Steinberg Cubase SL - 3.0 Operation Manual

Operation Manual

Manual by Anders Nordmark Quality Control: C. Bachmann, H. Bischoff, S. Pfeifer, C. Schomburg

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.

All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. Windows XP is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. Macintosh and Power Macintosh are registered trademarks.

Table of Contents

9 About this manual

10 Welcome!

13 VST Connections:

Setting up input and output busses

14 About this chapter 14 Setting up busses 21 Using the busses 25 Setting up Groups and FX

channels

26 About the Audition bus

(Cubase SX only)

29 Playback and the

Transport panel

30 Background 34 Operations 38 Options and Settings

41 Recording

42 Background 43 Basic recording methods 48 Audio recording specifics 69 MIDI Recording Specifics 82 Options and Settings

87 The Project window

88 Background 90 Window Overview 105 Operations 147 Options

151 The play order track

152 Introduction 153 Setting up the play order

track

154 Creating a play order

157 Playing back the play order 158 Flattening the play order

159 Folder tracks

160 About folder tracks 161 Handling folder tracks 163 Working with folder parts

167 Using markers

168 About markers 168 The Marker window 172 Using the Marker track 177 Marker key commands 178 Editing markers in the

Project Browser

179 Fades, crossfades

and envelopes

180 Creating fades 184 The Fade dialogs 187 Creating crossfades 190 The Crossfade dialog 193 Auto Fades and Crossfades 195 Event Envelopes

197 The mixer

198 About this chapter 199 Overview 204 Configuring the mixer 212 The audio channel strips 214 The MIDI channel strips 215 The common panel 216 The input & output channels 218 Basic mixing procedures 226 Audio specific procedures 241 MIDI specific procedures 243 Utilities

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4 Table of Contents

249 Audio effects

250 About this chapter 250 Overview 252 Insert effects 263 Send effects 274 Using external effects

(Cubase SX only)

278 Making settings for the

effects

281 Installing and managing

effect plug-ins

289 VST Instruments

290 Introduction 291 Activating and using

VST Instruments

296 The Instrument Freeze

function

299 Surround sound

(Cubase SX only)

300 Background 303 Window overview 305 Operations

317 Automation

318 Background 321 Automation track operations 328 Using Write/Read automa-

tion

335 Working with automation

curves

341 Tips and common methods 342 Options and Settings

343 Remote controlling

the mixer

344 About this chapter 344 Setting Up 346 Operations 348 The Generic Remote device

353 Audio processing and

functions

354 Background 355 Audio processing 374 Applying plug-ins

(Cubase SX only)

377 The Offline Process History

dialog

379 Freeze Edits 380 Detect Silence 383 The Spectrum Analyzer

(Cubase SX only)

386 Statistics (Cubase SX only)

387 The Sample Editor

388 Background 388 Opening the Sample Editor 389 Window overview 394 Operations 406 Options and settings

409 The Audio Part Editor

410 Background 410 Opening the Audio Part

Editor

411 Window overview 414 Operations 418 Common methods 420 Options and Settings

Table of Contents 5

CUBASE SX/SL

421 Audio warp realtime

processing

422 Background 423 Using the Audio Tempo

Definition tool

430 Warp tabs and the Warp

Samples tool

437 Quantizing audio 439 Realtime pitch shifting of

audio events

440 Freezing the realtime

processing

443 Working with

hitpoints and slices

444 Background 445 Using hitpoints 449 Editing hitpoints 456 About Q-points 457 Creating slices 458 Creating groove quantize

maps

459 Other hitpoint functions

463 The Pool

464 Background 466 Window Overview 470 Operations 489 Options and Settings

502 MIDI effects 507 Managing plug-ins 508 Merge MIDI in Loop

511 MIDI processing and

quantizing

512 Introduction 513 Quantizing 524 Other MIDI menu functions 530 Dissolve Part

533 The MIDI editors

534 About editing MIDI 535 Opening a MIDI editor 537 The Key Editor – Overview 543 Key Editor operations 568 Edit In-Place

(Cubase SX only)

570 The Drum Editor – Overview 573 Drum Editor operations 576 Working with drum maps 585 Using drum name lists 586 The List Editor – Overview 587 List Editor operations 594 The Score Editor – Over-

view (Cubase SL only)

597 Score Editor operations

(Cubase SL only)

612 Common MIDI editor

options and settings

491 MIDI realtime para-

meters and effects

492 Introduction 493 The Inspector – General

handling

494 Basic track settings 497 Track parameters

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6 Table of Contents

615 Working with the

Tempo track

616 Background 617 The Tempo Track Editor –

overview

620 Operations 626 Process Tempo

(Cubase SX only)

627 Options and settings 628 The Beat Calculator 630 Merge Tempo From Tapping 631 The Time Warp tool

643 The Project Browser

644 Background 644 Opening the Project

Browser

644 Window Overview 645 Navigating in the Browser 646 Customizing the View 646 About the Sync Selection

option

647 Editing audio tracks 650 Editing MIDI tracks 653 Editing Automation tracks 653 Editing the Video track 654 Editing the Marker track 655 Editing the Tempo track 655 Editing Time Signatures 656 Deleting Events

715 Video

716 Background 717 Operations 723 Options

725 ReWire

726 Introduction 727 Launching and quitting 728 Activating ReWire channels 729 Using the transport and

tempo controls

730 How the ReWire

channels are handled in

Cubase SX/SL

731 Routing MIDI via ReWire2 732 Considerations and

limitations

733 File handling

734 File Operations 756 Options and Settings

657 Export Audio

Mixdown

658 Introduction 659 Mixing down to an audio file 662 File format specifics

677 Synchronization

678 Background 685 Window Overview 686 Operations 694 Options

697 VST System Link

698 Introduction 699 Preparations 705 Activating VST System Link 712 Application examples

759 Customizing

760 Background 761 Workspaces 765 Customizing the Transport

panel

767 Customizing the toolbars 769 Customizing track controls 773 About preference presets

(Cubase SX only)

775 Appearance 775 Applying track and event

colors

777 Where are the settings

stored?

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Table of Contents 7

779 Key commands

780 Background 781 Setting up Key Commands 789 Setting up tool modifier keys

791 Index

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8 Table of Contents

About this manual

Welcome!

This is the Operation Manual for Steinberg’s Cubase SX/SL 3. Here you will find detailed information about virtually all features and functions in the program.

How to use the manuals and the Help

When it comes to manuals, different users look for information in different ways, depending on their previous knowledge and personal preferences. You may be looking for a complete description of a procedure, you may just be trying to find a certain function in the program, you may have found a function in the program and want it explained – or you may simply want to learn it all!

Therefore, there are several ways to enter the documentation and get help:

•

Use the Table of Contents to browse the manual or the Help and find the section you need to know more about.

You can click directly on a chapter or section to go there.

•

Use the Index to look up specific features and functions.

Again, you can click directly on the page number for an index entry to go to there. The help also allows you to perform a free search of any term.

•

In the program you will find Help buttons in most dialogs – click to get information about that specific dialog.

Similarly, you can press [F1] to get information about the current window.

•

If you want information about a specific menu item, use the Menu Reference section in the Help.

All main menu items in Cubase SX/SL are listed and explained there.

•

Finally, you could read the manuals from start to end if you like.

See below for a description of all parts of the Cubase SX/SL documentation package.

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1 – 10 About this manual

About this chapter

As described in the Getting Started book, Cubase SX/SL uses a system of input and output busses to transfer audio between the program

and the audio hardware.

• Input busses let you route audio from the inputs on your audio hardware into the program. This means that when you record audio, you will always do this through one or several input busses.

• Output busses let you route audio from the program to the outputs on your audio hardware. When you play back audio, you will always do this through one or several output busses.

As you can see, the input and output busses are vital when you work with Cubase SX/SL. That’s the reason why you find this chapter in the beginning of the Operation Manual – once you understand the bus system and set up the busses properly, it will be easy to go on with recording, playing back, mixing and doing surround work (Cubase SX only).

Setting up busses

Strategies

You can create any number of busses in Cubase SX/SL. In Cubase SL, busses are in mono or stereo while Cubase SX also supports a number of surround formats.

• The bus configuration is saved with the projects – therefore it’s a good idea to add and set up the busses you need and save these in a template project (see page 737).

When you start working on new projects, you start from this template. That way you get your standard bus configuration without having to make new bus settings for each new project. If you need to work with different bus configurations in different projects, you could either create several different templates or store your configurations as presets (see page 20). The templates can of course also contain other settings that you regularly use – sample rate, record format, a basic track layout, etc.

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2 – 14 VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

So, which type of busses do you need? This depends on your audio hardware, your general audio setup (e.g. surround speaker setup) and what kind of projects you work with. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you are using audio hardware with eight analog inputs and outputs and digital stereo connections (10 inputs and outputs all in all). Furthermore, you work with a surround setup in 5.1 format (relevant for Cubase SX only). Here’s a list of busses you may wish to add:

Input busses

• Most likely you need at least one stereo input bus assigned to an analog input pair. This would let you record stereo material. If you want to be able to record in stereo from other analog input pairs as well, you could add stereo input busses for these too.

• Although you can record mono tracks from one side of a stereo input, it may be a good idea to add a dedicated mono input bus. This could be assigned to an analog input to which you have connected a dedicated microphone preamp for example. Again, you could have several different mono busses.

• You probably want a dedicated stereo input bus assigned to the digital stereo input, for digital transfers.

• If you want to transfer surround material directly to a surround track, e.g. from surround-configured location recording equipment, you need an input bus in that surround format (here, this would be a 5.1 input bus) – Cubase SX only.

Output busses

• You probably want one or several stereo output busses for monitoring and listening to stereo mixes.

• For digital transfers, you need a stereo bus assigned to the digital stereo output as well.

• You need a surround bus in the format of your speaker configuration (here,

5.1) assigned to the correct outputs (which in turn are connected to the correct speakers). Again, this is available in Cubase SX only.

• You may want additional surround busses if you tend to work in different surround formats.

Different busses can use the same inputs/outputs on the audio hardware! You may for example want a stereo output bus assigned to the same outputs as the front stereo channels in your surround bus – this makes it easy to listen to stereo mixes without having to reconnect.

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses 2 – 15

Preparations

Before you set up busses, you should name the inputs and outputs on your audio hardware. For example, if you are using a 5.1 surround speaker setup, you should name the outputs according to which speaker they are connected to (Left, Right, Center and so on).

The reason for this is compatibility – it makes it easier to transfer projects between different computers and setups. For example, if you move your project to another studio, the audio hardware may be of a different model. But if both you and the other studio owner have given your inputs and outputs names according to the surround setup (rather than names based on the audio hardware model), Cubase SX/SL will automatically find the correct inputs and outputs for your busses and you will be able to play and record without changing the settings.

You name your inputs and outputs in the Device Setup dialog:

Open the Device Setup dialog from the Devices menu.

Select the VST Outputs device in the list to the left.

The available output ports on your audio hardware are listed.

To rename a port, click its name in the list and type a new name.

•

If needed, you can also disable ports by clicking in the “Visible” column (so that it says “No”).

Disabled ports won’t show up in the VST Connections window when you are making bus settings. If you attempt to disable a port that is already used by a bus, you will be asked whether that is really what you want – note that this will remove the port from the bus!

Select the VST Inputs and name them in the same way.

Click OK to close the Device Setup dialog.

• If you open a project created on another computer and the port names don’t match (or the port configuration isn’t the same – e.g. the project is created on a system with multi-channel i/o and you open it on a stereo in/out system), a Pending Connections dialog will appear.

This allows you to manually re-route ports used in the project to ports available in your system.

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2 – 16 VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

The VST Connections window

You add and set up busses in the VST Connections window, opened from the Devices menu.

There are five tabs in the window:

• The Input and Output tabs are for viewing input busses or output busses, respectively.

• The Group/FX tab allows you to create Group and FX channels/tracks and to make output assignments for these. See page 25.

• The External FX tab (Cubase SX only) allows you to create effect send/return busses for connecting external effects which can then be selected via the effect pop-up menus from inside the program. See page 274 for a description of how to use external effects.

• The Studio tab (Cubase SX only) is for the Audition bus, which is a dedicated output bus for auditioning in the Sample editor, when importing, etc. See

page 26.

For the time being we shall focus on how to set up input and output busses.

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses 2 – 17

Depending on which tab you have selected, Input or Output, the window lists the current input or output busses, with the following three columns:

Column Description

Bus Name Lists the busses. You can select busses and rename them by clicking

on them in this column.

Speakers Indicates the speaker configuration (mono, stereo, surround formats)

of each bus.

Audio Device This shows the currently selected Master ASIO driver.

Device Port When you have “opened” a bus (by clicking its + button in the Bus

Name column) this column shows which physical input/output on your audio hardware is used by the bus.

Adding a bus

Click the Inputs or Outputs tab depending on which you want to add.

Click the Add Bus button.

A dialog appears.

3. Select the desired (channel) configuration.

The pop-up menu contains Mono and Stereo options as well as the most common surround formats (Cubase SX only). To select another surround format, use the “More…” submenu.

• Alternatively you can right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) in the VST Connections window and add a bus in the desired format directly from the context menu that appears.

The new bus appears with the ports visible.

4. Click in the Device Port column to select an input/output port for a channel in the bus.

The pop-up menu that appears lists the ports with the names you have given them in the Device Setup dialog. Repeat this for all channels in the bus.

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2 – 18 VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Adding a child bus (Cubase SX only)

A surround bus is essentially a set of mono channels – 6 channels in the case of 5.1 format. If you have a mono track in the project, you can route it to a separate speaker channel in the bus (or route it to the whole surround bus and use the surround panner to position it in the surround image). But what if you have a stereo track that you simply want to route to a stereo channel pair within the bus (Left and Right or Left Surround and Right Surround for example)? For this you need to create a child bus:

1. Select the surround bus in the list and right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) it.

A pop-up menu appears.

2. Select a channel configuration from the “Add Child Bus” submenu.

As you can see, you can create stereo child busses (routed to various speaker channel pairs in the surround bus) or other surround bus formats (with fewer channels than the “parent bus”).

The child bus you created will be available for direct routing in the mixer. It’s a part of the parent surround bus, which means there will be no separate channel strip for it.

Although child busses are probably most useful in output busses, you could also create child busses within a surround input bus – for example if you want to record a stereo channel pair (e.g. front left-right) in the surround bus to a separate stereo track.

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses 2 – 19

Other bus operations

• To change the port assignment for a bus you proceed as when you added it – make sure the channels are visible (by clicking the + button next to the bus, or by clicking the “+ All” button at the top of the window) and click in the Device Port column to select ports.

• To remove a bus you don’t need, select it in the list, right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) and select “Remove Bus” from the pop-up menu.

• You can store and recall bus presets with the pop-up menu at the top of the window.

To store the current configuration as a preset, click the store (+) button and enter a name for the preset. You can then select the stored configuration directly from the Presets pop-up menu at any time. To remove a stored preset, select it and click the (-) button.

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2 – 20 VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Using the busses

This section describes briefly how to use the input and output busses you have created. This is described in more detail in the chapters “Re-

cording” and “The mixer”.

Routing

When you play back an audio track (or any other audio channel in the mixer – VST Instrument channels, ReWire channels, etc.), you route it to an output bus. In the same way, when you record on an audio track you select from which input bus the audio should be sent.

• You can select input and output busses in the Inspector, using the “In” and “Out” pop-up menus.

For channel types other than audio tracks (VST Instrument channels, FX channels, etc.), only the “Out” pop-up menu is available. To access the “Out” pop-up menu for such a channel in the Inspector, select one of its automation subtracks in the Track list.

• You can also select busses in the Input and Output Settings panel at the top of each channel strip in the mixer.

Again, for VST Instrument channels, ReWire channels, Group channels and FX channels you will only be able to select output busses.

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses 2 – 21

• Cubase SX: If you press [Alt]/[Option] and select an input or output bus, it will be chosen for all selected channels.

This makes it easy to quickly set several channels to use the same input or output. Similarly, if you press [Shift] and select a bus, the following selected channels will be set to use incrementing busses - the second selected channel will use the second bus, the third will use the third bus and so on.

• If the Input and Output Settings panel isn’t shown, click the Show Input and Output Settings field in the common panel to the left in the mixer (Cubase SX only) or click the respective plus sign in the Common Panel of the Mixer.

When selecting an input bus for a track you can only select busses that correspond to the track’s channel configuration. Here are the details:

• Mono tracks can be routed to mono busses or individual channels within a stereo or surround bus (input or output). You can also route a mono track to the “whole” stereo or surround output bus, in which case a pan control (stereo pan or surround panner) will be used to position the sound.

• Stereo tracks can be routed to stereo busses or stereo child busses within a surround bus (input or output).

• Surround tracks can be routed to busses with the same number of speaker channels as the track (or to corresponding child busses within a “larger” surround bus).

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2 – 22 VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Viewing the busses in the mixer

In the Cubase SX mixer, busses are represented by input and output channels (shown in separate panes to the left and right in the window). You can show or hide these independently by clicking the buttons Hide Input Channels and Hide Output Channels in the mixer’s common panel to the left:

Hide Input Channels

Hide Output Channels

• In Cubase SL, only the output busses are visible in the mixer!

The input busses you have created in the VST Connections window are available for selection on the input routing pop-up menus, but you cannot make any specific mixer settings for the input busses.

Input channels (shown in Cubase SX only)

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses 2 – 23

The input channels are shown to the left in the mixer. As you can see, each input channel resembles a regular mixer channel strip. Here you can do the following:

• Check and adjust the recording level using the Input Gain knobs and/or the level fader.

See page 52.

• Change the phase of the input signal.

This is done by clicking the Input Phase button next to the Input Gain control.

• Add effects or EQ to the input bus.

See page 66 for an example of how to add effects to your recording at the input bus stage.

The settings you make in the input channel strip will be a permanent part of the recorded audio file!

Output channels

The output channels are shown to the right in the mixer. Here you can do the following:

• Adjust the total output level for the busses with the faders.

• Add effects or EQ.

These will affect the whole bus. Examples of effects you may want to add here include compressors, limiters and dithering. See page 259.

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Setting up Groups and FX channels

The Group/FX tab in the VST Connections window shows all Group channels and FX channels in your project. You can create new Group or FX channels by clicking the corresponding Add button. This is the same as creating Group channel tracks or FX channel tracks in the Project window (see page 238 and page 264 for details).

However, the VST Connections window also allows you to create child busses for Groups and FX Channels (Cubase SX only). This is useful e.g. if you have Groups or FX Channels in surround format and want to route stereo channels to specific channel pairs in these.

To create a child bus for a Group channel or FX channel, proceed as follows:

1. Open the VST Connection window and select the Groups/FX tab.

2. Select the Group or FX channel in the list and right-click (Win) or

[Ctrl]-click (Mac) it.

3. Select a channel configuration from the “Add Child Bus” submenu.

The child bus you created will be available for direct routing in the mixer. It’s a part of the parent Group or FX channel, which means there will be no separate channel strip for it.

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses 2 – 25

About the Audition bus (Cubase SX only)

The Audition bus provides a “direct” and dedicated output for auditioning - in the Project window and audio editors, when you import audio files, when you export audio with the “Real-Time Export” option activated, etc.

You set up the Audition bus output from the “Studio” tab in the VST Connections window, using the same methods as for other output busses. It can use any available Device Port outputs, e.g. the outputs you are using for monitoring your stereo mix, or other ports perhaps connected to separate monitors. Being able to use separate audio outputs for auditioning is particularly useful if you are working with surround mixes as you probably don’t want to monitor via surround speakers when editing audio.

• The Audition bus cannot be removed. However, you can change its channel configuration by right-clicking (Win) or [Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) the bus and selecting the desired configuration from the “Change Bus” submenu.

Having an Audition bus in surround format could be useful if you are working with audio files in interleaved surround format (e.g. 5.1 files).

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Setting the Audition bus level

In the Mixer, the Audition bus is represented by a channel strip in the output section, to the right of the regular output channels. The Audition bus channel strip only has a mute button and a level fader.

When auditioning or scrubbing in the Sample editor, you can also set the output level of the Audition bus using the small fader on the Sample editor toolbar.

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VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses 2 – 27

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2 – 28 VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses

Playback and the Transport

panel

Background

This chapter describes the various methods available for controlling Playback and Transport functions in Cubase SX/SL.

The Transport panel

Below you can find a brief description of each Transport panel item.

• You can customize the look of the Transport panel, hiding unneeded controls and moving controls as desired – see page 765.

The pictures below show the Transport panel with all controls visible and in their default position (note that the Jog/Shuttle control is available in Cubase SX only). The Transport panel is divided into sections, from left to right.

Record mode pop-up

Cycle Record mode pop-up

CPU load and Disk Cache meters

Left locator: record start point, punch in point and beginning of Cycle

Activates punch in

Activates punch out

Right locator: punch out point and end of Cycle

Primary Time Display and format pop-up

Nudge position right/left

Position slider

Go to previous marker or project start

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3 – 30 Playback and the Transport panel

Rewind Stop

Fast forward

Go to next marker or project end

Activates Auto Quantize

Preroll setting and on/off switch

Nudge +/- 1 Frame

Jog Wheel (project scrubbing)

Shuttle speed

Postroll setting and on/off switch

Exchange time formats

Cycle on/off

Secondary Time Display and format pop-up

Record

Play

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