Steinberg Cubase SE 3 Operation Manual

CUBASE SE
The mixer 9 – 161
About the Insert/EQ/Send indicators and bypass buttons
The three indicator buttons in each audio channel strip have the fol-
lowing functionality:
•If an Insert or Send effect or EQ module is activated for a channel, the 
corresponding button is lit. 
The effect indicators will be blue, the EQ indicator will be green.
•By clicking these buttons when lit, the corresponding EQ or effects 
section will be bypassed.
Bypass is indicated by yellow buttons. Clicking the button again...

CUBASE SE
9 – 162 The mixer
The common panel
The common panel appears to the left in the mixer windows and con-
tains settings for changing the look and behavior of the mixer, as well 
as global settings for all channels.
Global automation Read/
Write buttons, see the 
chapter “Automation”.
Channel settings copy/paste, 
see page 175. Global Solo/Mute, see 
page 166.
These indicator buttons select what chan-
nel types are shown/hidden in the mixer.
Channel select pop-up
Store/Remove View set buttons (+/-)...

CUBASE SE
The mixer 9 – 163
The output channels
The output busses you have set up in the VST Connections window 
are represented by output channels in the mixer. These are shown in a 
separate “pane” (to the right of the regular channel strips), with its own 
divider and horizontal scrollbar. The output channel strips are very sim-
ilar to other audio channels.
•How to set up input and output busses is described in the chapter 
“VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses”.
•How to route audio...

CUBASE SE
9 – 164 The mixer
Basic mixing procedures
Setting volume in the mixer
In the mixer, each channel strip has a fader for volume control. 
•For audio channels, the faders control the volume of the channels be-
fore they are routed directly or via a group channel to an output bus.
•An output channel fader determines the master output level of all audio 
channels routed to that output bus.
•MIDI channels handle fader volume changes in the mixer by sending 
out MIDI volume messages to the connected...

CUBASE SE
The mixer 9 – 165
About the level meters for audio channels
When playing back audio in Cubase SE, the level meters in the mixer 
show the level of each audio channel.
•Directly below the level meter is a small level readout – this shows the 
highest registered peak level in the signal.
Click this to reset the peak levels.
If the peak level of the audio goes above 0dB, the numerical level indi-
cator will show a positive value (i.e. a value above 0dB).
Cubase SE uses 32 bit floating point...

CUBASE SE
9 – 166 The mixer
Using Solo and Mute
The Mute (top) and Solo buttons.
You can use the Mute and Solo buttons to silence one or several 
channels. The following applies:
• The Mute button silences the selected channel.
Clicking the Mute button again un-mutes the channel. Several channels can be muted 
simultaneously. A muted channel is indicated by a lit Mute button, and also by the lit 
Global Mute indicator on the common panel. 
• Clicking the Solo button for a channel mutes all other...

CUBASE SE
The mixer 9 – 167
Setting pan in the mixer
The pan control.
The pan controls in the mixer are used to position a channel between 
the left and right side of the stereo spectrum. For stereo audio chan-
nels, pan controls the balance between the left and right channels.
•To make fine pan adjustments, hold down [Shift] when you move the 
pan control.
•To select center pan position, hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and click 
on the pan control.
•For MIDI channels, the pan control sends out MIDI pan...

CUBASE SE
9 – 168 The mixer
Audio specific procedures
This section describes the options and basic procedures regarding 
audio channels in the mixer.
Using channel settings 
For each audio channel strip in the mixer (and in the Inspector and 
Track list for each audio track) there is an Edit button (“e”).
Clicking this opens the VST Audio Channel Settings window. This 
window contains a simplified common panel, a duplicate of the mixer 
channel strip, a section with five insert effect slots (see page...

CUBASE SE
The mixer 9 – 169
The Channel Settings window is used for the following operations:
• Apply equalization, see page 170.
• Apply send effects, see page 195.
• Apply insert effects, see page 190.
• Copy channel settings and apply them to another channel, see page 175.
All channel settings are applied to both sides of a stereo channel.
Changing channels in the Channel Settings window
You can view any channel’s settings from a single window. 
If the option “Mixer Selection Follows Project” is...

CUBASE SE
9 – 170 The mixer
Proceed as follows:
1.Open the Channel Settings window for any channel.
2.Open the Channel Select pop-up menu on the common panel.
3.Select a channel from the pop-up to show the settings for that chan-
nel in the open Channel Settings window.
•Alternatively, you can select a channel in the mixer by clicking the strip 
at the bottom of the channel strip (above the channel name).
This selects the channel, and the Channel Settings window will be updated.
•To open several Channel...