Steinberg Cubase SE 3 Getting Started Manual

							CUBASE SETutorial 3: Mixing 10 – 121
This setting should produce a fairly good result.
7.Turn off solo to see how the drum sound works with the other tracks.
When you activate an EQ module, the EQ indicator in the channel 
strip lights up green. This shows that one or several EQ modules are 
activated for the channel, and also serves as a bypass button:
8.To compare the sound with and without EQ, click the EQ indicator/
Bypass button in the channel strip.
The button turns yellow when Bypass is activated – i.e. the EQ section is bypassed. Of 
course, in this case we could simply turn off the EQ module with its on/off button, but 
the bypass button is handy when you have more than one EQ module activated.   
						

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Now we will move on to the electric piano track, and try a slightly dif-
ferent approach:
9.Click the small arrow button in the lower left corner of the Channel Set-
tings window and select “E.Piano” from the pop-up menu that appears.
This selects the E.Piano mixer channel – the Channel Settings window will now show 
the settings for that channel instead.
This time we will try adjusting the EQ in the curve display:
10.Click in the curve display and keep the mouse button pressed.
A curve with a point appears, and one of the EQ modules below is activated. The num-
ber next to the curve point is the number of the EQ module.
11.While listening to the electric piano sound, drag the curve point to 
change gain and frequency.
Q is set to a low value by default – this is probably good in this case. If not, you can 
change the Q value by pressing [Shift] and dragging in the display (or by using the Q 
knob in the EQ module below).
•Clicking somewhere else in the curve display will activate another EQ 
module for a more complex curve.
You can remove EQ curve points by clicking and dragging them outside the display.
12.When you’ve set the EQ as desired, close the Channel Settings 
window.
Those were two methods of making EQ settings. You can also make 
EQ settings in the Inspector in the Project window.  
						

							CUBASE SETutorial 3: Mixing 10 – 123
Audio effects
Cubase SE comes with a number of audio effect plug-ins (VST plug-
ins). These can be used as send effects or insert effects.
Adding a send effect
Send effects in Cubase SE make use of FX channel tracks – “effect 
return” tracks, each holding one effect plug-in (or several, in series). 
Each audio track has eight different effect sends, which can each be 
routed to any FX channel track. This allows for extremely flexible effect 
handling.
In brief, this is what you do to add a send effect to an audio track:
• Create an FX channel track and select an effect plug-in for it.
• Activate a send for the audio track and route it to the FX channel track.
• Adjust the amount of effect for the track with the effect send.
• Adjust the amount of effect return signal by setting the level of the FX channel 
track.
In this project, we feel that the strings track could use some delay. 
Proceed as follows:
Setting up an effect
1.Pull down the Project menu and select “FX Channel” from the “Add 
Track” submenu.
A dialog appears.
2.Set the Configuration pop-up menu to “Stereo”. 
						

							CUBASE SE10 – 124 Tutorial 3: Mixing
3.Pull down the Plugin pop-up menu.
The effects included with Cubase SE are organized in subfolders according to the ef-
fect type. Typical send effects are reverb, delay and other effects where you want to 
add a little bit of effect to the original dry signal.
4.Select “DoubleDelay” from the Delay submenu and click OK.
The control panel for the “DoubleDelay” effect appears. We’ll look closer at the control 
panel in a moment – first take a look at the Track list:
An FX channel track is added to the Track list. As you can see in the Track list, the 
insert effect button is lit for the track – this indicates that an insert effect is loaded 
and activated for the track.
5.Go back to the mixer – as you can see, a channel strip has been added 
for the FX channel track.
This serves as an effect return control.   
						

							CUBASE SETutorial 3: Mixing 10 – 125
6.Click the “e” button for the FX channel strip.
The Channel Settings window appears.
The first insert effect slot holds the DoubleDelay plug-in.
7.OK, let’s look at the control panel for the effect. If it’s obscured by the 
other windows you can click the “e” button for the DoubleDelay slot 
twice to bring the panel to front.
8.Use the pop-up menu to select the “Large” preset.
9.Since we want to use this as a send effect we don’t want any dry (un-
processed) signal to pass through the effect – drag the Mix slider fully 
down (wet 100, dry 0).   
						

							CUBASE SE10 – 126 Tutorial 3: Mixing
Setting up a send
1.Go back to the mixer and locate the channel strip for the Strings track.
2.Click the “e” button in the Strings channel strip to open its Channel 
Settings window.
The effect sends are located to the right of the EQ section – currently they are all unused 
(shown as empty slots).
3.Click in the first empty effect send slot and select your FX channel 
from the pop-up menu that appears.
4.Click the power button for the first slot to activate the send.
5.Listen to the strings while you raise the send slider below the slot.
You will hear the delay effect being added to the sound.
6.If you like, you can adjust the effect return level with the level fader for 
the FX channel strip.
You can also add EQ to the FX channel, change its stereo balance etc., just like for a 
regular audio track.
•Note that you can activate sends for other tracks in the same way, and 
route them to the same delay effect.   
						

							CUBASE SETutorial 3: Mixing 10 – 127
Adding an insert effect
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 also means that only one track or channel will use the insert effect 
– unlike send effects, where signals from several channels can all be 
sent to the same effect.
In our tutorial, we will add some chorus to the electric piano track.
1.Click the “e” button in the “E.Piano” channel strip (or use the channel 
selection pop-up menu in the lower left corner of the Channel Settings 
window).
Either way, the Channel Settings window for the E.Piano track appears. 
The insert effect slots are located to the left of the EQ section.
2.Click in the empty field in the first insert slot.
This brings up the effect pop-up menu.  
						

							CUBASE SE10 – 128 Tutorial 3: Mixing
3.Select “Chorus” from the Modulation submenu.
The effect is loaded and automatically activated, and its control panel appears.
4.Play back the project and try selecting different chorus presets.
• In this case we inserted an effect on a mono track – this means the out-
put from the effect will still be in mono.
To get a stereo chorus, we would need to add the chorus as a send effect instead.  
						

							CUBASE SETutorial 3: Mixing 10 – 129
Automation
All mixer parameters can be automated in Cubase SE. In the final ex-
ample in this chapter, we will do a simple fade in for the electric piano 
track, so that it starts inaudible and reaches its full level at bar 9, where 
the strings start:
1.Arrange your windows so that you can see both the events in the 
Project window and the mixer.
This is not strictly necessary but it makes it easier to see where the electric piano starts.
2.Turn off Cycle on the Transport panel.
This is a safety measure to avoid accidentally overwriting your automation.
3.Move the song position cursor to the start of the project.
You can do this by clicking in the ruler at the project start, or by clicking the “Goto Zero” 
button on the Transport panel (to the left of the Rewind button).
4.In the mixer, click the W button for the “E.Piano” channel.
This activates automation write mode.
5.Start playback.
6.Drag the level fader for the “E.Piano” channel fully down.
7.When the song position cursor reaches the electric piano event, start 
slowly raising the level fader, so that it reaches full level (0.00) roughly 
at the start of bar 9.
8.Stop playback.
9.Click the W button to turn it off.  
						

							CUBASE SE10 – 130 Tutorial 3: Mixing
10.Click the R button for the channel.
This activates automation read mode.
11.Play back the project from the start.
You will see your automated fader movement and hear the electric piano fade in.
That concludes this tutorial! If you are happy with the result, you may 
want to save the project under a different name, by selecting “Save 
As…” from the File menu.