Steinberg Cubase Ai 5 Manual

81
The mixer
About output busses
Cubase AI uses a system of input and output busses 
which are set up using the VST Connections dialog. This 
is described in the chapter “VST Connections: Setting up 
input and output busses” on page 9.
Output busses let you route audio from the program to the 
outputs on your audio hardware. 
Viewing the output busses in the mixer
Output busses are shown as output channels in a sepa-
rate pane to the right in the mixer. You show or hide this 
pane by clicking the Hide...

82
The mixer
Utilities
Link/Unlink channels
This function is used to “link” selected channels in the 
mixer so that any change applied to one channel will be 
mirrored by all channels in that group. You can link as 
many channels as you like, and you can also create as 
many groups of linked channels as you like. To link chan-
nels in the mixer, proceed as follows:
1.Press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click on all the channels 
you want to link.
[Shift]-clicking allows you to select a continuous range of...

83
The mixer
Saving mixer settings
It is possible to save complete mixer settings for all or all 
selected audio-related channels in the mixer. These can 
later be loaded into any project. Channel settings are saved 
as mixer settings files. These have the file extension “.vmx”. 
Right-clicking somewhere in the mixer panel or in the 
Channel Settings window brings up the context menu 
where the following Save options can be found:
“Save Selected Channels” will save all channel settings 
for the selected...

84
The mixer
About the VST Performance window
The VST Performance window is opened from the Devices 
menu. The window shows two meter displays: The ASIO 
meter, which indicates CPU load, and the Disk meter, 
which shows the hard disk transfer rate. It is recommended 
that you check this from time to time, or keep it always 
open. Even if you have been able to activate a number of 
audio channels in the project without getting any warning, 
you may run into performance problems when adding EQ 
or...

8
Audio effects 

86
Audio effects
About this chapter
Cubase AI comes with a number of effect plug-ins in-
cluded. 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 manual 
“Plug-in Reference”.
Overview
There are two ways to use audio effects in Cubase AI:
As insert effects.
An insert effect is inserted into the signal chain of an audio channel, which 
means that the whole channel signal passes through the effect....

87
Audio effects
About 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 pro-
cess the audio fed into it – as a result, the output audio 
will be slightly delayed. This especially applies to dynam-
ics processors featuring “look-ahead” functionality. 
Cubase AI provides full plug-in delay compensation 
throughout the entire audio path. All plug-in delays are 
compensated for, maintaining the sync and timing of...

88
Audio effects
Routing an audio channel or bus through 
insert effects
Insert effect settings are available in the Channel Settings 
window and the Inspector. The examples below show the 
Channel Settings window, but the procedures are the 
same for all the inserts sections:
1.Bring up the Channel Settings window.
By default, the inserts are located to the far left.
2.Pull down the effect type pop-up for one of the insert 
slots, and select an effect.
The effect is loaded and automatically activated...

89
Audio effects
Insert effects in the channel overview
If the “Channel” section is selected in the Inspector, you will 
get an overview of which insert effects, EQ modules and ef-
fect sends are activated for the channel.
You can activate or deactivate individual insert effect slots 
by clicking the corresponding number (in the top part of 
the overview).
The channel overview in the Inspector
Adding insert effects to output busses
All output busses have eight insert slots, just like regular 
audio...

90
Audio effects
4.Make sure the plug-in is set to dither to the correct 
resolution.
This would be the resolution of your audio hardware (on playback) or the 
desired resolution for the mixdown file you want to create (as set in the 
Export Audio Mixdown dialog, see the chapter “Export Audio Mixdown” 
on page 226).
5.Use the other parameters in the control panel to set up 
the dithering to your liking.
Using group channels for insert effects
Like all other channels, group channels can have up to 
eight...