Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 Getting Started Manual

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Tutorial 3: Mixing 
						

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About this tutorial
This tutorial shows how to do some basic mixing. You will set levels 
and pan, add effects and EQ and finally try automating a mixer param-
eter. The purpose of the tutorial is to give you some basic knowledge 
about the Cubase SX/SL Mixer – for complete descriptions of the mix-
ing features please refer to the chapters “The Mixer”, “Audio Effects” 
and “Automation” in the Operation Manual.
• In this tutorial we will mix in stereo. If you are using Cubase SX it is also 
possible to do surround mixes – for a quick tutorial on this, see page 149.
We recommend that you are familiar with the procedures in this chapter before moving 
on to the surround tutorial.
Preparations
This tutorial is based on a file included on the Cubase SX/SL DVD. 
Proceed as follows:
1.Insert the Cubase SX/SL DVD and open it for browsing.
2.On the DVD, open the “Additional Content” folder and locate the 
folder “Tutorial Projects”.
3.Copy this folder to the computer’s hard disk (for example in the “My 
Documents” folder under Windows).
4.Open the folder “Tutorial Projects” on your hard disk and double click 
on the file “Tutorial 3.cpr”.
Whether file extensions are shown or not depends on the settings for your operating 
system.
The “Tutorial 3” project opens in Cubase SX/SL. This is a simple 16-
bar “song” containing four audio tracks.
• Please note that when you open a tutorial project, a dialog may appear 
asking you to resolve pending connections.
This is because you probably don’t have the same configuration as the creator of this 
project. Use the dialog to chose the desired port and click OK to close the dialog. 
						

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•Since this project doesn’t contain any MIDI tracks, we will only mix 
audio in this tutorial. 
If you have MIDI tracks in a project, these will also show in the mixer. Many procedures 
(setting levels, pan, mute, etc.) are the same for MIDI mixer channels – see the Opera-
tion Manual.
The Tutorial 3 project.
•If you had another project open, make sure the new project is in the 
foreground and click the Activate button in the upper left corner of the 
Project window so that it is lit (blue).
This button indicates which project is active when you have several projects open.
5.Click Play to play back the project.
As you hear, this is a low-tempo, medium-funky piece consisting of a drum track, a 
bass track, some electric piano and strings. Cycle is activated on the Transport panel, 
which means the 16 bars of music will play back repeatedly. The balance, pan and 
general sound isn’t the best – that’s what we will try to change on the following pages.   
						

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• If you don’t hear all four tracks, make sure you have a stereo output bus 
(in the VST Connections window – see page 107) and that all four tracks 
are routed to this bus in the mixer.
To make output routing settings for the tracks, use the input/output settings panel at 
the top of the Mixer channel strips (or the “out” pop-up menus in the Inspector).
All four tracks routed to the Stereo Out bus.
Setting levels
If you listen to the project, you will find that the level balance is fairly 
OK until the strings start in bar 9. The strings are way too loud, tending 
to drown the other tracks. Proceed as follows:
1.Open the Mixer by selecting it from the Devices menu (or by using the 
key command for this – by default [F3]).
The Mixer window opens with channel strips for the four audio tracks. If the project 
contained any other tracks (MIDI tracks, effect tracks, etc.) or VST instruments, there 
would be channel strips here for these as well.    
						

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2.Start playback and locate the channel strip for the Strings track.
The names of the tracks are shown at the bottom of each channel strip.
3.Click the level fader handle in the channel strip and lower the fader 
until you feel the level of the Strings track is OK.
As you can see, the level meters reflect the signal level of each track – the meter for 
the Strings track will reflect the level change you make.
•If you need to reset a level fader to ±0.00, press [Ctrl]/[Command] 
and click on it.
You can use this method to reset most parameters to their default values.
4.If you like, adjust the levels of the other tracks as well.
You can leave the project playing for the next steps in the tutorial.
Setting pan
Pan sets the left/right position in the stereo field or the stereo balance.
Right now, all tracks are set to center pan. This is probably fine for the 
drums and the bass, but it might be a good idea to pan the piano and 
strings tracks to opposite sides:
1.In the “E.Piano” channel strip, click on the blue line in the Pan control 
box above the fader, and drag it a bit to the left.
The electric piano track is panned to the left.
2.Pan the strings track a bit to the right in the same way.
These are both mono tracks which means the pan control simply pans 
the mono signal between the left and right channel in the output bus. 
For stereo tracks, the pan control serves as a stereo balance control 
(in Cubase SX there are two other panning modes available as well – 
see the Operation Manual for details).  
						

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Using Mute and Solo
Each channel strip has a Mute and a Solo button, allowing you to 
silence one or several channels.
1.Click the M button for the bass track.
The button lights up and the sound of the bass is muted.
2.Mute the electric piano track in the same way.
Several channels can be muted at the same time.
To unmute a channel you click its M button again. You can also unmute 
all muted channels in one go:
3.Click the lit M button in the common panel – the area at the left side of 
the Mixer window.
This button is lit whenever one or several channels are muted – clicking it unmutes all 
muted tracks.
4.Now click the S button for the drum track to solo it.
This mutes all other channels.
5.To turn off solo for the channel, click the S button again...
...or click the lit S button in the common panel – this turns off solo for all channels.
•You can solo several channels at the same time.
If you instead press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click an S button, that channel will be soloed 
and all other channels will be muted. This function is known as exclusive solo.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 3: Mixing11 – 137
Adding EQ to an audio channel
Equalization shapes the tone of a signal by boosting and/or cutting 
selected frequencies. Each audio channel in the mixer has a built-in 
equalizer with four parametric modules. 
When and how to apply EQ is of course individual. Below we will add 
EQ to two channels, to achieve the following:
• Cut a very narrow frequency band in the drum track to reduce the intensity of 
the rimshot.
• Add a gentle mid frequency boost to the electric piano track to make it stand 
out a bit more.
• Below we will show how to make EQ settings in the Channel Settings 
window.
If you are using Cubase SX you may find it more convenient to use the EQ panel in the 
extended mixer – this is described in the Operation Manual.
Let’s start with the rimshot which is mixed rather loud in the drum track. 
Unfortunately we cannot change this but we could try cutting a narrow 
band in the mid-high frequencies.
1.If you like, solo the drum track to help you hear what you’re doing.
2.Click the “e” button in the drum track’s channel strip (next to the level 
fader).
This opens the VST Audio Channel Settings window for the track.  
						

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This window allows you to make detailed settings for the selected 
mixer channel. The EQ section is located in the middle of the window 
with parameter dials for the four EQ modules and a graphic display 
showing the frequency boost/cut curve.
The three parameters in each EQ module are:
• Gain (inner dial) – this governs how much a frequency range should be cut or 
boosted.
• Frequency (outer dial) – this is the mid frequency for the range to be cut or 
boosted.
• Q (lower dial) – this is the width of the frequency range to be affected.
3.Click the on/off button for the “hi mid” EQ module to activate it.
You can activate up to four modules per channel, but in this case we only need one.
4.Set the gain to a fairly drastic cut, around -10 dB or so.
This is done by clicking and dragging the inner dial (or by entering a numeric value in 
the field above).
5.Raise the Q value (the lowest dial) to 12.0 – the maximum value.
This means the frequency range will be as narrow as possible.
6.Experiment with the frequency parameter (the outer dial) and try to 
find a frequency where you reduce the intensity of the rimshot without 
interacting too much with the other drums and hi-hat sounds.
To make fine adjustments, press [Shift] and drag the dial. You can also click the nu-
merical value below and type in a frequency directly.  
						

							CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 3: Mixing11 – 139
This setting should produce a fairly good result.
7.Turn off solo to see how the drum sound works with the other tracks.
When you activate an EQ module, the EQ indicator in the channel 
strip lights up green. This shows that one or several EQ modules are 
activated for the channel, and also serves as a bypass button:
8.To compare the sound with and without EQ, click the EQ indicator/
Bypass button in the channel strip.
The button turns yellow when Bypass is activated – this means the EQ section is by-
passed. Of course, in this case we could simply turn off the EQ module with its on/off 
button, but the bypass button is handy when you have more than one EQ module acti-
vated.   
						

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Now we will move on to the electric piano track, and try a slightly dif-
ferent approach:
9.Click the small arrow button in the lower left corner of the Channel 
Settings window and select “E.Piano” from the pop-up menu that ap-
pears.
This selects the E.Piano mixer channel – the Channel Settings window will now show 
the settings for that channel instead.
This time we will try adjusting the EQ in the curve display:
10.Click in the curve display and keep the mouse button pressed.
A curve with a point appears, and one of the EQ modules below is activated. The num-
ber next to the curve point is the number of the EQ module.
11.While listening to the electric piano sound, drag the curve point to 
change gain and frequency.
Q is set to a low value by default – this is probably good in this case. If not, you can 
change the Q value by pressing [Shift] and dragging in the display (or by using the Q 
knob in the EQ module below).
•Clicking somewhere else in the curve display will activate another EQ 
module for a more complex curve.
You can remove EQ curve points by clicking and dragging them outside the display.
12.When you’ve set the EQ as desired, close the Channel Settings 
window.
Those were two methods of making EQ settings. You can also make 
EQ settings in the Inspector in the Project window or use any of the 
EQ panels in the extended mixer (Cubase SX only).