Steinberg Cubase 5 Operation Manual

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About this manual 

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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 Studio, 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...

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VST Connections: Setting up input and
output busses 

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
About this chapter
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...

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
Preparations
Before you set up busses, you should name the inputs and 
outputs on your audio hardware. For example, if you are us-
ing a 5.1 surround speaker setup, you should name the 
outputs according to which speaker they are connected 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...

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
The VST Connections window
You add and set up busses in the VST Connections win-
dow, opened from the Devices menu.
This window contains the following tabs:
 The Inputs and Outputs tabs are for viewing input busses or 
output busses, respectively. 
 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 20. 
 The External FX tab (Cubase only)...

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
1.Select the surround bus in the list and right-click on it.
A pop-up menu appears.
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 you created will be available for direct rout-
ing in the mixer. It is a part of the parent...

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
Using the busses
This section describes briefly how to use the input and out-
put busses you have created. For details refer to the chap-
ters “Recording” on page 66 and “The mixer” on page 109.
Routing
When you play back an audio track (or any other audio-re-
lated channel in the mixer – VST Instrument channels, 
ReWire channels, etc.), you route it to an output bus. In 
the same way, when you record on an audio track you se-
lect from which input...

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
Viewing the busses in the mixer
In the mixer, busses are represented by input and output 
channels (shown in separate panes to the left and right in 
the window). You can show or hide these independently 
by clicking the Hide Input Channels and Hide Output 
Channels buttons in the common panel:
ÖIn Cubase Studio, only the output busses are visible in 
the mixer!
The input busses you have created in the VST Connections window are 
available for...

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
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 corre-
sponding 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 127 and the chapter 
“Audio effects” on page 150).
However, the VST Connections window also allows...