E-mu 1212m, 1820, 1820m Tutorials

Digital Audio System

Tutorials

•E-MU Proteus X LE

•Steinberg Cubase LE

•Steinberg WaveLab Lite

•Cakewalk Sonar LE

•Ableton Live Lite 4 for E-MU

E-MU 1212m, 1820, 1820m Digital Audio System

Tutorials

•E-MU Proteus X LE

•Steinberg Cubase LE

•Steinberg WaveLab Lite

•Cakewalk Sonar LE

•Ableton Live Lite 4 for E-MU

Software Version: 1.8

E-MU World Headquarters	Europe, Africa, Middle East
E-MU Systems	Creative Labs
1500 Green Hills Road	Ballycoolin Business Park
Scotts Valley, CA	Blanchardstown
95067-0015	Dublin 15
USA	IRELAND

E-MU Japan

Creative Media K K

Kanda Eight Bldg., 3F

4-6-7 Soto-Kanda

Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0021 JAPAN www.japan.creative.com

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Table of Contents

Introduction .....................................................................		5
Before you Begin .................................................................................................................		5
The Product Default Session ...............................................................................................		5
	To Open PatchMix ....................................................................................................	5
Steinberg Cubase LE .........................................................		6
1	- Setting up Cubase LE .....................................................................................................	6
2	- Basic Multitrack Recording ............................................................................................	7
Recording Path Block Diagram ..........................................................................................		9
Recording Mono Inputs as Stereo ......................................................................................		9
3	- Export Audio Mixdown to Stereo ...............................................................................	10
4	- Running Proteus X LE VSTi from Cubase LE ..............................................................	12
	To Record a MIDI Track ..........................................................................................	14
	To Record a MIDI Track on another MIDI Channel .............................................	14
Steinberg WaveLab Lite ..................................................		15
1	- Setting up WaveLab Lite ..............................................................................................	15
2	- Turning on the PatchMix WAVE Send ........................................................................	16
3	- Recording .....................................................................................................................	17
Cakewalk Sonar LE .........................................................		19
1	- Setting up Sonar LE ......................................................................................................	19
2	- Basic Multitrack Recording ..........................................................................................	21
Record Path Block Diagram ..............................................................................................		23
3	- Export Audio to Stereo ................................................................................................	24
4	- Running Proteus X LE VSTi from Sonar LE ................................................................	26
	To Record a MIDI Track ..........................................................................................	29
	To Record a MIDI Track on another MIDI Channel .............................................	29
Ableton Live Lite 4 for E-MU ...........................................		30
1	- Setting up the Preferences ...........................................................................................	30
2	- Running Proteus X LE VSTi from Ableton Live Lite 4 ................................................	33
3	- Recording Audio into Ableton Live Lite 4 ..................................................................	38

E-MU 1212m/1820/1820m PCI Digital Audio System

Recording & Monitoring with Effects ..............................	39
The Order of Effects ..........................................................................................................	39
Creating a Headphone Submix ........................................................................................	40
To Create a Headphone Submix: ...........................................................................	40
About PatchMix DSP .........................................................................................................	41
About ASIO ........................................................................................................................	41
IMPORTANT -> Activating ASIO ......................................................................................	41
An Example: ............................................................................................................	41
ASIO Channels are STEREO! ............................................................................................	41

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Tutorials

Introduction

This guide contains step-by-step walk-throughs of basic recording operations using PatchMix DSP and a variety of popular software applications. We encourage you to perform the steps on your computer as you read so that you become familiar with the process. The ﬁrst tutorial only takes about half an hour to complete, by which time you should be comfortable with multitrack recording using your new Digital Audio System.

Once you’re up and recording, you can ﬁnd detailed information on all aspects of PatchMix DSP and your E-MU interface hardware in the pdf Owner’s Manual.

Before you Begin

•You should have already installed the E-MU hardware and software on your computer according to the instructions in your printed “Getting Started” manual.

•You should hear the computer sounds coming out of the E-MU hardware and your speakers when you play a CD or an MP3 using Windows Media Player. If not, make sure your E-MU hardware is properly connected according to the diagrams in the “Getting Started” and “Owner’s Manual”.

•A source of audio should be connected to the inputs (instr./tape/cd/MP3 player).

Tutorials

Introduction

E Important Note:

If you need additional help with the bundled applications, please see the “Technical Support Information” pdf located in the “Creative Professional, Documents” folder.

The Product Default Session

Before we begin, you should verify that the Product Default session is selected. This session has everything connected for you. A Session is a stored connection/mixer setup. You can create your own custom Sessions later on if you wish.

To Open PatchMix

1.Left-click once on the E-MU

icon on the Windows System Tray.

2.The PatchMix DSP mixer window appears.

3.The Product Default session contains two Aux 1 Sends as shown at right. If you’re not sure the Product Default session is loaded, see the “Comment” box in the “Session Settings”.

4.If the Product Default session is NOT selected, click once on the Open Session button and select “Product Default” from the list.

5.Close PatchMix by clicking the “X” in the upper right corner.

6.OK, now we’re ready to proceed!

Open Session

Session Settings

Close PatchMix

f Verify that both Aux 1 Insert slots are ﬁlled with Send Inserts as shown.

Click Here to Open PatchMix

E-MU 1212m/1820/1820m PCI Digital Audio System

Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

Steinberg Cubase LE is a 24-bit/96kHz multi-track audio/MIDI recorder with highquality effects, automation, virtual instruments (VSTi) and many other professional features.

The following step-by-step tutorials are designed to get you recording as quickly as possible. After you have ﬁnished the tutorial we encourage you to read the Cubase LE pdf manual in order to learn about the many features of this powerful program. We have provided a PatchMix DSP Session, as well as a special Cubase LE Project to go along with the following tutorials.

1 - Setting up Cubase LE

Follow these instructions carefully to ensure that Cubase LE runs smoothly the ﬁrst time. Cubase LE will remember these settings, so you’ll only have to do this once.

1.Open Cubase LE from the Start menu or by double-clicking the desktop icon. An ASIO multimedia driver test dialog box will pop up to ask if you want to run the ASIO test. Choose No, because you won’t be using the driver anyway.

2.Select Device Setup… from the Devices menu.

3.Select VST Multitrack from the list and the following screen appears.

4.In the Setup section of the dialog box, select E-MU ASIO as the ASIO Driver. A pop up dialog box asks, “Do you want to switch the ASIO driver?” Select Switch.

5.Click the Control Panel button. The pop-up dialog box shown at right appears.

6.Set the ASIO Buffer Latency to 10 ms or less. A low latency setting is important to assure fast MIDI response time and to minimize delay when monitoring through Cubase. Click OK.

7.Make sure the Direct Monitoring box is Unchecked.

8.Close the Device Setup screen by selecting OK.

9.Close Cubase LE by clicking the button. (Close the application even if you’re going to continue with the tutorials, in order to “lock-in” your Preference settings.)

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2 - Basic Multitrack Recording

In this tutorial, we’ll assume you’re using a single input or pair of inputs. For more advanced recording, refer to the Cubase LE manual.

Select the Cubase LE Recording Template

1.Choose (1820) Cubase LE or (1212) Cubase LE from the Start -> Programs menu. The path is: (Program Files\Creative Professional\E-MU PatchMix DSP\VST\ Recording Templates). Cubase LE will launch and load the Project.

2.A pop-up dialog box will appear, asking you to Select Directory. Choose a location on your hard disk where you wish to store your audio ﬁles, then click

OK.

3.The Cubase LE Project window shown below appears. Five empty tracks are ready to record. Each track is already connected to an input or pair of inputs in PatchMix.

4.Select the Track that matches the inputs you’ve connected to the Digital Audio System by clicking on it. Note that the selected track brightens as you select it.

In the example below, we are using Line Inputs 1L/1R.

5.Turn the Monitor button OFF for the track. You will be monitoring the input through PatchMix DSP which has zero-latency.

6.If you want to record in mono, set the track to mono by clicking the Mono/Stereo Selector button. Use the Left input of the stereo pair for mono recording.

The Cubase LE Project Window

Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

f Tip: If you have two or more hard disks, it’s better to store audio ﬁles on a disk that isn’t running your OS.

Turn Monitor OFF

Mono/Stereo

Selected Track

Track Select

Track Input Meters

Track Input

Track Output

(Bus 1 is routed to ASIO 31/32 in VST Outputs.)

7.You should see activity on the Track Input Meter when feeding a signal into the Digital Audio System. If not, open PatchMix to verify meter activity on the input

E-MU 1212m/1820/1820m PCI Digital Audio System

Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

channel (strip). Make sure the PatchMix input channel (strip) matches the Cubase LE Track Input.

8.If your input signal is either too weak or too strong, adjust your input source or the Digital Audio System gain controls.

If you are using the front panel Mic/Line inputs (1820), adjust the input gain knobs as follows. If you can’t get a proper level from the line inputs, open the PatchMix DSP, Session Settings by clicking the O button above the TV screen, then select I/O. If your input signal is too strong, use +4. If your input signal is too weak, use -10.

Record a Track

9. Press Record on the Cubase LE Transport control and start playing.

Return-To-Zero

Stop

Play

Record

10.Press Stop when you’re ﬁnished recording the ﬁrst track.

11.Press the Return-to-Zero button on the Cubase Transport.

12.Press Play on the Cubase Transport to play back your track. The audio from Cubase comes back into PatchMix on the ASIO Out 31/32 Strip.

Record Another Track

13.Press the Return to Zero button on the Cubase Transport.

14.Add another track by selecting Add Track, from the Project menu. Select Audio.

15.A new audio track is added. Notice that the red Record Enable button has been automatically turned on in the new track. (If you wish to record multiple tracks simultaneously, simply turn Record Enable on for each track you wish to record.)

16.Again, set up the track to be either mono or stereo, then choose the Track Input routing. The input can be the same one you used for the ﬁrst track or you can choose a different input.

Save your Project

17.Choose Save As… from the Cubase LE ﬁle menu to save your project. Choose a name and location that will make the project easy to ﬁnd later.

To record into Cubase LE, you must have a PatchMix session containing these 4 basic components:

a)a physical input strip for your input source.

b)an ASIO Send on the physical input strip (so that Cubase can receive your input).

c)an ASIO output strip for Cubase to output its audio back through PatchMix.

d)an output assigned to any physical output (to your monitor speakers).

f A quick way to record additional tracks using the same input is to simply drag the Part (audio region) you just recorded down to another location in the Cubase Arrange window, then hit Record again and go.

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Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

These diagrams may be helpful to visualize the signal routing path.

Recording Path Block Diagram

Mic or Line

Monitor

Input

PatchMix

Digital

Strip

Audio

Cubase LE

ASIO Out

System

31/32

Hardware

VST

PatchMix

Inputs

Main

Mix

PatchMix	Mixer
Input	Mixer
Input			Digital
Strip			Digital
ASIO	Track		Audio
	Track		System

Send
Send			Hardware
1/2			Hardware
1/2	VST
	VST
	Outputs	ASIO	Monitor
		ASIO
PatchMix		31/32
		31/32	Speakers
			Speakers
Main Mix

Recording Mono Inputs as Stereo

Mono		Mono
Input		Input



Digital		Digital
Audio		Audio
System		System
Hardware		Hardware



PatchMix		PatchMix
Input		Input
Strip		Strip

Pan		Pan
				Combined
Full Left		Full Right		into Stereo
Full Left		Full Right
Aux Send 1	L	Aux Send 1	L	Aux Bus 1
Aux Send 1		Aux Send 1		Aux Bus 1
Amount		Amount	R	ASIO Send
Full		Full		9/10
Full		Full		9/10

PatchMix		PatchMix
Main Mix		Main Mix

Stereo

Monitor

PatchMix

Strip

Cubase LE ASIO Out

31/32

VST

Inputs

PatchMix

Main

Mix

Mixer

Digital

Track Audio

System

Hardware

VST

Outputs ASIO

31/32 Monitor

Speakers

E-MU 1212m/1820/1820m PCI Digital Audio System

Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

3 - Export Audio Mixdown to Stereo

At some point, you’ll want to mix down your multitrack project to stereo. Cubase LE has a special function (Audio Mixdown) that makes this job a breeze. The Cubase LE Project window below shows a short song with 4 stereo tracks recorded.

	Locator
Drag from here…	…to here

1.Drag the Right Locator (little blue triangle) to the right. Keep dragging until the blue Locator Bar encompasses the entire song or section you want to mix down. See above.

Mix your Song

2.From the Cubase LE Project window, select Mixer from the Devices menu (or press F3). The Cubase LE Track Mixer appears.

3.Play your song and use the Faders to set the levels of each part. (Note: These moves can be automated in Cubase LE. See the online documentation for details.)

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Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

Export Audio

4.From the Cubase LE Project window, select Export from the File menu and choose

Audio Mixdown.

5. The following screen appears. First choose a location for your ﬁle.

6.Next choose the ﬁle type. Cubase LE can export as: WAVE (.wav), AIFF (.aif), MPEG Layer 3 (.mp3), RealAudio G2 (.rm), or Windows Media Audio (.wma).

WAVE is a good choice for a master ﬁle since it is an uncompressed format. “Stereo Interleaved” creates a single stereo ﬁle.

7.Select the desired Sample Rate and bit Resolution.

8.Press Save to process your Audio Mixdown.

E-MU 1212m/1820/1820m PCI Digital Audio System

Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

4 - Running Proteus X LE VSTi from Cubase LE

These instructions explain how to start Proteus X LE from within Cubase LE. If you have a MIDI keyboard, you should connect it now using the setup diagrams and instructions that came with your E-MU Digital Audio System. Without a keyboard, you will only be able to play one note at a time using the mini keyboard on Proteus X LE.

1.From the Cubase LE Project window, select Add Track from the Project menu and choose MIDI Track.

2. The Cubase Project Window should now look like this with one MIDI track.

E These instructions also apply to Proteus X or Emulator X.

Select

ProteusXLE

MIDI Track

Inspector Area

3. Click on the Devices menu pull-down and select VST Instruments (or press F11).

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4. The VST Instruments window appears. Select ProteusXLE.

5. The VST Instruments window now looks like this.

Edit Button

6.Take a look at the Inspector area on the left side of the Cubase LE project window (diagram on following page). The input to the MIDI track is connected to E-DSP MIDI Port, but the Output is not yet connected to anything. Click on the Output and select ProteusXLE. Now you’re ready to play.

Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

f Tip: Unlike some VSTi’s, Proteus X LE is multitimbral, and able to play up to 16 MIDI channels at once.

It’s far more CPU-efﬁcient to have multiple MIDI channels playing on one instance of Proteus X LE, rather than to have multiple VSTi’s running.

E-MU 1212m/1820/1820m PCI Digital Audio System

Tutorials

Steinberg Cubase LE

7. Click the Edit button of the VST Instruments window to open Proteus X LE. You can also click on the Edit button of the track Inspector to open Proteus X LE.

Load the Proteus X Composer Bank

8.Proteus X LE is now running, but you need to load a bank of sounds.

9.Choose Open from the File menu on Proteus X LE. Locate and load the Proteus X Composer bank, which is located here: (“Program Files/Creative Professional/ E-MU Sound Central”) The bank takes a few seconds to load.

Play the Proteus X Composer Bank

10.Click on the mini keyboard at the bottom of the window. You should be hearing sound. If not, close Cubase LE, and verify that you have the PatchMix DSP Product Default session loaded. Then close and restart Cubase LE.

11.Play your MIDI keyboard (if connected) and verify that it plays Proteus X LE.

12.Change the Preset using the preset inc/dec keys.

13.Feel free to play around for awhile and don’t worry about losing anything. Nothing is made permanent until you Save the bank, so have fun.

To Record a MIDI Track

14.Just hit Record on the Cubase LE Transport control and start playing.

15.Press Stop when you’re ﬁnished recording the ﬁrst track and press the Return-to- Zero button .

16.Press Play on the Cubase Transport to play back your track.

To Record a MIDI Track on another MIDI Channel

Proteus X LE VSTi can play back up to 16 MIDI tracks at once. It’s much better to use several channels on one VSTi than to use multiple VSTi’s with one channel each.

17.Select Add Track from the Project menu and choose MIDI Track. Notice that the channel number in the Inspector section is now set to chn:2.

18.Select Proteus XLE as the Output destination in the Inspector section.

19.Click on the Edit button of the track Inspector to open Proteus X.

20.Select MIDI Channel 2 using the channel inc/dec keys .

21.Select a Preset on Channel 2. Place the cursor in the preset number ﬁeld and use the up/down arrow keys on your computer keyboard to scroll through the list.

22.When you’re ready, hit Record on the Cubase LE Transport and start playing.

23.Press Stop when you’re ﬁnished recording, then RTZ (return-to-zero), then Play. Proteus X LE now plays both MIDI channels.

On Your Own

Cubase LE includes excellent online documentation and help ﬁles. Take the time to learn all the features of this powerful program, and most of all have fun.

f There are several ways to select presets. See the Proteus X LE Operation manual for details.

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