Steinberg Cubase LE Getting Started Manual

							CUBASE LETutorial 5: Using VST Instruments 10 – 111
4.In the control panel, make sure the “power button” in the left corner is 
activated (lit).
There is a mirror of this power button in the VST Instrument slot.
5.You can keep the control panel open or close it – it doesn’t matter, as 
long as the VST Instrument is activated (power button is lit).
Since we cannot hear the instrument yet, there’s not much point in making any control 
panel settings though. If you close the control panel for the instrument, you can click 
the Edit (“e”) button in the slot to bring it up again.
OK, so now we have activated a VST Instrument. Now you need to 
route a MIDI track to the instrument. 
						

							CUBASE LE10 – 112 Tutorial 5: Using VST Instruments
Routing
1.Go back to the Project window and select the “MIDI Bass” track by 
clicking on it in the Track list.
2.Make sure the Inspector is open.
The Inspector is the area to the left of the Track list. If it’s not visible, click the Show 
Inspector button on the toolbar:
3.Make sure the top section of the Inspector is shown.
If not, click on the tab in the upper right corner of the Inspector:
The Inspector shows the settings for the selected track – in this case, 
the MIDI Bass track.
4.Pull down the “out:” pop-up menu in the Inspector.
This shows all available MIDI outputs, including any MIDI interfaces you have installed, 
any audio card-based synthesizers in your computer and all activated VST Instruments.
5.Select the VB-1 from the pop-up menu.
The track is now routed to the VB-1. This VST Instrument receives MIDI on any channel, 
so you do not have to care about the MIDI channel setting. However, some VST Instru-
ments are multitimbral and can receive different MIDI data on several different channels 
– in this case, you have to select the right MIDI channel from the pop-up menu. 
						

							CUBASE LETutorial 5: Using VST Instruments 10 – 113
Playing back
Now it’s time to replace the audio bass with the VB-1:
1.Click the Mute (“X”) button in the Track list for the “Bass” track.
This mutes (silences) the track.
2.Click the lit Mute button in the Track list for the “MIDI Bass” track so 
that it goes dark.
You have now unmuted the MIDI Bass track.
3.Start playback from the beginning of the song.
You should now hear the VB-1 play the bass line. You may have to ad-
just the volume so that the VST Instrument matches the audio tracks:
4.Pull down the Devices menu and select Mixer.
The Mixer window appears. As you can see, there are separate mixer channel strips for 
the four audio tracks, the three MIDI tracks and the VB-1.
The mixer channel strip for the VST Instrument.
5.Use the volume fader in the VB-1 channel strip to adjust the level of 
the bass line. 
						

							CUBASE LE10 – 114 Tutorial 5: Using VST Instruments
Adding another instrument
The next MIDI track is called “MIDI Perc” and contains a MIDI percus-
sion pattern. This is an excellent opportunity to check out another of 
the included VST Instruments – the LM-7 drum machine:
1.Open the VST Instruments window from the Devices menu.
2.Pull down the pop-up menu for the next slot and select “lm-7” from the 
Drums submenu.
Make sure its On button is activated.
3.In the Project window, click the Mute (“X”) button for the MIDI Perc 
track so that it goes dark.
4.Select the track by clicking in the Track list.
5.Use the “out:” pop-up menu in the Inspector to route the track to the 
LM-7.
As soon as you activate a new VST Instrument, it is added to the list of available MIDI 
outputs in Cubase LE.
Now, let’s listen to the percussion track all by itself:
6.Click the Solo (“S”) button in the Track list for the MIDI Perc track.
All other tracks are muted (their Mute buttons light up).
7.Start playback. 
						

							CUBASE LETutorial 5: Using VST Instruments 10 – 115
Hmmm, nothing can be heard – but the indicator in the Track list shows 
that MIDI notes are being played! The problem here is that the wrong 
program (drum set) is selected for the LM-7. For this track to play back 
properly, we should choose a percussion set. This can be done directly 
in the Inspector or the VST Instruments window, but let’s check out the 
control panel for the LM-7 instead:
8.Click the Edit (“e”) button for the track in the Inspector.
Since the track is routed to a VST Instrument, this opens the control panel for the in-
strument. This way, you don’t have to go via the VST Instruments window to make set-
tings for a VST Instrument.
The LM-7 panel. The labels underneath the buttons show the available sounds in 
the selected program – not many percussion sounds here.
9.Pull down the program pop-up menu in the control panel and select 
“Percussion”.
Under Windows, you will find this pop-up menu at the top of the panel; on a Mac it is 
at the bottom of the panel.
10.Start playback again.
That’s more like it. 
						

							CUBASE LE10 – 116 Tutorial 5: Using VST Instruments
11.Go back to the Project window and click the lit Solo button for the 
track to turn off the Solo function.
All tracks are unmuted again – except the tracks that were muted from the beginning 
(Bass and MIDI Strings).
Again, you may want to adjust the volume of the LM-7. If you open the 
mixer, you will find that a new channel strip has appeared – use the 
fader as before.
Playing a VST Instrument in real time
The next part of this tutorial requires two things:
• That you have a MIDI keyboard or similar connected to a MIDI input on 
your MIDI interface.
• That you are using audio hardware with fairly low latency (see page 45).
If the latency is too high, it will be almost pointless and try to play a VST Instrument in 
real time – the delay between when you press a key and when you hear the sound will 
be too long. If you’re uncertain about your latency, just proceed with the steps below – 
you’ll find out whether it’s OK or not.
Now we’ll make use of the Universal Sound Module. Here, we will use 
it with a ensemble sound by selecting it from the “prg:” pop-up menu in 
the inspector (replacing the “Strings” audio track) but you can of 
course choose another sound if you like.
1.Open the VST Instruments window from the Devices menu.
2.Pull down the pop-up menu for the third VST Instrument slot and select 
“Universal Sound Module”.
Make sure its power button is activated.
3.In the Project window, mute the “Strings” track and unmute the “MIDI 
Strings” track, by clicking their respective Mute buttons in the Track list.
4.Select the MIDI Strings track.
5.In the Inspector, pull down the “out:” pop-up menu and select “Univer-
sal Sound Module”. 
						

							CUBASE LETutorial 5: Using VST Instruments 10 – 117
This routes the track to Universal Sound Module. However, now we 
also need a MIDI input, since you’re going to play the VST instrument 
“live”:
6.Pull down the “in:” pop-up menu and make sure the correct MIDI input 
is selected.
This should be the MIDI input to which your keyboard (or other controller) is connected. 
If in doubt, you can select the “All MIDI Inputs” option, in which case the track will ac-
cept MIDI from all available inputs.
7.Click the monitor button in the Track list for the MIDI Strings track, so 
that it lights up.
When the monitor button is activated, incoming MIDI is sent directly to the selected 
output – in this case Universal Sound Module.
8.Use the program pop-up menu in the Inspector to select a suitable 
sound.
Since we’re supposed to replace the Strings part, you may for example want to try the 
“String Ensemble 2” patch (under the Ensemble heading).
9.Start playback and play along! 
						

							CUBASE LE10 – 118 Tutorial 5: Using VST Instruments
Recording
When you’ve figured out something to play, it’s time to record this. Re-
cording for a VST Instrument is done just like “normal” MIDI recording:
1.Click the record enable button for the MIDI Strings track.
2.Pull down the Transport menu and make sure the “Start Record at 
Left Locator” setting is turned off.
When this is turned off, recording will start at the current project cursor position, which 
is probably the easiest method at this point.
3.Move the project cursor to where you want the recording to start.
4.Click the Record button on the Transport panel to start recording.
5.Play along with the background tracks.
6.When you’re done, click Stop.
A MIDI part has been created on the MIDI Strings track.
7.Play back to listen to your recording.
If you want to try again, select Undo from the Edit menu and proceed from step 3 above.
8.When you’re done, click the record enable button for the track to de-
activate it.
That concludes the VST Instrument tutorial! If you’re satisfied with 
what you recorded, you may want to save the project by selecting 
Save from the File menu. 
						

							11
Editing audio 
						

							CUBASE LE11 – 120 Editing audio
About this chapter
This chapter describes the basic procedures for editing audio in the 
Sample Editor and how to use the Process functions. For a full descrip-
tion of all settings, options and operations available, please refer to the 
chapters “The Sample Editor” and “Audio Processing and Functions” 
in the Operation Manual.
The Sample Editor
The Sample Editor allows you to edit audio, by cutting and pasting, re-
moving, drawing or processing audio data.
What is shown in the Sample Editor?
As described on page 136, an audio event plays a section of an audio 
clip. When you open the Sample Editor for an audio event, it will display 
the waveform image of the corresponding audio clip. Above the wave-
form display is the thumbnail display, which provides an overview of the 
whole clip, with a blue rectangle corresponding to the section currently 
shown in the waveform display. You can navigate by dragging or resiz-
ing the blue rectangle in the thumbnail display.