Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 Operation Manual

CUBASE SX/SLSurround sound  (Cubase SX only) 13 – 301
• Cubase SX is ready for surround specific plug-ins, that is plug-ins with multi 
channel support specifically designed for surround sound mixing tasks (the 
included “Mix6to2” plug-in is an example of this). 
There are also surround aware plug-ins, which are not designed specifically 
for Surround but which due to their multi-channel support work well in a Sur-
round configuration. An example is the Surrounddither plug-in.
• You configure Cubase SX...

CUBASE SX/SL13 – 302 Surround sound  (Cubase SX only)
About surround plug-ins
Included with the program are some specific surround-plug-ins. 
These are:
•Mix6to2
The Mix6to2 effect allows you to control the levels of up to six surround channels, and 
to mix these down to a stereo output.
•SurroundDither
This is a dithering plug-in capable of handling six channels at the same time – use this 
for applying dithering to a surround output bus.
•SurroundPanner
This is described on page 309.
• Surround...

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Window overview
VST Connections
In this window you can add input and output busses. There is a com-
plete selection of common surround configurations available, as well 
as standard mono or stereo busses.
The Bus Name column contains the currently configured busses as 
they will appear in the input and output routing pop-ups in the mixer.
VST Connections showing the Outputs page.
The outputs selected for 
the channels in the busses.Click here to add a...

CUBASE SX/SL13 – 304 Surround sound  (Cubase SX only)
Surround in the mixer
Surround sound is supported throughout every stage of the signal 
path in the Cubase SX mixer, from input to output bus. Each bus or 
audio channel can carry up to 6 surround speaker channels.
In the output channel section of the mixer you can control the master 
levels for configured busses. The level meter for a bus (or channel in 
the mixer) that carries multiple surround channels will show multiple 
level bars, one for each...

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Operations
Setting up the surround configuration
Output bus configuration
Before you can start working with surround sound, you have to config-
ure a surround output bus, through which all the speaker channels of 
the chosen surround format are routed. How to add and set up bus-
ses is described in detail on page 14. Here is a brief run through:
1.Open the VST Connections window from the Devices menu.
2.Click the “Outputs” tab.
3.Click the “Add Bus”...

CUBASE SX/SL13 – 306 Surround sound  (Cubase SX only)
Child busses
Essentially a child bus is a bus within a (“bigger”) bus. Typically you may 
want stereo child busses within your surround bus – this allows you to 
route stereo tracks directly to a stereo speaker pair within the surround 
bus. You may also want to add child busses in other surround formats 
(with fewer channels than the “parent bus”).
Once you have created a surround bus, you can add one or several 
child busses to it by right-clicking...

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Input bus configuration
To work with surround sound in Cubase SX, it is often not necessary 
to configure a surround format input bus. You can record audio files via 
standard inputs, and easily route the resulting audio channels to sur-
round outputs at any stage. You can also directly import multichannel 
files of specific surround format onto audio tracks of the same format.
You should add a surround input bus in the following circumstances:
•You...

CUBASE SX/SL13 – 308 Surround sound  (Cubase SX only)
Routing channels directly to surround channels
If you want to place an audio source in one separate speaker channel 
only, you can route it directly to that speaker channel. This is useful for 
pre-mixed material or multi-channel recordings that don’t require pan-
ning.
1.Open the mixer and locate the channel you wish to route.
2.From the output routing pop-up menu, select the corresponding sur-
round speaker channel.
•If a stereo audio channel is...

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Using the Surround Panner
Cubase SX has a special feature for graphically positioning a sound 
source in a surround field. This is actually a special plug-in which dis-
tributes the audio from the channel in various proportions to the sur-
round channels.
1.Open the mixer and locate the channel you wish to position.
This could be a mono or stereo channel.
2.From the output routing pop-up menu, select the “whole surround 
bus” (not a surround speaker...

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The SurroundPan controls
The SurroundPan plug-in interface in Standard, Position and Angle mode, 
respectively.
The SurroundPan plug-in allows you to position your audio in the sur-
round field. It consists of an image of the speaker arrangement, as de-
fined by the output bus selected on the output routing pop-up menu, 
with the sound source indicated as a grey ball. 
The following options and methods are available:
Mode – Standard/Position/Angle
The...