Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 Getting Started Manual

							CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 3: Mixing11 – 141
Audio effects
Cubase SX/SL comes with a large number of audio effect plug-ins 
(VST plug-ins). These can be used as send effects, insert effects or 
for offline processing (Cubase SX only, described in another tutorial 
in this book).
Adding a send effect
Send effects in Cubase SX/SL make use of FX channel tracks – “effect 
return” tracks, each holding one effect plug-in (or several, in series). 
Each audio track has eight different effect sends, which can each be 
routed to any FX channel track. This allows for extremely flexible effect 
handling.
In brief, this is what you do to add a send effect to an audio track:
• Create an FX channel track and select an effect plug-in for it.
• Activate a send for the audio track and route it to the FX channel track.
• Adjust the amount of effect for the track with the effect send.
• Adjust the amount of effect return signal by setting the level of the FX channel 
track.
In this project, we feel that the strings track could use some reverb. 
Proceed as follows:
Setting up an effect
1.Pull down the Project menu and select “FX Channel” from the “Add 
Track” submenu.
A dialog appears.
2.Set the Configuration pop-up menu to “Stereo”. 
						

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3.Pull down the Plugin pop-up menu.
The effects included with Cubase SX/SL are organized in subfolders according to the 
effect type. Typical send effects are reverb, delay and other effects where you want to 
add a little bit of effect to the original dry signal.
4.Select “Reverb A” from the Reverb submenu and click OK.
The control panel for the “Reverb A” effect appears. We’ll look closer at the control 
panel in a moment – first take a look at the Track list:
An FX channel track is added to the Track list. As you can see in the Track list, the 
insert effect button is lit for the track – this indicates that an insert effect is loaded 
and activated for the track.
5.Go back to the mixer – as you can see, a channel strip has been 
added for the FX channel track.
This serves as an effect return control.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 3: Mixing11 – 143
6.Click the “e” button for the FX channel strip.
The Channel Settings window appears.
The first insert effect slot holds the Reverb A plug-in.
7.OK, let’s look at the control panel for the effect. If it’s obscured by the 
other windows you can click the “e” button for the Reverb A slot twice 
to bring the panel to front.
8.Use the pop-up menu to select the “Large” preset.
9.Since we want to use this as a send effect we don’t want any dry (un-
processed) signal to pass through the effect – drag the Mix slider fully 
down (wet 100, dry 0).   
						

							CUBASE SX/SL11 – 144 Tutorial 3: Mixing
Setting up a send
1.Go back to the mixer and locate the channel strip for the Strings track.
2.Click the “e” button in the Strings channel strip to open its Channel 
Settings window.
The effect sends are located to the right of the EQ section – currently they are all 
unused (shown as empty slots).
3.Click in the first empty effect send slot and select your FX channel 
from the pop-up menu that appears.
4.Click the power button for the first slot to activate the send.
5.Listen to the strings while you raise the send slider below the slot.
You will hear the reverb effect being added to the sound.
6.If you like, you can adjust the effect return level with the level fader for 
the FX channel strip.
You can also add EQ to the FX channel, change its stereo balance etc., just like for a 
regular audio track.
•Note that you can activate sends for other tracks in the same way, and 
route them to the same reverb effect.
•If you are using Cubase SX, you can also view and set up sends directly 
in the extended mixer – see the Operation Manual.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 3: Mixing11 – 145
Adding an insert effect
An insert effect is inserted into the signal chain of an audio channel, 
which means that the whole channel signal passes through the effect. 
This also means that only one track or channel will use the insert effect 
– unlike send effects, where signals from several channels can all be 
sent to the same effect.
In our tutorial, we will add some chorus to the electric piano track.
1.Click the “e” button in the “E.Piano” channel strip (or use the channel 
selection pop-up menu in the lower left corner of the Channel Set-
tings window).
Either way, the Channel Settings window for the E.Piano track appears. 
The insert effect slots are located to the left of the EQ section. In Cubase SX there 
are 8 insert slots per channel; in Cubase SL there are 5.
2.Click in the empty field in the first insert slot.
This brings up the effect pop-up menu.  
						

							CUBASE SX/SL11 – 146 Tutorial 3: Mixing
3.Select “Chorus” from the Modulation submenu.
The effect is loaded and automatically activated, and its control panel appears.
4.Play back the project and try selecting different chorus presets.
• In this case we inserted an effect on a mono track – this means the out-
put from the effect will still be in mono.
To get a stereo chorus, we would need to add the chorus as a send effect instead.  
						

							CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 3: Mixing11 – 147
Automation
All mixer parameters can be automated in Cubase SX/SL. In the final 
example in this chapter, we will do a simple fade in for the electric pi-
ano track, so that it starts inaudible and reaches its full level at bar 9, 
where the strings start:
1.Arrange your windows so that you can see both the events in the 
Project window and the mixer.
This is not strictly necessary but it makes it easier to see where the electric piano starts.
2.Turn off Cycle on the Transport panel.
This is a safety measure to avoid accidentally overwriting your automation.
3.Move the song position cursor to the start of the project.
You can do this by clicking in the ruler at the project start, or by clicking the “Goto Zero” 
button on the Transport panel (to the left of the Rewind button).
4.In the mixer, click the W button for the “E.Piano” channel.
This activates automation write mode.
5.Start playback.
6.Drag the level fader for the “E.Piano” channel fully down.
7.When the song position cursor reaches the electric piano event, start 
slowly raising the level fader, so that it reaches full level (0.00) roughly 
at the start of bar 9.
8.Stop playback.
9.Click the W button to turn it off.  
						

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10.Click the R button for the channel.
This activates automation read mode.
11.Play back the project from the start.
You will see your automated fader movement and hear the electric piano fade in.
That concludes this tutorial! If you are happy with the result, you may 
want to save the project under a different name, by selecting “Save 
As...” from the File menu.  
						

							12
Tutorial 4: Creating a surround
mix (Cubase SX only) 
						

							CUBASE SX/SL12 – 150 Tutorial 4: Creating a surround mix (Cubase SX only)
About this tutorial
If you are using Cubase SL, you can skip this chapter and go directly to 
the next tutorial.
This tutorial describes how to set up Cubase SX for work in 5.1 sur-
round format, add some audio files from a library, create a simple sur-
round mix including some mixer automation and finally export this as 
an interleaved multi-channel audio file.
For full descriptions of all the surround features in Cubase SX, please 
see the Surround chapter in the Operation Manual.
• For this tutorial to be useful, you need to have audio hardware with six 
(or more) outputs.
Preferably, these outputs should be connected to a surround speaker system in 5.1 
configuration.
Preparations
This tutorial is based on an existing file, included on the Cubase SX 
DVD. 
• Below, we assume that you have followed the previous tutorial and cop-
ied the “Tutorial Projects” folder to your hard drive.
If not, please see page 132.
Before you start, close any open projects, by making their Project win-
dows active and selecting “Close” from the File menu. This is just to 
make things clear and avoid confusion – you can of course have sev-
eral projects open in Cubase SX.
Creating a Project
First of all, we need to create a new project.
1.Pull down the File menu and select “New Project”.
A dialog appears, listing a number of project templates for various purposes.