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Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 Operation Manual Studio Manual
Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 Operation Manual Studio Manual
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171 Audio effects You can bypass individual effects (or all effects) by clicking the corresponding Bypass button(s) for the FX channel track. See “Routing an audio channel or bus through insert effects” on page 165. You can also adjust level, pan and EQ for the effect re- turn in the FX Channel Settings window. This can also be done in the mixer or in the Inspector. ÖRemember that the more effect units you use, the higher the CPU load. Setting up the sends The next step is to set up a send for an audio channel and route it to the FX channel. This can be done in the mixer (in the extended panel), in the Channel Settings window or in the Inspector for the audio track. The example below shows the Channel Settings window, but the procedure is similar for all three sections: 1.Click the “e” button for an audio channel to bring up its Channel Settings window. In the mixer you would select one of the Sends modes for the extended mixer panel; in the Inspector you would click the Sends tab. In the Channel Settings window, the send section is lo- cated to the left of the channel strip by default. Each of the eight sends has the following controls: An On/Off button for activating/deactivating the effect A send level slider A pre/post-fader switch An “e” (edit) button Note that the last three items are not shown until the send is activated and an effect has been loaded. 2.Pull down the routing pop-up menu for a send by clicking in the empty slot, and select the desired routing destination. If the first item on this menu (“No Bus”) is selected, the send isn’t routed anywhere. Items called “FX 1”, “FX 2” etc. correspond to existing FX tracks. If you renamed an FX track (see “Adding an FX channel track” on page 170) that name will appear on this menu in- stead of the default. The menu also allows for routing a send directly to output bus- ses, separate output bus channels or Group channels. 3.Select an FX channel track from the pop-up menu. Now the send is routed to the FX channel. 4.Click the power button for the effect send so that it lights up in blue. This activates the send. 5.Click and drag the send level slider to a moderate value. The send level determines how much of the signal from the audio chan- nel is routed to the FX channel via the send. Setting the Send level. 6.If you want the signal to be sent to the FX channel be- fore the audio channel’s volume fader in the mixer, click on the Pre-Fader button for the send so that it lights up. Normally you want the effect send to be proportional to the channel vol- ume (post-fader send). The picture below shows where the sends are “tapped” from the signal in pre and post-fader mode. Input gain Insert effects 1-6 EQ Volume (fader) Insert effects 7-8 Pre-fader sends Post-fader sends
172 Audio effects A send set to pre-fader mode. ÖYou can choose whether a send in pre-fader mode should be affected by the channel’s Mute button or not. This is done with the option “Mute Pre-Send when Mute” in the Prefe- rences dialog (VST page). When one or several sends are activated for a channel, the Send Effects buttons light up in blue in the mixer and the Track list. Click the button for a channel to bypass (disable) all its effect sends. When the sends are bypassed, the button is yellow. Click the button again to enable the sends. Note that this button is also available in the Inspector and the Channel settings window. Click this button to bypass the sends. You can also bypass individual sends in the channel overview. See “Insert effects in the channel overview” on page 166. You can also bypass the send effects by clicking the “Bypass Inserts” button for the FX channel. This bypasses the actual send effects which may be used by several dif- ferent channels. Bypassing a send affects that send and that channel only. If you bypass the insert effect the original sound will be passed through. This may lead to unwanted side effects (higher volume). To de- activate all effects, use the mute button in the FX channel. Setting pan for the sends (Cubase only) By default, the sends for an audio channel follow any pan settings – stereo or surround – you make for the channel itself. This means that if an audio channel is panned to the right, the signal from its effect sends will be panned the same way, making the stereo imaging as clear and true as possible. However, you may want to have different pan settings for the sends. There are several uses for this: If you route a send from a mono channel to a stereo FX chan- nel track, you can position the send signal at center pan in the stereo FX channel (or anywhere you like). If you route a send from a stereo channel to a mono FX chan- nel track, the pan control works as a crossfader, determining the balance between the stereo sides when the stereo send signal is mixed to mono. If you route a send from a mono or stereo channel to a FX channel track in surround format, you can use the surround panner to position the send signal in the surround image. You set up send panning in the following way: 1.Open the Channel Settings window for the audio channel. 2.Right-click somewhere in the Channel settings win- dow (not the EQ display), to open the context menu and open the “Customize View” submenu.
173 Audio effects 3.From the submenu, select “Send Routing” and “Con- trol Strip”. In the Send Routing section of the Channel Settings window, each send is shown as a small routing diagram showing a pre/post selector to the right and a pan fader (where applicable). In the Control Strip section, you can activate the option “Link Send Routing Panners to Channel Panner as De- fault”. When this is activated, the send panners follow the pan for the chan- nel. This item is also available in the Preferences dialog (VST page). The Sends, Send Routing and Control Strip sections in the Channel Set- tings window. 4.Click and drag the pan control for the desired send(s) in the display. You can reset the pan control to the center position by [Ctrl]/[Command]- clicking on the pan control. If the FX channel is configured in a surround format, the pan control will be a miniature surround panner, similar to the one found in the mixer. You can click and drag the “ball” in the miniature panner display to posi- tion the send in the surround field, or double-click in the display to bring up the surround panner. See the chapter “Surround sound (Cubase only)” on page 195. ÖIf both the send (the audio channel) and the FX chan- nel are in mono, the pan control is not available. About sends for FX channels (Cubase only) The FX channels themselves have sends, too. Setting effect levels When you have set up the sends as described in the pre- vious sections, you can do the following: You can use the send level slider in the Channel Set- tings window, the Inspector or the extended mixer panel to set the send level. By adjusting the send level, you control the amount of signal sent from the audio channel to the FX channel. Setting the effect send level. In the mixer, you can use the level fader for the FX chan- nel to set the effect return level. By adjusting the return level, you control the amount of the signal sent from the FX channel to the output bus. Setting the effect return level. Link Send Routing Panners to Channel Panner The Control Strip section
174 Audio effects FX channels and the Solo Defeat function When mixing, you might sometimes want to solo specific audio channels, and listen only to these while other chan- nels are muted. However, this will mute all FX channels as well. If the soloed audio channels have sends routed to FX channels, this means you won’t hear the send effects for the channels. To remedy this, you can use the Solo Defeat function for the FX channel: 1.[Alt]/[Option]-click the Solo button for the FX channel. This activates the Solo Defeat function for the FX channel. In this mode, the FX channel will not be muted if you solo another channel in the mixer. 2.You can now solo any of the audio channels without having the effect return (the FX channel) muted. To turn off the Solo Defeat function for the FX channel, [Alt]/[Option]-click the Solo button for the FX channel again. Using the Side-Chain input Many VST 3.0 effects feature a side-chain input. Side- chaining allows you e. g. to lower the music volume when someone is speaking (“ducking”) or to use compression on e. g. a bass sound when the drums are hit, thereby “harmonizing” the intensity of the two instruments. An- other possibility is to use the side chain signal as a source for modulation. The following types of effects feature side-chain inputs: Delay plug-ins The included delay plug-ins with side-chain functionality are MonoDelay, PingPongDelay and StereoDelay. Dynamics plug-ins The included dynamics plug-ins with side-chain functionality are Com- pressor, Expander, Gate and VintageCompressor. Modulation plug-ins The included modulation plug-ins with side-chain functionality are Auto- Pan, Flanger, Phaser, StudioChorus, Tremolo and Vibrato. Filter plug-ins The included filter plug-in with side-chain functionality is the WahWah effect. Setting up side-chain ÖCertain combinations of tracks and side-chain inputs may lead to feedback loops and added latency. If this is the case, the side-chain options will not be available. Delay plug-ins The delay repeats can be silenced by side-chain signals exceeding a certain threshold. You can use this feature to create a so-called “ducking delay” for your vocals. Let’s say you want to add a delay effect that is audible only when no signal is present on the vocal track. For this, you need to set up a delay effect which is deactivated every time the vocals start again. Proceed as follows: 1.Select the vocal track. 2.On the Project menu, select “Duplicate Tracks”. Now you can use the vocal events on the second track to silence the de- lay effect. 3.Open the Insert tab for the first Vocal track in the In- spector and select “PingPongDelay” from the Effects pop-up menu. The control panel for the effect opens. 4.On the control panel for the effect, make the desired effect settings and activate the Side Chain button. Try out the effect settings to find out which settings will work best with your project. For detailed descriptions of the parameters, see the separate man- ual “Plug-in Reference”. 5.In the Track list, select the second vocal track. !For detailed descriptions of the plug-ins that feature side-chaining, see the separate manual “Plug-in Ref- erence”.
175 Audio effects 6.Pull down the Output Routing pop-up menu and on the Side-Chain submenu, select the PingPongDelay ef- fect you set up for the vocal track. This way, the signals from the second (duplicate) track are routed to the effect (and do not end up in the mix). Now every time the signals on the vocal track exceed the threshold, the delay will be deactivated. Since the thres- hold for the delay effect is fixed, you may have to adjust the volume of track 2, in this example, to ensure that vocal parts of low or middle volume will also silence the delay effect. Dynamics plug-ins Compression, expansion or gating can be triggered by side-chain signals exceeding a specified threshold. You may run into a situation where you want to lower the volume of one instrument every time another instrument is played. You could e. g. want to lower the volume of the bass guitar during the bass drum hits. This can be achieved by applying compression to the bass guitar signal every time the drum signals are present on the respective track. Proceed as follows: 1.Select the bass guitar track. 2.Open the Inserts tab in the Inspector, click in an insert slot to open the effect selection pop-up menu and, on the Dynamics submenu, select “Compressor”. The effect is loaded into the effect slot and the effect control panel opens. 3.Make the desired effect settings (you will most likely have to adjust them later to get the right compression level) and activate the Side-Chain button. 4.Select the bass drum track. 5.Open the Sends Inspector section, click in a send slot and from the Side-Chain submenu, select the Compres- sor effect you created for the bass guitar track. Adjust the Send level. This way, the bass drum signal triggers the compressor on the bass gui- tar track. When you now play back the project, the bass guitar will be compressed whenever the signals on the bass drum track exceed the threshold. Modulation plug-ins Side-chain signals bypass the built-in LFO modulation and instead apply modulation according to the envelope of the side-chain signal. Since each channel will be ana- lyzed and modulated separately, this allows for creating astonishing spatial stereo or surround modulation effects. Feel free to experiment with the functions to see what they have to offer! About drag&drop and Side chain connections When you drag effects from one insert slot to another (on the same channel or between different channels), the fol- lowing applies: When you move an effect within a channel (e. g. from slot 4 to slot 6), the side chain connections will be kept. When you drag and drop an effect between two channels, the side chain connections will not be kept. When copying an effect into another effect slot (for the same or a different channel), the side chain connections will not be copied, i. e. they will be lost. Using external effects (Cubase only) Although this program comes with a top selection of VST effect plug-ins, and although there’s a huge range of addi- tional plug-ins available on the market, you may still have some hardware effect units that you want to use – valve compressors, reverb units, vintage tape echo machines, etc. By setting up external FX busses you can make your outboard equipment part of the Cubase virtual studio! An external FX bus is a combination of outputs (sends) and inputs (returns) on your audio hardware, along with a few additional settings. All external FX busses you have created will appear on the effect pop-up menus and can be selected like the internal effect plug-ins. The difference
176 Audio effects is that if you select an external effect as an insert effect for an audio track, the audio will be sent to the corresponding audio output, processed in your hardware effect (provided that you have connected it properly) and returned via the specified audio input. ÖCreating and handling of external effects is described in detail in the chapter “VST Connections: Setting up in- put and output busses” on page 13. Making settings for the effects Editing effects All inserts and sends have an Edit (“e”) button. Clicking this opens the control panel for the effect, in which you can make parameter settings. The contents, design and layout of the control panel de- pends on the selected effect. However, all effect control panels have an On/Off button, a Bypass button, Read/ Write automation buttons (for automating effect parame- ter changes, see the chapter “Automation” on page 203), a preset pop-up menu and a Preset Management pop-up menu for saving and loading effect presets. Some plug-ins also feature a side-chain button, see “Using the Side- Chain input” on page 174. The Rotary effect control panel. Please note that all effects can be edited using a simpli- fied control panel (horizontal sliders only, no graphics). This panel is opened by pressing [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Alt]/[Op- tion]+[Shift] and clicking on the Edit button for the effect send or slot. Effect control panels may have any combination of knobs, sliders, buttons and graphic curves. ÖThe included effects and their parameters are de- scribed in detail in the separate manual “Plug-in Refer- ence”.If you edit the parameters for an effect, these settings are saved automatically with the project. You can also save the current settings as a preset, see below. Effects parameters can be automated – see the chapter “Automation” on page 203. Effect presets Effect preset management in Cubase is very versatile. In the MediaBay – or with certain limits in the Save Preset di- alog – you can assign attributes to presets which allow you to organize and browse them according to various cri- teria. Cubase comes with a huge array of categorized track and VST presets that you can use straight out of the box. You can also preview effect presets before loading them which considerably speeds up the process of find- ing the right effect preset. Effect presets can be divided into the following main cate- gories: VST presets for a plug-in. These are stored parameter settings for a specific effect. Inserts presets that contain insert effect combinations. These can contain the whole insert effects rack, complete with settings for each effect, see “Saving insert effect combinations” on page 178. Selecting effect presets Most VST effect plug-ins come with a number of useful presets for instant selection. The preset browser To select an effect preset in the preset browser, proceed as follows: 1.Load an effect, either as a channel insert or into an FX channel. The control panel for the effect is displayed.
177 Audio effects 2.Click in the preset field at the top of the control panel. This opens the preset browser. You can also open the Preset browser from the Inspec- tor (Inserts tab) or the Channel Settings window. 3.Select the desired preset in the list. 4.Activate playback to audition the selected preset. Simply step through the presets until you found the right sound. It may be helpful to set up cycle playback of a section to make comparisons be- tween different preset settings easier. 5.Double-click on the desired preset (or click outside the Preset browser) to apply the preset. To return to the preset that was selected when you opened the Preset browser, click the Reset button. You can also open the Preset browser by clicking the SoundFrame button to the right of the preset field an se- lecting “Load Preset” from the Preset Management pop- up menu. The preset handling for VST 2 plug-ins is slightly differ- ent, see “About earlier VST effect presets” on page 178. The Browser sections The Preset browser contains the following sections: The “Search & Viewer” section (displayed by default) lists the available presets for the selected effect. The Filter section (displayed when you click the Cate- gories button) shows the available preset attributes for the selected effect. If no attributes have been specified for the effect presets, the columns will be empty. If attributes have been assigned to a preset for this effect, you can click on the attribute in the respective column (Category, Style etc.), to filter out all presets that do not match the selected attribute(s). If you also activate the “Show Location” button, the Browser & Filter section is displayed, allowing you to specify the Presets folder that should be searched for preset files. Saving effect presets You can save your edited effect settings as presets for further use (e.g. in other projects): 1.Click the SoundFrame button to open the Preset Management pop-up menu. 2.Select “Save Preset…” from the pop-up menu. This opens a dialog where you can save the current settings as a preset. 3.In the File name field in the lower part of the Save Pre- set dialog, enter a name for the new preset.
178 Audio effects If you wish to assign attributes to the preset, click the Tag Editor button. Click in the Value column to select an appropriate “tag” for one or sev- eral of the available categories in the Attributes column. For further infor- mation on preset handling and the Tag Editor, see the chapter “The MediaBay” on page 287. 4.Click OK to store the preset and exit the dialog. User-defined presets are saved in the following location: Win: Documents and Settings/User name/Application data/ VST3 presets\\ Mac: Users//Library/Audio/Presets// You cannot change the default folder, but you can add fur- ther subfolders inside the individual effect preset folders. About earlier VST effect presets As stated previously, you can use any VST 2.x plug-ins in Cubase. For a description of how to add VST plug-ins see “Installing and managing effect plug-ins” on page 179. When you add a VST 2 plug-in, any previously stored pre- sets for it will be in the old FX program/bank format (.fxp/ .fxb). You can import such files, but the preset handling will be slightly different. You will not be able to use the new fea- tures like the Tag editor until you have converted the old “.fxp/.fxb” presets to VST 3 presets. If you save new pre- sets for the included VST 2 plug-ins, these will automati- cally be saved in the new “.vstpreset” format. Importing and converting FXB/FXP files To import .fxp/.fxb files, proceed as follows: 1.Load any VST 2 effect you may have installed, and click on the SoundFrame button to open the Preset Manage- ment pop-up menu.2.Select “Import FXB/FXP…” from the pop-up. This menu item is only available for VST 2 plug-ins. 3.In the file dialog that opens, locate the .fxp file and click Open. If you load a bank (.fxb), it will replace the current set of all effect pro- grams. If you load a single program, it will replace the currently selected effect program only. Note that such files exist only if you created your own .fxp/.fxb presets with a previous version of Cubase (or any other VST 2 application). 4.After importing, you can convert the current program list to VST presets by selecting “Convert Program List to VST Presets” from the Preset Management pop-up. After converting, the presets will be available in the Preset Browser, and you can use the Tag Editor to add attributes and audition the presets. The new converted presets will be stored in the VST3 Preset folder. Saving insert effect combinations You can save the complete insert effect rack for a channel together with all parameter settings as an inserts preset. Inserts presets can be applied to audio, instruments, FX channel or group tracks. This works as follows: 1.Select the desired track in the Track list and open the Inserts Inspector section. 2.Load a combination of insert effects and adjust the pa- rameters (or select effect presets) for each effect. 3.At the top of the Inserts tab, click the SoundFrame button to open the Preset Management pop-up menu for the inserts and select “Store Preset”. This can also be done from the Channel Settings window using the SoundFrame button at the top of the Inserts section. 4.Type in a name for the preset in the dialog that appears. !All VST 2 presets can be converted to VST 3 presets.
179 Audio effects 5.Select the track (audio/group/instrument/fx channel) you wish to apply the new preset to, and click its Sound- Frame button. As you can see, the new preset is available at the top of the pop-up menu. 6.Select the preset you created from the pop-up menu. The effects are loaded into the Insert slots of the new track, and the con- trol panels for all effects are opened. Note that when loading insert combination presets, any plug-ins that were previously loaded for the track will be removed, regardless of whether these slots are used in the preset. In other words, saving an inserts preset means saving the states of all in- sert slots. You can use the Preset Management pop-up to save your settings as preset, or to rename or remove the cur- rent preset. Extracting insert effect settings from track presets You can extract the effects used in a track preset and load them into your inserts “rack”: Select “From Track Preset…” on the Preset Manage- ment pop-up menu to open a dialog where all track pre- sets are shown. Select an item in the list to load the effects used in the track preset. Track presets are described in the chapter “Track Pre- sets” on page 300. Installing and managing effect plug- ins Cubase supports two plug-in formats; the VST 2 format (with the file name extensions “.dll” on the PC and “.VST” on the Mac) and the VST 3 format (extension “.vst3” on both platforms). The formats are handled differently when it comes to installation and organizing. Installing additional VST plug-ins Installing VST 3 plug-ins under Mac OS X To install a VST 3.x plug-in under Mac OS X, quit Cubase and drag the plug-in file into one of the following folders: /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ This is only possible if you are the system administrator. Plug-ins in- stalled in this folder will be available to all users, for all programs that support them. Users/Username/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ “Username” is the name you use to log on to the computer (the easiest way to open this folder is to go to your “Home” folder and use the path / Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/ from there). Plug-ins installed in this folder are only available to you. When you launch Cubase again, the new effects will ap- pear on the effect pop-up menus. In the VST 3 protocol, the effect category, sub-folder structure etc. are built-in and cannot be changed. The effect(s) will simply show up in the assigned category folder(s) on the Effect pop-up menu. Installing VST 2.x plug-ins under Mac OS X To install a VST 2.x plug-in under Mac OS X, quit Cubase and drag the plug-in file to one of the following folders: /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/ This is only possible if you are the system administrator. Plug-ins in- stalled in this folder will be available to all users, for all programs that support them. Username/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/ “Username” is the name you use to log on to the computer (the easiest way to open this folder is to go to your “Home” folder and use the path / Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/ from there). Plug-ins installed in this folder are only available to you. When you launch Cubase again, the new effects will ap- pear on the effect pop-up menus. !Plug-ins in Mac OS 9.X format cannot be used.
180 Audio effects ÖIf an effect plug-in comes with its own installation ap- plication, you should use this. As a general rule, always read the documentation or readme files before installing new plug-ins. Installing VST 3 plug-ins under Windows Under Windows, VST 3 plug-ins are installed by dragging the files (with the extension “.vst3”) into the vst3 folder in the Cubase application folder. When you launch Cubase again, the new effects will appear on the Effect pop-up menus. In the VST 3 protocol, the effect category, sub- folder structure etc. are built-in and cannot be changed. The installed new effect(s) will simply show up in the as- signed category folder(s) on the effect pop-up menu. Installing VST 2 plug-ins under Windows Under Windows, VST 2.x plug-ins are installed by dragging the files (with the extension “.dll”) into the Vstplugins folder in the Cubase application folder, or into the Shared VST Plug-in folder – see below. When you launch Cubase again, the new effects will appear on the effect pop-up menus. ÖIf an effect plug-in comes with its own installation ap- plication, you should use this. As a general rule, always read the documentation before installing new plug-ins. Organizing VST 2 plug-ins If you have a large number of VST 2 plug-ins, having them all on a single pop-up menu in the program may become unmanageable. For this reason, the VST 2 plug-ins in- stalled with Cubase are placed in appropriate subfolders according to the effect type. Under Windows, you can organize VST plug-ins by mov- ing, adding or renaming subfolders within the Vstplugins folder. When you launch the program and pull down an effects pop-up menu, the subfolders will be represented by hierarchical submenus, each listing the plug-ins in the corresponding subfolder. Under Mac OS X, you cannot change the hierarchic ar- rangement of the “built-in” VST plug-ins. However, you can arrange any additional plug-ins you have installed (in the /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/ folders, see above) by placing them in sub- folders. In the program, the subfolders will be represented by hierarchical submenus, each listing the plug-ins in the corresponding subfolder. About the effects from previous Cubase versions The Legacy folder on the program DVD contains effects from previous versions of Cubase. The main reason for installing these earlier plug-ins is backwards compatibility, allowing you to import old Cu- base projects and get the correct effect settings. The Plug-in Information window On the Devices menu, you will find an item called “Plug-in Information”. Selecting this opens a dialog listing all the available VST compatible plug-ins in your system (includ- ing VST Instruments), along with all MIDI plug-ins. Managing and selecting VST plug-ins To display all available VST plug-ins, open the “VST PlugIns” tab. To enable a plug-in (make it available for selection), put a check mark in the left column. Only the enabled plug-ins will appear on the effect menus. The Instances column indicates how many instances of the plug-in are currently used in Cubase. Clicking in this column for a plug-in which is already in use produces a pop-up showing exactly where each use occurs. ÖA 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 are currently disabled on the menu. The left column only determines whether or not the plug-in will be visible on the effect menus. All columns can be resized by dragging the divider in the column header.