Steinberg Cubase SE 3 Operation Manual

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Audio effects 10 – 211
•Similarly, you can also add additional Shared Plug-ins folders by click-
ing the “Add” button and browsing to another Vstplugins folder on 
your hard drive.
If you have several folders assigned as Shared Plug-ins Folders, you can at any time 
use the text field pop-up menu to decide which of the assigned folders should be the 
designated active one.
•To remove a Shared Plug-ins Folder, select it and click the “Remove” 
button.
Managing and selecting DirectX plug-ins (Windows only)
To see which DirectX plug-ins are available in your system, click the 
“DirectX Plug-ins” tab at the top of the window.
•To enable a plug-in (make it available for selection), click in the left-
most column.
Only the currently enabled plug-ins (shown with a check sign in the left column) will 
appear on the Effect menus.
The idea here is that there could be a variety of DirectX plug-ins in 
your system, many of which are not intended for musical audio pro-
cessing. Disabling these helps you keep the effect menus in Cubase 
SE more manageable.
•The second column indicates how many instances of the plug-in are 
currently used in Cubase SE.
Clicking in this column for a plug-in which is already in use produces a pop-up show-
ing exactly where each use occurs.
Please note that a plug-in may be in use even if it isn’t enabled in the left 
column. You might for example have opened a project containing effects 
that currently are disabled on the menu. The left column purely deter-
mines whether or not the plug-in will be visible on the effect menus.  
						

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							11
VST Instruments 
						

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Introduction
VST Instruments are software synthesizers (or other sound sources) 
that are contained within Cubase SE. They are played internally via 
MIDI, and their audio outputs appear on separate channels in the 
mixer, allowing you to add effects or EQ, just as with audio tracks.
Some VST Instruments are included with Cubase SE, others can be 
purchased separately from Steinberg and other manufacturers.
Activating and using VST Instruments
1.Pull down the Devices menu and select VST Instruments.
The VST Instruments panel appears with 16 slots. 
2.Pull down the pop-up menu for an empty slot in the panel and select 
the desired instrument.
The instrument is loaded and activated, and its control panel is automatically opened.
•If you look in the Project window, you will find that a special “folder” for 
the chosen instrument has been added, within a “VST Instruments” 
folder (where all your VST Instruments will appear).
The separate folder for the added instrument contains two or more automation tracks: 
one for automating the plug-in parameters and one for each mixer channel used by the 
VST Instrument. For example, if you add a VST Instrument with four separate outputs 
(four separate mixer channels), the folder will contain five automation tracks. To keep 
the screen less cluttered, you may want to close the folder for the VST Instrument until 
you need to view or edit any of the automation tracks.
For more about automation, see page 223. 
						

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3.Select the mixer channel automation track(s) for the VST Instrument 
and use the “Out” pop-up menu in the Inspector to route them to the 
desired output channels or groups.
4.Select an unused MIDI track in the Project window.
5.Pull down the output pop-up menu for the MIDI track in the Track list 
or in the Inspector.
The pop-up menu will now contain an additional item, with the name of the activated 
VST Instrument.
6.Select the VST Instrument on the MIDI output pop-up menu.
The MIDI output from the track is now routed to the selected instrument. 
7.Depending on the selected instrument, you may also need to select a 
MIDI channel for the track.
For example, a multi-timbral VST Instrument can play back different sounds on different 
MIDI channels – check the instrument’s documentation for MIDI implementation details.
8.Make sure the option “MIDI Thru Active” is activated in the Preferences 
dialog (MIDI page).
9.Click the Monitor button for the MIDI track (in the Track list, Inspector 
or mixer). 
When this is activated (or when the track is record enabled, see page 50) incoming 
MIDI is passed on to the selected MIDI output (in this case the VST Instrument).
10.Open the mixer.
You will find one or more additional channel strips for the instrument’s audio outputs. 
VST Instrument channel strips have the same features and functionality as group chan-
nel strips, with the addition of an Edit button at the bottom of the strip for opening the 
VST Instrument control panel. 
						

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11.Play the instrument from your MIDI keyboard.
You can use the mixer settings to adjust the sound, add EQ or effects, etc. – just as 
with regular audio channels. Of course, you can also record or manually create MIDI 
parts that play back sounds from the VST Instrument.
You can have up to 16 VST Instruments activated at the same time, dif-
ferent models or several instances of the same instrument. However, 
software synthesizers can consume quite a lot of CPU power – keep an 
eye on the VST Performance window to avoid running out of processor 
power.
About latency
Depending on your audio hardware and its ASIO driver, the latency 
(the time it takes for the Instrument to produce a sound when you 
press a key on your MIDI controller) may simply be too high to allow 
comfortable real-time VST Instrument playback from a keyboard. 
If this is the case, a workaround is to play and record your parts with 
another MIDI Sound Source selected, and then switch to the VST In-
strument for playback.
• You can check the latency for your audio hardware in the Device Setup 
dialog (VST Audiobay page).
The input and output latency values are shown under the ASIO Driver pop-up menu. 
For live VST Instruments playing, these values should ideally be a few milliseconds 
(although the limit for “comfortable” live playing is a matter of personal taste). 
						

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Constrain Delay Compensation
Cubase SE features full delay compensation throughout the entire au-
dio path. This means that any delay inherent in the VST plug-ins you 
use will automatically be compensated for during playback, so that all 
channels are kept in perfect sync (see page 189).
However, when you play a VST Instrument in real time or record live 
audio (with monitoring through Cubase SE activated), this delay com-
pensation may sometimes result in added latency. To avoid this, you 
can click the Constrain Delay Compensation button on the Project 
window toolbar. This function tries to minimize the latency effects of 
the delay compensation, while maintaining the sound of the mix as far 
as possible.
•In the Preferences dialog (VST page) you will find a setting called Delay 
Compensation Threshold. Only plug-ins with a delay higher than this 
setting will be affected by the Constrain Delay Compensation function.
•VST plug-ins (with higher delay than the threshold value) which are 
activated for VST Instrument channels, audio track channels that are 
record enabled, group channels and output channels will be turned 
off when you activate Constrain Delay Compensation.
•VST plug-ins activated for FX channels are not turned off but their de-
lay is disregarded by the program (delay compensation is turned off).
After recording or using a VST Instrument with Constrain Delay Com-
pensation, you should turn off the function to restore full delay compen-
sation.  
						

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Selecting patches and making settings
•To select a patch for a VST Instrument, use its patch pop-up menu in 
the VST Instruments window.
The available patches depends on the VST Instrument. Not all VST Instruments come 
with pre-made patches.
•To access the parameters for the VST Instrument, click the Edit button 
in the VST Instruments window or in its channel strip (at the bottom of 
the fader strip) in the mixer.
This opens a “control panel” for the VST Instrument.
Selecting patches from the Project window
When a VST Instrument is selected as MIDI output for a track, you can 
also select patches by name, using the program pop-up menu in the 
Track list or Inspector. Although this is set up automatically and trans-
parently, there are a couple of things to note:
•If the VST Instrument supports the VST 2.1 standard (or later), select-
ing a patch will cause Cubase SE to send MIDI Program Change and 
Bank Select messages to the VST Instrument, just as with “real” phys-
ical MIDI instruments.
A consequence of this is that you can enter Program Change events in MIDI parts any-
where on the track, having the VST Instrument change patch at the desired locations 
(“automating” the patch selection).
•If the VST Instrument supports the original VST 2.0 standard only, 
only limited support of patch selection is offered.
In this case, selecting a patch will actually ask the VST Instrument to change “Plug-in 
Program”, which is not the same as selecting a “Patch” by sending MIDI Program 
Change and Bank Select messages.  
						

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Automating a VST Instrument
•Automation of the VST Instrument channel settings is done in the 
same way as automating regular channels.
•Automation of the specific parameters for a VST Instrument is done in 
the same way as automating VST effect parameters.
See page 222. 
						

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