Steinberg Cubase LE Operation Manual

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Setting up clock sync
Before you proceed, you need to make sure that the clock signals on 
your ASIO cards are synchronized correctly. This is essential when 
cabling any kind of digital audio system, not just VST System Link.
❐All digital audio cables by definition always carry a clock signal as well as 
audio signals, so you dont need to use a special Word Clock input and 
output for this (although you may find that you get a slightly more stable 
audio system if you...

CUBASE LE25 – 472 VST System Link
5.Now, you need to make sure that one audio card (and only one!) is set 
to be the Clock Master, and all the other cards must be set to listen 
for the clock signal coming from the Clock Master i.e. they must be 
Clock Slaves.
The naming and procedure for this differs depending on the audio hardware – consult 
its documentation if required. If you are using Steinberg Nuendo ASIO hardware, all 
cards default to the “AutoSync” setting – in this case you must set one of the...

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Minimizing the latency
The general definition of latency is the amount of time it takes any sys-
tem to respond to whatever messages are sent to it. For example, if 
your system’s latency is high and you play VST instruments in real 
time, you will get a noticeable delay between when you press a key 
and when you hear the sound of the VST instrument. Nowadays, most 
ASIO-compatible audio cards are capable of operating with very low 
latencies. Also, all VST applications...

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Setting up your software
Now it’s time to set up your programs. The procedures below de-
scribe how to set things up in Cubase LE; if you are using another 
program on the other computer, please refer to its documentation.
Setting the sample rate
The projects in both programs must be set to use the same sample 
rate. Select “Project Setup…” from the Project menu and make sure 
the sample rate is the same in both systems.
Setting up inputs and outputs
1.Open the VST...

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3.Close the VST Inputs window and open the VST Outputs window 
from the Devices menu.
4.Enable the output buses you need.
Usually these should match up to the input buses you enabled above. In our ADAT 
example, this would mean the first four stereo outputs.
5.Repeat the steps above for all computers in the network. 
• Note that at least one computer in your network needs to have more 
than one physical set of audio outputs, so that you can hear whats com-
ing out of...

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Streaming digital audio between applications
1.Set things up so that Computer 1 plays back some audio.
You could for example import an audio file and play this back in Cycle mode.
2.In the Mixer, make sure the playing audio channel is routed to one of 
the digital outputs you have set up for the VST System Link connection.
3.In Computer 2, select the corresponding digital input for an audio 
channel and activate monitoring for the channel.
The audio being played back...

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Activating VST System Link
After setting up the inputs and outputs, you now need to define which 
input/output should carry the actual VST System Link information.
The System Link networking signal is carried on only one bit of one 
channel. This means that if you have an ADAT based system which 
normally carries eight channels of 24-bit audio, once you activate VST 
System Link you will have seven channels of 24-bit audio and one 
channel of 23-bit audio (the least...

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4.Click the Active checkbox at the top of the panel.
5.Repeat the steps above for every computer on the network. 
As the computers are made active, you should see the small T (Trans-
mit) and R (Receive) lights flashing on each active computer, and the 
name of each computer should appear in the list at the bottom of the 
pane. Each computer is assigned a random number – dont worry 
about this, its just so the network knows internally which one is which.
•You can double...

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For now, lets put all computers online:
1.Activate the Online checkbox in the VST System Link panel for all 
computers. 
2.Check that the system is working by pressing Play on one computer – 
all computers should start almost instantly and play perfectly in time, 
with sample accurate precision. 
•The Offset setting to the right allows you to adjust whether one ma-
chine will play back slightly ahead or behind the rest.
This is normally not needed, but occasionally with...

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Using MIDI
As well as supplying transport and sync control, VST System Link also 
supplies up to 16 MIDI ports, each with 16 channels. You set this up 
as follows:
1.Use the MIDI Ins and Outs value boxes to specify the number of MIDI 
ports you need.
The default value is 0 MIDI In and 0 MIDI Out ports.
2.Create a MIDI track in the Project window and open the Inspector 
(top section).
3.If you now pull down the “in” or “out” pop-ups, you will find the speci-
fied System...