Steinberg V-Stack Operation Manual

							V-STACKAudio effects 8 – 111
Routing an audio channel through insert effects
Insert effect settings are available in the Mixer (extended mode) and the 
Channel Settings window. The figures below show the Channel Set-
tings window, but the procedures are similar for all three send sections:
1.Bring up the Channel Settings window or the “Inserts” pane in the ex-
tended Mixer.
In the Channel Settings, the inserts are located to the right of the channel strip.
2.Pull down the effect type pop-up for one of the insert slots, and select 
an effect.
•If you hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] while selecting an insert effect, 
this effect will be selected in the same insert slot for all Mixer channels.
3.Make sure that the effect is activated (the power button for the insert 
slot should be lit).
4.If required, open the effect’s control panel by clicking the Edit button 
and use the Mix parameter (if available) to adjust the balance between 
dry and effect signal.
See page 113 for details about editing effects.
• When one or several insert effects are activated for a channel, the Insert 
Effects button lights up in blue in the mixer channel strip. Click the but-
ton for a channel to bypass (disable) all its inserts.
When the inserts are bypassed, the button is yellow. Click the button again to enable 
the inserts.
• To turn off an effect completely, pull down the effect type pop-up menu 
and select “No Effect”. 
You should do this for all effects that you don’t intend to use, to minimize unnecessary 
CPU load. 
						

							V-STACK8 – 112 Audio effects
Using Master effects
There are four Master effect slots, available in a separate window or in 
the Master section in the extended Mixer. To select and activate Master 
effects, proceed as follows:
1.Either select the “Extended” mode for the Mixer and show the Master 
section, or pull down the Devices menu and select “VST Master Effects” 
to bring up the Master effect window.
You can also bring up the VST Master Effects window by clicking the “e” button above 
the Master gain fader.
2.Pull down the pop-up menu for one of the Master effect slots and se-
lect an effect.
• Note that the last Master effect slot is “post master gain fader”, i.e. it ap-
pears after the Master Gain fader in the signal path.
This is typically used for effects such as dithering, which must be at the very end of the 
signal path to give the proper result.
3.To make settings for the effect, click the Edit button to bring up its 
control panel.
See page 113.
• To turn off a Master effect, select “No Effect” for the corresponding slot. 
You can also bypass all Master effects by clicking the button next to the “e” button 
above the Master gain fader in the Mixer. When bypassed, the button is yellow.
❐Master effect plug-ins must be stereo in/out. If you have a plug-in in your 
VST Plug-ins folder that you can’t assign as a master effect, the reason is 
probably that it is a mono plug-in. 
						

							V-STACKAudio effects 8 – 113
Editing effects
All inserts, master effect slots and effect sends (except in the “Sends+” 
pane in the extended Mixer) have an Edit (“e”) button. Clicking this 
opens the selected effect’s control panel in which you can make pa-
rameter settings.
The contents, design and layout of the control panel depends on the 
selected effect. However, all effect control panels have an on/off but-
ton, a program selection pop-up menu and a File pop-up menu for 
saving or loading programs. In V-STACK for Mac OS X these are lo-
cated at the bottom of the control panel, whereas it is at the top of the 
control panel in V-STACK under Windows.
An effect control panel.
•Note that all effects can be edited using a simplified control panel (hor-
izontal sliders only, no graphics) if you prefer this. To edit effects using 
this “basic” control panel instead, press [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift] and 
click on the Edit button for the effect send or slot.
Making settings
Effect control panels may have any combination of knobs, sliders, but-
tons and graphic curves. See the documentation for each effect. 
						

							V-STACK8 – 114 Audio effects
Naming effects
If you edit the parameters for an effect, these settings are saved auto-
matically in the project. If you want to name the current settings, the 
following points apply:
•The basis for the current settings may have been a preset effect pro-
gram, in which case there is a name in the Program Name field.
•The basis for the current settings may have been a default setting pro-
gram location in which case “Init” is displayed in the Program Name 
field.
In both cases, if you have changed any effect parameter settings, these 
are already saved! To name the current settings, click the Name field, 
type in a new name and press [Return]. The new name replaces the 
previous name on the Program pop-up menu.
Saving effects
You can save your edited effects for further use (e.g. in other projects) 
by using the File pop-up menu to the right of the Name field.
1.Pull down the File pop-up menu.
•If you want to save the current program only, select “Save Effect”.
Effect Programs have the Windows file extension “fxp”.
•If you want to save all programs for the effect type, select “Save 
Bank”.
Effect Banks have the Windows file extension “fxb”.
2.In the file dialog that appears, select a name and location for the file 
and click Save.
It might be a good idea to prepare a special folder for your effects.
Loading effects
1.Pull down the File pop-up menu.
2.Select “Load Effect” or “Load Bank”.
3.In the file dialog that opens, locate the file and click Open.
If you loaded a Bank, it will replace the current set of all effect programs. If you loaded 
a single effect, it will replace the currently selected effect program only. 
						

							V-STACKAudio effects 8 – 115
Effect routing – a few tips
A note about stereo effects
Some plug-in effects affect the stereo image, in the form of panning, 
stereo enhancement or stereo ambience. However, for this to be 
heard, the output of the effect must be routed to a stereo channel or 
bus (since otherwise, the output will be mixed to mono). In short: Ste-
reo image effects will not be heard if the effect is used as an insert ef-
fect for a mono audio channel.
•For example, if you want to apply an auto-panner effect to a mono au-
dio channel, there are two ways to do this:
1) Use a send effect (you would probably want to activate the Pre-fader Send switch 
and turn down the volume fader for the audio channel). 
Or 
2) Route the mono audio channel to a group channel and apply the effect as an insert 
effect for the group channel.
About group channels and effects
There are certain factors to consider when using send effects from 
channels routed to groups. If a channel routed to a group uses send 
effects, the effect return signal will still be audible if you mute or pull 
down the fader for the group channel, which might be undesirable. 
There is a method you can use to remedy this:
•You can remove the send routing from the channels being routed to a 
group, and apply the effects to the group channel instead.
This works well if you want all channels routed to the group processed by the same ef-
fect(s) and by the same amount. See below for a practical example on how you can set 
up a more flexible effects routing system using groups. 
						

							V-STACK8 – 116 Audio effects
Using stereo sends and insert effects
Send effects are practical because you can control the dry/effect bal-
ance individually for each channel. Insert effects offer the advantage 
of “chaining” effects, meaning that the output of an effect can be fur-
ther processed by another effect. If you route a channel send directly 
to a group channel, this allows you to use insert effects (applied to the 
group channel) much like “send effects”. 
This method has several advantages:
• You can take advantage of effects with stereo inputs, since the sends will be 
stereo.
If you route a stereo channel send directly to a send effect, as opposed to a group, the 
send will be mono, regardless of the chosen effect. 
• You can set up insert effect chains for a group, and then control how much 
the individual channels are processed by this effect chain. 
For example, you could have the output of a reverb sent to an EQ and then on to a 
compressor. If you simply routed several channel outputs to a group and then applied 
insert effects (to the group), you would have no way of controlling the dry/effect bal-
ance for the individual channels, only for the group as a whole.
An example
The following example describes how to route a stereo send to a group 
with an insert effect.
The example assumes that you have access to a stereo VST Instru-
ment channel and an unused group channel in the Mixer. Proceed 
as follows:
1.Open the Channel Settings for the VST Instrument channel, and route 
one of the sends directly to the group channel.
As it is a stereo channel, the send will be stereo. Note that the channel itself should not 
be routed to this group, only one of its sends (see page 107). The channel output rout-
ing could be any bus, or another group – it doesn’t matter.
2.Activate the send, and drag the corresponding Send level slider to a 
moderate value.
The send’s “Pre fader” button should not be activated.
3.Activate an insert effect for the group channel.
Choose a typical “send effect” like reverb for this example. 
						

							V-STACKAudio effects 8 – 117
4.Open the effect’s control panel by clicking the Edit button and use the 
Mix parameter to adjust the balance between “dry” and effect signal, 
to 100% effect.
This is because the effect/dry balance can now be controlled using a combination of 
send level and the group channel fader – see below. 
5.Press [Alt]/[Option] and click on the Solo button for the group chan-
nel to activate Solo Group.
In this mode, the group channel will not be muted if you solo another channel in the 
mixer (see below).
6.Play the VST Instrument.
The following is now possible:
•By adjusting the send level you will control the amount of channel sig-
nal sent to the ”effect” (or to be accurate, the group channel).
•The level fader for the group channel now serves as effect return level 
control, allowing you to set the dry/effect balance.
If you pull down the group channel fader, you should now hear the signal with no 
effect.
•Since Solo Group is activated for the group channel, you can solo any of 
the channels without having the effect return (the group) muted.
If you need to turn off Solo Group, [Alt]/[Option]-click the Solo button for the group 
channel again.
•Adding more insert effects to the group allows you to process the ef-
fect output further.
•Simply repeat steps 1- 2 for all (stereo) channels you wish to process 
using this method.
•Since there are four group channels in V-STACK, you can have up to 
four different “multi-effects” with this method. 
						

							V-STACK8 – 118 Audio effects
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 and DirectX 
compatible plug-ins in your system (including VST Instruments).
Managing and selecting VST plug-ins
To see which VST plug-ins are available in your system, click the “VST 
Plug-ins” tab at the top of the window. The window now displays all 
plug-ins in the V-STACK and the shared vstplugins folder. 
• To enable a plug-in (make it available for selection), click in the left column.
Only the currently enabled plug-ins (shown with a check sign in the left column) will ap-
pear on the Effect menus.
• The second column indicates how many instances of the plug-in are currently 
used in V-STACK.
Clicking in this column for a plug-in which is already in use produces a pop-up show-
ing exactly where each use occurs. 
						

							V-STACKAudio effects 8 – 119
❐Please note that a plug-in may be in use even if it isn’t enabled in the left 
column. You might for example have opened a Song containing effects 
that currently are disabled on the menu. The left column purely deter-
mines whether or not the plug-in will be visible on the Effect menus.
• All columns can be resized by using the divider in the column header.
The rest of the columns show the following information about each 
plug-in:
Update Button
Pressing this button will make V-STACK re-scan the designated 
Vstplugins folders for updated information about the plug-ins.
Column Description
Name The name of the plug-in.
Nb I/O This column shows the number of inputs and outputs for each plug-in.
Category This indicates the category of each plug-in (such as VST Instruments, 
effects, etc.).
Vendor The manufacturer of the plug-in.
VST Version Indicates with which version of the VST protocol each plug-in is com-
patible.
Delay (sample) This shows the delay (in samples) that will be introduced if the effect is 
used as an Insert. This is however automatically compensated for by 
V-STACK.
Nb Params The number of parameters for the plug-in.
Nb Programs The number of programs for the plug-in.
Modified The last modification date of the plug-in file.
Folder The path and name of the folder in which the plug-in file is located. 
						

							V-STACK8 – 120 Audio effects
Changing the Shared Plug-ins Folder (Windows only)
If you like, you can change what folder is to be the “shared” Vstplugins 
folder. For example, if you have Steinberg’s Cubase SX installed on 
your computer, you can get access to the Cubase SX-specific plug-
ins in V-STACK by switching to the Vstplugins folder within the Cu-
base SX folder.
The currently selected Shared Folder is displayed in the text field at 
the top of the window. Clicking the “Choose...” button opens a file di-
alog where you can browse to another Vstplugins folder on your hard 
drive. Clicking OK selects the new folder as the shared VST plug-ins 
folder.
❐After selecting a new shared plug-ins folder, you need to restart V-STACK 
for the effects in the new folder to become available.