Steinberg Cubase SE 3 Operation Manual

CUBASE SE
VST System Link 25 – 511
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...

CUBASE SE
25 – 512 VST System Link
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 – don't worry 
about this, it's just so the network knows internally which one is which.
•You...

CUBASE SE
VST System Link 25 – 513
For now, let's 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...

CUBASE SE
25 – 514 VST System Link
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 spec-
ified System...

CUBASE SE
VST System Link 25 – 515
The “Active ASIO Ports for Data only” setting
If you are sending huge amounts of MIDI data at once, there is a small 
possibility that you might run out of bandwidth on your VST System 
Link network. This will manifest itself by notes “choking” or timing be-
coming erratic.
If this happens, you can devote more bandwidth to MIDI by selecting 
Active ASIO Ports for Data only in the VST System Link Setup panel. 
When this is active, the VST System Link information will be...

CUBASE SE
25 – 516 VST System Link
4.Route the VST instrument channel to yet another bus (Bus 4).
5.Go back to Computer 1 and add four new stereo audio tracks and 
route these to the output bus you use for listening, e.g. to the analog 
stereo outputs.
6.For each of the audio tracks, select one of the four input busses.
Now, each Computer 2 bus is routed to a separate audio channel on Computer 1.
7.Activate monitoring for the four tracks.
If you now start playback, the audio from Computer 2 will be sent...

CUBASE SE
VST System Link 25 – 517
Setting up a larger network
This is not much more difficult than a two computer network. The main 
thing to remember is that VST System Link is a daisy chain system. In 
other words, the output of Computer 1 goes to the input of Computer 
2, the output of Computer 2 goes to the input of Computer 3, and so 
on around the chain. The output of the last computer in the chain must 
always go back into the input of Computer 1, to complete the ring.
Once you've done this,...

CUBASE SE
25 – 518 VST System Link
Application examples
Using one computer for VST instruments
In this example, you are using one computer as your main record and 
playback machine, and want to use another computer as a virtual 
synth rack.
1.Record a MIDI track into Computer 1.
2.Once you have finished recording, route the MIDI output of that track 
to System Link MIDI port 1.
3.Now go to Computer 2, open up the VST Instrument rack and assign 
an instrument to the first slot in the rack.
4.Route the VST...

CUBASE SE
VST System Link 25 – 519
Creating a virtual effect rack
The effect sends for an audio channel in Cubase SE can either be 
routed to an FX channel track or to any activated Group or output bus. 
This allows you to use a separate computer as a “virtual effect rack”, 
by setting things up in the following way:
1.Go to Computer 2 (the machine you will use as effect rack) and add a 
new stereo audio track.
You cannot use an FX channel track in this case, since the track must have an audio in-
put....

CUBASE SE
25 – 520 VST System Link
Getting extra audio tracks
All computers on a VST System Link network are locked with sample 
accuracy. Therefore, if you find that the hard drive on one computer 
isn’t fast enough to run as many audio tracks as you need, you could 
record new tracks on one of the other computers instead. This would 
create a “virtual RAID system”, with several disks all operating to-
gether. All tracks will remain locked together just as tightly as if they 
were all running on the...