Steinberg Cubase SE 3 Getting Started Manual

							12
Tutorial 5: Using VST
Instruments 
						

							CUBASE SE12 – 142 Tutorial 5: Using VST Instruments
About this tutorial
This tutorial shows you how to set up and use VST Instruments – soft-
ware synthesizers (or other sound sources) that are contained within 
Cubase SE. For detailed descriptions of procedures and the parame-
ters of the included VST Instruments, see the Operation Manual and 
the separate “Audio Effects and VST instruments” document.
Preparations
Just like the previous chapter, this tutorial is based on an existing file, 
included on the Cubase SE DVD.
• Below, we assume that you have followed the previous tutorials and 
copied the “Tutorial Projects” folder to your hard drive.
If not, please see page 114.
1.Close any open projects, by making their Project windows active and 
selecting “Close” from the File menu.
This is just to make things clear and avoid confusion – you can have several projects 
open in Cubase SE if needed.
2.Pull down the File menu and select Open.
3.In the file dialog that appears, navigate to the Tutorial folder on your 
hard drive, select the file “Tutorial 5.cpr” and click Open.
• At this point, a dialog may appear asking you to resolve missing MIDI 
outputs.
This is because you probably don’t have the same MIDI output configuration as the 
creator of this project. Just click OK to close this dialog for now. 
						

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The “Tutorial 5” project opens. If you followed the previous tutorial, 
this will look oddly familiar… It’s the same eight-bar “song” that you 
created in tutorial 4, but with three extra tracks.
Activating a VST Instrument
The three tracks at the bottom of the Track list are MIDI tracks, as indi-
cated by the MIDI symbol to the left in the Track list. As you can see, one 
of the tracks is called “MIDI Bass” – our first goal in this tutorial is to re-
place the “Bass” audio track with a bass sound from a VST Instrument.
1.Pull down the Devices menu and select VST Instruments.
The “rack” that appears can contain up to 16 VST Instruments. However, the maximum 
number of instruments possible to use simultaneously depends on your computer per-
formance and the complexity of the instruments.
2.Click in the first VST Instrument slot.
A pop-up menu appears, listing the included VST Instruments.   
						

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3.Select “vb-1” from the Synths submenu.
The VB-1 virtual bass unit is loaded, and its control panel appears.
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.  
						

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Routing
1.Go back to the Project window and select the “MIDI Bass” track by 
clicking in the Track list.
You will notice that a set of tracks has been added for the vb-1 at the bottom of the 
Track list, within a “VST Instruments” folder. These tracks are for viewing and editing 
the automation of the vb-1 and its mixer channel – see the Operation Manual.
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 Track Name title bar 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 loaded 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 don’t 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 – 
if that had been the case you would have had to set the “chn:” setting properly.   
						

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Playing back
Now it’s time to replace the audio bass with the VB-1:
1.Click the Mute (“M”) 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.
A mixer channel strip for a VST Instrument is indicated by a light green fader panel.
5.Use the volume fader in the VB-1 channel strip to adjust the level of 
the bass line.  
						

							CUBASE SETutorial 5: Using VST Instruments 12 – 147
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 power button is activated.
3.In the Project window, click the Mute (“M”) 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 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 SE.
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 SE12 – 148 Tutorial 5: Using VST Instruments
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 Instruments Settings button for the track in the Inspector 
(next to the “chn:” pop-up).
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 SETutorial 5: Using VST Instruments 12 – 149
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 51).
If the latency is too high, it will be almost pointless to 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 large. 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 string sound (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 “Uni-
versal Sound Module”. 
						

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This routes the track to the Universal Sound Module. However, now 
we also need a MIDI input, since you’re going to play the VST instru-
ment “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 the 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!