Steinberg Cubase Ai 5 Manual

101
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
4.If you now look in the Project window Track list, you 
will find that a dedicated folder for the chosen instrument 
has been added, within a “VST Instruments” folder (where 
all your VST Instrument channels will be listed).
The separate folder for the added VST Instrument contains two types of 
automation tracks: one for automating the plug-in parameters and one for 
each mixer channel used by the VST Instrument. For example, if you add a 
VST Instrument with...

102
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
Instrument tracks
An instrument track is a combination of a VST Instrument, a 
MIDI track, and a VST Instrument channel, in other words: 
it is a track coupled with a sound – it allows you to think in 
terms of sounds rather than in terms of track and instru-
ment settings.
Adding Instrument tracks
To open and use an Instrument track, proceed as follows:
1.Open the Project menu and select Instrument from the 
Add Track submenu.
You can also right-click in the...

103
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
Due to the limitation to one output channel, instrument 
tracks play only the first voice of a multi-timbral VST In-
strument. If you want to use all voices, you have to load the 
instrument via the VST Instruments window and set up a 
MIDI channel to play it.
Exporting instrument tracks as MIDI file
You can also export instrument tracks as standard MIDI 
files, see “Exporting MIDI files” on page 259.
Please note: 
As there is no MIDI patch information in an...

104
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
For example, if you are looking for a bass sound, simply 
select the Bass category and you can browse and preview 
all bass sounds for all instruments. If you know you want a 
synth bass sound, select Synth Bass as sub-category and 
all synth bass sounds will be shown, etc.
You can also browse and preview track presets for instru-
ment tracks, i. e. instrument sounds plus all track settings 
and all channel insert effect settings for this track.
These features...

105
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
2.When you have found the right sound, click OK to 
close the dialog.
An instrument track is created with all track and/or instrument settings 
that were saved in the preset.
Selecting VST Instrument presets
The previous sections focussed on selecting presets for 
the creation of new instrument tracks, or for changing the 
setup of an existing track. However, you can also use pre-
sets to change the settings of a VST Instrument.
To select a VST Instrument preset,...

106
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
Extracting sounds from Track Presets
You can extract a sound from a Track preset (disregarding 
any track/channel settings) and save it as a VST preset. 
Proceed as follows:
1.Click the button “Extract sound from Track Preset” be-
low the Output Routing pop-up menu in the Inspector. 
This opens a dialog where all Track Presets are shown.
2.Select an instrument track preset or VST preset by 
double-clicking it.
The VST Instrument and the settings (but no inserts,...

107
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
In the Preferences dialog (VST page) you will find a set-
ting called Delay Compensation Threshold. Only plug-ins 
with a delay higher than this setting will be affected by the 
Constrain Delay Compensation function.
VST plug-ins (with higher delay than the threshold value) 
which are activated for VST Instrument channels, audio 
track channels that are record enabled, group channels and 
output channels will be turned off when you activate Con-
strain Delay...

10
Automation 

109
Automation
Introduction
In essence, automation means finding and recording, for 
each and every moment of your project, the right values for 
a particular mixer parameter. When you create your final 
mix, you will not have to worry about having to adjust this 
particular parameter control yourself – Cubase AI will do it 
for you.
Cubase AI provides very powerful and yet intuitive auto-
mation of virtually every mixer and effect parameter.
The following sections provide detailed descriptions of the...

110
Automation
There are two approaches you can use to create automa-
tion curves:
“Offline”, by manually drawing the curves on automation 
tracks in the Project window.
See “Editing automation events” on page 115.
“Online”, by enabling the Write button and adjusting 
parameters in the mixer or channel settings window while 
rolling through the project in realtime. The value settings are 
recorded and displayed as a curve on the automation track.
In the following sections, this online writing of...