Steinberg Cubase 7 User Manual

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The PoolOperations
ÖSince the audio and video files are only referenced but not saved in the Pool file, the 
Pool import is only useful if you have access to all referenced files (which preferably 
have the same file paths as when the Pool was saved).
You can also save and open libraries. These are stand-alone Pool files that are not 
associated with a project.
Working with libraries (Cubase only)
You can use libraries to save sound effects, loops, video clips, etc., and transfer media 
from a library into a project by using drag and drop. The following library functions are 
available on the File menu:
New Library
Creates a new library. Just as when creating new projects, you will be asked to specify 
a project folder for the new library (in which media files will be stored). The library 
appears as a separate Pool window in Cubase. 
Open Library
Opens a file dialog for opening a saved library file.
Save Library
Opens a file dialog for saving the library file (file extension “.npl”).
Convert Files
Selecting the “Convert Files” option on the Media or context menu opens the Convert 
Options dialog which operates on selected files. Use the pop-up menus to specify 
which audio file attributes you want to keep and which you want to convert. The 
available settings are:
•Sample Rate
Keep as is, or convert to a sample rate between 8.000 and 192.000  kHz.
•Sample Width
Keep the sample width (resolution) as is, or convert to 16 Bit, 24 Bit or 32 Bit 
Float.
•Channels
Keep as is, or convert the file to Mono or Stereo Interleaved.
•File Format
Keep as is, or convert to Wave, AIFF, FLAC, Wave 64, or Broadcast Wave format. 
						

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The PoolOperations
Options
When you convert a file, you can use the Options pop-up menu to set one of the 
following options regarding what to do with the new file:
Conform Files
By using this command, you will change all selected files that have different file 
attributes than what is specified for the project, to conform to this standard.
Proceed as follows:
1.Select the clips in the Pool.
2.Select “Conform Files…” on the Media menu.
A dialog opens allowing you to choose between keeping or replacing the original 
unconverted files in the Pool. 
The following applies:
- Clip/event references in the Pool are always redirected to the conformed files.
- If any “keep” option is selected, original files remain in the Project’s Audio folder 
and new files are created.
- If you select the “Replace” option, files in the Pool and in the Project’s Audio folder 
are replaced.
Extract Audio from Video File
This Media menu item allows you to extract the audio from a video file on disk. It 
automatically generates a new audio clip that will appear in the Pool Record folder. 
The resulting clip will have the following properties:
•It will get the same file format and sample rate/width as in the current project.
•It will get the same name as the video file.
ÖThis function is not available for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video files.
OptionDescription
New FilesCreates a copy of the file in the audio folder and converts this new file 
according to the chosen attributes. The new file is added to the Pool, but 
all clip references will still point to the original, unconverted file.
Replace FilesConverts the original file without changing clip references. The 
references are however saved with the next save action.
New + 
Replace in 
PoolCreates a new copy with the chosen attributes, replaces the original file 
with the new one in the Pool and redirects the current clip references 
from the original file to the new file. This is the option to select if you want 
your audio clips to refer to the converted file, but still want to keep the 
original file on disk (e.
 g. if the file is used in other projects). 
						

							393
The MediaBay
Introduction
One of the biggest challenges in typical computer-based music production 
environments is how to manage the ever-growing number of plug-ins, instruments, 
presets, etc. from multiple sources. Cubase features an efficient database for media 
file management that allows you to handle all your media files from within your 
sequencer program. 
The MediaBay is divided into several sections:
- Define Locations – Here, you can create “presets” for locations on your system 
that you want to scan for media files, see 
“Defining Locations” on page 397.
- Locations – Here, you can switch between the previously defined Locations.
- Filters – Here, you can filter the Results list using a logical or an attribute filter, see 
“The Filters section” on page 406.
- Results – Here, all found media files are displayed. You can also filter the list and 
perform text searches, see 
“The Results list” on page 399.
- Previewer – This section allows you to preview the files shown in the Results list, 
see 
“Previewing files” on page 403.
- Attribute Inspector – In this section, you can view, edit and add media file 
attributes (or tags), see 
“The Attribute Inspector” on page 410.
ÖBy default, the Define Locations section, the Locations section, the Filters section, the 
Results list and the Previewer section are shown.
The Previewer section The Attribute Inspector (Cubase only) The Define 
Locations sectionThe Locations section
The Filters 
section
The Results list 
						

							394
The MediaBayWorking with the MediaBay
Accessing the MediaBay
To open the MediaBay, select the MediaBay command on the Media menu. You can 
also use the corresponding key command (by default F5).
Setting up the MediaBay window
You can show and hide the different sections of the MediaBay (except for the Results 
list). This is handy, as it allows you to save screen space and enables you to display 
only the information you need for your work.
Proceed as follows:
1.Click the “Set up Window Layout” button in the lower left corner of the MediaBay 
window.
A transparent pane appears, covering the window. In the center of it is a gray area 
containing checkboxes for the different sections.
2.Deactivate the checkboxes for the sections you want to hide. 
Any changes you make here are directly reflected in the MediaBay window.
ÖYou can also use key commands for this: use the up/down and left/right arrow keys to 
step through the checkboxes and press [Space] to activate/deactivate the desired 
checkbox.
3.When you are done, click outside the gray area to exit the Setup mode.
•You can change the size of the individual MediaBay sections by dragging the 
divider line between two sections.
Working with the MediaBay
When working with many music files, the most important thing is to find the content 
you need quickly and easily. The MediaBay helps you find and organize your content in 
an effective and efficient way. After the first scan of the folders you have activated for 
scanning (which will take a certain time), all the files that were found are there for you 
to browse, tag or modify. 
At the beginning, all media files of the supported formats are listed in the Results 
section: far too many to get a good overview. However, by using the search and filter 
techniques, you get the desired results very quickly.
The first thing to do is to set up “Locations”, that is folders or directories on your 
system that contain media files. Usually, files are organized in a specific way on your 
computer. For example, you might have folders reserved for audio content, folders for 
special effects, folders for combinations of sounds making up the ambience noise you 
need for a certain film take, etc. These can all be set as different Locations in the 
MediaBay, allowing you to limit the files available in the Results list according to 
context. 
						

							395
The MediaBayThe Define Locations section
Whenever you expand your computer system (for example, by adding new hard disks 
or an external volume containing media files you want to work with), you should make 
it a habit to save the new volumes as Locations or add them to your existing Locations. 
Afterwards, you can hide the Define Locations section from view. That way, the 
MediaBay occupies less screen space and you can concentrate on the important 
thing: the Results list. 
For this list, you can specify which file types are displayed, see “Filtering according to 
media type” on page 399. If there are still too many files to choose from, you can 
narrow down the results using a text search function, see “Performing a text search” 
on page 401. This is often all it needs to display what you want, allowing you to 
proceed by previewing the files before inserting them into your project (see 
“Previewing files” on page 403). However, if you need very complex and detailed 
filtering, this is also possible using either attribute or logical filtering, see “The Filters 
section” on page 406. For filtering or searches, the use of attributes is recommended: 
By specifying specific attribute values for your files (categorizing them as production 
sound, foley, special effects, etc.), you can considerably speed up the browsing 
process, see 
“The Attribute Inspector” on page 410.
Finally, the files can be easily inserted into the project, by using drag & drop, by 
double-clicking or using the context menu options, see 
“Inserting the files into the 
project” on page 402.
The Define Locations section
When you open the MediaBay for the first time, a scan for media files is performed on 
your system. You specify which folders or directories you want to be included in the 
scan by activating/deactivating the checkboxes for the folders in the Define Locations 
section. Depending on the amount of media files on your computer, the scan may take 
a while. All files that are found in the specified folders are shown in the Results list.
•To include a folder in the scan, activate its checkbox.
•To exclude a folder from the scan, deactivate its checkbox.
•To restrict the search to individual subfolders, activate/deactivate their 
checkboxes. 
						

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The MediaBayThe Define Locations section
The color of the checkmark helps you to identify which folders and subfolders are 
scanned:
- A white checkmark indicates that all subfolders are scanned.
- An orange checkmark indicates that at least one subfolder is excluded from the 
scan.
•To revert to scanning a complete folder (including all subfolders), click on an 
orange checkmark.
The checkmark becomes white, to indicate that all folders are scanned.
The scanning status for the individual folders themselves is indicated by the color of 
the folder icons:
- A red icon means that the folder is currently being scanned.
- A light blue icon means the folder has been scanned.
- A dark blue icon is displayed for folders which are excluded from the scan.
- An orange icon is displayed when the scanning process for the folder was 
interrupted.
- A yellow icon is displayed for folders that have not yet been scanned.
The scan result is saved in a database file. When you deactivate the checkbox for a 
folder that has already been scanned, a message appears, allowing you to keep the 
gathered scan data in this database file or to completely remove the data for this 
folder from the database file. Select Keep if you want to keep the database entries, 
but want to exclude the folder from being scanned (when you trigger a re-scan for 
example). Select Remove if you do not want to use the contents of this folder in your 
projects.
•When you activate the “Please, don’t ask again” option, no further warning 
messages will be shown when you deactivate other checkboxes, for as long as the 
program is running.
When you quit and re-launch Cubase, these warning messages will be displayed 
again.
The VST Sound node
The Define Locations section provides a shortcut to user content and factory content 
files, including the preset folders: the VST Sound node.
•The folders below the VST Sound node represent the directories in which content 
files and track presets, VST presets, etc. are stored by default.
To find out the “true” location of a file, right-click on it in the Results list and select 
“Open in Explorer” (Win)/“Reveal in Finder” (Mac). This will open an 
Explorer/Finder window in which the corresponding file is highlighted. Please note 
that this function is not available for files which are part of a VST Sound archive.
Some subfolders of this folder are 
excluded from the scan.
All subfolders of this folder are included in 
the scan. 
						

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The MediaBayThe Define Locations section
Updating the display
You can update the display in two ways: by rescanning or by refreshing.
Rescanning
When you click the Rescan button, the selected folder is rescanned. If a folder 
contains a large number of media files, the scanning process may take some time. Use 
this function if you have made changes to the content of specific media folders and 
want to scan these folders again.
ÖYou can also rescan the selected folder by right-clicking on it and selecting Rescan 
Disk from the context menu.
Refreshing
In addition to the Rescan Disk option, the context menu for the selected node or folder 
in the Define Locations section also contains a Refresh Views option. This refreshes 
the display for this location without rescanning the corresponding media files.
This is useful in the following situations:
•When you have modified attribute values (see “Editing attributes (tagging)” on 
page 411) and want to update the Results list so that these values are displayed 
for the corresponding files.
•When you have mapped a new network drive, for example, and want this to appear 
as a node in the Define Locations section. Simply select the Refresh Views option 
for the parent node and the new drive will appear in the Define Locations section 
(ready to be scanned for media files).
Defining Locations 
When you have set up the Define Locations section according to your preferences, 
and the content is scanned, it is time to make it available in a meaningful way. For this, 
you can define locations, i.
 e. shortcuts to the folders you want to work with, that will 
be available from the Locations section for convenient access.
To define a location, proceed as follows:
1.In the list to the left, select the desired folder.
2.Click the Add button.
A naming dialog for the new location is displayed.
3.Accept the default name or enter a new name.
4.Click OK.
The new location is added to the Locations pop-up menu in the Locations section 
(see below).
5.Repeat these steps to add as many locations as you need.
Once you have set up your locations, you can hide the Define Locations section from 
view (see 
“Setting up the MediaBay window” on page 394), to save screen space. 
						

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The MediaBayThe Locations section
ÖSome Location presets are available by default. These are: “All Media” (the topmost 
node in the Define Locations section), “Local Harddisks” (the local harddisks in your 
computer system), “VST Sound” (the folder in which Steinberg sound files, loops and 
presets are stored by default), Documents (the Documents folder of your computer), 
Desktop (the Desktop folder of your computer), Music (the Music folder of your 
computer), and “Cubase Projects” (the folder where Cubase projects are stored by 
default).
The Locations section
When you open the Locations pop-up menu and select a location, the media files 
found in that location are shown in the Results list. By switching between the 
locations you defined, you can quickly browse to the files you are looking for.
•To change the browse location, simply select another location from the pop-up 
menu.
If the available Locations don’t yield the desired results or if the folder you want to 
scan for files is not part of any of the locations, define a new Location in the Define 
Locations section.
•To select the previous or next folder in a sequence of selected folders, use the 
“Previous/Next Browse Location” buttons.
These paths will be deleted when you close the MediaBay.
•To select the parent folder of the selected folder, click the “Browse Containing 
Folder” button.
•To remove a location from the pop-up menu, select it and click the “Remove 
Browse Location Definition” button.
•To show the files contained in the selected folder and any subfolders (without 
showing these subfolders), activate the Deep Results button.
When this button is deactivated, only the folders and files contained in the 
selected folder are shown.
Previous/Next Browse 
LocationBrowse Containing 
FolderClick here to select a 
location.
Remove Browse Location 
Definition
Deep Results 
						

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The MediaBayThe Results list
The Results list
The Results list is at the heart of the MediaBay. Here, you will find all the files found in 
the selected location.
As the number of files displayed can be huge (the info field in the top right corner of 
the Results section shows the number of files found with the current filter settings), 
you might want to use any of the filter and search options in the MediaBay to narrow 
down the list. The available options are described below.
ÖThe maximum number of files that are displayed in the Results list can be set by 
specifying a new value for “Maximum Items in Results list” in the Preferences (see 
“Preferences” on page 416).
Filtering according to media type
The Results list can be set to display only a particular media type or a combination of 
media types.
•Click in the field where the currently displayed media types are shown (by default 
“All Media Types”) to open the Show Media Types pop-up menu.
Here, you can activate the media types you want to be displayed in the Results list.
When you have filtered the list to show a particular media type, this is indicated by the 
corresponding icon to the left of media type field. When you have selected several 
media types, the Mixed Media Type icon is used.
Select this option to display all types.
Here, the last four media type 
selections are listed.
The media types you activate here 
are shown in the Results list. 
						

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The MediaBayThe Results list
The media types
In the “Show Media Types” dialog, you can activate the media types you want to be 
displayed in the Results list. The following types are available:
OptionDescription
Audio FilesWhen this is activated, the list shows all audio files. The supported 
formats are .wav, .w64, .aiff, .aifc, .rex, .rx2, .mp3, .mp2, .ogg, .sd2 
(Mac only), .wma (Win only). 
MIDI FilesWhen this is activated, the list shows all MIDI files (file name 
extension .mid).
MIDI LoopsWhen this is activated, the list shows all MIDI loops (file name 
extension .midiloop).
Pattern Banks When this is activated, the list shows all pattern banks (file name 
extension .patternbank). Pattern banks are generated by the MIDI 
plug-in Beat Designer. For more information, see 
“Previewing pattern 
banks” on page 406 and the separate PDF document “Plug-in 
Reference”.
Track PresetsWhen this is activated, the list shows all track presets for audio, MIDI, 
and instrument tracks (file name extension .trackpreset). Track 
presets are a combination of track settings, effects and MixConsole 
settings that can be applied to new tracks of various types. For more 
information, see the chapter 
“Working with track presets” on page 
422.
Plug-in PresetsWhen this is activated, the list shows all VST presets for instrument 
and effect plug-ins. Furthermore, EQ presets that you save in the 
MixConsole are listed, see 
“Using EQ Presets” on page 197. These 
presets contain all parameter settings for a particular plug-in. They 
can be used to apply sounds to instrument tracks and effects to 
audio tracks. For more information, see the chapter 
“Working with 
track presets” on page 422.
Strip PresetsWhen this is activated, the list shows all strip presets (file name 
extension .strippreset). These presets contain channel strip effect 
chains, see 
“Using Strip Presets” on page 199.
FX Chain PresetsWhen this is activated, the list shows all effect chain presets (file 
name extension .fxchainpreset). These presets contain insert effect 
chains, see 
“Using FX Chain Presets” on page 195.
Video FilesWhen this is activated, the list shows all video files. For information 
about the supported video formats, see 
“Video file compatibility” on 
page 670.
ProjectsWhen this is activated, the list shows all project files (from Cubase, 
Nuendo, Sequel): .cpr, .npr, .steinberg-project.