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 deactivates bypass.
The MIDI channel strips
The MIDI channel strips allow you to control volume and pan in your 
MIDI instrument (provided that they are set up to receive the corre-
sponding MIDI messages). The settings here are also available in the 
Inspector for MIDI tracks.
Level fader 
(MIDI volume) Level (velocity) meter
Channel automa-
tion controlsPan control
Monitor and 
Record Enable 
buttons
Edit button
Mute and Solo
Bypass Inserts
Disable Sends  
						

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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 (+/-) and 
View set pop-up menu, see page 159. Toggles “All Wide” 
(left arrows) or 
“All Narrow” channel strips in the mixer.
Opens the VST Connections 
window, see page 16.
Resets the settings to default 
(for all or selected channels).  
						

							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 channels to busses is described on page 179.
Bus volume fader
Bus level meter
Read/Write 
Automation
Clip indicator
Edit button
Inserts/EQ indicator 
and Bypass buttons
Pan controlMute and Solo 
buttons  
						

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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 instrument(s).
Connected instruments must be set to respond to MIDI messages (such as MIDI vol-
ume in this case) for this to function properly.
•The fader settings are displayed numerically below the faders, in dB 
for audio channels and in the MIDI volume 0 to 127 value range for 
MIDI channels.
You can click in the fader value fields and enter a volume setting by typing.
•To make fine volume adjustments, hold down [Shift] when you move 
the faders.
•If you hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and click on a fader, it will auto-
matically be set to position 0.0 dB for audio channels, or MIDI volume 
100 for MIDI channels.
Most mixer parameters can be reset to default values by [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking 
this way.
You can use the faders to set up a volume balance between the audio 
and MIDI channels and perform a manual mix, by moving the faders 
and other controls while playing back. By using the Write function 
(see page 231), you can automate the levels and most mixer actions.
It is also possible to make static volume settings for an event on the info 
line or with the volume handle (see page 140). 
						

							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 processing internally, so there is 
virtually limitless headroom – signals can go way beyond 0dB without 
clipping. Therefore:
• Having higher levels than 0 dB for individual audio channels is not a 
problem in itself. The audio quality will not be degraded by this. 
However, when many high level signals are mixed in an output bus this may require that 
you lower the output channel level a lot (see below). Therefore it’s good practice to 
keep the max levels for individual audio channels roughly around 0 dB.
About the level meters for output channels
Output channels have clip indicators.
•When you are recording, clipping can occur when the analog signal is 
converted to digital in the audio hardware. 
•In the output busses, the floating point audio is converted to the reso-
lution of the audio hardware. In the integer audio domain, the maximum 
level is 0dB – higher levels will cause the clip indicator for each bus to 
light up.
If the clip indicators light up for a bus, this indicates actual clipping – digital distortion 
which should always be avoided.
If the clip indicator lights up for an output channel, reset the clip indicator 
by clicking on it, and lower the level until the indicator doesn’t light up. 
						

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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 channels.
A soloed channel is indicated by a lit Solo button, and also by the lit Global Solo indi-
cator on the common panel. Click the Solo button again to turn off Solo.
• Several channels can be soloed at the same time.
However, if you press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click the Solo button for a channel, any 
other soloed channels will automatically be un-soloed (i.e. this Solo mode is exclusive).
• [Alt]/[Option]-clicking a Solo button activates “Solo Defeat” for that channel.
In this mode (indicated by a red solo button without any other channels being muted) 
the channel will not be muted if you solo another channel (see page 203 for a practical 
use of this). To turn off Solo Defeat, [Alt]/[Option]-click the Solo button again. 
• You can un-mute or un-solo all channels by clicking the Mute or Solo indica-
tor on the common panel.
A muted channel in 
the mixer.A lit Global Mute indicator on the 
common panel shows that one or 
more channels are muted. 
						

							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 messages.
The result depends on how your MIDI instrument is set to respond to pan – check your 
documentation for details.
About the “Stereo Pan Law” Preference (audio channels only)
In the Project Setup dialog there is a pop-up menu named “Stereo 
Pan Law”, on which you can select one of three pan settings. This is 
all related to the fact that without power compensation, the power of 
the sum of the left and right side will be higher (louder) if a channel is 
panned center than if it’s panned left or right. 
To remedy this, the Stereo Pan Law setting allows you to attenuate 
signals panned center, by -6, -4.5 or -3dB (default). Selecting the 
0dB option effectively turns off “constant-power panning”. Experiment 
with the different settings to see which fits best in a given situation. 
						

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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 190), 
four EQ modules and an associated EQ curve display (see page 170) 
and a section with eight effect sends (see page 198). Every channel 
has its own channel settings (although you can view each in the same 
window if you like – see below).
Click the Edit button to open 
the Channel Settings window:  
						

							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 activated in the Pref-
erences dialog (Editing page), this can be done “automatically”:
•Open the Channel Settings window for a track and position it so that 
you can see both the Project window and the Channel Settings 
window.
Selecting a track in the Project window automatically selects the corre-
sponding channel in the mixer (and vice versa). If a Channel Settings 
window is open, this will immediately switch to show the settings for 
the selected channel. This allows you to have a single Channel Settings 
window open in a convenient position on the screen, and use this for all 
your EQ and channel effect settings.
You can also select a channel manually (thereby changing what is 
shown in the open Channel Settings window).  
						

							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 Settings windows at the same time, press 
[Alt]/[Option] and click the Edit buttons for the respective channels.
Making EQ settings
Each audio channel in Cubase SE has a built-in parametric equalizer 
with up to four bands. There are several ways to view and adjust the 
EQs:
• By selecting the “Equalizers” or “Equalizer Curve” tab in the Inspector.
The “Equalizer Curve” section shows a display in which you can “draw” an EQ curve. 
Setting EQ in the Inspector is only possible for track-based audio channels (not for 
ReWire channels).
• By using the Channel Settings window.
This offers both parameter dials and a clickable curve display and also lets you store 
and recall EQ presets.