Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 Operation Manual Studio Manual

61
Playback and the Transport panel
Hiding and showing the Transport Panel
The Transport panel is shown by default when you launch 
a new project. To hide or show it, select “Transport Panel” 
on the Transport menu (or use a key command – by de-
fault [F2]).
About Preroll and Postroll
These items are described in the chapter “Recording”, 
see “About Preroll and Postroll” on page 84.
Changing the Transport panel setup
You can customize the appearance of the Transport panel 
by right-clicking anywhere on...

62
Playback and the Transport panel
ÖIf Snap is activated when dragging the project cursor, 
the Snap value is taken into account. This is helpful for 
finding exact positions quickly.
ÖThere are also numerous key commands available for 
moving the project cursor (in the Transport category in the 
Key Commands dialog). 
For example, you can assign key commands to the “Step Bar” and “Step 
Back Bar” functions, allowing you to move the project cursor in steps of 
one bar, backwards and forwards.
About the...

63
Playback and the Transport panel
The “Locators to Selection” item on the Transport menu 
(default key command [P]) sets the locators to encompass 
the current selection.
This is available if you have selected one or several events or made a se-
lection range.
You can also adjust the locators numerically on the 
Transport panel.
Clicking the L/R buttons in the locator section on the Transport panel will 
move the project cursor to the respective locator. If you press [Alt]/[Op-
tion] and click the L or...

64
Playback and the Transport panel
Playback functions
Apart from the standard transport controls on the Trans-
port panel, you can also find a number of functions that 
can be used to control playback on the Transport menu. 
The items have the following functionality:
ÖIn the Preferences dialog (Editing–Audio page) you 
will find the option “Treat Muted Audio Events like De-
leted”. When you activate this option, any events over-
lapped by a muted event will become audible.
About Chase
Chase is a...

5
Recording 

66
Recording
Background
This chapter describes the various recording methods 
that you can use in Cubase. As it is possible to record 
both audio and MIDI tracks, both recording methods are 
covered in this chapter.
Before you start
This chapter assumes that you are reasonably familiar with 
certain basic recording concepts, and that the following 
initial preparations have been made:
You have properly set up, connected and calibrated 
your audio hardware. 
You have opened a project and set the project...

67
Recording
Activating recording in Sync mode
If you are synchronizing the Cubase transport to external 
equipment (Sync is activated on the Transport panel) and 
you activate recording, the program will go into “record 
ready” mode (the record button on the Transport panel 
will light up). Recording then starts when a valid timecode 
signal is received (or when you click the Play button). See 
the chapter “Synchronization” on page 421 for more infor-
mation.
Automatically activating recording
Cubase...

68
Recording
Audio pre-record
This feature allows you to capture up to 1 minute of any in-
coming audio you play in Stop mode or during playback, 
“after the fact”. This is possible because Cubase can cap-
ture audio input in buffer memory, even when not recording. 
Proceed as follows:
1.Open the Preferences (Record-Audio page).
2.Specify a time (up to 60 seconds) in the “Audio Pre-
Record Seconds” field.
This activates the buffering of audio input, making Pre-Record possible.
3.Make sure an audio track...

69
Recording
The higher the bit depth, the larger the files and the 
more strain is put on the disk system.
If this is an issue, you may want to lower the record format setting.
Setting up the track
Creating a track and selecting the channel configuration
Audio tracks can be configured as mono, stereo or sur-
round tracks (Cubase only). This allows you to record or 
import a file containing multiple channels and treat it as 
one entity, with no need to split it up into several mono 
files etc. The signal...

70
Recording
In the mixer, you select an input bus on the Input Routing 
pop-up menu at the top of the track’s channel strip.
If this pop-up menu isn’t shown, you need to open the Mixer Routing View 
by clicking the “Show Routing” button in the extended Mixer common 
panel or by selecting “Show Routing View” from the Window submenu on 
the Mixer context menu. See “Configuring the mixer” on page 122 for more 
information about the mixer.
Recording from busses
You can also select an output bus, a group bus...