Steinberg Cubase 8 Manual

Metering
Loudness
371
5)True Peak
Allows you to specify a reference value and a tolerance value for the true peak 
level. If higher values are detected, the clipping indicator in the loudness 
meter turns red.
6)Switch between LUFS and LU
Allows you to switch the meter scale between LUFS (absolute values) and LU 
(relative values).
7)Switch between EBU +9 Scale and EBU +18 Scale
Allows you to switch the meter scale between EBU +9 and EBU +18.
8)Reset on Start
Activate this to reset all values on playback...

372
Audio Effects
Cubase comes with a number of effect plug-ins included. This chapter contains 
general details about how to assign, use and organize effect plug-ins. The effects 
and their parameters are described in the separate PDF document “Plug-in 
Reference”.
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
This chapter describes audio effects, i. e. effects that are used to process audio, 
group, VST instrument, and ReWire channels.
Overview
Audio effects can be used as follows:
•Insert effects
These effects...

Audio Effects
Overview
373
VST 3 Standard
The VST 3 plug-in standard offers many improvements over the previous VST 2 
standard and yet retains full backwards compatibility.
Cubase is able to run plug-ins originally developed for different platforms: you can 
use a 32-bit plug-in with the 64-bit version of Cubase under Windows
 8 64 bit and 
Mac
 OS X 10.8.
NOTE
This functionality is provided to allow you to load older projects including their 
original plug-ins on current computers. However, the...

Audio Effects
Insert Effects
374
Plug-In Delay Compensation
A plug-in effect may have some inherent delay or latency. This means that it takes a 
brief time for the plug-in to process the audio fed into it – as a result, the output 
audio will be slightly delayed. This especially applies to dynamics processors 
featuring look-ahead functionality.
Cubase provides full plug-in delay compensation throughout the entire audio path. 
All plug-in delays are compensated for, maintaining the sync and timing of...

Audio Effects
Insert Effects
375
The signal passes through the effects in series from the top downwards, with the 
signal path shown below:
As you can see, the last two insert slots (for any channel) are post-EQ and 
post-fader. Post-fader slots are best suited for insert effects where you do not want 
the level to be changed after the effect, such as dithering and maximizers – both 
typically used as insert effects for output busses.
NOTE
Applying several effects on several channels may be too much for...

Audio Effects
Insert Effects
376
2. Move the mouse over the first insert slot, click on the arrow symbol that is 
displayed, and select an effect from the selector.
RESULT 
The effect is loaded and automatically activated and its control panel opens. You 
can open the control panel for a loaded effect by double-clicking in the middle of 
the insert slot.
• If the effect has a dry/wet Mix parameter, you can use this to adjust the 
balance between the dry signal and the effect signal.
• To remove an...

Audio Effects
Insert Effects
377
• To deactivate an effect, hold [Alt]/[Option] and click its Bypass button.
1) This effect is deactivated.
2) This effect is bypassed.
3) This effect is activated.
• To bypass all inserts for a track, click the “Bypass Inserts” button.
This button can be found on the right of the header of the Inserts section in 
the Inspector. It lights up in yellow to indicate that one or more inserts of this 
track are bypassed.
In the Channel Settings window, you can find the button...

Audio Effects
Insert Effects
378
3. Double-click on the diagram.
The Routing Editor opens.
4. Make your settings by using the arrow buttons, the Link checkbox and by 
clicking the lines.
Routing Editor
The Routing Editor allows you to freely set up the routing for the individual channels. 
It shows the channels in the current configuration, with signals passing from top to 
bottom.
• The gray field in the middle represents the actual effect plug-in.
• The squares above represent inputs to the effect...

Audio Effects
Insert Effects
379
• If you move inputs or outputs independently, you create a “cross-connection”.
The audio on the Ls-Rs channels is processed in the plug-in and output on 
the L-R channels. Since the L-R channels are bypassed, this means the final 
L-R output will contain both the original L-R signals and the processed Ls-Rs 
signals.
• If a channel is bypassed (a straight line is shown through the plug-in), you can 
click on the line to break the connection.
Click again to replace the...

Audio Effects
Insert Effects
380
When should I use dithering?
• Consider dithering when you mix down to a lower resolution, either in realtime 
(during playback) or with the Export Audio Mixdown function.
A typical example is when you mix down a project to a 16-bit stereo audio file 
for audio CD burning.
What is a “lower resolution” then? Well, Cubase uses 32-bit float resolution 
internally, which means that all integer resolutions (16
 bit, 24 bit, etc.) are lower. 
The negative effects of truncation...