 
Enabled at a time.
3.In the Inspector, open the “Channel” tab.
This will display the channel fader for the selected track.
Do the best you can to send the maximum amount of 
volume to the audio inputs of your audio card before you 
hear any distortion. Most audio cards show some...

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Tutorial 1: Recording audio
Playback
We are going to learn how to play back audio in Cubase. 
You might think this is very simple – just hit “Play”. It is ac-
tually this simple but there are a few tricks to learn so that 
you’ll be playing back what you want with precision.
To start playback
There are a few ways you can play back in Cubase.
Click the “Start” button on the Transport panel.
Press the space bar on your computer keyboard.
This toggles between start and stop.
Press the [Enter] key of the...

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Tutorial 1: Recording audio
Recording modes with cycle off
There are three different modes for recording when the 
cycle is turned off. This is called linear recording. The 
three modes are:
Normal
Merge
Replace
When recording audio, “Normal” and “Merge” are the 
same. Selecting either of these will allow you to record 
over the top of another audio event and it will appear as an 
overlap. You can then select between the overlapping 
events and determine which one will play. This is dis-
cussed in the...