Steinberg Cubase Essential 4 Operation Manual

							101
The mixer
Fader levels will be “ganged”.
The relative level offset between channels will be kept if you move a 
linked channel fader.
The three channels shown are linked. Pulling down one fader changes 
the levels for all three channels, but keeps the relative level mix.
By pressing [Alt]/[Option], you can make individual set-
tings and changes for channels that are linked.
ÖLinked channels have individual automation subtracks. 
These are completely independent, and are not affected 
by the Link function.
Saving mixer settings
It is possible to save complete mixer settings for selected 
or all audio channels in the mixer. These can later be 
loaded into any project. Channel settings are saved as 
mixer settings files. These have the Windows file exten-
sion “.vmx”. 
Right-clicking somewhere in the mixer panel or in the 
Channel Settings window brings up the Mixer context 
menu where the following Save options can be found:
“Save Selected Channels” will save all channel settings 
for the selected channels.
Input/output routings are not saved.
“Save All Mixer Settings” saves all channel settings for 
all channels.
When you select any of the above options, a standard file 
dialog opens where you can select a name and storage lo-
cation on your disk for the file.
!Saving/Loading mixer settings does not apply to 
MIDI channels in the mixer – only audio-related 
channels (group, audio, instrument, effect return, 
VSTi and ReWire) are saved with this function! 
						

							102
The mixer
Loading mixer settings 
Load Selected Channels
To load mixer settings saved for selected channels, pro-
ceed as follows:
1.Select the same number of channels in the new project 
to match the number of channels you saved settings for in 
the previous project.
For example, if you saved settings for six channels, select six channels in 
the mixer.
Mixer settings will be applied in the same order as they 
were in the mixer.
Thus, if you save settings from channels 4, 6 and 8 and apply these set-
tings to channels 1, 2 and 3, the settings saved for channel 4 would be 
applied to channel 1, the settings saved for channel 6 to channel 2 and 
so on.
2.Right-click the mixer panel to open the context menu, 
and select “Load Selected Channels”.
A standard file dialog appears, where you can locate the saved file.
3.Select the file and click “Open”.
The channel settings are applied to the selected channels.
Load All Mixer Settings
Selecting “Load All Mixer Settings” from the context menu 
allows you to open a saved mixer settings file, and have 
the stored settings applied to all channels for which there 
is information included in the file. All channels, master set-
tings, VST Instruments, sends and master effects will be 
affected.
ÖPlease note that if the saved mixer settings were for 
24 channels, for example, and the mixer you apply it to 
currently contains 16 channels, only the settings for chan-
nels 1 to 16 will be applied – this function will not auto-
matically add channels.
About the VST Performance window
The VST Performance window is opened from the Devices 
menu. It indicates the current load on the CPU and the hard 
disk transfer rate. It is recommended that you check this 
from time to time, or keep it always open. Even though 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 effects.
The upper bar graph shows the CPU (processor) load.
If the red Overload indicator lights up, you need to decrease the number 
of EQ modules, active effects and/or audio channels playing back simul-
taneously.
The lower bar graph shows the hard disk transfer load.
If the red overload indicator lights up, the hard disk is not supplying data 
fast enough to the computer. You may need to reduce the number of tracks 
playing back by using the Disable Track function (see “About track disable/
enable” on page 45). If this doesn’t help, you need a faster hard disk. 
Note that the overload indicator may occasionally blink, e.g. when you lo-
cate during playback. This does not indicate a problem, but happens be-
cause the program needs a moment for all channels to load data for the 
new playback position.
ÖThe CPU and Disk load meters can also be shown on 
the Transport panel (as “Performance”) and on the Project 
window toolbar (as “Performance Meter”).
There they are shown as two miniature vertical meters (by default at the 
left side of the panel/toolbar).
 
!If you choose to apply mixer settings to fewer chan-
nels than you saved, the order of the saved channels 
in the mixer applies – i.e. the saved channels that are 
“left over” and not applied will be the channels with 
the highest channel numbers (or furthest to the right 
in the mixer). 
						

							11
Audio effects 
						

							104
Audio effects
About this chapter
Cubase Essential 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 manual 
“Plug-in Reference”.
Overview
There are two ways to use audio effects in Cubase Essen-
tial:
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. This makes 
inserts suitable for effects for which you don’t need to mix dry and wet 
sound, e.g. distortion, filters or other effects that change the tonal or dy-
namic characteristics of the sound. You can have up to eight different in-
sert effects per channel (and the same is true for output busses – for 
recording with effects and “master effects”, respectively).
As send effects.
Each audio channel has eight effect sends, each of which can be freely 
routed to an effect (or to a chain of effects). Send effects are practical for 
two reasons: you can control the balance between the dry (direct) and 
wet (processed) sound individually for each channel using the sends, 
and several different audio channels can use the same send effect. In 
Cubase Essential, send effects are handled by means of FX channel 
tracks. 
About VST 3 
The new VST 3 plug-in standard offers many improve-
ments over the previous VST 2 standard, yet retains full 
backwards compatibility, i.e. you will still be able to use 
your previous VST effects and presets.
Cubase Essential is able to run plug-ins originally devel-
oped for different platforms: you can use a 32-bit plug-in 
under Windows Vista 64 bit, and you can use plug-ins de-
veloped for Mac PPC on MacIntel systems.
As the use of 32-bit plug-ins on 64-bit computers affects 
the computer performance, these will be marked by an 
icon in the plug-in menus.ÖPlease note that this functionality is provided to allow 
you to load older projects including their original plug-ins 
on current computers. However, the plug-ins will require 
higher CPU performance when compared to their native 
platform. Therefore, it is recommended to use 64 bit ver-
sions or Intel Mac (Universal Binary) versions of such 
plug-ins or instruments once available.
In the program, effects compatible with previous VST ver-
sions will be easily recognized:
VST Preset management
From a user perspective, the main difference between 
VST 2 and VST 3 is in the effect preset management. The 
“.fxp/.fxb” files used in VST 2 have been replaced by 
VST 3 Presets (extension “.vstpreset”). Using the preset 
management features, you can assign various attributes to 
your effect presets to help you quickly find the right patch. 
You can also preview effect presets before you load them. 
A large number of presets for effects are included with the 
program. If you have any previous VST plug-ins installed 
on your computer, you can still use them, and you can also 
convert their programs to VST 3 presets. See “Effect pre-
sets” on page 113 for details.
Smart plug-in processing
Another feature of the VST3 standard is “smart” plug-in 
processing. Previously, any loaded plug-in was processing 
continuously, regardless of whether a signal was present or 
not. In VST3, processing by a plug-in can be disengaged if 
there is no signal present. This can greatly reduce the CPU 
load, thus allowing for more effects to be used. 
This is achieved by activating the option “Suspend VST3 
plug-in processing when no audio signals are received” in 
the Preferences dialog (VST – Plug-ins page).
When this is activated, VST 3 plug-ins will not consume 
CPU power on silent passages, i.e. when no audio data 
runs through them.
!This chapter describes audio effects, i.e. effects that 
are used to process audio, group, VST Instrument 
and ReWire channels. 
An effect compatible with 
a previous VST versionA VST 3 
effect 
						

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Audio effects
Be aware, however, that this can lead to a situation where 
you added more plug-ins on “transport stop” than the sys-
tem can handle on playback. Therefore, you should always 
find the passage with the largest number of events playing 
simultaneously to make sure that your system offers the re-
quired performance.
ÖActivating this option can increase your system perfor-
mance a lot in certain projects, but it also makes it more 
unpredictable whether the project can play back fine on 
any timecode position of the project. 
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. 
However, Cubase Essential provides full plug-in delay 
compensation throughout the entire audio path. All plug-in 
delays are compensated for, maintaining the sync and tim-
ing of all audio channels.
Normally, you don’t have to make any settings for this. How-
ever, VST3 dynamics plug-ins with look-ahead functionality 
have a “Live” button, allowing you to disengage the look-
ahead to minimize latency, if they are to be used during real-
time recording (see the separate manual “Plug-in Refer-
ence”).
You can also constrain the delay compensation, which is 
useful to avoid latency when recording audio or playing a 
VST Instrument in real time. See “Constrain Delay Com-
pensation” on page 129.
About tempo sync
Plug-ins can receive timing and tempo information from 
the host application (in this case, Cubase Essential). Typ-
ically, this is used to synchronize certain plug-in parame-
ters (such as modulation rates or delay times) to the 
project tempo.
This information is automatically provided to any VST 
(2.0 or later) plug-in that “requests it”.
You don’t need to make any special settings for this.
You set up tempo sync by specifying a base note value. 
You can use straight, triplet or dotted note values (1/1 - 1/32).
Please refer to the separate manual “Plug-in Reference” 
for details about the included effects.
Insert effects
Background
As the name implies, insert effects are inserted into the 
audio signal path – this means that the audio channel data 
will be routed through the effect. You can add up to eight 
different insert effects independently for each audio chan-
nel (audio track, group channel track, FX channel track, 
VST Instrument channel or ReWire channel) or output 
bus. 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 don’t want the level to 
be changed after the effect, such as dithering (see 
“Dithering” on page 107) and maximizers – both typically 
used as insert effects for output busses.
ÖApplying several effects on several channels may be 
too much for your CPU to handle!
If you want to use the same effect with the same settings on several 
channels, it may be more efficient to set up a group channel and to apply 
your effect only once, as a single insert for this group. You can use the 
VST Performance window to keep an eye on the CPU load.
Input gain
Insert effect 1
Insert effect 2
Insert effect 3
Insert effect 6
EQ
Volume (fader)
Insert effect 7
Insert effect 8
Insert effect 4
Insert effect 5 
						

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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 or open the In-
spector’s Inserts section.
In the Channel Settings window, the inserts are located to the far left by 
default.
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 and its con-
trol panel opens. You can open or close the control panel 
for an effect by clicking the “e” button for 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.
See “Making settings for the effects” on page 112 for details about edit-
ing effects.
To remove an effect, pull down the effect type pop-up 
menu and select “No Effect”.
You should do this for all effects that you don’t intend to use, to reduce 
the CPU load.
You can add up to 8 insert effects per channel this way.
You can reorder the effects by clicking in the area above 
the name field and dragging the effect onto another slot.
You can copy an effect into another effect slot (for the 
same channel or between channels) by holding down 
[Ctrl]/[Command] and dragging it onto another effect slot.
Deactivating vs. bypassing
If you want to listen to the track without having it pro-
cessed by a particular effect, but don’t want to remove 
this effect completely from the insert slot, you can either 
deactivate or bypass it:
Deactivating means to terminate all processing, whereas 
bypassing means to play back only the unprocessed origi-
nal signal – a bypassed effect is still processing in the 
background. Bypassing allows for crackle-free comparison 
of the original (“dry”) and the processed (“wet”) signal.
To deactivate an effect, click the blue button on the left 
above the insert slot.
To bypass an effect, click its Bypass button (the middle 
button above the insert slot).
When an effect is bypassed, this button is yellow.
To bypass all inserts for a track, click the global bypass 
button. 
This button can be found at the top of the Inserts section in the Inspector 
or the Channel Settings window. It lights up in yellow to indicate that the 
inserts of this track are bypassed. In the track list and the channel strip in 
the mixer, the Inserts State button will also light up in yellow.
This effect is activated, and 
its control panel is open.
This insert effect is bypassed. 
						

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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 channels. The procedures for adding insert effects 
are the same.
Insert effects added to an output bus will affect all audio 
routed to that bus, like a “master insert effect”.
Typically you would add compressors, limiters, EQ or other plug-ins to 
tailor the dynamics and sound of the final mix. Dithering is a special case, 
as described below.
ÖPlease note that the output busses only appear as 
tracks in the Track list, when their automation W(rite) but-
tons have been activated once. Therefore you can only 
use the Inspector section to make Inserts settings for the 
busses if you have activated Write automation for the re-
spective bus beforehand.
However, you can always make Inserts settings in the Channel Settings 
window.
Dithering
Dithering is a method for controlling the noise produced 
by quantization errors in digital recordings. The theory be-
hind this is that during low level passages, only a few bits 
are used to represent the signal, which leads to quantiza-
tion errors and hence distortion. 
For example, when “truncating bits”, as a result of moving 
from 24 to 16 bit resolution, quantization errors are added 
to an otherwise immaculate recording. By adding a spe-
cial kind of noise at an extremely low level, the effect of 
these errors is minimized. The added noise could be per-
ceived as a very low-level hiss under exacting listening 
conditions. However, this is hardly noticeable and much 
preferred to the distortion that otherwise occurs.
When should I use dithering?
Consider dithering when you mix down to a lower reso-
lution, either in real-time (playback) or with the Export Au-
dio Mixdown function. 
A typical example is when you mix down a project to a 16-bit stereo au-
dio file for audio CD burning.
What is a “lower resolution” then? Well, Cubase Essential 
uses 32-bit float resolution internally, which means that all 
integer resolutions (16 bit, 24 bit, etc.) are lower. The neg-
ative effects of truncation (no dithering) are most notice-
able when mixing down to 8 bit, 16 bit and 20 bit format; 
whether to dither when mixing down to 24 bits is a matter 
of taste.
Applying dithering
1.Open the VST Output Channel Settings window by 
clicking the “e” button for the Output channel in the mixer.
2.Open the Inserts pop-up menu for slot 7 or 8.
The two last Insert effect slots (for all channels) are post-fader, which is 
crucial for a dithering plug-in. The reason is that any master gain change 
applied after dithering would bring the signal back to the internal 32 bit 
float domain, rendering the dithering settings useless.
3.Select the included UV22HR dithering plug-in from 
the pop-up menu.
The included dithering plug-in and its parameters are de-
scribed in the separate manual “Plug-in Reference”. If you 
have installed another dithering plug-in that you prefer, 
you can of course select this instead.
The blue color of inserts 1 and 2 and 
the blue Inserts State button in the 
channel strip indicate that this track 
has active inserts. 
						

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Audio effects
4.Make sure the dithering 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 272).
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 insert effects. This is useful if you have several audio 
tracks that you want to process through the same effect 
(e.g. different vocal tracks that all should be processed by 
the same compressor). 
Another special use for group channels and effects is the 
following:
If you have a mono audio track and want to process this 
through a stereo insert effect (e.g. a stereo chorus or an 
auto panner device), you cannot just insert the effect as 
usual. This is because the audio track is in mono – the 
output of the insert effect will be in mono as well, and the 
stereo information from the effect will be lost.
One solution would be to route a send from the mono 
track to a stereo FX channel track, set the send to pre-
fader mode and lower the fader completely for the mono 
audio track. However, this makes mixing the track cumber-
some, since you cannot use the fader.
Here’s another solution:
1.Create a group channel track in stereo and route it to 
the desired output bus.
2.Add the desired effect to the group channel as an in-
sert effect.
3.Route the mono audio track to the group channel.
Now the signal from the mono audio track is sent directly 
to the group, where it passes through the insert effect, in 
stereo.
Freezing (rendering) insert effects for a track
Effect plug-ins can sometimes require a lot of processor 
power. If you are using a large number of insert effects for 
a track, you may eventually reach a point where the com-
puter cannot play back the track properly (the CPU over-
load indicator in the VST Performance window lights up, 
you get crackling sounds, etc.).
To remedy this, you can freeze the track, by clicking the 
Freeze button in the Inspector.
The Freeze Channel Options dialog is opened, allowing 
you to set a “Tail” time in seconds.
This adds time at the end of the rendered file to allow reverb and delay 
tails to fully fade out.
The program now renders the output of the track, in-
cluding all pre-fader insert effects, to an audio file.
This file is placed in the “Freeze” folder within the Project folder (Win-
dows). On the Mac, the Freeze folder is stored under “User/Documents”.
The frozen audio track is locked for editing in the Project 
window.
The frozen insert effects cannot be edited or removed and you cannot 
add new insert effects for the track (except post-fader effects).
On playback, the rendered audio file is played back. 
You can still adjust the level and panning in the Mixer, 
make EQ settings and adjust the effect sends.
In the Mixer, the channel strip for a frozen track is indicated by a “snow 
flake” symbol on the volume fader handle.
After freezing the Inserts for a track, you hear the track 
play back as before but the insert effects don’t have to be 
calculated in real time, easing the load on the computer 
processor. Typically, you would freeze a track when it’s 
finished and you don’t need to edit it anymore.
You can only freeze audio tracks this way, not group 
channel tracks or FX channel tracks.
The last two insert effects will not be frozen. This is 
because these are post-fader insert slots.
You can also freeze VST instruments and their insert 
effects – see “VST Instruments and Instrument tracks” on 
page 119. 
						

							109
Audio effects
Unfreezing
If you need to edit the events on a frozen track or make 
settings for the insert effects, you can unfreeze the track:
1.Click the Freeze button in the Inspector for the track.
You will be asked whether you really want to unfreeze the channel and if 
you wish to keep or delete the freeze files.
2.Click “Unfreeze” or “Keep Freeze files”.
This reactivates the frozen insert effects. Clicking “Keep Freeze Files” 
will unfreeze the channel but not delete the freeze files. After editing, you 
can freeze the track again.
Send effects
Background
As their name implies, send effects are outside of an audio 
channel’s signal path, i. e. the audio data to be processed 
must be sent to the effect (as opposed to insert effects, 
which are inserted into the channel’s signal path).
To this end, Cubase Essential provides FX channel tracks. 
When you have created such a track, it is added to the 
track list and can be selected as a routing target in the 
Send slots of audio channels.
When selecting an FX channel track in one of the send 
slots of an audio channel, the audio is sent to the FX chan-
nel and through any insert effects set up for it.
Each audio channel has eight sends, which can be routed to different FX 
channels, and thus different FX channel insert effect configurations. You 
control the amount of signal sent to the FX channel by adjusting the ef-
fect send level.
If you have added several effects to the FX channel, the 
signal passes through the effects in series, from the top 
(the first slot) downward.
This allows for “custom” send effect configurations – e.g. a chorus fol-
lowed by a reverb followed by an EQ and so on.
The FX channel track has its own channel strip in the 
mixer, the effect return channel.
Here you can adjust the effect return level and balance, add EQ and 
route the effect return to any output bus.
Each FX channel track can have an automation sub-
track, for automating various effect parameters. 
See the chapter “Automation” on page 131 for more information.
Setting up send effects
Adding an FX channel track
1.Pull down the Project menu and select “FX Channel” 
from the “Add Track” submenu.
A dialog appears.
2.Select a channel configuration for the FX channel 
track.
Normally, stereo is a good choice since most effect plug-ins have stereo 
outputs.
3.Select an effect for the FX channel track.
This is not strictly necessary at this point – you can leave the plug-in 
pop-up menu set to “No Effect” and add effects to the FX channel later if 
you like.
4.Click OK.
An FX channel track is added to the track list, and the selected effect, if 
any, is loaded into the first insert effect slot for the FX channel (in that 
case, the lit Inserts tab for the FX channel track in the Inspector indicates 
that an effect has been assigned and automatically activated).
All FX channel tracks you create will appear in a dedi-
cated “folder” track in the Track list.
This makes it easy to manage and keep track of all your FX channel 
tracks, and also allows you to save screen space by folding in the FX 
Channel folder.
FX channel tracks are automatically named “FX 1”, “FX 2” etc., but you 
can rename them if you wish. Just double-click the name of an FX chan-
nel track in either the Track list or the Inspector and type in a new name. 
						

							110
Audio effects
Adding and setting up effects
As mentioned above, you can add a single insert effect 
when you create the FX channel track. To add and set up 
effects after the FX channel track is created, you can ei-
ther use the Inspector for the track (click the Inserts tab) 
or the VST FX Channel Settings window:
1.Click the Edit (“e”) button for the FX channel track (in 
the Track list, mixer or Inspector).
The FX Channel Settings window appears, similar to a regular Channel 
Settings window.
To the left in the window is the Inserts section with eight effect slots.
2.Make sure the FX channel is routed to the correct out-
put bus.
This is done with the output routing pop-up menu at the top of the fader 
section (also available in the Inspector).
3.To add an insert effect in an empty slot (or to replace 
the current effect in a slot), click in the slot and select an 
effect from the pop-up menu.
This works just like when selecting insert effects for a regular audio 
channel.
4.When you add an effect, its control panel will automat-
ically appear. When you set up send effects, you would 
normally set the wet/dry Mix control to all “wet”.
This is because you control the balance between the wet and the dry sig-
nal with the effect sends. For more information, see “Making settings for 
the effects” on page 112.
You can add up to eight effects for an FX channel.
The signal will pass through all the effects in series. It is not possible to 
adjust the effect send and return levels separately for the effects – this is 
done for the FX channel as a whole. If what you want is several separate 
send effects (where you can control the send and return levels indepen-
dently), you should instead add more FX channel tracks – one for each 
effect.
You can reorder the effects by clicking in the area above 
the name field and dragging the effect onto another slot.You can copy an effect into another effect slot (for the 
same channel or between channels) by holding down 
[Ctrl]/[Command] and dragging it onto another effect slot.
To remove an insert effect from a slot, click in the slot 
and select “No Effect” from the pop-up menu.
You should do this for all effects that you don’t intend to use, to reduce 
the CPU load.
You can bypass individual effects (or all effects) by 
clicking the corresponding Bypass button(s) for the FX 
channel track.
See “Routing an audio channel or bus through insert effects” on page 106.
You can also adjust level, pan and EQ for the effect re-
turn in the FX Channel Settings window.
This can also be done in the mixer or in the Inspector.
ÖRemember that the more effect units you use, the 
higher the CPU load.
Setting up the sends
The next step is to set up a send for an audio channel and 
route it to the FX channel. This can be done in the Chan-
nel Settings window or in the Inspector for the audio track. 
The example below shows the Channel Settings window, 
but the procedure is similar for all the sections:
1.Click the “e” button for an audio channel to bring up its 
Channel Settings window.
In the Inspector you would click the Sends tab.
In the Channel Settings window, the send section is lo-
cated to the left of the channel strip by default. Each of the 
eight sends has the following controls:
 An On/Off button for activating/deactivating the effect
 A send level slider
 A pre/post-fader switch
 An “e” (edit) button
Note that the last three items are not shown until the send 
is activated and an effect has been loaded.