Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 Getting Started Manual

CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 4: Creating a surround mix (Cubase SX only) 12 – 151
2.Make sure the “Empty” item in the list is selected and click OK.
A file dialog appears, allowing you to specify a location for the project folder. This will 
contain all files related to the project. 
3.Navigate to the desired location for the project folder, and select it by 
clicking OK, or click “Create” to create and name a new folder.
The project folder is created on disk, and an empty Project window appears. 
4.Pull down...

CUBASE SX/SL12 – 152 Tutorial 4: Creating a surround mix (Cubase SX only)
9.Double click in the empty part of the track list.
Again, select Stereo in the dialog that appears.
10.Create two mono tracks as well.
Use the same method, just select Mono in the dialog that appears.
Now we have two stereo tracks and two mono tracks, which is what 
we need.
11.Pull down the File menu and select “Open Library”.
12.Navigate to the “Tutorial Projects” folder on your hard disk and open 
the file “Tutorial 4.npl”....

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14.Turn on Snap in the Project window and make sure the Grid option is 
selected to the right.
This makes it easier to line up the events at the same start position.
15.Drag the clip “Ambience 1” from the library to the first stereo track 
and drop it at the start of the project.
You will be asked whether to copy the file to the work directory, etc. – this is not neces-
sary.
16.Proceed in the same way with the clips “Ambience 2”...

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Creating a surround bus
1.Select “VST Connections” from the Devices menu.
2.In the VST Connections window, make sure the Outputs tab is selected 
and click the Add Bus button.
3.In the dialog that appears, select the 5.1 option and click OK.
The pop-up menu in the dialog lists the most common formats – to see all surround 
formats supported by Cubase SX, check the “More...” submenu.
The new bus appears.
4.Click in the Device Port...

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Now we have a 5.1 output bus. As you will see, you can either route a 
mono track directly to one channel in the surround bus or route a track 
(mono or stereo) to the whole surround bus and use the Surround 
panner to position it as desired. But what if you have some stereo ma-
terial that you simply want to send to a stereo channel pair in the bus 
(Left and Right or Left Surround and Right Surround)? For this you 
need to create...

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Setting up a surround mix
If you have auditioned the audio clips already, you have found that we 
have a stereo clip with background noise from a petrol station (Ambi-
ence 1), a similar stereo clip (Ambience 2), some speech in mono and 
the sound of a car starting and driving away, also in mono. 
•These audio files are (except for the speech clip) based on excerpts 
from Steinberg’s “Urban Atmospheres” sound environment recordings...

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2.Make sure the Input and Output Settings panel is visible at the top of 
the channel strips.
If not, click in the upper part of the symbol in the lower left corner of the mixer.
Surround panning in stereo
Let’s start with the Ambience 1 track (the first stereo track). We want 
this routed to the front stereo speakers only. To get a feeling for how 
things work we will do this by using the surround panner:
1.Locate the channel for...

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3.Select the 5.1 bus (“5.1 Out”).
This routes the track to the whole 5.1 bus, for surround panning. As you can see, the 
regular pan control on the channel strip is replaced by a square grid with a dot.
4.Double click on the grid to bring up the surround panner panel.
The grey ball in the middle of the display indicates the position of the signal in the 
surround sound image.
5.Click on the “Mo./St.” pop-up menu and select...

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6.Click and drag the ball to the top right corner of the display.
As you can see, you are dragging the “R” ball – the right channel. The left channel is 
automatically mirrored and is therefore positioned in the top left corner.
7.Start playback from the beginning of the project.
8.Click the “R” ball and drag it slowly downwards – towards the surround 
(back) speakers.
You will hear the sound gradually move back to the surround...

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Routing to a stereo child bus
Next up is the Ambience 2 stereo track, which should be routed to the 
surround speakers. We could use the surround panner again, but since 
we created a child bus for the left and right surround speakers, this is a 
much quicker way:
1.Unmute the Ambience 2 channel.
2.Pull down the Output Routing pop-up menu for the channel.
3.Select the “Stereo (Ls Rs) out” child bus.
This routes the track directly...