Steinberg Cubase 7 User Manual

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Surround sound (Cubase only)Using the SurroundPanner V5
•By clicking and dragging the positioning handle.
Note that you do not have to click exactly on the handle in order to move it. You 
can click anywhere in the pan area and start moving the mouse, the handle then 
moves in the same direction as the mouse.
The pan area 
showing a 
stereo sound 
source
The positioning handle can be positioned freely in the pan area and even be moved 
out of the pan area. The panning balls, though, will never move further out than the 
edge of the surround field (which is indicated by a gray line). Moving the positioning 
handle out of the pan area can be useful for extreme panning positions, such as 
panning all channels hard right.
ÖFor mono channels there is no positioning handle. Click and drag the input channel to 
position it.
Speaker channels – Solo and Mute vs. Disabling
The speakers that are distributed around the surround field represent the output 
configuration. You can disable speakers or solo/mute them.
•[Alt]/[Option]-click on a speaker symbol to disable that speaker (the speaker 
symbol is grayed out) so that no audio will be routed to this surround channel. The 
signal that would otherwise be sent to this speaker is distributed to the other 
speakers instead.
Note that the signal is distributed in such a way that the power level stays constant 
all the time (see 
“Constant power” on page 277).
•Click on a speaker symbol to solo that speaker (the speaker symbol turns red). 
That way you will only hear the signal sent to this speaker. All other speakers are 
muted (yellow speaker symbol). This can be used for testing purposes, e.
 g. to 
make sure that a signal is sent to a specific speaker as intended.
Note that you can solo several speakers at the same time by clicking on them one 
after the other. By [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking on a speaker symbol, this speaker is 
soloed exclusively, and all other speakers are muted.
ÖSolo and Mute cannot be automated!
Left and right channels
Positioning handle
This speaker 
is muted.This speaker 
is soloed.This speaker 
is disabled. 
						

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Surround sound (Cubase only)Using the SurroundPanner V5
Restricting movement
By default, you can click anywhere in the pan area and drag the mouse to move the 
sound source. If you want the positioning handle to jump to a specific position, you 
can click once at that position.
However, you can also limit movement to a specific direction, using the corresponding 
modifier keys (or the arrow icons above the pan area). That way you can scale down 
your movements, or have the sound source move along a certain axis (e.
 g. from 
bottom left to top right).
•When you press a modifier key (e. g. [Ctrl]/[Command]), the corresponding icon 
above the pan area is highlighted with a lighter border, indicating that this mode is 
active.
As soon as you release the modifier key, you return to standard mode.
•By clicking on one of the icons above the pan area, the corresponding positioning 
mode is activated persistently. That way you do not have to keep the corresponding 
modifier key pressed all the time.
To deactivate the selected positioning mode, switch back to standard mode.
The following modes are available:
Panning the left and right channels independently with the mouse
At the top right of the plug-in window you will find the button for the independent 
positioning mode. If this is activated, you can adjust the left and right input channels 
(yellow and red balls) independently by clicking and dragging. This is similar to using 
the two surround pan joysticks found on some hardware consoles.
IconModifier key(s)Description
-Standard mode, no restrictions apply.
[Shift]Mouse movements are scaled to allow very fine 
movements. This is useful when panning in the 
miniature display in the channel, for example.
[Ctrl]/[Command]Horizontal movements only.
[Ctrl]/[Command]-[Shift]Vertical movements only.
[Alt]/[Option]Diagonal movements only (bottom left to top right).
[Alt]/[Option]-[Shift]Diagonal movements only (bottom right to top left).
[Shift]-
[Ctrl]/[Command]-
[Alt]/[Option]In this mode the mouse pointer immediately jumps 
to the positioning handle even if it is located outside 
the pan area (only visible in Overview Mode).
The independent positioning mode is 
activated.
The right channel is panned 
independently with the mouse. 
						

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Surround sound (Cubase only)Using the SurroundPanner V5
ÖTo move one of the panning balls in this mode, you do not have to click directly on 
them. You will always move the panning ball that is nearer to the position of the mouse 
pointer.
Overview Mode
When moving the sound source in the pan area, you will notice that the positioning 
handle can leave the visible pan area (although the channel panning balls cannot). It 
can be moved so far outside that all channels end up on the perimeter where the 
positioning handle left the area. If you now use one of the rotation controls, for 
example, it can be quite hard to understand what is happening, i.
 e. why the panning 
balls are moving the way they are.
To get a better understanding of this behavior, you can switch to Overview Mode. 
Here you can see where the positioning handle is actually located and where the 
panning balls would be (if they could leave the pan area). These virtual or “ghost” 
positions are connected to the actual panning balls inside the surround field by a thin 
line to help you understand complex movements.
•To switch to Overview Mode, click on the eye icon above and to the left of the pan 
area.
ÖThe Overview Mode is only used for visualizing the complex scenarios that you can 
create with the SurroundPanner
 V5. The actual panning is done in the standard view. 
Therefore, the speakers are visible in this mode, but cannot be soloed/muted or 
disabled.
Left-right and front-rear panning
These two controls are used to pan the sound source from left to right and front to 
rear, and vice versa. 
ÖThis is the same as restricting the movement direction using the [Ctrl]/[Command] 
and [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Shift] modifiers.
!When panning in independent positioning mode, automation data is written for several 
parameters. Due to this, special automation rules apply, see 
“Automation” on page 276.
!Automation data for the independent positioning mode is always written for the 
complete sound source, not for individual channels. This means it is not possible to 
record automation for one stereo channel and then add automation for the other 
stereo channel in a second go, for example. 
The positioning handle is located outside the pan 
area. “Ghost” images of the panning balls. These are the 
theoretical positions outside the visible pan area.
The left and right channels cannot leave the pan area. 
						

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Surround sound (Cubase only)Using the SurroundPanner V5
Rotating signals
The Rotate Signal control is used to rotate the source channels around the positioning 
handle. All input channels circle around the handle (but they cannot move beyond the 
borders of the surround field).
Orbit controls
The Orbit controls are used to rotate the sound source (including all input channels 
and the positioning handle) around the center of the surround field.
Orbit Center
This is the main control that allows you to perform the rotation.
Radius
When using the Orbit Center control, the Radius encoder allows you to control the 
distance of the sound source from the center of the surround field (without changing 
the angle).
An example:
The gray circle shows the theoretical path of the sound source when orbiting the center. 
Since the sound source cannot leave the pan area, it moves along the perimeter instead. 
At the maximum radius setting (a) the theoretical path lies outside the pan area so that 
the sound source stays on the perimeter all the time; at a smaller setting (b) the circle is 
smaller and the sound source moves inside the pan area in the corners.
ÖThe Rotate Signal, Orbit Center, and Radius controls are endless rotary encoders so 
that there is no limit as to how far left or right you can rotate the sound source.
Orbit Center Radius
a) Radius = 141.4b) Radius = 116.5
!In terms of automation, the Orbit Center, and Radius controls are not independent 
parameters as such. Instead, a combination of different automation parameters is 
used. For more information, see 
“A u t o m a t i o n ” on page 276. 
						

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Surround sound (Cubase only)Using the SurroundPanner V5
The LFE encoder
Use the LFE encoder in the plug-in panel to set the signal amount sent to the LFE 
(Low Frequency Effects) channel.
ÖThe LFE channel is used as a full range channel, no low-pass filtering is applied.
Center Distribution
The Center Distribution control is used to distribute part or all of the center signal to 
the left and right front speakers.
For example, this can be useful in the following situation: The center signal is panned 
directly to the center speaker and the Center Distribution is set to 0
 %. However, the 
signal is too discrete for your liking, and you want to add part of the signal to the left 
and right front speakers to widen it. You can do this by raising the Center Distribution 
value. At 100
 %, the center source is provided entirely by the phantom image created 
by the left and right speakers and using a value in between you can distribute the 
signal to the three speakers.
A blue line at the top of the surround field indicates the distance up to which a phantom 
signal is added. If you position the source signal inside this range, the signal is sent to all 
three channels.
Divergence controls
The three divergence controls (Front, F/R, and Rear) determine the attenuation curves 
used when positioning sound sources for X-axis front, Y-axis (front/rear), and X-axis 
back. If all three controls are set to 0
 %, positioning a sound source on a speaker sets 
all other speakers to zero level. With higher values, the other speakers receive a 
percentage of the sound source.
Blue horizontal and vertical lines visualize the effects when changing the divergence 
settings.
For example, by using the front divergence, you can acoustically intensify the distance 
from the action on screen as perceived by the audience.
-At 0 % the perception is very focused (concentrated in one spot). 
-At 100 % the perception is very diffuse (hard to locate). 
ÖThe Center Distribution value and the front divergence are combined. If the front 
divergence is set to 100
 %, the Center Distribution has no effect.
!Note that for this to work, the front speaker configuration needs to be symmetrical and 
there can never be more than 3 speakers involved. 
						

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Surround sound (Cubase only)Using the SurroundPanner V5
Scaling
The Scale controls allow you to control the horizontal (Width) and vertical (Depth) 
expansion of the sound source. 100
 % corresponds to the complete width or depth of 
the surround field. If you reduce both values to 0
 %, the distance is reduced to zero 
and all source channels are centered in one spot.
These controls influence the perception of spatiality and ambience, as well as the 
traceability of signals.
-At 100 % you get a very transparent, clear sound that conveys much spatiality.
-At 0 % the signal is less transparent and movements cannot be traced easily.
ÖThe Depth parameter is only available for configurations with front and rear channels.
Input and output level meters
The meters to the left and right of the pan area show the volume of all input and output 
speaker channels, respectively. The numeric values below the meters indicate the 
peak level that has been measured for any of the channels.
General plug-in controls
The Bypass Effect button
At the top left of the plug-in panel you will find a button to bypass the SurroundPanner 
V5. If this is activated, the panner attempts to route the input signals to the 
appropriate output channels (e.
 g. the left and right front speakers if panning a stereo 
signal to a 5.1 configuration).
Mute/Solo buttons
At the top of the plug-in panel you will find a Mute and a Solo button that are identical 
with the channel’s Mute/Solo controls (see 
“Using Solo and Mute” on page 187). 
Read/Write buttons
Like any other effect plug-in, the SurroundPanner V5 has Read and Write buttons at 
the top of the window to apply and record automation data (see below).
Automation
Most of the parameters in the SurroundPanner V5 plug-in can be automated just like 
any other channel or insert parameter (see 
“Enabling and disabling the writing of 
automation data” on page 280).
Recording automation for the Orbit controls and the independent positioning mode is 
handled differently, however. Automation data for these parameters is written as a 
combination of the front-rear panning, left-right panning and the Rotate Signal 
parameters. For the independent positioning mode, Scaling is added. Due to this you 
cannot easily modify existing automation data since this would involve too many different 
parameters. If an automation pass did not yield the desired result, simply try again. 
						

							277
Surround sound (Cubase only)Using the MixConvert V6 plug-in (Cubase only)
Resetting all parameters
[Alt]/[Option]-click the Reset button in the lower right corner of the plug-in panel to 
reset all controls to their default values.
Constant power
“What goes in, must come out again.” This principle can be taken literally with regard 
to the SurroundPanner V5. It means that the power of a source channel is identical to 
the power of the corresponding output signal.
The advantage of this is that the overall volume as perceived by the listener (= the 
power) is always the same, regardless of the signal panning, e.
 g. when you move the 
sound source in the pan area, disable specific speaker channels, or use the 
divergence controls.
Using older projects with the SurroundPanner V5
If you load a project that was created with a previous version of Cubase and still uses 
the old SurroundPan plug-in, you can either continue using the old panner plug-in or 
switch to the SurroundPanner V5 plug-in. To do this, right-click the miniature panner 
view of the corresponding channel in the MixConsole and select the 
“SurroundPanner
 V5” option from the context menu.
Using the MixConvert V6 plug-in (Cubase only)
MixConvert V6 is a special plug-in that converts one multi-channel audio source into 
another multi-channel destination. It is most frequently used to “downmix” a multi-
channel surround mix into a format with fewer channels, for example, a 5.1 surround 
mix into a stereo mix.
This plug-in can be used as an insert effect in the MixConsole like other plug-ins but 
it also has special functions. Cubase automatically inserts MixConvert
 V6 instead of 
the SurroundPanner V5 when the channel (audio track, group channel, etc.) is routed 
to a destination with fewer audio paths. MixConvert
 V6 is also inserted in place of any 
cue send panner when the destination has a different audio path than the source.
The MixConvert V6 plug-in is described in detail in the separate PDF document 
“Plug-in Reference”.
ÖThere is one exception to this behavior. When a stereo channel is routed to a mono 
destination through the channel routing or a cue send routing, a normal stereo panner 
will be inserted. However, this panner will control the balance of the left and right 
channels as they are blended into the mono destination. The center position blends 
both channels together by equal amounts. With the pan set all the way to the left, only 
the left channel can be heard, and vice versa.
!The automation data for the SurroundPan plug-in and the SurroundPanner V5 are not 
compatible. If you switch to the new panner, you will have to delete any existing 
panner automation for the corresponding track and write new automation data. If you 
want to keep working with the existing data you have to use the SurroundPan plug-in! 
						

							278
Surround sound (Cubase only)Exporting a surround mix
Exporting a surround mix
When you have set up a surround mix, you can choose to export it using the Export 
Audio Mixdown function. 
You have the following export options when working with a surround configuration:
•Export to “split” format, resulting in one mono audio file for each surround channel.
•Export to interleaved format, resulting in a single multi-channel audio file (e.g. a 5.1 
file, containing all six surround channels).
•On Windows systems, you can also export a 5.1 surround mix to a file in Windows 
Media Audio Pro format.
This is an encoding format tailored for 5.1 surround – see “Windows Media Audio 
Pro files (Windows only)” on page 648.
For details about exporting to files, see the chapter “Export Audio Mixdown” on page 
638. 
						

							279
Automation
Introduction
In essence, automation means recording the values for a particular MixConsole or 
effect parameter. When you create your final mix, you will not have to worry about 
having to adjust this particular parameter control yourself – Cubase will do it for you. 
Working with automation curves
Within a Cubase project, the changes in a parameter value over time are reflected as 
curves on automation tracks. 
About automation curves 
There are two kinds of automation curves: “ramp” and “jump”:
•Jump curves are created for on/off parameters such as Mute.
•Ramp curves are created for any parameter that generates continuous multiple 
values, such as fader or encoder movements, etc.
Examples of jump and ramp automation curves
About the static value line
When you open an automation track for the first time, it does not contain any 
automation events (unless you have previously adjusted the corresponding parameter 
with Write automation activated). This is reflected in the event display as a straight 
horizontal black line, the “static value” line. This line represents the current parameter 
setting.
•If you manually added any automation events or used write automation for the 
corresponding parameter and then disable the reading of automation data, the 
automation curve is grayed-out in the event display and the static value line is used 
instead.
As soon as Read is enabled, the automation curve becomes available. 
						

							280
AutomationEnabling and disabling the writing of automation data
Enabling and disabling the writing of automation data
You can automation enable tracks and MixConsole channels in Cubase by activating 
their automation Write buttons. Write (W) and Read (R) buttons for all plug-in effects 
and VST instruments can be found on the corresponding control panels.
•If you activate Write for a channel, virtually all MixConsole parameters you adjust 
during playback for that specific channel are recorded as automation events.
•If Read is activated for a channel, all your recorded MixConsole actions for that 
channel are performed during playback.
The Read and Write buttons for a track in the track list are the same as the Read and 
Write buttons in the MixConsole.
ÖNote that the Read button is automatically enabled when you enable the Write button. 
This allows Cubase to read existing automation data at any time. You can separately 
deactivate Write if you only want to read existing data. It is not possible to activate 
Write and deactivate Read at the same time.
There are also global Read and Write indicator buttons (“Activate/Deactivate 
Read/Write for All Tracks”) on the MixConsole toolbar and at the top of the track list:
These buttons light up as soon as there is an enabled Read or Write button on any 
channel/track within your project. Furthermore, they can be clicked to activate or 
deactivate the Read/Write buttons of all tracks simultaneously.
ÖYou will also find global Read/Write buttons on the Automation panel, see “The 
Read/Write buttons” on page 289.
Writing automation data
There are two approaches you can use to create automation curves: manually (see 
“Manual writing of automation data” on page 281) and automatically (see “Automatic 
writing of automation data” on page 281). While manual writing makes it easy to 
quickly change parameter values at specific points without having to activate 
playback, automatic writing lets you work almost as if you were using a real mixer. 
With both methods, any applied automation data will be reflected in both the 
MixConsole (a fader will move for example) and in the corresponding automation track 
curve. 
The Write and Read buttons for a channel in the 
MixConsole and for an automation track in the 
track list
The global Read/Write buttons in the 
MixConsole…
…and in the track list