Steinberg Cubase Studio - 5.0 User Manual [es]

Getting Started Cómo Empezar

Tutorials by Steve Kostrey Revision and Quality Control: Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Marion Bröer, Sabine Pfeifer

Thanks to: Georg Bruns 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. Windows Vista is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. Macintosh and Power Macintosh are registered trademarks.

1 Getting Started

Cómo Empezar

3 Table of Contents 6 Introduction

7 Welcome 7 About the manuals and the help 8 About the program versions 8 Key command conventions 8 How you can reach us

9 System requirements and installation

10 About this chapter 10 Minimum requirements 12 Hardware installation 13 Installing Cubase 13 Defragmenting the hard disk (Windows only) 13 Register your software

14 Setting up your system

15 Setting up audio 19 Setting up MIDI 20 Connecting a synchronizer 21 Setting up video 21 Optimizing audio performance

23 Tutorial 1: Recording audio

24 Creating a new project 25 Setting up the VST connections 26 Level settings and recording 28 Playback 29 Recording modes with cycle off 29 Cycle recording 31 Stacked recording

32 Tutorial 2: Editing audio

33 Event operations 38 Event envelopes 38 Processing audio 39 Offline process history

40 Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

41 Introduction 41 Creating an Instrument Track 42 Browsing sounds 42 MIDI recording 43 MIDI playback 44 Recording modes with cycle off 44 Cycle recording 45 The Key Editor 46 The Controller lane

47 Tutorial 4: Working with loops

48 Loop Browser 48 Adding loops 49 Making copies 49 Insert into Project

50 Tutorial 5: External MIDI instruments

(Cubase only)

51 Introduction 51 Setting up MIDI devices 51 Setting up VST connections for external instru-

ments

52 Monitoring external MIDI instruments 53 Recording MIDI and external instruments

54 Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

55 Introduction 55 Setting levels 56 Setting panorama 56 Mute and solo 57 Adding EQ 58 Audio effects 60 About automation 61 Exporting

63 Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cu-

base only)

64 Surround busses 66 Setting up a surround mix 67 Recording in surround 68 Exporting a surround file

Table of Contents

69 Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and

groove

70 Background 70 Drum loop, tempo known 71 Drum loop, Auto Adjust 72 Drum loop, Manual Adjust 73 Working with selections 74 Changing pitch using VariAudio 75 Editing segments using VariAudio 77 Tilting notes using VariAudio 78 VariAudio and vocals

81 Tutorial 9: Media management

82 Background 82 MediaBay, Loop Browser and Sound Browser 84 Scanning with the browser 85 Searching for media 86 Auditioning media with the Scope 86 Tagging

88 Index

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome

Congratulations and thank you for your purchase of Steinberg Cubase/Cubase Studio. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH and our key message “Creativity First” has never had more meaning than today. Over many years and many product generations Cubase has grown from a classic MIDI sequencer to possibly the most powerful music production software money can buy. And as a Cubase user, you have now become a member of the largest community of music software users on the planet!

With Cubase you have chosen an advanced music production system, which will take you from the very first idea to the final mix. Maybe you’re a keyboard player, a songwriter, an instrumentalist or a mixing engineer. Maybe you’re a professional, a hobby musician, a student or a teacher – Cubase has it all covered and gives you the tools you need to record, edit, mix and master your music. Unique features such as the Arranger Track, VST Sound, Control Room (Cubase only) and the introduction of industry standards like VST and ASIO are good examples for how Steinberg technology has always driven music technology and paved ways for others to follow.

Designed by the software engineers at Steinberg and the hardware experts at Yamaha, Steinberg Advanced Integration hardware is the ideal choice for you as a valued Cubase customer. Full plug&play connectivity and True Integrated Monitoring™ are only two of the many advantages that come with hardware and software that have been made for each other.

Cubase 5 puts new creative tools into your hands, which allow you to realize your musical ideas more easily and intuitively than ever before. LoopMash (Cubase only) is a revolutionary virtual instrument offering a fresh and innovative way of producing stunning new beats and loop variations. Groove Agent One pairs powerful drum sampling with detailed sound shaping – all seamlessly integrated into Cubase and working hand in hand with the new Beat Designer plug-in, so you can capture your ideas faster and experiment freely.

VariAudio offers completely integrated pitch and note length editing for individual notes in monophonic vocal recordings - bridging the gap between traditional MIDI and audio editing. The new Pitch Correct plug-in in Cubase introduces easy and automatic intonation control and scale

correction of vocal and monophonic instrument recordings. If you are into composing, you will be excited about VST Expression which takes the pain out of working with multiple instrument articulations of huge libraries by introducing customizable and transparently integrated editing with precision access in the Key and Score Editors. These are just a few examples of how Cubase supports and expands your creative vision.

Don’t forget to register at MySteinberg and get access to online support offers and additional exclusive services. We also welcome you to the Cubase community at our online forum cubase.net.

See you around! Your Steinberg Cubase Team

About the manuals and the help

The Cubase documentation is divided into several sections, as listed below. Some of the documents are in Adobe Acrobat format (extension “.pdf”) – these can be accessed in the following ways:

• You can open the pdf documents from the Documentation

submenu on the Help menu in the program.

• Under Windows you can also open these documents from the

Cubase Documentation subfolder on the Windows Start menu.

• Under Mac OS X the pdf documents are located in the folder

“/Library/Documentation/Steinberg/Cubase 5”.

Ö To read the pdf documents, you need to have a suitable pdf reader application installed on your computer.

An installer for Adobe Reader is provided on the program DVD.

The Getting Started manual

This is the manual you are reading now. It covers the following areas:

• Computer requirements.

• Installation issues.

• Setting up your system for audio, MIDI and/or video work.

• Tutorials describing the most common procedures for record-

ing, playing back, mixing and editing in Cubase.

In other words, this manual does not go into detail on any Cubase windows, functions or procedures.

Introduction

The Operation Manual

The Operation Manual is the main Cubase reference documentation, with detailed descriptions of Cubase operations, parameters, functions and techniques. It also includes detailed information about the Score Editor. You should be familiar with the concepts and methods described in the Getting Started manual before moving on to the Operation Manual.

Similarly, some features and settings are specific to one of the platforms, Windows or Mac OS X. This is clearly stated in the applicable cases. In other words:

Ö If nothing else is said, all descriptions and procedures in the documentation are valid for both Cubase and Cubase Studio, under Windows and Mac OS X.

The screenshots are taken from the Windows version of Cubase.

MIDI Devices

This pdf document contains descriptions of how to manage MIDI Devices and device panels.

Plug-in Reference

This manual describes the features and parameters of the included VST plug-ins, realtime audio effects, VST Instruments and the MIDI effects.

Remote Control Devices

This pdf document lists the supported MIDI remote control devices.

Menu Reference

This pdf document provides a list of all menus and their options with a brief description, for quick reference.

The dialog help

To get information about the active dialog, click its Help button.

About the program versions

The documentation covers two program versions; Cubase and Cubase Studio, for two different operating systems or “platforms”; Windows and Mac OS X.

Some features described in the documentation are only applicable to the Cubase version. Whenever this is the case this will be clearly indicated in the heading of the related subject.

Key command conventions

Many of the default key commands in Cubase use modifier keys, some of which are different depending on the operating system. For example, the default key command for Undo is [Ctrl]-[Z] under Windows and [Command]-[Z] under Mac OS X.

When key commands with modifier keys are described in this manual, they are shown with the Windows modifier key first, in the following way:

[Win modifier key]/[Mac modifier key]-[key] For example, [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Z] means “press [Ctrl] un-

der Windows or [Command] under Mac OS X, then press [Z]”. Similarly, [Alt]/[Option]-[X] means “press [Alt] under Windows or [Option] under Mac OS X, then press [X]”.

Ö Please note that this manual often refers to “rightclicking”, e.g. to open context menus. If you are using a Macintosh computer with a single-button mouse, hold down [Ctrl] and click.

How you can reach us

On the Help menu in Cubase you will find items for getting additional information and help:

• On the “Steinberg on the Web” submenu, you can find links to various Steinberg web sites. Selecting one will automatically launch your browser application and open the page.

You can find support and compatibility information, answers to frequently asked questions, links for downloading new drivers, etc. This requires that you have a web browser application installed on your computer, and a working Internet connection.

Introduction

System requirements and installation

About this chapter

General notes on how to set up your system

This chapter describes the requirements and installation procedures for the Windows version and the Mac version of Cubase.

Minimum requirements

To use Cubase, your computer must meet the following minimum requirements:

Windows

• Windows XP (Home or Professional, Service Pack 2), or Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit – see below)

• 2 GHz processor (Dual Core processor recommended)

•1024MB RAM

• Windows DirectX compatible audio hardware; ASIO compatible audio hardware recommended for low latency performance.

• Display resolution of 1280x800 pixels recommended

• 4GB of free hard disk space

• Steinberg Key and USB component connector

• DVD ROM drive with dual layer support required for installation

• Internet connection required for license activation

Macintosh

• Mac OS X 10.5.5

• PowerPC G5 (Intel Core Duo processor recommended)

•1024MB RAM

• CoreAudio compatible audio hardware

• Display resolution of 1280x800 pixels

• 4GB of free hard disk space

• Steinberg Key and USB component connector

• DVD ROM drive with dual layer support required for installation

• Internet connection required for license activation

On the Steinberg web site, under “Support–DAW Components”, you can find detailed information on what to consider when setting up a computer system dedicated to audio work.

• RAM – There is a direct relation between the amount of available RAM and the number of audio channels that you can have running.

The amount of RAM specified above is the minimum requirement, but as a general rule “the more the better” applies.

• Hard disk size – The size of the hard disk determines how many minutes of audio you will be able to record.

Recording one minute of stereo CD quality audio requires 10 MB of hard disk space. That is, eight stereo tracks in Cubase use up at least 80 MB of disk space per recording minute.

• Hard disk speed – The speed of the hard drive also determines the number of audio tracks you can run.

That is the quantity of information that the disk can read, usually expressed as “sustained transfer rate”. Again, “the more the better” applies.

• Wheel mouse – Although a mouse without a wheel will work fine with Cubase, we recommend that you use a wheel mouse.

This will speed up value editing and scrolling considerably.

MIDI requirements

If you intend to use the MIDI features of Cubase, you need the following:

• A MIDI interface to connect external MIDI equipment to your computer.

•A MIDI instrument.

• Any audio equipment required to listen to the sound from your MIDI devices.

Ö If you want to install the 64-bit version of Cubase, make sure you read the ReadMe document on this topic before proceeding.

You will find this document, called “Windows_Vista_64bit_[language].rtf”, on the installation DVD, in the ReadMe Files folder.

System requirements and installation

Audio hardware

Cubase will run with audio hardware that meets the following specifications:

•Stereo.

•16 bit.

• Support of at least the 44.1kHz sampling rate.

• Windows – The audio hardware must be supplied with a special ASIO driver, or a DirectX compatible driver, see below.

• Windows Vista only – If there is no dedicated ASIO driver available, you can also use the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver.

• Mac – The audio hardware must be supplied with Mac OS Xcompatible drivers (CoreAudio or ASIO).

Using the built-in audio hardware of the Macintosh (Mac only)

Although Cubase is designed with multi-channel input and output in mind, it’s of course possible to use the program with “basic” stereo inputs and outputs. As of this writing, all current Macintosh models provide at least builtin 16 bit stereo audio hardware. For detailed information, refer to the documentation describing your computer.

Depending on your preferences and requirements, using the built-in audio hardware may be sufficient for use with Cubase. It is always available for selection in Cubase – you don’t need to install any additional drivers.

Some Macintosh models have audio outputs but no inputs. This means that you can only play back audio – recording is not possible without additional audio hardware.

About drivers

A driver is a piece of software that allows a program to communicate with a certain piece of hardware. In this case, the driver allows Cubase to use the audio hardware. For audio hardware, there are two different cases, requiring different driver configurations:

If the audio hardware has a specific ASIO driver

Professional audio cards often come with an ASIO driver written especially for the card. This allows for communication directly between Cubase and the audio card. As a result, audio cards with specific ASIO drivers can provide

lower latency (input-output delay), which is crucial when monitoring audio via Cubase or using VST Instruments. The ASIO driver may also provide special support for multiple inputs and outputs, routing, synchronization, etc.

Audio card-specific ASIO drivers are provided by the card manufacturers. Make sure to check the manufacturer’s web site for the latest driver versions.

If your audio hardware comes with a specific ASIO driver we strongly recommend that you use this.

If the audio card communicates via the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver (Windows Vista only)

If you are working with Windows Vista, you can use the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver. This is a generic ASIO driver that provides ASIO support for all audio cards supported by Windows Vista, thus allowing for low latency. The Generic Low Latency ASIO driver provides the Windows Vista Core Audio technology in Cubase. No additional driver is needed.

Ö Though the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver provides low latency for all audio cards, you might get better results with on-board audio cards than with external USB audio devices.

If the audio card communicates via DirectX (Windows only)

DirectX is a Microsoft “package” for handling various types of multimedia data under Windows. Cubase supports DirectX, or to be more precise, DirectSound, which is a part of DirectX used for playing back and recording audio. This requires two types of drivers:

• A DirectX driver for the audio card, allowing it to communicate with DirectX. If the audio card supports DirectX, this driver should be supplied by the audio card manufacturer. If it isn’t installed with the audio card, please check the manufacturer’s web site for more information.

• The ASIO DirectX Full Duplex driver, allowing Cubase to communicate with DirectX. This driver is included with Cubase, and does not require any special installation.

System requirements and installation

Hardware installation

Copy protection

Please read the following section before installing the Cubase software.

Many Steinberg products use the Steinberg Key (also referred to as a “dongle” or “eLicenser”), a hardware copy protection device. Cubase will not run if there is no Steinberg Key containing an activated license.

The Steinberg Key

The Steinberg Key is, in fact, a little computer on which your Steinberg software licenses are stored. All hardware-protected Steinberg products use the same type of key, and you can store more than one license on one key. Also, licenses can (within certain limits) be transferred between keys – which is helpful, e.g. if you want to sell a piece of software.

The Syncrosoft License Control Center (which can be found on the Start menu on Windows systems or the Applications folder on a Mac) is the place where you can check the licenses installed on your Steinberg Key.

• If you are using other copy-protected Steinberg products, you may want to transfer all licenses for your applications to only one Steinberg Key, thus using up only one USB port of your computer.

To transfer licenses between keys, launch the License Transfer wizard of the Syncrosoft License Control Center and follow the instructions.

• The full version of Cubase is sold with a Steinberg Key and an Activation Code, which is found on the Essential Product License Information card within the product package. The Steinberg Key already contains a time-limited license that allows you to use Cubase out-of-the-box for a total of 25 non-consecutive hours. However, to be able to make unlimited use of your version of Cubase, you must activate your permanent license manually, using the activation code.

To do so, launch the License Download wizard of the Syncrosoft License Control Center and follow the instructions.

• Steinberg software products always come with a li-

cense activation code, but not always with a Steinberg Key.

If you want to activate a license for such a Steinberg software (e. g. an update/upgrade, or a VSTi) on the Steinberg Key you received with your original version of Cubase, launch the License Download wizard of the Syncrosoft License Control Center and follow the instructions.

More information on the transfer or activation of licenses can be found in the help for the Syncrosoft License Control Center.

Installing the audio hardware and its driver

1. Install the audio card and related equipment in the

computer, as described in the card’s documentation.

2. Install the driver for the card.

Depending on the operating system of your computer, there are different types of drivers that could apply: card-specific ASIO drivers, the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver (Windows Vista only), DirectX drivers (Windows) or Mac OS X (Mac) drivers.

Specific ASIO drivers

If your audio card has a specific ASIO driver, it may be included with the audio card, but you should always make sure to check the audio card manufacturer’s web site for the most recent drivers. For details on how to install the driver, refer to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver (Windows Vista only)

On Windows Vista systems, you can also use the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver if there is no specific ASIO driver available. This driver is included with Cubase and does not require any special installation.

DirectX drivers (Windows only)

If your audio card is DirectX compatible, its DirectX drivers will most likely be installed when you install the card. If you have downloaded special DirectX drivers for the audio card, you should follow the manufacturer’s installation instructions.

Mac OS X drivers (Mac only)

If you are using a Macintosh computer, make sure you are using the latest Mac OS X drivers for your audio hardware. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to install the driver.

System requirements and installation

Testing the card

To make sure the audio card will work as expected, perform the following two tests:

• Use any software included with the audio card to make sure you can record and play back audio without problems.

• If the card is accessed via a standard operating system driver, try playing back audio using the computer’s standard audio application (e.g. Windows Media Player or Apple iTunes).

Installing a MIDI interface/synthesizer card

Installation instructions for a MIDI interface should be included with the product. However, here’s an outline of the necessary steps:

1. Install the interface (or MIDI synthesizer card) inside your computer or connect it to a “port” (connector) on the computer.

Which is right for you depends on which type of interface you have.

2. If the interface has a power supply and/or a power switch, turn it on.

3. Install the driver for the interface, as described in the documentation that comes with the interface.

You should also make sure to check the manufacturer’s web site for the latest driver updates.

Installing Cubase

Macintosh

1. Double-click the file called “Cubase 5.mpkg” or “Cu-

base Studio 5.mpkg”.

2. Follow the instructions on screen.

About the tutorials

The program DVD also contains several tutorial project files and videos. These are not installed during the installation, but can be added manually from the DVD.

The tutorial chapters in this manual all refer to these tutorial projects. So, to be able to follow the instructions in this manual, you have to drag the files to your computer.

You will find the Tutorial Projects in the folder “Additional Content”.

Defragmenting the hard disk (Windows only)

If you plan to record audio on a hard disk where you have already stored other files, now is the time to defragment it. Defragmentation reorganizes the physical allocation of space on the hard disk in order to optimize its performance. It is done with a special defragmentation program.

It is crucial to the audio recording performance that your hard disk is optimized (defragmented). You should make sure to defragment regularly.

The installation procedure puts all files in the right places, automatically.

Depending on your system, the Cubase 5 Start Center program on the DVD may start automatically. If no interactive start screen appears, open the DVD and double-click the file “Cubase 5/Cubase Studio 5 Start Center” to launch the interactive start screen. From there you can start the installation of Cubase and browse through the additional options and information presented there.

In case you don’t want to install Cubase via the interactive start screen, follow the procedure below:

Windows

1. Double-click the file called Setup.exe.

2. Follow the instructions on screen.

System requirements and installation

Register your software

We encourage you to register your software! By doing so you are entitled to technical support and kept aware of updates and other news regarding Cubase.

You can register in the following ways:

• In Cubase, open the Help menu and select the Regis-

tration option.

This option is an Internet link that will open the Registration page of the Steinberg web site. To register, simply follow the instructions on screen.

• When you launch Cubase, you will also be prompted to

launch the registration process.

Setting up your system

Setting up audio

Make sure that all equipment is turned off before making any connections!

Connecting audio

Exactly how to set up your system depends on many different factors, e.g. the kind of project you wish to create, the external equipment you want to use, the computer hardware available to you, etc. Therefore, the following sections can only serve as examples.

How you connect your equipment, i.e. whether you use digital or analog connections, also depends on your individual setup.

Stereo input and output – the simplest connection

If you only use a stereo input and output from Cubase, you can connect your audio hardware, e.g. the inputs of your audio card or your audio interface, directly to the input source and the outputs to a power amplifier and speaker.

A simple stereo audio setup

This is probably the simplest of all setups – once you have set up the internal input and output busses, you can connect your audio source, e.g. a microphone, to your audio interface and start recording.

• External mixing means having a hardware mixing device

with a group or bus system that can be used for feeding inputs on your audio hardware.

In the example below, four busses are used for feeding signals to the audio hardware’s inputs. The four outputs are connected back to the mixer for monitoring and playback. Remaining mixer inputs can be used for connecting audio sources like microphones, instruments, etc.

A multi-channel audio setup using an external mixer

Ö When connecting an input source (like a mixer) to the audio hardware, you should use output busses, sends or similar that are separate from the mixer’s master output to avoid recording what you are playing back. You may also have mixing hardware that can be connected via FireWire.

• When using the Mixer inside Cubase, you can use the

inputs on your audio hardware to connect microphones and/or external devices. Use the outputs to connect your monitoring equipment.

Cubase only: You can create very complex setups using external instruments and external effects, and integrate Cubase seamlessly with all your external equipment using the Control Room feature (see the chapters “VST Connections: setting up input and output busses” and “The Control Room” in the Operation Manual for details).

Multi-channel input and output

Most likely however, you will have other audio equipment that you want to integrate with Cubase, using several input and output channels. Depending on the equipment available to you, there are two ways to go: either mixing using an external mixing desk, or mixing using the mixer inside Cubase.

Setting up your system

Mixing inside Cubase

Connecting for surround sound (Cubase only)

If you plan to mix for surround sound, you can connect the audio outputs to a multi-channel power amplifier, driving a set of surround channels.

A surround sound playback configuration

Cubase supports surround formats with up to 6 speaker channels. The figure above shows a 5.1 surround setup.

Recording from a CD player

Most computers come with a CD-ROM drive that can also be used as a regular CD player. In some cases the CD player is internally connected to the audio hardware so that you can record the output of the CD player directly into Cubase (consult the audio hardware documentation if you are uncertain).

• All routing and level adjustments for recording from a CD (if available) are done in the audio hardware setup application (see below).

• You can also grab audio tracks directly from a CD in Cubase (see the chapter “File Handling” in the Operation Manual).

Word Clock connections

If you are using a digital audio connection, you may also need a word clock connection between the audio hardware and external devices. Please refer to the documentation that came with the audio hardware for details.

It is very important that word clock synchronization is done correctly or there might be clicks and crackles in recordings that you make!

About recording levels and inputs

When you connect your equipment, you should make sure that the impedance and levels of the audio sources and inputs are matched. Typically, different inputs may be designed for use with microphones, consumer line level (-10dBV) or professional line level (+4dBV), or you may be able to adjust input characteristics on the audio interface or in its control panel. Please check the audio hardware documentation for details.

Using the correct types of input is important to avoid distortion or noisy recordings.

Cubase does not provide any input level adjustments for the signals coming in to your audio hardware, since these are handled differently for each card. Adjusting input levels is either done in a special application included with the hardware or from its control panel (see below).

Making settings for the audio hardware

Most audio cards come with one or more small applications that allow you to configure the inputs of the hardware to your liking. This includes:

• Selecting which inputs/outputs are active.

• Setting up word clock synchronization (if available).

• Turning monitoring via the hardware on/off (see “About moni-

toring” on page 19).

• Setting levels for each input. This is very important!

• Setting levels for the outputs, so that they match the equipment you use for monitoring.

• Selecting digital input and output formats.

• Making settings for the audio buffers.

In many cases all available settings for the audio hardware are gathered in a control panel, which can be opened from within Cubase as described below (or opened separately, when Cubase isn’t running). In some cases, there may be several different applications and panels – please refer to the audio hardware documentation for details.

Plug and Play support for ASIO devices

The Steinberg MR816 hardware series supports Plug and Play in Cubase. These devices can be plugged in and switched on while the application is running. Cubase will automatically use the driver of the MR816 series and will re-map the VST connections accordingly.

Setting up your system

• Please note that Steinberg cannot guarantee that this

will work with other hardware. If you are unsure of whether your device supports plug and play, please consult its documentation.

If a device that does not support Plug and Play is connected/disconnected while the computer is running, it may get damaged.

Selecting a driver and making audio settings in Cubase

The first thing you need to do is select the correct driver in Cubase to make sure that the program can communicate with the audio hardware:

1. Launch Cubase, select Device Setup from the Devices menu and click on VST Audio System in the Devices list to the left.

The VST Audio System page in the Device Setup dialog

2. Select your audio hardware driver from the ASIO Driver menu.

There may be several options here that all refer to the same audio hardware. When you have selected a driver, it is added to the Devices list.

Under Windows, we strongly recommend that you access your hardware via an ASIO driver written specifically for the hardware, if available. If no ASIO driver is installed, we recommend that you check with your audio hardware manufacturer if they have an ASIO driver available, for example for download via the Internet.

On Windows Vista systems, you can also use the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver if no specific ASIO driver is available.

3. Select the driver in the Devices list to open the Driver

settings for your audio hardware.

4. Bring up the control panel for the audio hardware and

adjust the settings as recommended by the audio hardware manufacturer.

• Under Windows, you open the control panel by clicking

the Control Panel button.

The control panel that appears when you click this button is provided by the audio hardware manufacturer – not Cubase (unless you use DirectX, see below). Hence it will be different for each audio card brand and model. The control panels for the ASIO DirectX driver and the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver (Windows Vista only) are exceptions, in that they are provided by Steinberg and described in the dialog help, opened by clicking the Help button in the dialog. See also the notes on DirectX below.

• Under Mac OS X, the control panel for your audio hard-

ware is opened by clicking the “Open Config App” button on the settings page for your audio device in the Device Setup dialog.

Note that this button is available only for some hardware products. If “Open Config App” is not available in your setup, refer to the documentation that came with your audio hardware for information on where to make hardware settings.

5. If you plan to use several audio applications simulta-

neously, you may want to activate the option “Release Driver when Application is in Background” on the VST Audio System page. This will allow another application to play back via your audio hardware even though Cubase is running.

The application that is currently active (i.e. the “top window” on the desktop) will get access to the audio hardware. Make sure that any other audio application accessing the audio hardware is also set to release the ASIO (or Mac OS X) driver so Cubase can use it when it becomes the active application again.

6. If your audio hardware and its driver support ASIO Di-

rect Monitoring, you may want to activate the Direct Monitoring checkbox on the page for the driver.

Read more about monitoring later in this chapter and in the chapter “Recording” in the Operation Manual.

7. Click Apply and then OK to close the dialog.

Setting up your system

If you are using audio hardware with a DirectX driver

(Windows only)

If your audio hardware does not have a specific ASIO driver and your Windows version does not support the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver, a DirectX driver is the next best option.

Cubase comes with a driver called ASIO DirectX Full Duplex, available for selection on the ASIO Driver pop-up menu (VST Audio System page).

Ö To be able to take full advantage of DirectX Full Duplex, the audio hardware must support WDM (Windows Driver Model) in combination with DirectX version 8.1 or higher.

In all other cases, the audio inputs will be emulated by DirectX (see the dialog help for the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Setup dialog for details about how this is reported).

Ö During the installation of Cubase, the latest DirectX will be installed on your computer.

When the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex driver is selected in the Device Setup dialog, you can open the ASIO Control Panel and adjust the following settings (for more details, click the Help button in the control panel):

• Direct Sound Output and Input Ports

In the list to the left in the window, all available Direct Sound output and input ports are listed. In many cases, there will be only one port in each list. To activate or deactivate a port in the list, click the checkbox in the left column. If the checkbox is ticked, the port is activated.

• You can edit the Buffer Size and Offset settings in this list if necessary, by double-clicking on the value and typing in a new value.

In most cases, the default settings will work fine. Audio buffers are used when audio data is transferred between Cubase and the audio card. While larger buffers ensure that playback will occur without glitches, the latency (the time between the moment Cubase sends out the data and when it actually reaches the output) will be higher.

• Offset

If a constant offset is audible during playback of Audio and MIDI recordings, you can adjust the output or input latency time using this value.

Setting up the input and output ports

Once you have selected the driver and made the settings as described above, you need to specify which inputs and outputs should be used and name these:

1. In the Device Setup dialog, select your driver in the De-

vices list on the left to display the Driver settings for your audio hardware.

All input and output ports on the audio hardware are listed.

2. To hide a port, click in the “Visible” column for the port

(deselecting the checkbox).

Ports that aren’t visible cannot be selected in the VST Connections window where you set up your input and output busses – see “Setting up

the VST connections” on page 25 and the chapter “VST Connections:

setting up input and output busses” in the Operation Manual.

If you attempt to hide a port that is already used by a bus you will be asked whether this is really what you want – note that this will disable the port!

3. To rename a port, click on its name in the “Show as”

column and type in a new name.

Ö It is a good idea to give your ports names that are related to the channel configuration (rather than to the actual hardware model)!

For example, if you are using a 5.1 surround audio setup (Cubase only), you could name the six ports Left, Right, Center, Lfe, Left Surround and Right Surround. This makes it easier to transfer your projects between different computers, e.g. in different studios – if the same port names are used on both computers, Cubase will automatically handle the bus connections properly when you open the project on the other computer.

4. Click OK to close the Device Setup dialog and apply

your changes.

Setting up your system

About monitoring

In Cubase, monitoring means listening to the input signal while preparing to record or while recording. There are three ways to monitor:

External monitoring

External monitoring (listening to the input signal before it goes into Cubase) requires an external mixer for mixing the audio playback with the input signal. This can be a classic mixing desk or a mixer application for your audio hardware, if this has a mode in which the input audio is sent back out again (usually called “Thru”, “Direct Thru” or similar).

Via Cubase

In this case, the audio passes from the input into Cubase, possibly through Cubase effects and EQ and then back to the output. You control monitoring via settings in Cubase.

This allows you to control the monitoring level from Cubase and add effects to the monitored signal only.

ASIO Direct Monitoring

If your audio hardware is ASIO 2.0 compatible, it may support ASIO Direct Monitoring (this feature may also be available for audio hardware with Mac OS X drivers). In this mode, the actual monitoring is done in the audio hardware, by sending the input signal back out again. However, monitoring is controlled from Cubase. This means that the audio hardware’s direct monitoring feature can be turned on or off automatically by Cubase.

Monitoring is described in detail in the chapter “Recording” in the Operation Manual. However, when setting up, there’s one thing to note:

• If you want to use the external monitoring via your audio hardware, make sure the corresponding functions are activated in the card’s mixer application.

Ö If you are using RME Audio Hammerfall DSP audio hardware, make sure that the pan law is set to -3dB in the card’s preferences.

Setting up MIDI

Make sure that all equipment is turned off before making any connections!

This section describes how to connect and set up MIDI equipment. If you have no MIDI equipment, you can skip this section. Note that this is only an example – you might need or want to hook things up differently!

Connecting the MIDI equipment

In this example we assume that you have a MIDI keyboard and an external MIDI sound module. The keyboard is used both for feeding the computer with MIDI messages for recording and for playing back MIDI tracks. The sound module is used for playback only. Using Cubase’s MIDI Thru feature (described later) you will be able to hear the correct sound from the sound module while playing the keyboard or recording.

A typical MIDI Setup

If you want to use even more instruments for playback, simply connect MIDI Thru on the sound module to MIDI In on the next instrument, and so on. In this hook-up, you will always play the first keyboard when recording. But you can still use all your devices for providing sounds on playback.

If you plan to use more than three sound sources, we recommend that you either use an interface with more than one output, or a separate MIDI Thru box instead of the Thru jacks on each unit.

Setting up your system

Setting MIDI Thru and Local On/Off

When “MIDI Thru” is active in Cubase, MIDI data received is immediately “echoed” back out.

When you press a key, it is sent out via MIDI to Cubase.

MIDI data coming in to the instrument is played by the “Synth” inside it.

When Local Control is turned on in the instrument, the keys you press will be played by the “Synth” inside the Instrument. When Local Control is turned off, this connection is cut off.

“Synth”

On the MIDI page in the Preferences dialog (located on the File menu under Windows and on the Cubase menu under Mac OS X), you will find a setting called “MIDI Thru Active”. This is related to a setting in your instrument called “Local On/Off” or “Local Control On/Off”.

• If you use a MIDI keyboard instrument, as described earlier in this chapter, MIDI Thru should be activated and that instrument should be set to Local Off (sometimes called Local Control Off – see the instrument’s operation manual for details). The MIDI signal from the keyboard will be recorded in Cubase and at the same time be re-routed back to the instrument so that you hear what you are playing, without the keyboard “triggering” its own sounds.

Setting up MIDI ports in Cubase

The Device Setup dialog lets you set up your MIDI system in the following ways:

Ö When you change MIDI port settings in the Device Setup dialog, these are automatically applied.

Showing or hiding MIDI Ports

The MIDI ports are listed in the Device Setup dialog on the MIDI Port Setup page. By clicking in the “Visible” column for a MIDI input or output, you can specify whether or not it should be listed on the MIDI pop-up menus in the program.

If you are trying to hide a MIDI port which is already selected for a track or a MIDI device, a warning message will appear, allowing you to hide – and disconnect – the port or to cancel the operation and keep the MIDI port visible.

Setting up the “All MIDI Inputs” option

When you record MIDI in Cubase, you can specify which MIDI input each recording MIDI track should use. However, you can also select the “In ‘All MIDI Inputs’” option for an input port, which causes any MIDI data from any MIDI input to be recorded.

The “In ‘All MIDI Inputs’” option on the MIDI Port Setup page allows you to specify which inputs should be included when you select All MIDI Inputs for a MIDI track. This can be especially useful if your system provides several instances of the same physical MIDI input – by deactivating the duplicates you make sure only the desired MIDI data is recorded.

• If you use a separate MIDI keyboard – one that does not produce any sounds itself – MIDI Thru in Cubase should also be activated, but you don’t need to look for any Local On/Off setting in your instruments.

• The only case where MIDI Thru should be deactivated is if you use Cubase with only one keyboard instrument and that instrument cannot be set to Local Off mode.

• MIDI Thru will be active only for MIDI tracks that are record enabled and/or have the Monitor button activated. See the chapter “Recording” in the Operation Manual for more information.

Ö If you have a MIDI remote control unit connected, you should also make sure to deactivate the “In ‘All MIDI Inputs’” option for that MIDI input.

This will avoid accidentally recording the data from the remote control when the “All MIDI Inputs” option is selected as input for a MIDI track.

Connecting a synchronizer

Make sure that all equipment is turned off before making any connections!

When using Cubase with external tape transports, you will most likely need to add a synchronizer to your system. All connections and setup procedures for synchronization are described in the chapter “Synchronization” in the Operation Manual.

Setting up your system

Setting up video

Always make all connections with all equipment turned off!

Cubase plays back video files in a number of formats, including AVI, QuickTime or MPEG. Under Windows, video can be played back using one of the following playback engines: Video for Windows, DirectShow or QuickTime. This ensures compatibility with as wide a range of video files as possible. Under Mac OS X, QuickTime is always used as playback engine. Which formats can be played back depends on the video player and the installed codecs.

Generally there are two ways to play back video:

• Without any special hardware at all, using the computer

CPU.

In this case, the “codec” is in software. While this will be fine in many situations it does put a limit on the size of the video window as well as the quality of the image.

• Using video hardware that for example connects to an

external monitor.

Mac OS X: Using a FireWire port, you can play back video on an external monitor using a DV-to-analog converter or a DV camera (see also the chapter “Video” in the Operation Manual). This is valid for DV video and QuickTime is used for playback. Windows: Multi-head graphics cards which support overlay functionality can be used to display the video picture on an external monitor. The following manufacturers have working (and tested) solutions available: nVIDIA and Matrox.

If you plan to use special video hardware, install it and set it up as recommended by the manufacturer.

Before you use the video hardware with Cubase, you should test the hardware installation with the utility applications that came with the hardware and/or the Windows Media Player or QuickTime Player (Mac OS X) applications.

Optimizing audio performance

This section gives you some hints and tips on how to get the most out of your Cubase system, performance-wise. Some of this text refers to hardware properties and can be used as a guide when upgrading your system. This text is very brief. Look for details and current information on the Cubase web site (see “How you can reach us” on page 8)!

Two aspects of performance

There are two distinct aspects of performance in respect to Cubase:

Tracks and effects

Simply put: the faster your computer, the more tracks, effects and EQ you will be able to play. Exactly what constitutes a “fast computer” is almost a science in itself, but some hints are given below.

Short response times (latency)

Another aspect of performance is response time. The term “latency” refers to the “buffering”, i.e. the temporary storing, of small chunks of audio data during various steps of the recording and playback process on a computer. The more and larger those chunks, the higher the latency.

High latency is most irritating when playing VST Instruments and when monitoring through the computer, i.e. when listening to a live audio source via the Cubase mixer and effects. However, very long latency times (several hundred milliseconds) can also affect other processes like mixing, e.g. when the effect of a fader movement is heard only after a noticeable delay.

While Direct Monitoring and other techniques reduce the problems associated with very long latency times, a system that responds fast will always be more convenient to work with.

• Depending on your audio hardware, it may be possible to “trim” your latency times, usually by lowering the size and the number of buffers.

For details, refer to the audio hardware documentation, or, if you are using a DirectX driver under Windows, the dialog help.

System factors that affect performance

CPU and processor cache

It goes without saying that the faster the computer processor, the better. But there are a number of factors that affect the apparent speed of a computer: the bus speed and type (PCI is strongly recommended), the processor cache size and of course, the processor type and brand. Cubase relies heavily on floating point calculations. When shopping for a processor, please make sure you get one that is powerful in calculating floating point arithmetics.

Setting up your system

Note also that Cubase features full support for multi-pro-

cessor systems. So, if you own a computer system with more than one processor, Cubase can take advantage of the total capacity and evenly distribute the processing load to all available processors. See “The advanced options” on

page 22.

Hard disk and controller

The number of hard disk tracks you can record and play back at the same time also depends on the speed of your hard disk and hard disk controller. If you use E-IDE disks and controllers, make sure that the transfer mode is DMA Busmaster. Under Windows, you can check the current mode by launching the Windows Device Manager and looking for properties of the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller’s primary and secondary channel. DMA transfer mode is enabled by default, but may be turned off by the system should hardware problems occur.

Audio hardware and driver

The hardware and its driver can have some effect on regular performance. A badly written driver can reduce the performance of your computer. But where the hardware driver design makes the most difference is with latency.

Again, we strongly recommend that you use audio hardware for which there is a specific ASIO driver!

This is especially true when using Cubase for Windows:

• Under Windows, ASIO drivers written specifically for

the hardware are more efficient than the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver or a DirectX driver and produce shorter latency times.

• Under Mac OS X, audio hardware with properly written

Mac OS X (Core Audio) drivers can be very efficient and produce very low latency times.

However, there are additional features currently only available with ASIO drivers, such as the ASIO Positioning Protocol.

Optimizing processor scheduling (Windows only)

To get the lowest possible latencies when using ASIO under Windows XP (on a single-CPU system), the “system performance” has to be optimized for background tasks:

1. Open the Windows Control Panel from the Start menu and select System.

2. Select the Advanced tab and click the Settings button in the Performance section.

The Performance Options dialog appears.

3. Select the Advanced tab.

4. In the Processor Scheduling section, select “Adjust

for best performance of: Background services”.

5. Click OK to close the dialogs.

Making settings that affect performance

Audio buffer settings

Audio buffers affect how audio is sent to and from the audio hardware. The size of the audio buffers affects both the latency and the audio performance. Generally, the smaller the buffer size, the lower the latency. On the other hand, working with small buffers can be demanding for the computer. If the audio buffers are too small, you may get clicks, pops or other audio playback problems.

• Under Mac OS X, you can adjust the size of the buffers on the VST Audio System page in the Device Setup dialog.

You may also find buffer settings in the control panel for the audio hardware.

• Under Windows, you adjust the buffer size settings in the control panel for the audio hardware (opened by clicking the Control Panel button on the driver page in the Device Setup dialog).

The advanced options

On the VST Audio System page you will find the “Advanced options” section. Here you find advanced settings for the VST Engine, including a Multi Processing option. When this is activated and there is more than one CPU in your system, the processing load is distributed evenly to all available CPUs, allowing Cubase to make full use of the combined power of the multiple processors. See the dialog help for details.

Setting up your system

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

Creating a new project

The name of the project

In this section we are going to explain how to create a new project, save a project and open a saved project.

When you first open Cubase, an empty screen appears before you. You need to either create a new project or open an existing one.

To create a new project

1. Let’s create a new project by selecting “New Project”

from the “File” menu.

2. The Templates dialog opens.

Templates are described in the “File Handling” chapter in the Operation Manual.

3. Select “Empty”.

This will create a new project with nothing in it.

4. Click “OK”.

5. Cubase now wants to create a folder on the hard drive

so that your Cubase project file and all of its related files are stored in one safe place.

It is important that every project gets stored in its own folder. Having many different projects stored in the same folder only leads to confusion later on.

6. Navigate to where you would like this project to be

created.

8. Follow the usual procedure for your operating system (Windows or Mac) to give your new folder a name.

If your are going to name your project “My First Project” then you could call this folder “My First Project” or “First Project”. What’s important here is that you are creating a folder on the hard drive to store your project into it. This folder should have a unique name.

9. Click “OK” on the PC or “Open” on the Mac.

10. You should be looking at your very first project in Cu-

base now. Congratulations!

If you look at the top of the window in Cubase (called the Project window) you’ll see the name of this project is “Untitled1”.

You’re not done yet! So far we’ve created a blank Cubase project. We have a folder sitting on the hard drive but we haven’t saved the actual Cubase project yet.

To save a project

1. Select “Save As…” from the File menu.

The difference between Save and Save As is discussed in the chapter “File Handling” in the Operation Manual.

2. You will notice that Cubase is in the “My First Project” folder that you created earlier. This is where you want to save your project. Type in a name for your Project – you can use “My First Cubase Project” for example.

3. Click “Save” – and that’s it!

Ö You are not saving the project at this point! You are creating a folder on the hard drive that your project will get saved into later. This will be explained very shortly.

7. Click “Make New Folder” on the PC or “New Folder”

on the Mac to create a new folder for your project.

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

To close a project

1. Make sure the Project window is selected.

The Project window is the main window that you work in. See the chapter “The Project window” in the Operation Manual.

2. Select “Close” from the “File” menu.

If you have made any changes to the project since you last saved it, you will be prompted to “Save”, “Don’t Save” or “Cancel”. Click “Save” if you want your changes saved.

To open a project

Now that we have saved and closed your project, let’s show you how to open it.

Open a project using the “Open” command

1. Select “Open…” from the “File” menu.

Here you can navigate to the folder that has the project you wish to open.

2. Once you have found the project click “Open” and the

project will load.

Open a project using the “Recent Projects” submenu

Cubase remembers recently opened projects and lists them in the “Recent Projects” submenu under the “File” menu.

1. Select “Recent Projects” from the “File” menu.

2. Select the project you wish to open by clicking once

on it.

Setting up the VST connections

The VST Connections window allows you to set up the input and output signals of Cubase to your audio card. Cubase calls these “busses”. This section will show you how to set the busses up so that you can get playback and recording working.

Make sure you read the chapters “System requirements

and installation” on page 9 and “Setting up your system”

on page 14, so that your audio hardware is properly set up before proceeding.

2. Let’s choose “Output” first. We want to start from scratch and remove anything that is currently there, just in case it’s set up incorrectly. If you see anything in the “Bus Name” column, right-click with the mouse and select “Remove Bus”.

3. Now click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Stereo” for configuration and “1” for count and click OK.

This has now added a new stereo bus (Left and Right) allowing us to have audio in Cubase routed to our audio hardware.

4. Since we mainly listen to our music as a stereo mix, all we need is a stereo output.

We can still listen to music with more than 2 channels, for example, if using a surround sound setup (Cubase only).

5. Depending on your audio hardware, your outputs should be set up now. You can however select the outputs of your choice from the “Device Port” pull down menu.

Normally you’ll want to choose the main stereo outputs of your audio card. More sophisticated setups may require you to choose different outputs and even add more busses.

Load the project called “VST Connections” found in the “Tutorial 1” folder.

Ö By default, the tutorial projects are not installed during the installation of Cubase. You will find these projects on the program DVD, in the folder “Additional Content”.

Adding outputs

1. Open the Devices menu and select “VST Connections”.

The default key command for this is [F4].

• You’ll see several tabs at the top of the window. We’re

only going to cover Input and Output right now. See the chapter “VST Connections” in the Operation Manual for more details.

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

Adding Inputs

…to open the Inspector.

Click here…

Now let’s open the “Input” tab and set up the inputs we are going to use for recording into Cubase.

1. Do the same as mentioned above for the outputs.

Right-click and select “Remove Bus”.

2. Click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Stereo” for con-

figuration and “1” for count and click “OK”.

This has now added a new stereo bus (Left and Right) allowing us to have audio from our audio card’s input routed to Cubase for recording.

• Having a stereo input is useful for recording audio with

two channels. An example of this is recording a keyboard with a left and right audio channel. If we wanted to record in mono or with one channel we can make separate busses. Let’s do this now.

1. Click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Mono” for con-

figuration and “2” for count and click “OK”.

This has now added two new mono busses allowing us to have audio from our audio card’s input routed to Cubase for recording.

2. Next, click in the “Device Port” column to select the

audio inputs of your audio card for the stereo and mono inputs.

Level settings and recording

For this section, we are going to record a bass guitar in mono from the input “Mono In”. Make sure you have your audio card set up and you have read through the section

“Setting up the VST connections” on page 25.

Load the project called “Recording” found in the “Tutorial 1” folder.

Adding a mono track

1. Now let’s add an audio track to record to. Open the Project menu and choose “Audio” from the “Add Track” submenu.

2. Choose “Mono” for Configuration and “1” for Count. Click “OK”.

This adds a mono audio track to our Project window.

3. Click on the new track you’ve created and make sure the Inspector is shown.

The Inspector allows us to see and manipulate a lot of information for the selected track.

That’s it! You should now be ready to record audio in Cubase and then play it back.

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

4. Make sure that “Mono In” is selected for the audio

Audio coming into this track.

Click here to display the channel fader.

track’s input and that “Stereo Out” is selected for the audio tracks output.

You may have different inputs and outputs depending on your audio hardware. See the chapter “VST Connections” in the Operation Manual for more detailed information. By setting “Mono In”, we will be able to record the audio from the left input of our audio card into a track in Cubase. Setting the output to “Stereo Out” allows us to hear what we are recording.

Turning on the metronome click

We’ll want to have a click or metronome play in the background as we record the bass guitar so that what we record aligns with the bars and beats in Cubase.

1. Activate the “Metronome/Click” button on the Trans-

port panel.

Setting levels

We have a bass guitar playing through an amplifier with a microphone in front of the amplifier’s speaker. This microphone is plugged directly into the audio card’s input. We have set the level so that we have enough volume without clipping.

1. Clicking the Monitor button will allow us to hear the bass guitar.

You should see and hear the audio coming in to the right of the track.

2. Now click the “Record Enable” button on the track.

Setting the track to Record Enable lets Cubase know that you want to record on this track and no other one. You can have many tracks Record Enabled at a time.

3. In the Inspector, open the “Channel” tab.

This will display the channel fader for the selected track.

2. If you would like a two bar count in before you record,

also activate the “Precount/Click” button.

3. We now need to set the speed or the tempo of our

project. This will directly affect how fast the click plays. You can set the tempo just below the click.

In this picture, we have a setting of 125, which means 125bpm (beats per minute).

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

• Do the best you can to send the maximum amount of

This is the safe area for recording.

Do not allow the audio level to go past this line!

Double-click in the lower half of the ruler…

…to start playback.

volume to the audio inputs of your audio card before you hear any distortion. Most audio cards show some kind of level or volume indication. If yours doesn’t, don’t worry, we can change the amount here.

4. Move the fader up or down so that the volume is loud

enough without going into the red on the channel meter. If you go into the red you may cause clipping or distortion. You will see a line near the top of the channel meter – make sure the level does not go over this line!

• Once the level is set, you are ready to record!

Playback

We are going to learn how to play back audio in Cubase. You might think this is very simple – just hit “Play”. It is actually this simple but there are a few tricks to learn so that you’ll be playing back what you want with precision.

Load the project called “Playback” found in the “Tutorial 1” folder.

To start playback

There are a few ways you can play back in Cubase.

• Click the “Play” button on the Transport panel.

• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard.

This toggles between start and stop.

• Press the [Enter] key of the numerical computer keypad.

• Double-click in the lower half of the ruler.

Recording bass guitar

1. Position the cursor at the beginning of the project.

This will make sure we start recording on bar 1.

2. Click the Record button to record the bass guitar.

Since the “Precount/Click” button is activated, we’ll hear two bars of click before recording begins.

3. Click “Stop” when you are finished.

4. Turn off the Monitor and Record Enable buttons on the

track so that we don’t hear the input or record on the track any more.

Congratulations! You have just recorded your first piece of audio in Cubase. Move ahead to the next section to learn how to play back audio.

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

• Select the event and choose “Loop Selection” from the Transport menu.

The default key command for this is [Shift]-[G]. This is the quickest way to loop an audio event and start playback!

To stop playback

The left locator set to “1”.

The right locator set to “5”.

Cycle activated.

• Click the “Stop” button on the Transport panel.

• Clicking the “Stop” button twice moves the cursor to

the position in the project where you started playback.

• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard.

This toggles between stop and start.

• Press the “0” key of the numerical computer keypad.

Cycle playback

Cubase has the ability to loop or cycle a section of your project. To set the cycle location you need to use the left and right locator.

1. On the Transport panel, set the left locator to “1” and

the right locator to “5”.

This tells Cubase that we want to loop or cycle between bars 1 and 5. Meaning we will have a 4 bar loop since the end of bar 4 is the beginning of bar 5.

2. Make sure that the “Cycle” button is activated.

3. Click the Play button on the Transport panel and Cu-

base will play looping over and over until you click “Stop”.

Don’t forget – you can set the locators to encompass the selected event, turn on “Cycle” and begin playback all by the key command [Shift]-[G].

Recording modes with cycle off

There are three different modes for recording when the cycle is turned off. This is called linear recording. The three modes are:

• Normal

• Merge

• Replace

When recording audio, “Normal” and “Merge” are the same. Selecting either of these will allow you to record over the top of another audio event and it will appear as an overlap. You can then select between the overlapping events and determine which one will play. This is discussed in the following section.

“Replace” mode when used will not overlap the audio if there is already some on the track. It will split or cut the audio where the recording takes place replacing what was there previously. Keep in mind though that the audio being replaced is not permanently deleted. It is only cut or trimmed away allowing you to recover it later.

Cycle recording

You can record audio while “cycle” is on.

Load the project called “Cycle Recording” found in the “Tutorial 1” folder.

So far we’ve shown you how to add tracks, record and playback. Now we are going to add an electric guitar to our bass guitar using cycle recording. Recording with cycle on allows us to make multiple passes of our recording and then pick the best take.

If you haven’t reviewed the previous sections in this tutorial, please do as we are going to move a little faster now.

Recording electric guitar

1. Let’s add another “Mono” audio track.

This is described in the section “Adding a mono track” on page 26.

2. You can see now that we have a track called “Audio 01” and “Audio 02”. Up to now we haven’t been concerned about naming the tracks but let’s do this now.

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

3. Double-click on “Audio 01” and rename it “Bass”.

Cycle Record Mode

Current take Available takes

4. Double-click on “Audio 02” and rename it “Elec Gui-

tar”. That looks a lot better now.

• It’s always good to name your tracks before you start to

record. This way the audio event too will take this name. Since “Audio 01” was the name of our first track the audio event is named “Audio 01_01”. The suffix “_01” being the first event recorded on the “Audio 01” track. We’ll show you how to rename your audio files in the chapter “Tutorial

2: Editing audio” on page 32.

5. Make sure “Cycle” is activated, set the left locator to 2

and the right locator to 18.

This will loop or cycle between bars 2 and 18.

6. On the Transport panel, make sure “Mix (MIDI)” is se-

lected for the “Cycle Record Mode”.

This will allow us to record the electric guitar, and as each cycle repeats a new take will be created. We will then choose the best take to keep as our guitar line.

8. Click the “L” button on the Transport panel once.

This will make sure we start recording at the left locator.

9. Click the “Record” button on the Transport panel.

As you record the guitar, let the cycle repeat three times so we have three different guitar takes.

10. Click “Stop” when you’re finished. We’ve just recorded three different guitar takes. Now let’s figure out how to select the best sounding one.

Load the tutorial called “Cycle Recording 2” found in the “Tutorial 1” folder.

Selecting different takes

1. Holding [Alt]/[Option], right-click on the new guitar audio event that we just recorded and choose a take from the “Set to Region” submenu.

If you right-click without holding a modifier key, you will see the toolbox instead of the context menu. This behavior is determined by the “Popup Toolbox on Right Click” option in the Preferences dialog (Editing–Tools page).

Cubase has recorded all of the passes we made when we were recording in loop mode (Cycle Recording). These passes are called “Takes”. In our example we have three different guitar takes. We can pick between them and choose which one sounds best.

7. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on

the “Elec Guitar” track.

2. Listen to the different takes and when you are done, choose “Take 1”.

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

Stacked recording

Stacked recording is very similar to cycle recording but with one difference – you can see the “Takes” that you record all the time instead of them being hidden underneath.

1. Create a new “Mono” track.

2. Rename the track “Guitar 2”.

3. On the Transport panel, select the Cycle Record

Mode “Stacked”.

The Cycle Record Mode pop-up menu.

4. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on

the track “Guitar 2”.

5. Click the Record button on the Transport panel.

6. When you are done recording, click “Stop”.

You should see the recorded audio events appearing below each other as separate takes.

8. Deactivate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons.

Load the tutorial called “Stacked Recording” found in the “Tutorial 1” folder.

9. Open the Preferences dialog (Editing–Audio page) and make sure that the option “Treat Muted Audio Events like Deleted” is activated.

10. On the toolbar, select the Mute tool.

This will allow us to switch between our stacked recorded takes.

11. You will see three takes. The bottom two are muted and the top one that is colored green (Take 1) is the one that will currently play.

12. Mute “Take 1” and unmute “Take 2”.

This allows “Take 2” to be heard. Notice that “Take” 2 is now colored green.

7. Click the lower border of the “Guitar 2” track and drag

downwards to make it larger.

This allows you to see the audio takes much better.

13. You can do the same for “Take 3”. Continue to the following chapter, as we will show you

how to edit what we’ve recorded using some of the tools.

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

Event operations

The name has changed from “Audio 01_01” to “Bass”.

There is extra space on either side of the Bass audio event that we don’t want.

White squares appear on the bottom left and bottom right of the event. Resize the event with these.

In this section we’ll learn how to edit events or parts. This includes rename, resize, split, glue, move, copy, repeat, mute, erase and adding a fade.

Load the project called “Event Operations” found in the “Tutorial 2” folder.

5. Notice that our audio event now says “Bass”.

Renaming

If we look at the audio events that we recorded earlier, we notice that the bass track has an audio event on it called “Audio 01_01”. This is because the name of the track was originally “Audio 01” and the suffix “_01” means that it is the 1st audio file to be recorded on the track. The second audio file would be called “Audio 01_02”.

Naming your audio files keeps your project clean and easy to understand. Let’s rename “Audio 01_01” to “Bass”:

1. Choose the Object Selection tool.

2. Click on the event “Audio 01_01”.

3. Make sure “Show Event Info Line” is activated on the

toolbar.

• The “Event Info Line” gives us detailed information

about an object or objects that are currently selected in the event display.

4. Change “Audio 01_01” to “Bass” underneath the

word “File”.

This changes the audio file’s name directly on the hard drive – easy!

Resizing

You resize an event by adjusting the start and/or end of the event. Used in combination with the split tool this is usually all the editing you’ll need.

1. Choose the Object Selection tool.

2. Click on the event you wish to resize.

In our case let’s change the “Bass” event.

3. Position the mouse pointer over one of the squares at the bottom right or bottom left of the event. Click and adjust the “Bass” event so that it lines up with “Elec Guitar_01”.

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

Splitting

The vertical blue lines indicate where the Bass event was split.

There is more to see but your screen resolution may prevent you from seeing everything.

Right-click in the toolbar.

Splitting is used to cut events. You can split or cut an event wherever you want or split them evenly to bars and beats.

Splitting with “Snap” off

Splitting with “Snap” off allows you to cut anywhere without locking to any kind of reference like bars and beats.

1. Choose the Split tool.

2. Make sure “Snap” is off (not highlighted).

3. You can now split or cut the audio anywhere by click-

ing on the event.

4. Undo your actions by choosing “Undo Split” from the

Edit menu as many times as you used the Split tool.

Make sure there are no splits in the “Bass” event any more.

Splitting with “Snap” on

Having “Snap” on allows you to split or cut to a time reference. For example, if you want to cut the “Elec Guitar” track to bars or beats.

1. Choose the Split tool.

2. Make sure “Snap” is on.

Snap allows you to edit to various time frames. The most common one is bars and beats. Meaning you can cut exactly to the bar with “Snap” turned on. With it turned off you can cut anywhere. See more about “Snap” in the chapter “The Project window” in the Operation Manual.

3. If you are having trouble seeing anything beyond the “Tool Buttons”, right-click in the toolbar (the top bar that the “Tool Buttons” are on).

This allows you to change what you see at the top of the Project window. Customization is in the heart of Cubase.

4. Choose “Default” so that if you changed anything it will return to the default settings.

5. Next, right click again and choose “Automation Mode” so that the automation tools are hidden from view.

Now we can see enough for us to continue on with the Split tool.

6. With most of the snap features in view, choose “Grid” from the Snap mode pop-up menu to the right of the Snap button.

This means we’ll be snapping to a grid.

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

7. Next choose “Bar” as the “Grid Type”.

This means you will split to bars.

8. You can now split the “Elec Guitar_01” event pre-

cisely to the bar. Cut on bars 6, 10 and 14.

Splitting with [Alt]/[Option]

1. Choose the Split tool.

2. Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click on the bass event

at bar 3 and the length of the split will be repeated until the end of the event.

You can try this with “Snap” on or off.

2. Glue together the split events in the “Elec Guitar” track by clicking just before each split.

Let’s make sure we glue all of them.

Moving events

Let’s now move all the events in the Project window from bar 2 to bar 1.

1. Choose the Object Selection tool.

2. Click and hold the mouse on an empty area of the

Project window. Drag to create a selection of all the events. When you release the mouse button, all the events will be selected.

3. Select “Undo Split” from the Edit menu and return the

bass to the way it was.

Gluing or joining events

Using the Glue tool allows you to join events together that have been cut using the Split tool.

1. Choose the Glue tool.

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

3. With all the events selected, click and drag them to bar 1.

4. Click on an empty area of the Project window so that no event is selected.

Copying events

Copying can be used to copy an event to another area in the Project window. If you want to make several copies in one go, see “Repeating” on page 36.

Using Copy and Paste

1. To copy an audio event, click on the desired event and

choose “Copy” from the Edit menu.

In our case let’s choose the “Elec Guitar_01” event.

2. Position the cursor at the point in the project that you

wish the copy to be made.

We’ll put our cursor at bar 17.

3. Make sure you click on the track that you want the

copied event to be copied to. Choose “Paste” from the Edit menu.

It is possible that you may have another track selected. If so the “Paste” command would paste it to a different track. Always note the track you have selected before choosing “Paste”.

3. Click and hold the selected events and drag to the position you wish the copy to be made. Then release the mouse button.

Don’t worry about the “Scissor” icon that appears. As soon as you click and hold on the event you are copying it switches to an arrow with a “+” sign indicating that you are copying.

Repeating

Repeats are great for repeating something over and over directly after the event you want to repeat.

1. Click the bass event with the Object Selection tool.

2. Choose “Repeat…” from the Edit menu.

3. In the dialog that opens, choose how many copies you

wish to make by increasing the value in the “Count” field.

4. Now we have two guitar events. Note that we also

copied the takes that were on the guitar track. We can use these later.

Using the [Alt]/[Option] key

1. Choose the Object Selection tool and hold down [Alt]/

[Option].

2. We are going to copy the “Guitar 2” events. Remem-

ber that there are three events since we used stacked recording to record them. Select all of the “Guitar 2” events by clicking and dragging as described above.

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

• You can choose to select “Shared Copies” if you want. Shared copies allow you to make aliases to the original event. This means that if you make changes to the original event (such as processing or editing), the copies will reflect those changes. This is a big time saver!

4. Click “OK” and the repeat will be placed directly after the Bass event.

Muting

Notice the blue triangles that appear at the top left and top right of the event.

Double-click in this area to open the fade dialog.

Muting an event stops you from hearing just that event. You may want to mute events on a track so that the track continues to play except for the events you mute. Note that this is different from muting a track.

1. Choose the Mute tool.

2. Click on the event you wish to mute.

Adding a fade

You can add a fade to an event to give the effect that the event is fading in or fading out.

1. Choose the Object Selection tool.

2. Click on the event you wish to add a fade to.

3. To unmute an event, click on the muted event with the

Mute tool again and it returns to normal.

• If you drag with the Mute tool you can mute a number of

events at a time. Equally this will unmute events that are muted.

Erasing

1. Choose the Erase tool.

2. Click on the events you wish to erase.

3. Click on one of the blue triangles and move it so that a

fade appears.

4. For more advanced fades you can double-click on the fade area to open up the fade dialog. See the chapter “Fades and Crossfades” in the Operation Manual for more information.

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

Event envelopes

An envelope is a volume curve for an audio event. This allows you to adjust the volume of the event over time.

1. Select the Pencil tool.

When you move the Pencil tool over an audio event, a small volume curve symbol is shown next to the tool.

2. Click on the “Elec Guitar_01” event and notice that an

envelope point appears.

Clicking either high or low on the event will change the event volume to either loud of soft.

3. Clicking further on will create more points.

As you create more and more envelope points, you are adjusting the volume of the event over time. The waveform reflects the changes you make.

Normalize

Normalize raises the volume of the audio to the desired amount. Usually you adjust the slider to “0” dB or “-1” dB so that you get the maximum volume without clipping your audio. A common use for Normalizing is to raise the level of audio that was recorded at too low an input level.

Ö Please note that in some situations, this function may lead to distortion. Therefore, you should use it carefully and listen to the audio material afterwards, to make sure it sounds as intended.

1. With the Object Selection tool, click on the audio event you wish to change. Let’s pick the Bass audio event.

You can also use the Range Selection tool and select the section of audio you want.

Load the project called “Event Operations 2” found in the “Tutorial 2” folder. This project has all the event operation changes you’ve learned so far.

Processing audio

Cubase has the ability to make changes to the audio in more ways than splitting and resizing. You can normalize, reverse, pitch shift and time stretch, to name a few. For a full explanation on processing audio, see the chapter “Audio processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.

Load the project called “Processing Audio” found in the “Tutorial 2” folder.

You can process the whole audio event or use the Range Selection tool and select just the section of audio you want.

Let’s show you how to Normalize and Reverse an audio event.

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

2. On the Audio menu–Process submenu, select “Normalize”.

3. Adjust the slider to the amount you desire. A setting of “0” db or “-1” db is common.

4. Click the Process button and your audio is now nor-

malized.

For a description of the “More” and “Preview” buttons, see the chapter “Audio Processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.

Reverse

The “Reverse” command reverses the audio selection. This will sound as if you were playing a tape backwards.

1. With the Object Selection tool, click on the audio

event you wish to change. In our case, let’s pick the bass audio event.

You can also use the “Range Selection” tool and select the section of audio you want.

2. On the Audio menu–Process submenu, select “Re-

verse”.

3. If you have copied events in the Project window, this di-

alog box will open. It asks if you want all the copied events changed (Continue) or if a new version is to be created so that only your selection is affected (New Version).

The “Offline Process History” dialog shows you the processing that has been applied to this audio event.

• You can click “Modify” to change the settings of “Normalize”.

• You can replace “Normalize” with another process by selecting the function from the pop-up menu and clicking “Replace By”.

• “Remove” is used to delete a process from the list.

• “Deactivate” toggles the button between “Deactivate”

and “Activate”. This allows you to temporarily bypass a process without removing it.

Ö For more information, see the chapter “Audio Processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.

4. Clicking either “Continue” or “New Version” will re-

verse your audio.

Offline process history

When you process audio, the audio is not permanently changed. Instead, Cubase remembers the changes and stores backups of your files. You can then come back to the processing, make changes, swap the processing with other effects or remove all the processing entirely. This is done behind the scenes and can be accessed through the “Offline Process History” dialog.

Load the project called “Offline Process History” found in the “Tutorial 2” folder.

We have processed the bass audio event with “Normalize” and “Reverse”. Click on the bass event to select it and choose “Offline Process History…” from the Audio menu.

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

Introduction

Right-click here to select “Always on Top”.

In this chapter, we are going to add some more instruments to our song. In the previous tutorials, we have recorded audio. Now we are going to record using MIDI.

There are two ways in which we can have MIDI sounds appear in Cubase: via virtual instruments, that is a synthesizer inside your computer or through the use of a traditional hardware keyboard.

This tutorial will focus on virtual instruments, while the chapter “Tutorial 5: External MIDI instruments (Cubase only)” on

page 50 will show you how to record via a hardware syn-

thesizer.

Creating an Instrument Track

Load the project called “Recording MIDI 1” found in the “Tutorial 3” folder.

1. Let’s start by adding a string part to our song. From the

Project menu–Add Track submenu, select “Instrument”.

In previous versions of Cubase, you needed a MIDI track routed to a virtual instrument found in the “VST Instruments” window. You can still use this method but instrument tracks are far more convenient.

3. Make sure the Inspector is shown.

4. Click in the name field of the instrument track. It should

be the only instrument track you created, so the name should be “HALionOne 01”. We can double-click on this and change it to “Strings”.

5. Click on the “Edit Instrument” button to open the control panel for “HALionOne”.

2. From the “Instrument” pop-up menu, choose “HALion-

One”, then click “OK”.

An instrument track is created below the selected track in the Project window.

6. If you want “HALionOne” to stay always on top while you are working you can right-click on the bar near the top of the instrument and select “Always on Top”.

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

Browsing sounds

Category Sub Category Filtered List

The MIDI Input Routing pop-up menu

Record Enable

Monitor

MIDI recording

We are now going to load sounds into our virtual instrument “HALionOne”.

Load the project called “Recording MIDI 2” found in the “Tutorial 3” folder.

1. Click the “Preset” button in “HALionOne” and choose

“Load Preset” from the pop-up menu.

2. In the window that appears, click the Categories but-

ton to display the Filter section.

3. In the “Category” section, make sure only “Strings” is

selected by deselecting anything else and clicking on “Strings”. In the “Sub Category” click on “Synth”. You have filtered the list to only show synth strings. Choose a string sound from the list on the right.

Now that we have our sound, let’s record something. Recording MIDI is very similar to recording audio, see the chapter “Tutorial 1: Recording audio” on page 23.

1. Make sure you have a MIDI keyboard connected to your computer either directly through USB or a MIDI interface.

See the chapter “Setting up your system” on page 14 for information on setting up MIDI in your computer.

2. We want to have our MIDI keyboard routed to this track and play “HALionOne”. Make sure the Inspector is shown so we can see our MIDI input and output routing.

3. Next, on the Input Routing pop-up menu, choose the MIDI input you wish to use.

Most people leave this on “All MIDI Inputs” since you don’t have to worry about which input is which. “All MIDI Inputs” takes the MIDI signal from all your inputs and routes it to this track. There are some cases where you wouldn’t want this but for 99% of the time you’ll be safe with this option selected.

4. Below the MIDI Input Routing pop-up menu, you can set the MIDI output. This is set to our virtual instrument “HALionOne”. If for any reason you need to change this to another instrument you can do this here.

5. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on the track and play some notes on your MIDI keyboard.

You should see and hear the MIDI signals coming in to the right of the track.

Record Enabling the track lets Cubase know that you want to record on this track. You can have many tracks Record Enabled at a time.

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

6. Set the left locator to bar “1” and the right locator to

The left locator set to “1”.

The right locator set to “5”.

Cycle activated

bar “57”.

7. Make sure Cycle is turned off.

We are going to record without looping. We’ll cover MIDI cycle recording in the section “Cycle recording” on page 44.

8. Press [1] on the numeric keypad of your computer

keyboard.

This will move the cursor to the left locator.

9. Click the Record button and record a few bars of

music.

10. Click the Stop button when you are finished.

11. Turn off the Monitor and Record Enable buttons on the

track so that we don’t hear the input or record on the track any more.

Congratulations! You have just created your first MIDI recording in Cubase. Move ahead to the next section to learn how to play back MIDI.

MIDI playback

We are now going to learn how to play back MIDI in Cubase. You might think this is very simple – just hit “Play”. It is actually this simple, but there are a few tricks to learn so that you’ll be playing back what you want with precision.

• Double-click in the lower half of the ruler.

• Select the MIDI event and choose “Loop Selection”

from the Transport menu.

The default key command for this is [Shift]-[G]. This is the quickest way to loop the selected MIDI event and start playback!

To stop playback

• Click the Stop button on the Transport panel.

• Clicking the Stop button twice moves the cursor to the

position in the project, where you started playback.

• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard.

This toggles between stop and start.

• Press the “0” key of the numerical computer keypad.

Cycle playback

Cubase has the ability to loop or cycle a section of your project. To set the cycle location you need to use the left and right locator.

1. On the Transport panel, set the left locator to “1” and the right locator to “5”.

This tells Cubase that we want to loop or cycle between bars 1 and 5. Meaning we will have a 4 bar loop since the end of bar 4 is the beginning of bar 5.

For this section, make sure you load the project “MIDI Playback” found in the “Tutorial 3” folder.

To start playback

• Click the Play button on the Transport panel.

• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard.

This toggles between start and stop.

• Press the [Enter] key of the numerical computer keypad.

2. Make sure that the Cycle button is activated.

3. Click the Play button on the Transport panel and Cu-

base will play looping over and over until you click Stop.

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

Recording modes with cycle off

Cycle Record Mode

There are three different modes for recording when the cycle is turned off. This is called linear recording.

• Normal

“Normal” allows you to record on top of previously recorded MIDI. You will be able to see both MIDI parts on the screen overlapping each other.

• Merge

“Merge” joins or merges any MIDI data previously recorded on the track. An example of this is when recording drums – adding the kick drum on one pass and then the snare drum on another pass. The MIDI data is then joined together as one MIDI part.

• Replace

“Replace” mode will replace or overwrite any previous MIDI recording that was on the track.

5. On the Transport panel, make sure “Mix (MIDI)” is selected for the “Cycle Record Mode”.

This will allow us to record the drums, and as each cycle repeats, the MIDI will mix together into one part. This makes it easy to create complex drum rhythms.

6. Activate the “AUTO Q” button. This is the automatic quantize function which will lock our MIDI to the beat as we record it. Great if we play off time a bit.

Cycle recording

You can record MIDI while the Cycle is activated.

Recording MIDI drums

1. Let’s add another “Instrument” track and choose

“HALionOne” as our instrument.

This is described in the section “Creating an Instrument Track” on page

41.

2. Click in the program field in the Inspector and load a

drum sound of your choice found under the category “Drums&Perc”, sub-category “Drumset”.

3. Rename this new track to “Drums”.

4. Make sure the Cycle button is activated and set the

left locator to “9” and the right locator to “13”.

This will loop or cycle between bars 9 and 13.

7. Next we have to set the value of our quantize. This is so Cubase knows what to lock our MIDI notes to. Choose “1/8” notes from the “Quantize Type” pop-up menu.

Load the project called “Cycle Recording MIDI” found in the “Tutorial 3” folder.

8. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on the “Drums” track.

9. Click the “L” button on the Transport panel once.

This will make sure we start recording at the left locator.

10. Activate the Record button on the Transport panel and let’s record hi-hat on the first pass, kick on the second pass and then finally snare on the third.

11. Hit “Stop” when you’re finished.

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

12. Now move and copy this drum part so that the rest of

The Drum MIDI notesThe Drum MIDI velocities

Keyboard notes Time ruler

the song has a drum beat.

This is described in the chapter “Tutorial 2: Editing audio” on page 32.

13. Glue all the parts together as one.

This is described in the chapter “Tutorial 2: Editing audio” on page 32.

The Key Editor

In the Key Editor we can make changes to our MIDI data.

Load the project called “Key Editor” found in the “Tutorial 3” folder.

2. We want the song to start off with hi-hat and kick drum. Erase the snare by clicking once and holding the mouse while dragging a selection over the snare drum. Make your selection from bars 1 through 8.

A common term for this is to “lasso” the notes.

3. Press the [Delete] key to delete the snare notes.

4. Zoom in on the bar 1 and delete all the hit-hat notes

with the Erase tool of the Key Editor so that you only hear 1/4 notes.

5. Now erase all the other hi-hat notes from bar 2 through 8 using any method you like.

Erasing MIDI notes

1. Double-click on the “Drums” to open the Key Editor.

Here we can see our drum notes lined up with a keyboard on the left. At the bottom we have the velocity of each of the MIDI notes and at the top we can see the time ruler.

Copying MIDI notes

Let’s copy the MIDI notes in bar 1 to bars 2 through 8.

1. Lasso the hi-hat notes in bar 1. Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and drag the notes in bar 1 to bar 2. This copies them.

2. Continue copying until bar 9.

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

Creating or drawing in MIDI notes

Click and drag with the Pencil tool.

Pick one from the list or choose Setup for more controllers.

Now we need to draw in a cymbal crash in bar 25.

1. Scroll over to bar 25 and click on the piano roll on the

left hand side of the Key Editor. Click on the notes until you hear a crash cymbal that you like. There is a good one at C#2.

2. Select the Pencil tool of the Key Editor and draw in the

crash cymbal note at bar 25 by clicking and dragging for a full bar.

1. Make sure you can see the Controller Lane by clicking on the “Controller Lane Presets” button at the bottom left of the Key Editor.

2. Choose “Velocity Only” to view the velocity.

3. You can choose the MIDI information you wish view or

change from the pop-up menu.

4. You can also select “Setup” to view more controllers.

The Controller lane

The “Controller Lane” allows us to add in or modify MIDI data such as velocity and controller information. The most common use for this is to edit velocity, pitchbend and controller numbers for things like filter etc.

If you find that the MIDI velocity is too loud or quiet on certain notes, you can view and edit them at the bottom of the Key Editor.

5. Click and drag in the Controller lane to draw in new velocities for the notes.

You can even draw in curves and ramps using the Line tool in its various modes.

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

Tutorial 4: Working with loops

Loop Browser

Search for sounds here.

Your LoopsAudition controls

Audition controls (Play, Stop, Pause, Cycle and level slider)

Play in Project context button

Auto Play – this automatically starts playback for the selected file.

Sync to Main Transport button

Drag from the Loop Browser into your project.

The Loop Browser allows you to have a single window that gives you quick and easy access to all your loops. In the Loop Browser you can search for audio files, use tags to categorize, audition the audio in the open project’s tempo and a whole lot more.

Load the project called “Loops” found in the “Tutorial 4” folder.

Adding loops

1. Select “Open Loop Browser” from the Media menu.

4. Click the Play button to listen to the loop. The “Play in

Project context” option allows you to audition the loop in the project’s tempo. This is handy if the loop you are auditioning has a tempo that is different from the one you are using in your project.

5. If you have many loops, you can search for them using the Filter options at the top of the Viewer section.

6. Once you have found the loop you like, drag and drop it into your project. If you haven’t created an extra audio track for the loop, one will be created automatically for you.

2. Once the Loop Browser has finished scanning your

hard disk(s) for loop files, they will be displayed in the Viewer section.

3. Selecting a loop file in the Viewer section will display it

graphically below in the Scope section.

7. Rename the new track to “Loop 1”.

Tutorial 4: Working with loops

Making copies

Now that we have our loop let’s copy it using the “Repeat” function.

1. Click on the loop event in the Project window to select it.

2. Choose “Repeat” from the Edit menu.

3. In the dialog that opens, set the “Count” field to “13”.

4. Click “OK”. The loop will be copied 13 times and all

repeats will be placed one after the other.

Insert into Project

5. Use the “Repeat” command to repeat the loop out until the end of the project.

Make sure you read up on the Loop Browser in the chapter “The MediaBay” in the Operation Manual.

We are now going to add one more loop. This time we’ll use the “Insert into Project” command.

1. Create a new stereo audio track.

2. Rename the track to “Loop 2” and make sure it is se-

lected, as “Insert into Project” works using a selected track.

3. Position the Project cursor where you would like the

loop to be inserted. In our case, let’s choose bar 9.

4. In the Loop Browser right-click on the loop you would

like to use and choose “Insert into Project at cursor”. This will drop the loop into the Project window at bar 9 on the “Loop 2” track.

Tutorial 4: Working with loops

Tutorial 5: External MIDI instruments

(Cubase only)

Introduction

In this tutorial we are going to show you how to set up your MIDI devices and how to record them into Cubase. You may have a MIDI keyboard that is playing back MIDI data from Cubase and you want the data recorded as audio for further processing for the final mix. Learning to use the right tools will make these steps easy.

By adding external instruments, you can have a MIDI keyboard’s audio outputs plugged directly into your audio card’s inputs so that Cubase can monitor and record the signal in realtime.

3. We can then add a MIDI output to the “K2000”. Select it from the “Output” pop-up menu.

This will make things very handy later on!

Setting up MIDI devices

First let’s set up the MIDI devices that you have connected to your computer. Please note that every setup is different and that you’ll have to do some further reading in the Operation Manual to get everything 100% the way you want it. This tutorial covers a basic setup with a Kurzweil K2000 keyboard.

Load the project called “External MIDI 1” found in the “Tutorial 5” folder.

Ö Depending on the audio card you are using, you might have to map the ports first.

1. Start off by first opening the “MIDI Device Manager”

from the Devices menu.

2. Next click the “Install Device” button, so we can add

the K2000. Select it in the list and then click “OK”.

You may have another keyboard other than the Kurzweil K2000 in this list. Feel free to select it now.

4. Close the MIDI Device Manager when you are done.

• MIDI devices contain all the necessary information to

select patches on the MIDI device that you are using. If your device is in the list, make sure you have it set up. If your MIDI device is not in the list, you can choose “Define New…” to create it. Make sure you read the corresponding chapter in the Operation Manual and the separate pdf document “MIDI Devices” for more detailed information.

Setting up VST connections for external instruments

Now we have our MIDI device all set up. We are now going to set up our inputs so that we can listen to the output of our keyboard play into the audio card’s inputs. This is what is meant by “external instruments”: having your external MIDI instruments play into Cubase.

Load the project called “External MIDI 2” found in the “Tutorial 5” folder.

1. On the Devices menu, choose “VST Connections”.

The default key command for this is [F4].

2. Open the “External Instruments” tab.

3. Click on the “Add External Instrument” button and type

in “K2000” into the “Name” field.

You can use any name you choose if you have a different setup than what we are using in this tutorial.

Tutorial 5: External MIDI instruments (Cubase only)

4. We want the output from the K2000 to be in stereo.

K2000’s signals playing through Cubase

MIDI in and MIDI out indicators

This means we are going to physically plug audio cables from the K2000’s output into the audio card’s inputs. Choose “1” for “Stereo Return(s)” since the K2000 has a left and right output.

5. We created a MIDI device earlier, so let’s click on “As-

sociate MIDI Device” and choose the “K2000”.

10. For “instrument”, choose the external instrument that we created. In our case it’s the “K2000”. For “count” choose “1”.

11. Click “OK” to close the dialog. Now let’s go to the next section and monitor our external

instrument. We’ll also choose a sound and record some MIDI.

To create a new MIDI Device (e.g. if you didn’t find yours on the list), select “Create Device”.

6. Click “OK” to close the dialog.

7. Make sure you set the correct inputs and outputs for

your new external instrument bus in the Device Port column. This is what our external instrument bus should look like.

8. Close the “VST Connections” window and select the

“Loop 2” track.

We are going to add a new track. By selecting the “Loop 2” track, the new track will be added below this.

9. Open the Project menu and, on the “Add Track” sub-

menu, select “Instrument”.

Monitoring external MIDI instruments

Load the project called “External MIDI 3” found in the “Tutorial 5” folder.

1. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on the “K2000” track.

2. Play some notes on the actual K2000 keyboard. You’ll see the MIDI indicators on the Transport panel light up and you’ll be able to hear the K2000 playing through Cubase.

Play whichever keyboard you have created in the MIDI Device Manager for this tutorial.

3. Let’s rename the track “K2000” to “Piano” since it’s piano that we’ll be recording on this track.

This doesn’t rename the external instrument name in the “VST Connections” window, but only in the Project window.

Tutorial 5: External MIDI instruments (Cubase only)

4. Remember that we created a MIDI device in the MIDI

Click the “Programs” button to select a piano sound.

Device Manager. MIDI Devices contain valuable information about patch names, bank selections and a few other things. This helps us in that we already have all the program names for the K2000 at our disposal. Click on the “Programs” button in the inspector and choose the “Stereo Grand” piano sound.

If your MIDI device is different from the one in this tutorial choose a piano sound from your device.

2. If you find the levels low, you can click on the “Edit Instrument” button and move the “Return Gain” slider so that you hear more of the external instrument.

3. Click the Record button on the Transport panel and record a piano line.

4. Click the Stop button when you are finished.

That’s it. We are now monitoring and playing our external instrument. You can add effects and EQ to the external instrument just like a virtual instrument or an audio track. We’ll do this in the next tutorial. For now let’s record some MIDI.

Recording MIDI and external instruments

Load the project called “External MIDI 4” found in the “Tutorial 5” folder.

Now let’s record some MIDI on our instrument track.

1. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on the

Piano track if they aren’t already on.

5. Turn off the “Record Enable” and “Monitor” buttons on the “Piano” track so that you don’t hear the input any more and that you won’t accidentally record on it.

Congratulations! You’ve just recorded your first external MIDI instrument. Move on to the next tutorial as we will discuss mixing, EQs, effects, automation and exporting.

Load the project called “External MIDI 5” found in the “Tutorial 5” folder to hear all the changes we’ve made so far.

Tutorial 5: External MIDI instruments (Cubase only)

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

Introduction

Channel meters

Channel fader

Channel Level

Peak Meter Value

In this section we’ll draw from the last 5 tutorials and finally get a mix ready with proper levels, EQs and effects. Automation will be added and then we’ll export the audio.

Load the project called “Mixing 1” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

Setting levels

The first thing we want to do is to set the levels for our project. This helps us get a preliminary balance of the mix so we can add EQ and effects later.

1. Select the Mixer from the Devices menu.

The default key command for this is [F3].

2. Cubase only: Hide the input channels from view (we

won’t be using them anymore), by clicking the “Hide Input Channels” button in the common panel to the left of the Mixer.

5. If for any reason you need to get the fader back to 0dB (the default setting), you can [Ctrl]/[Command]-click directly in the fader area.

6. You can also change the fader setting by doubleclicking in the “Channel Level” area and entering the level manually.

7. Be careful when it comes to how loud you raise the faders. Make sure you keep levels at a good volume so that they are as loud as possible without clipping. You will always know when you are clipping: when the “CLIP” indicator lights up on the output channel. If it does, lower your levels and click on “CLIP”. This will reset the warning light.

3. Click the Play button on the Transport panel and listen

to your mix.

4. Move the faders for each track so that you can hear all

of the mix the way you like it.

• That’s it for setting the levels. Let’s look at the panorama next.

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

Setting panorama

Panner

Pan amount

Right-click the pan area to open the pan mode pop-up menu.

Solo

Mute

Deactivate all Mute

Deactivate all Solo

Load the project called “Mixing 2” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

1. Setting the panorama (pan) for each track moves its po-

sition in the stereo mix. It will either keep the signal balanced in the middle of the left and right speaker, lean to the left or lean to the right or be completely in the left or right speaker.

2. Right-clicking in the panner for certain track types pre-

sents you with three different types of pan options.

The different pan options are described in detail in the chapter “The Mixer” in the Operation Manual. Let’s leave the setting on “Stereo Balance Panner” for now.

• To get the panner back to the center (the default posi-

tion), [Ctrl]/[Command]-click anywhere in the panner area.

3. Let’s pan our two guitars slightly left and slightly right.

This will spread them out a bit.

4. Keep the “Drums” track in the middle but let’s move “Loop 1” a bit to the left and “Loop 2” a bit to the right.

This will give our rhythm section a larger, more spacious sound.

That’s it for pan, let’s move on to Mute and Solo.

Mute and solo

Load the project called “Mixing 3” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

• For each track there is an “M” for mute and “S” for solo button. Mute will prevent you from hearing the track and solo will only play that track or tracks which have “S” highlighted.

• You can have several tracks muted or soloed at a time.

• When you solo a track, the other tracks become muted.

• If you want to clear or deactivate all the mutes or solos,

click on the “Deactivate all Mute” or “Deactivate all Solo” buttons in the common panel to the left of the Mixer.

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

• There may be times when you want certain tracks to al-

Click the “EQ Band Active” button to turn on an EQ.

Click in the EQ curve area to turn on an EQ.

Move the EQ up or down to raise or lower the gain.

“EQ Band Gain” amount

ways play even if another track has solo active. If you [Alt]/ [Option]-click on the “S” button, this will place the track in “Solo Defeat” mode. This allows the track to always play even if you solo another track.

• To take a track out of “Solo Defeat” mode simply [Alt]/

[Option]-click it again. That’s it for mute and solo, let’s move on to adding EQ.

Adding EQ

Load the project called “Mixing 4” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

3. In the Equalizers section, click the “EQ Band Active” button for each of the EQs to turn them on. You can also click in the EQ curve area to turn on an EQ.

EQ or equalization amplifies or attenuates frequencies so that we can place each instrument correctly in the mix. EQ is subjective and can be influenced greatly by the style of music that you are mixing.

We’re going to run through the EQ features that Cubase has to offer, but feel free to experiment and try out the different presets on your mix.

1. Solo the Drums track and click the “Edit Instrument

Channel Settings” button.

2. This will open the Channel settings window, where

you can e.g. make EQ settings. Make sure you have a section of music looping so that you can hear the EQ changes you are making.

• There are four bands of EQ on each track.

4. Click and move the EQ point up, down, right or left.

Moving the EQ point up or down raises or lowers the gain of the EQ. The gain makes that particular EQ louder or softer. The “EQ Band Gain” at the bottom of the EQ window gives you the value of gain.

If you hold down [Ctrl]/[Command], you can restrict the movement of the EQ to just up and down.

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

5. Moving the EQ point right or left changes the frequency

“EQ Band Freq” amount

Move the EQ left or right to change the frequency.

“EQ Band Q” amount

Moving the EQ up or down while holding down [Shift] changes the Q.

of the EQ. The “EQ Band Freq” setting at the bottom of the EQ window gives you the value of the frequency.

If you hold down [Alt]/[Option], you can restrict the movement of the EQ to just right or left.

8. You can bypass the EQs by clicking on the “Bypass Equalizers” button. If you [Alt]/[Option]-click, you can reset the EQ. A dialog window will open to confirm if you are sure you want to reset the EQs. If you are sure, click “Yes”.

Experiment with the EQs on all your tracks in this tutorial. A good tip when using EQ is that it’s usually better to take away EQ (lower the gain) than to add it.

6. Holding down [Shift] while moving the EQ point up or

down changes the quality (Q) of the EQ. Many people refer to this as the width of the EQ. The “EQ Band Q” setting at the bottom of the EQ window gives you the value of the quality.

7. The “Preset Management” button allows you to recall

and store presets. Choose from the list to get a sound that’s close to what you want and then adjust it slightly. You can then store it as a new preset.

We’ve made a whole bunch of EQ changes to this tutorial. Listen and see the changes by loading the project “Mixing 5” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

Now let’s move on to effects.

Audio effects

Load the project called “Mixing 6” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

Now let’s start using some effects. We can add effects by inserting the effect directly on a track or we can create an FX channel and use the auxiliary sends of each track to send to that FX channel.

Insert effects

1. Make sure the Mixer is open.

You can open the Mixer from the Devices menu or by pressing [F3].

2. Begin playback and loop or cycle a section of music so that you can hear everything.

The tutorial project has its locators and cycle already set for this. Feel free to change this if you like.

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

3. Click on the “Edit Audio Channels Settings” button on

the Bass track to open the VST Audio Channel Settings window.

4. Let’s add compression to the Bass track to smooth it

out. Click on the “Select Insert Type 1” slot and choose “Compressor” from the Dynamics submenu.

5. Make changes to the compression. At the end of this

section, you can load the next tutorial that will contain all of the changes we have made.

FX channels

Now let’s show you how to create and use FX channels.

1. Close the Mixer and choose “FX Channel” from the Add Track submenu of the Project menu.

2. Choose “Stereo” for “Configuration”, select the “StereoDelay” effect and click OK.

3. We are going to put delay on the “Elec Guitar” track. Let’s set the delay so that the left side and right side have different delay settings and make sure the “Mix” is set to “100.0”.

Giving the stereo delay different left and right settings creates a more dynamic effect.

4. With the delay set, click the “Edit Channels Settings” button of the “Elec Guitar” track.

5. Select “FX 1-StereoDelay” from the “Select Send Destination” pop-up menu.

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

6. Click the “Activate Send 1” button to turn on the send.

This will allow you to send the guitar to the “StereoDelay”.

7. Move the slider to the right to raise the level of the

send to the “StereoDelay” effect. You will begin to hear the guitar being delayed. Clicking the “S” (solo) button on the track will allow you to hear this more clearly.

8. The great thing about FX Channels is that the channel

looks and feels just like a regular audio channel. When you set an EQ for an FX Channel, only this effect will be changed by the EQ. In our case changing the EQ on the “FX 1 – StereoDelay” FX channel will only change the EQ of the delay.

About automation

Automation allows us to make objects such as faders and knobs move by themselves. This is very handy in that we can tell Cubase to make changes over a period of time and those changes will be remembered and will occur again without our attention.

Load the project called “Mixing 7” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

1. We created a fade-in on the “Elec Guitar” track earlier. Let’s remove the fade on this audio event and create some automation instead. Zoom in so that you can see the first audio event more clearly.

2. Select the event and choose “Remove Fades” from the Audio menu.

3. Click the “Show/Hide Automation” button at the far left of the track.

You may need to hover your mouse over the far left bottom area until you see the button appear as this is only shown when you need it.

4. Select the Pencil tool.

5. In the subtrack that appears below the audio event

use the Pencil tool to draw in automation so that it resembles a fade in.

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

6. You can also use the “Line” tool to draw in automation

Left Locator Right Locator

in a straight line. Perfect for fade in automation.

7. Listen to the fade in automation we created.

• You may have noticed that when we used the Pencil

tool to place in automation, the “R” button (Read Enable) for the track became highlighted. This means that the automation on this track is being read or played back. You can turn this off and the automation will not be read. In our case we drew in volume automation, and so in turning it off the volume will not fade in but stay at one level.

There are so many examples to show when it comes to automation. For example we could have automated our effects or our send levels. We could have even automated objects while Cubase was playing back. The automation can be placed into write mode and moving almost any thing will create automation that we can edit for fine tuning later!

Make sure you read the chapter “Automation” in the Operation Manual to fully realize how exciting automation can be.

1. Set the left locator to bar 1 and the right locator to bar 65 on the Transport panel. This will make sure we have all the music for export.

2. Open the File menu, and on the Export submenu select “Audio Mixdown…”.

3. The “Export Audio Mixdown” dialog opens.

This dialog is described in detail in the chapter “Export Audio Mixdown” in the Operation Manual.

Exporting

Now that we have our project mixed we will want to export it so that we can import it into another program such as a CD burning application.

Load the project “Mixing 8” found in the “Tutorial 6” folder.

• Before we can export our mix we need to tell Cubase

how many bars to export. We accomplish this by setting the locators.

4. “File Name” is for naming the file for export. Let’s name our’s “Mixing Mixdown”.

5. The “Path” is where you wish to save the exported file on your computer. Open the “Path Options” pop-up menu to the right of the Path field and select “Choose…” to navigate to the folder you wish to save to. For convenience there is the option “Use Project Audio Folder” which will store the exported file in your project’s audio folder. This is one of the best places to keep it so it won’t accidentally become erased or lost. Make sure “Use Project Audio Folder” is activated for this export.

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

6. Normally you’ll want to save your exported file as a

“Wave File” under “File Format”. This of course chiefly depends on what file format the other application such as a CD burning program requires.

7. In the Channel Selection section, you can choose

whether you want to export the main output channel “Stereo Out”. This means the exported file will be generated through the main stereo outputs that we see in the Mixer. You can also choose the individual outs of each audio channel for flexibility in your export. Let’s choose “Stereo Out”.

10. Before we finish, there is one very important feature that we must select. This is “Realtime Export”. Since we have an external MIDI instrument that is playing a physical keyboard and its audio is coming back into Cubase, we need the audio mixdown to happen in realtime. This ensures that the MIDI data is properly sent to the external MIDI instrument and recorded back in. Don’t forget this step!

11. When you are done making all the settings, click the Export button.

12. You will now see the exported stereo mix on a new stereo track.

8. In the Audio Engine Output section, choose the “Sam-

ple Rate” and “Bit Depth” that will be required for your export. 44.100 kHz and 16 bit are common for CD burning.

9. Activate the “Pool” and “Audio Track” options at the

bottom of the dialog, as these will import the audio back into Cubase after you export it and automatically create an audio track. If you activate the “Close dialog after export”

13. You can check to see if the audio mixdown sounds the way you want it by soloing the mixdown track

Load the project called “Mixing 9” found in the “Tuto-

rial 6” folder to see the results of this export. option, the “Export Audio Mixdown” window will also close after export.

Important Feature – “Realtime Export”!

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

Tutorial 7: Surround production

(Cubase only)

Surround busses

Using surround sound in Cubase is effortless. Surround becomes an extension of what we’ve already learned – just with a few more channels added. Let’s set up our inputs and outputs so that we are surround-ready.

To fully use surround sound on your computer, you will need an audio card that has 6 or more inputs and outputs. If your audio card only has between 2 and 5 inputs or outputs, there may be sections of this tutorial that will not apply to your configuration.

To learn more about surround beyond this tutorial, consult the chapter “Surround Sound” in the Operation Manual.

4. Click in the Device Port column for the channels in the bus and select the desired outputs (those connected to your speakers) from the context menu.

Since 5.1 surround requires 6 speakers (or 6 individual outputs), make sure you select 6 separate outputs in the Device Port column.

Load the project called “Surround 1” found in the “Tutorial 7” folder.

Setting up surround outputs

1. Go to the Devices menu and choose “VST Connections”.

The default key command for this is [F4].

2. Let’s choose the “Output” tab first. We want to start from scratch and remove anything that is currently there, just in case it’s set up incorrectly. If you see anything in the “Bus Name” column, right-click with the mouse and choose “Remove Bus”.

3. Click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “5.1” for configuration and “1” for count and click “OK”.

This will add a new surround sound 5.1 bus (Left, Right, Center, LFE, Left Surround and Right Surround) allowing us to have audio in Cubase route to our audio hardware.

Setting up surround inputs

Now let’s open the “Input” tab and set up the inputs we are going to use for recording surround sound into Cubase.

1. Do the same as mentioned above for the outputs. Right-click and select “Remove Bus”.

2. Now click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “5.1” for configuration and “1” for count and click “OK”.

This has now added a new surround sound 5.1 bus (Left, Right, Center, LFE, Left Surround and Right Surround), allowing us to record audio into Cubase in 5.1 surround.

3. Click in the Device Port column for the channels in the bus and select the desired inputs on your audio card from the context menu.

Since 5.1 surround requires 6 individual inputs, make sure you select 6 separate inputs in the Device Port column.

Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)

Recording with a 5.1 input bus

Having a 5.1 bus allows you to record surround as one multi-channel audio file on one audio track. This is very convenient and keeps the files aligned so they don’t go out of phase. Below is an example of recording with a 5.1 bus.

Recording with 6 mono input busses

You can however create separate mono busses for your

5.1 inputs. This allows for greater flexibility in terms of routing, EQ, effects, etc. Below is an example of recording with 6 separate mono busses.

3. Click in the Device Port column for the busses and select the desired inputs on your audio card from the context menu.

Since 5.1 surround requires 6 individual inputs, make sure you select 6 separate inputs in the Device Port column.

4. Rename the busses according to the left, right, center, LFE, left surround and right surround input channels.

Let’s show you how to record in surround sound using separate mono busses.

1. Right-click on our “5.1 In” bus and select “Remove Bus”.

2. Click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Mono” for configuration and “6” for count and click “OK”.

This will add 6 separate mono busses that we will configure as a surround input setup.

Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)

That’s it for the “VST Connections” window. You are now ready to set up your tracks.

Setting up a surround mix

Step 1 – Select the track.

Step 2 – Open the Input Routing pop-up menu and select the input for the track.

Step 1 – Select the track.

Step 2 – Open the “Output Routing” pop-up menu and select the output for the track.

We have our inputs and outputs set up in the “VST Connections” window, now we need to set up the tracks in Cubase so that they’ll be properly named, have the right inputs and will output the audio correctly to our audio card.

Load the project called “Surround 2” found in the “Tutorial 7” folder.

Setting up the track inputs

1. Close the “VST Connections” window and create 6 mono audio tracks.

2. Rename the tracks according to the left, right, center, LFE, left surround and right surround channels.

Remember that naming your tracks before you record is the recommended way of recording. This allows your audio files to have proper names like “Left Surround_01” and “LFE_01” instead of “Audio 07_09” which can lead to confusion.

Setting up the track outputs

Load the project called “Surround 3” found in the

“Tutorial 7” folder.

• Open the “Output Routing” pop-up menu for each of the tracks and assign them to their corresponding outputs.

3. We now need to give each track its proper input. On the “Input Routing” pop-up menu, set the track for the left surround channel to the left input, the track for the right surround channel to the right input, and so on.

Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)

• Alternatively you can select the 5.1 output for each of the tracks.

• In this case you could have a surround panner for each

Record Enable

Monitor

track.

Make sure you look up the chapter “Surround Sound” in the Operation Manual for more detailed information on the surround panner.

We now have all the inputs and outputs set up. Move on to the next section for information on surround recording.

Recording in surround

1. Activate the “Record Enable” and “Monitor” buttons for the tracks.

2. Make sure Cycle is turned off (not highlighted) and that you are starting recording at bar 1.

3. Click the Record button to record.

We are now ready to record in surround sound. This means we are going to record 6 channels at a time. These channels are routed to the 5.1 output we’ve set up in the “VST Connections” window. We have 6 mono inputs as the inputs. We could have used one audio track that is configured as a 5.1 track as discussed previously, but using 6 mono tracks allows us flexibility for future changes and edits.

Load the project called “Surround 4” found in the “Tutorial 7” folder.

• The basic recording procedures are described in the chapter “Tutorial 1: Recording audio” on page 23. For more detailed information see the “Recording” chapter in the Operation Manual.

Behind the scenes we have 6 channels of audio (a surround sound mix) coming in our 6 mono inputs. You’ll be

4. Click the Stop button when you are finished recording.

5. Turn off the “Record Enable” and “Monitor” buttons for

all the tracks so that we don’t hear the inputs or record on the tracks any more.

Congratulations! You have just recorded a 5.1 mix in Cubase. Move ahead to the next section to learn how to export a surround file.

able to hear this once you load the next project.

Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)

Exporting a surround file

Now that we have a surround mix recorded, we will want to export it so that we can import it into another program such as a DVD authoring application.

Exporting a surround mix is not much different from exporting other audio mixdowns, see “Exporting” on page 61. The only differences are that you might have to choose a different file format, depending on the purpose of the mixdown, and that you have to decide whether you want to export the entire surround output bus or the individual surround output channels separately.

• If you export your surround mix and choose to automatically insert the result on a new audio track in your project, you will now see the mix on one audio track as a 5.1 multiple channel audio file.

Load the project called “Surround 5” found in the “Tutorial 7” folder to see the results of this export.

Tutorial 7: Surround production (Cubase only)

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and

groove

Background

Enter the tempo of the drum loop.Number of bars

Musical Mode

In this section, we will show you how to make audio files follow the project tempo of Cubase in a few simple steps.

We’ll then look at VariAudio – the ability to edit monophonic vocal recordings in pitch and time as easily as editing MIDI in the Key Editor.

Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 1” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

Drum loop, tempo known

3. Double-click on the drum loop and the Sample Editor will open.

In this example we have imported a drum loop and we know its tempo. This is one of the quickest ways to match the tempo of the drum loop with the project tempo.

Here we have a drum loop with a tempo of 100 beats per minute.

The project tempo of Cubase is 120bpm, different from the drum loop.

We are going to set the tempo of the drum loop to match the project tempo.

1. Activate Play on the Transport panel and activate the click.

You will hear that the drum loop is off time with the click.

2. Activate Stop on the Transport panel.

4. In the Sample Editor toolbar, double-click in the

Tempo field and enter 100.

This way Cubase knows that the tempo of this audio file is 100bpm. With this information Cubase can then time stretch the audio properly. Instead of typing in the tempo, you can type in the number of bars – whatever is known. In both cases, the audio will be stretched properly.

5. Activate Musical Mode in the toolbar.

The drum loop is now matched to the tempo of the project.

6. Close the Sample Editor.

7. Select the drum loop in the project window and select

Loop Selection from the Transport menu.

You can also use the corresponding key command [Shift]-[G].

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

You can now hear that the drum loop is in perfect time

Zoom slider

1–8 9–16

17–18

Audition LoopAudition

Auto Adjust

with the project tempo. Feel free to change the tempo on the Transport panel by first deactivating the Tempo Track and notice that the drum loop will follow.

Drum loop, Auto Adjust

Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 2” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

In this example we have imported a drum loop and we do not know the tempo. This is one of the quickest ways to match the tempo of the drum loop with the project tempo.

1. Activate Play on the Transport panel.

You will hear that the drum loop is off time with the click.

2. Click Stop.

3. Double-click on the drum loop.

The Sample Editor will open.

4. Activate Musical Mode in the toolbar.

Activating Musical Mode allows you to hear any tempo changes directly.

5. Open the Definition tab and zoom in on the first bar.

You can use the zoom slider on the bottom right. Zoom in so that you can see about 18 waveform shaker hits.

6. Select the first bar of the loop (the first 16 hits, up to the 17th). Activate Audition Loop and click the Audition button.

7. As you listen back you may need to tweak the end of the loop to get it to loop smoothly.

8. Zoom out and click Auto Adjust on the Definition tab.

9. Close the Sample Editor and listen to the loop play in

time!

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

Drum loop, Manual Adjust

Manual Adjust

Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 3” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

This builds on what we have learned already in the previous examples. In this example we have a drum loop of unknown tempo and with timing issues that need to be corrected. You will learn how to manually correct this by adjusting the Timing Grid in the Sample Editor.

1. Activate Play on the Transport panel.

You will hear that the drum loop is off time with the click.

2. Activate Stop.

3. Double-click on the drum loop.

The Sample Editor will open.

4. Activate Musical Mode in the toolbar.

Activating Musical Mode allows you to hear any tempo changes directly.

5. Enter the number of bars the drum loop’s length equals. In our case it’s 4.

The drum loop is now matched to the project tempo.

6. Activate Playback on the Transport panel.

You will hear that the drum loop doesn’t exactly match with the Click. This is because the loop has timing variations. Let’s correct them.

7. Activate Manual Adjust.

This allows us to manually adjust the Timing Grid to correct any timing variations.

8. Zoom in to the bars of the drum loop. In our case it will be bars 2, 3 and 4.

9. Move the bar Grid lines close to the beginning of the attacks of the waveform display. Make sure you are only moving the Grid lines that are on Bars 2, 3 and 4. You should see the flag “Stretch Previous – Move Next” appear.

Moving the Grid lines at bar positions allows us to change the tempo of the previous bar while the following bars will be moved.

Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 4” found

in the “Tutorial 8” folder to see the bar grid line ad-

justments.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

10. Move the beat grid lines close to the beginning of the

Range Selection tool

Range tab

Hitpoints tab

Slice & Close

attacks of the waveform display.

Zoom in to line up the beat grid lines exactly. Do this for the entire drum loop in all the locations that appear to be off time.

Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 5” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder to see the beat grid line adjustments.

11. Close the Sample Editor.

12. Click on the drum loop and select Loop Selection from

the Transport menu. You can now hear that the drum loop is in perfect time with

the project tempo. Feel free to change the tempo on the Transport panel by first deactivating the Tempo Track and notice that the drum loop will follow.

Working with selections

4. We are going to create a 2-bar loop from this audio file. Make sure the Range Selection tool is selected. Click and drag to make a selection to a portion of the audio file that you will use as a drum loop. Somewhere just after bar 5 and just after bar 7.

To get the selection to match our example click on the Range tab and enter 411427 in the Start field and 616843 in the End Field.

Load the project called “Tempo and Groove 6” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

In this example we have an audio file with unknown tempo. We only want to use a small section of the audio file to create a drum loop.

1. Activate Play on the Transport panel.

You will hear that the drum loop is off time with the click.

5. Click on the Hitpoints tab and choose Slice & Close.

You now have a loop that is cut to the selection you made and can now loop to the project tempo. The Sample Editor will close and you will be returned to the Project window.

2. Activate Stop.

3. Double-click on the drum loop.

The Sample Editor will open.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

6. Click on the drum loop and select Loop Selection from

VariAudio tab

Pitch & Warp

Algorithm menu

Original pitch

the Transport menu. You can now hear that the drum loop is in perfect time

with the project tempo. Feel free to change the tempo on the Transport panel by first deactivating the Tempo Track and notice that the drum loop will follow.

Changing pitch using VariAudio

If you are zoomed in enough you will be able to see the note pitch and the deviation of the segment from this pitch when the mouse pointer is over the segment.

Load the project called “VariAudio 1” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

In this example we have a saxophone audio file that has a few wrong notes in it. We are going to change the individual pitches to create a new saxophone line.

1. Double-click on the audio file to open the Sample Editor.

2. Open the VariAudio tab.

3. Activate the Pitch & Warp mode.

Cubase will analyze the audio file and detect its pitches.

4. Freely move the segments that appear over the audio file to alter their pitch.

The segments correspond to the saxophone notes that Cubase detected during the analysis.

When you move the segments for the first time you may receive a message indicating that VariAudio requires the algorithm to be switched to Solo.

You will always know what the original pitch of each segment is by the orange line that appears when you move a segment.

snap to semitone steps. If you hold down [Shift] you can move the segment freely with snap turned off.

When you move a segment up or down it will automatically

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

Using Pitch Quantize

VariAudio tab

Segments

Middle segment

If the audio file has all the right notes but has some that are out of tune you can easily straighten them out using Pitch Quantize.

• Select the segments you want to pitch quantize and adjust the Pitch Quantize slider. The segments will move to the nearest semitone.

You can also quantize all the segments by pressing [Ctrl]/[Command]-[A] to select all and adjusting the Pitch Quantize slider.

Load the project called “VariAudio 2” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder to listen to the changes of the new saxophone line.

Splitting and gluing segments

1. Double-click on the audio file to open the Sample Editor.

2. Open the VariAudio tab.

3. Activate the Segments button.

Cubase will begin to analyze the audio file and detect its pitches.

Right away we can see that there is a problem with the middle segment. It should actually be two segments instead of one.

4. Move the mouse pointer to the lower border of the segment.

You will notice that the mouse pointer becomes a scissor.

Editing segments using VariAudio

In this example we will begin to explore the various possibilities of editing segments. The Segments mode allows for editing of the individual segments which include changing the start and end positions of a segment, cutting

or gluing segments, moving or deleting them.

Load the project called “VariAudio 3” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

5. Click at the position in the segment, where the pitch changes.

Notice that the segment becomes two segments that can now be moved independently.

6. Just before those segments are two other segments

Fifth segment

that need to be glued together. You can click on the first segment while holding down [Alt]/[Option].

A glue tube appears. This joins the segment you have clicked on with the next segment.

Hold [Alt]/[Option] and click on the first segment…

…to glue together the two segments.

Load the project called “VariAudio 4” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder to see to the changes made to this audio file.

Changing the start and end points of segments

There may be times when the segments are not exactly where you would like them. You will need to edit their start and end times. This may be due to noise or other variances

that cause the audio file to be analyzed incorrectly.

The fifth segment requires its start point adjusted. A hint here is to look at the audio file in the background to see where the waveform begins.

4. Click and hold at the beginning of the fifth segment and move its start point to the right.

5. Now click and hold at the end of the forth segment to adjusts its length so that it lines up with the fifth segment.

The forth and fifth segments are now in their right positions.

Load the project called “VariAudio 5” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

1. Double-click on the audio file to open the Sample Editor.

2. Open the VariAudio tab.

3. Activate the Segments button.

Cubase will begin to analyze the audio file and detect its pitches.

It’s generally best to make sure that the end and start of the two segments are butted together.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

6. The last segment seems to be too short. Click and

Straighten Pitch

drag so that the segment is as long as the audio file.

Tilting notes using VariAudio

Tilting of individual notes is referred to as editing “micro pitches”. You can modify pitch modulation like light vibrato, tremolo or slide by using the Straighten Pitch slider or by

editing the micro pitches.

The last segment before…

…and after adjusting the segment length.

Ö When you are in Segments mode, the segments are shown with a hatched background.

Using segments to change the timing of your audio

1. Switch back to the Pitch & Warp mode. A shortcut for this is to press [Tab].

The Pitch & Warp mode allows you to change the pitch and timing of your audio. When you are in Pitch & Warp mode the segments are shown with a plain background.

2. The last segment seems to carry on a bit too long. Shorten the last segment so that it’s about half its length.

You are actually time stretching at the segment level. When you edit the timing of audio segments, warp tabs will be created. For more information about time stretching, see the chapter “Sample Editor” in the Operation Manual.

Load the project called “VariAudio 7” found in the

“Tutorial 8” folder.

Straighten pitch

1. Double-click on the audio file to open the Sample Editor.

2. Open the VariAudio tab.

3. The Pitch & Warp mode should already be selected. If

it isn’t, click the Pitch & Warp button to activate it. Notice that the last segment has a lot of pitch variation in it.

4. Select the last segment and move the Straighten Pitch slider towards the right.

This reduces the amount of pitch modulation that the segment contains, basically smoothing it out.

5. Listen back to hear the changes.

Load the project called “VariAudio 6” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder to see the changes that were made to this audio file.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

Ö Feel free to use Straighten Pitch on all the segments. It can be very useful to correct minor unwanted pitch variances in your performance.

Micro pitches

Tilt anchor

Load the project called “VariAudio 8” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder.

In this example we are going to change the tuning of the segments by adjusting its micro pitches.

1. Double-click on the audio file to open the Sample Editor.

2. Open the VariAudio tab.

3. The Pitch & Warp mode should already be selected. If

it isn’t, click the Pitch & Warp button to activate it.

4. Click in the upper right hand corner of the segment.

The mouse pointer becomes an up down arrow.

5. Drag downwards to change the micro pitch curve.

We are going to try to simulate the sound of the saxophone dropping its pitch or sliding downwards.

6. Play back the audio file to hear the changes.

Ö You will notice that it doesn’t sound very realistic since a sax player would generally wait until the very end and slide the note down quickly. This is where we can add a tilt anchor and achieve the sound we want.

7. Choose Undo tilt micro pitches from the Edit menu.

8. Move the mouse pointer to the upper border of the

segment. Click to insert a tilt anchor.

9. Click again in the upper right hand corner of the segment and drag downwards.

This time the tilt anchor is used as an axis around which the micro pitch curve can be rotated.

Load the project called “VariAudio 9” found in the

“Tutorial 8” folder to hear the changes made in this

section.

VariAudio and vocals

In this example you will use VariAudio on a vocal with backing tracks. Be sure to read the previous examples on

VariAudio before proceeding with this section.

Load the project called “VariAudio 10” found in the

“Tutorial 8” folder.

Editing the vocals

Correcting the segmentation

1. Play and listen to the project. Notice how the vocals sound before we use VariAudio.

The tempo should be set at 75 BPM and cycle should be turned on cycling between bars 1 to 7.

2. Double-click on the Vocal audio event to open the Sample Editor.

3. Open the VariAudio Tab and activate the Segments mode.

4. Click while holding down [Alt]/[Option] to glue together the first two segments of the first vocal section and the second and third segments of the second vocal section. These segments should actually be together to successfully change their pitch.

In the first word ‘ba-by’, glue together the two pitches that make up ‘ba’. Also glue together the second and third segments that make up ‘rea’ in ‘ready’.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

Ö Keeping certain segments together while changing

Two segments that make up ‘ba’ in ‘baby’

Two segments that make up ‘rea’ in ‘ready’

Glued segments that make up ‘ba’ in ‘baby’

Glued segments that make up ‘rea’ in ‘ready’

Move these two segments to ‘E3’

Make sure you move all three segments together.

their pitch helps to maintain proper sound characteristics resulting in a more natural sound.

Click while holding down [Alt]/[Option] to glue together the two segments of each vocal section.

Editing the pitch

1. Double-click on the Vocal audio event to open the Sample Editor and scroll down so that you can see the VariAudio segments.

2. Make sure that the Pitch & Warp mode is selected in the VariAudio tab.

3. Move the ‘ba’ in ‘baby’ to the pitch of ‘E3’.

4. Also move the ‘rea’ in ‘ready’ to the pitch of ‘E3’.

5. Now move the end of ‘are’ and ‘you’ to ‘E3’. Do this by

selecting the three segments and moving the top one to ‘E3’.

Click and drag to select all three segments.

The picture is what you should see after you glue the segments of each vocal section together.

Load the project called “VariAudio 11” found in the “Tutorial 8” folder to see the changes made to the vocals.

Now that we have modified the segmentation, we can adjust the pitch of the created segments.

6. Play back the audio to hear your changes.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

Creating a flair with the vocals

This is the right spot to split.

Reset Pitch Changes

Let’s do something fun with the vocals by creating a flair upwards.

1. Move the ‘dy’ in ‘ready’ up to ‘G3’.

Do this by selecting the two segments that make up ‘dy’ in ‘ready’. Move them together.

2. Now switch to the Segments mode by pressing [Tab] and move the mouse pointer to the lower border of the segment. You will notice that the pointer becomes a scissor.

3. Split the end of the segment so that it looks like the picture below.

6. Now move the last segment up to ‘C4’.

This creates a very natural flair upwards in the vocals.

7. Play back the audio to hear all the changes.

Load the project called “VariAudio 12” found in the

“Tutorial 8” folder to hear the changes made to the

vocals.

Polishing up the vocals

In this section we are going to Pitch Quantize the vocals and make some small adjustments.

Load the project called “VariAudio 13” found in the

“Tutorial 8” folder.

1. Double-click on the Vocal audio event to open the Sample Editor and scroll down so that you can see the VariAudio segments.

2. Make sure that the Pitch & Warp mode is selected under the VariAudio tab.

3. From the Edit menu choose Select All or press [Ctrl]/ [Command]-[A].

4. Move the Pitch Quantize slider up to around 80%.

This will move the segments to the nearest note.

5. Listen back to the changes.

The Pitch Quantize slider puts everything in tune.

Notice that the phrase ‘well babe’ just doesn’t sound right. Sometimes being a little bit out of tune sounds right for certain phrases in a vocal.

6. Select the three segments that make up the phrase ‘well babe’ and choose Pitch Changes from the Reset menu under the VariAudio tab.

This will move these segments back to their original pitch.

4. Click anywhere but the segments to deselect the three segments.

5. Switch back to Pitch & Warp mode.

Load the project called “VariAudio 14” found in the

“Tutorial 8” folder to hear all the final changes made

to the vocals.

Tutorial 8: Editing audio II – tempo and groove

Tutorial 9: Media management

Background

Category tab

The MediaBay is an area in Cubase that helps to find, identify, tag and organize your sounds (VST 3 Presets and track presets), audio/MIDI loops, video and project files.

You’ll hear and read about two different terms associated with managing media files: VST Sound and MediaBay.

VST Sound is the overall concept of managing the evergrowing number of plug-ins, instruments, presets, etc. The tool that links all of the plug-ins, instruments and presets together is the MediaBay.

Why is the MediaBay important to me?

The MediaBay:

• Provides different views allowing you to find and tag media

files, quickly import media files into projects. Media files include: audio files, MIDI files, MIDI loops, pattern banks and video.

• Allows you to find sounds easily so that you can begin working

on your music quickly without endlessly searching for the ‘right’ instrument.

• Allows you to find and apply audio, MIDI and instrument pre-

sets quickly to your tracks.

• Shows you all of the Cubase project files that are on your

computer to quickly load them.

• Frees you from thinking in a folder structure or by instrument.

Just think about the sound you are looking for and find it across your entire library.

It really doesn’t matter which one you pick as they all provide the same functionality. The reason you would pick one from the other is that they have various buttons and features turned on or off so that you can easily find what you are looking for.

For example, if you are looking for loops you would select the Loop Browser as this has been pre-configured for searching specifically for loops. Or if you were looking for Track Presets or VST Plug-in Presets, the Sound Browser would suit you best.

Load the project “Media Management” found in the

“Tutorial 9” folder.

To open the MediaBay

We are going to use the MediaBay view as this view has been pre-configured to allow all of the controls by default to be visible. Everything we learn in the MediaBay can be applied to the Loop or Sound Browser.

• On the Media menu, select “Open MediaBay” (or press [F5] on your computer keyboard) and make sure the Category tab is activated.

MediaBay, Loop Browser and Sound Browser

There are three menu options on the Media menu that allow you to call up the various MediaBay views.

Tutorial 9: Media management

Making visible the different sections of the

Browser, Scope and Tag Editor

Viewer display

Filter section

Browser section

Click here to show/hide the Browser section.

Click here to show/hide the Scope section.

Scope section

Tag Editor section

MediaBay

At the bottom left hand side of the MediaBay window there are 3 buttons allowing you to show/hide the different MediaBay sections, these are:

•Browser

•Scope

•Tag Editor

1. Hide the Browser, Scope and Tag Editor sections.

We are left with the Viewer display and Filter section. These two sections allow us to view and find files.

3. Show the Scope section.

The Scope section allows you to view and play back files selected in the Viewer section.

4. Show the Tag Editor section (Cubase only).

When a file is selected in the Viewer section, you can view and/or assign tags to the file to make organizing and searching for the file easier.

2. Show the Browser section.

This is where you can specify locations on your computer so that the MediaBay can find all of your media files.

Tutorial 9: Media management

Scanning with the browser

Deep Results

When you open the MediaBay, the Loop Browser or the Sound Browser, a scan for the media files is performed. Specify which folders or directories should be included in the scan by activating their checkboxes to the left of the name. The result of the scan is saved in the MediaBay database.

Physical and virtual scanning locations

There are 2 different locations that you can scan for media files on your computer. The File system location and the VST Sound location.

File System

The File system locations are the physical or actual locations on your computer. These locations include local and removable disks such as hard drives, external drives, CD or DVD-ROM drives, etc.

By default “File system” is checked, however, it contains many locations you would not want scanned. Be sure to check which areas/folders you want MediaBay to manage. The areas/folders that you pick will automatically be scanned and the result of that scan can be seen in the Viewer section.

VST Sound

The VST Sound locations are the virtual locations on your computer to any factory content or user presets created for plug-ins, instruments or MIDI loops. Make sure that this is not turned off.

1. Click the plus symbol on File system to reveal its scanning locations.

These are the physical locations on your computer that you can specify so that MediaBay will search for media content. Be sure to check the areas/folders that you want the MediaBay to scan.

2. Click the plus symbol on VST Sound to reveal the scanning locations found there.

There are many locations that do not need to be checked. Spend the time un-checking the locations you feel do not need to be searched. By doing this the MediaBay is kept clean of any useless information which speeds up searches and general handling.

If you are in doubt about any of the locations, don’t worry – just leave them checked.

Selecting a location (folder) automatically initiates a scan and updates the database.

Deep Results

Before we begin the scan of all our media on the computer, make sure the “Deep Results” button is activated.

Choosing scanning locations

Generally you’ll want to make sure that VST Sound is always checked since this is the factory content or content that either came with Cubase or other compatible product such as Steinberg’s Sequel. This is also the location of any user presets that were created.

Tutorial 9: Media management

Activating “Deep Results” will show any files inside the

Viewer display

Filter section

Text Search field

currently selected folder, as well as any sub folder in a “flat” view – as if they were inside the same folder. This allows you to look at your media files sorted by attributes, even if they reside in a complex folder structure.

• Right-click on Media and select “Rescan” from the context menu to begin scanning.

This starts the scanning process and now the MediaBay is looking for media on your computer within the locations you have specified.

1. Choose a main category from the filter section (like “Drum/Perc”).

This will show us any files that have been tagged with the category Drum & Perc. See “Tagging” on page 86.

Searching for media

Now that we have selected the folders on our computer and scanned for media, we can search for an audio file and drop it into our project.

You should still have the project called “Media Management” loaded for this tutorial.

We are now going to shift our attention to the Viewer section. The Viewer section consists of two panes: the filter section at the top and below it, the Viewer display.

2. Choose a sub category if appropriate (like “Beats”).

This allows us to narrow down our search even more. Alternatively we could use the Text Search field and search for a media file by name.

There is a list of drum loops that are now available to us in the Viewer display with our filter criteria. We can simply drag and drop any of these audio files into our project.

Tutorial 9: Media management

Auditioning media with the Scope

The Scope section displaying an audio file

Preview Level (Volume)

Play, Stop, Pause and Cycle

Play in Project context

Auto Play

Attribute name

Select the Managed tab.

We have narrowed down our search to just drum beats and now we want to audition our results before we drop a file into our project.

1. Show the Scope section and select an audio file from the Viewer display.

You will see the Scope display the audio file as a waveform.

You can start, stop, pause and cycle the audio file to hear what it sounds like. You can also set the preview level.

It’s a good idea to hear our project playing while we audition our audio loop.

2. Activate Play in Project context.

The loop will now play along with our project in the project tempo.

3. Activate Auto Play.

With Auto Play activated we can click on many different audio files in the Viewer display and audition them quickly.

4. Click Play on the Transport panel.

The project will begin to play and the audio files you have selected in the Viewer display will play along in time with the project.

5. Click on different audio files to find the one that works best with the project.

You can use the up and down arrow keys on your computer keyboard to quickly audition many files.

6. When you have selected the file you wish to use, drag and drop it right into the project.

You don’t have to click Stop, the project will continue to play and the MediaBay will stop auditioning the file automatically.

Tagging

You can also add musical tags to your media files so that you are able to quickly organize and find your media files for later use. Tagging also helps you to group large amounts of media into a more usable and searchable format.

1. Show the Tag Editor section and select one or multiple files in the Viewer section.

2. Select the Managed tab.

Tutorial 9: Media management

You can apply tags by clicking (double-clicking for Char-

Click here to open the Manage Tags window.

acter) in the field next to the attribute name. The next time you search for media using the search filters

(category, sub category, style, etc.) you’ll see the media you have tagged appear in the Viewer section along with the other similar tagged media.

For even greater search capabilities and organization you can open the Manage Tags window and define even more tags for your media files.

For further details refer to the MediaBay chapter in the Operation manual.

Tutorial 9: Media management

Index

Adding

EQ 57 Fades 37 Loops 48

Mono Track 26 Advanced settings 22 All MIDI Inputs 20 ASIO 2.0 19 ASIO Direct Monitoring 19 ASIO driver

About 11

DirectX 11

DirectX Setup 11, 18

Generic Low Latency driver 11

Installing 12 Audio

Editing 32

Processing 38

Recording 23 Audio buffer size 22 Audio hardware

Connections 15

Setup application 16 Automation

About 60

Browser

Scanning 84 Bus

Surround 64

Click

Activating 27 Close

Project 24 Connecting

Audio 15

MIDI 19 Controller lane 46 Copying 36

Events 49

MIDI notes 45

Cycle

Playback 29 Recording (Audio) 29 Recording (MIDI) 44

Defragmenting

Windows 13

Editing

Adding a fade 37 Audio 32 Copying 36 Erasing 37 Gluing 35 MIDI 40 Moving 35 Muting 37 Renaming 33 Repeating 36 Resizing 33 Splitting 34

Effects 58

About 54 FX channels 59

Insert 58 EQ 57 Equalization 57 Erasing 37 Event envelopes 38 Event operations

About 33

Adding a fade 37

Copying 36

Erasing 37

Gluing 35

Moving 35

Muting 37

Renaming 33

Repeating 36

Resizing 33

Splitting 34

Volume changes 38 Export 68

Mixdown 61

Surround 68

External instruments

About 50 Monitoring 52 Recording 53 Setting up 51

FX channels 59

Generic Low Latency driver 11 Gluing 35

VariAudio segments 75

Hard disk

Considerations 22

Hardware setup

Control panel (Mac) 17 Control panel (Win) 17

Input

Adding 26

Surround setup 64 Input level 16 Input ports 18 Insert effects 58 Instrument Track

Creating 41

Joining 35

Key command conventions 8 Key Editor

About 45

Latency 21 Levels

Setting 26, 27, 55 Loading Sounds 42 Local On/Off 20 Loop Browser 82

About 48

Insert into Project 49

Index

Loops

Adding 48 Working with 47

Media Management

Background 82

MediaBay 82

Auditioning media 86 Open 82 Physical and virtual scanning

locations 84 Scanning 84 Searching for media 85 Tagging 86

Metronome click

Activating 27

Micro pitches

VariAudio 77, 78

MIDI

Copying notes 45 Cycle playback 43 Cycle recording 44 Editing 40 Erasing notes 45 External Instruments 50 Playback 43 Quantizing 44 Recording 40, 42 Recording modes (Cycle off) 44

MIDI devices

Setting up 51

MIDI input

Setting 42

MIDI interface

Connecting 19 Installing 13

MIDI notes

Creating 46 Drawing 46

MIDI ports

Setting up 20

MIDI Thru Active 20 Mixing

About 54

Modifier keys 8 Monitoring

About 19 Moving 35 Mute (Button) 56 Muting 37

New Project

Create 24

Save 24 Normalize 38

Offline Process History 39 Open

Project 25

Recent Projects 25 Open Config App 17 Optimizing the Hard Disk

Windows 13 Output

Adding 25

Surround setup 64 Output ports 18

Pan

Setting 56 Pitch changes

VariAudio 74 Pitch Quantize

VariAudio 75 Playback

About 28

Cycle 29

MIDI 43

Play 28 Plug and Play

ASIO devices 16 Popup Toolbox on Right Click 30 Processing

Audio 38

Normalize 38

Reverse 39 Project

Close 24

Open 25

Quantizing 44

Recent Projects 25 Recording 65

Audio 23 Cycle 29 External Instruments 53 Level Settings 26 MIDI 40, 42 Modes 29 Stacked 31

Surround 67 Recording levels 16 Release Driver when Application is in

Background 17 Rename 33 Repeating 36 Resizing 33 Reverse 39

Save

New Project 24 Segment editing

VariAudio 75 Setting levels 27, 55 Setting Pan 56 Setup

MIDI devices 51

Surround inputs 64

Surround mix 66

Surround outputs 64

VST connections for external

instruments 51 Solo (Button) 56 Sound Browser 82 Splitting 34

VariAudio segments 75 Stacked recording 31 Steinberg Key

About 12

License Activation 12

License Transfer 12 Straighten pitch

VariAudio 77

Index

Surround 65, 68

Busses 64 Inputs 64 Outputs 64 Recording 65, 67 Setting up a mix 66 Setup 16

Syncrosoft LCC 12

Toolbox

Popup on right click 30

Track

Adding 26

VariAudio

Editing segments 75 Editing vocals 78 Gluing segments 75 Micro pitches 78 Pitch changes 74 Pitch Quantize 75 Segment changes 76 Straighten pitch 77 Tilting micro pitches 77

VST

Input ports 18

Output ports 18 VST Audio System 17 VST Connections 25

Index

Cómo Empezar

Tutoriales por Steve Kostrey Revisión y Control de Calidad: Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Marion Bröer, Sabine Pfeifer

Traducción por Pere Amengual y Josep Llodrà Gracias a: Georg Bruns La información contenida en este documento está sujeta a cambios sin previo aviso y no representa compromiso alguno

por parte de Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. El software descrito en este documento está sujeto a un Acuerdo de Licencia y no podrá ser copiado a otros medios excepto del modo específicamente permitido en el Acuerdo de Licencia. Ninguna parte de esta publicación podrá ser copiada, reproducida, transmitida o grabada en modo alguno, cualquiera que sea la finalidad, sin previo permiso escrito de Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.

Todos los nombres de productos y compañías son marcas registradas ™ o ® por sus respectivos propietarios. Windows XP es una marca registrada de Microsoft Corporation. Windows Vista es una marca comercial registrada o una marca comercial de Microsoft Corporation en los Estados Unidos y/o en otros países. El logotipo de Mac es una marca registrada utilizada bajo licencia. Macintosh y Power Macintosh son marcas registradas.

Tabla de Contenidos

92 Cómo Empezar 94 Tabla de Contenidos 97 Introducción

98 ¡Bienvenido! 98 Acerca de los manuales y la ayuda 99 Acerca de las versiones del programa 99 Convenciones de comandos de teclado 100 Cómo puede contactar con nosotros

101 Requisitos del sistema e instalación

102 Acerca de este capítulo 102 Requisitos mínimos 104 Instalación del hardware 105 Instalando Cubase 106 Desfragmentando el disco duro (sólo Windows) 106 Registrar su software

107 Configuración del sistema

108 Configurando el audio 113 Configurando el MIDI 114 Conectando un sincronizador 115 Configurando el vídeo 115 Optimizando el rendimiento de audio

118 Tutorial 1: Grabación de audio

119 Creando un nuevo proyecto 120 Configurando las Conexiones VST 121 Ajustes de nivel y grabación 124 Reproducción 125 Modos de grabación con Ciclo desactivado 125 Grabación cíclica 126 Grabación apilada

128 Tutorial 2: Editar audio

129 Operaciones sobre eventos 134 Envolventes de evento 134 Procesar audio 136 Historial de Procesos

137 Tutorial 3: Grabar y editar MIDI

138 Introducción 138 Creando una Pista de Instrumento 139 Probando los sonidos 139 Grabación MIDI 140 Reproducción MIDI 141 Modos de grabación con Ciclo desactivado 141 Grabación cíclica 143 El Editor de Teclas 144 La Pista de Controlador

145 Tutorial 4: Trabajar con loops

146 Buscador de Bucles 146 Añadiendo loops 147 Realizar copias 147 Insertar en el Proyecto

148 Tutorial 5: Instrumentos MIDI externos

(sólo Cubase)

149 Introducción 149 Configurar dispositivos MIDI 150 Configurar conexiones VST para instrumentos

externos

151 Monitorizar instrumentos MIDI externos 152 Grabando MIDI e instrumentos externos

153 Tutorial 6: Mezclar y efectos

154 Introducción 154 Ajustar niveles 155 Ajustando el panorama 156 Enmudecer y solo 156 Añadir EQ 158 Efectos de audio 160 Acerca de la automatización 161 Exportar

163 Tutorial 7: Producción surround

(sólo Cubase)

164 Buses surround 166 Configurando una mezcla surround 167 Grabar en surround 168 Exportar un archivo surround

Tabla de Contenidos

169 Tutorial 8: Editar audio II – tempo y

groove

170 Introducción 170 Loop de batería con un tempo conocido 171 Loop de batería, ajuste automático 172 Loop de batería, ajuste manual 173 Trabajando con Selecciones 174 Cambiando el tono usando VariAudio 175 Editando segmentos usando VariAudio 177 Ajustando notas usando VariAudio 179 VariAudio y Voces

182 Tutorial 9: Gestión de medios

183 Introducción 183 MediaBay, el Buscador de Bucles y el Buscador

de Sonidos

185 Explorar con el Buscador 186 Buscando archivos de medios 187 Preescuchando medios con Scope 188 Etiquetado

189 Índice alfabético

Tabla de Contenidos

Introducción

¡Bienvenido!

Enhorabuena y gracias por haber adquirido el programa Cubase/Cubase Studio de Steinberg. 2009 marca el 25 aniversario de Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH y nuestro mensaje clave “Creatividad Primero” jamás ha tenido tanto significado como hoy. A través de muchos años y muchas generaciones de productos, Cubase ha crecido desde el clásico secuenciador MIDI hasta ser posiblemente el programa de producción musical más potente que el dinero puede comprar. ¡Y como usuario de Cubase, usted ahora se ha convertido en un miembro de la mayor comunidad de usuarios de programas musicales del planeta!

Con Cubase usted ha elegido un sistema de producción musical avanzado, que le llevará desde la primera idea hasta la mezcla final. Quizás usted sea pianista, compositor, instrumentalista o ingeniero de mezcla. Quizás usted sea un profesional, un músico aficionado, un estudiante o un profesor – Cubase lo tiene todo cubierto y le da las herramientas que necesita para grabar, editar, mezclar y masterizar su música. Capacidades únicas como Pista de Arreglos, VST Sound, Sala de Control (sólo Cubase) y la introducción de estándares de la industria como VST y ASIO son buenos ejemplos de cómo la tecnología Steinberg ha conducido siempre la tecnología musical y ha pavimentado los caminos para que otros le sigan.

Diseñado por los ingenieros de software de Steinberg y los expertos en hardware de Yamaha, el hardware Advanced Integration de Steinberg es la elección ideal para usted como cliente importante de Cubase. Total conectividad plug&play y True Integrated Monitoring™ son dos de las muchas ventajas que se obtienen de hardware y software que han sido diseñados el uno para el otro.

Cubase 5 pone nuevas herramientas creativas en sus manos, que le permiten plasmar sus ideas musicales más fácilmente e intuitivamente que jamás antes. LoopMash (sólo Cubase) es un instrumento virtual revolucionario que le ofrece una manera innovadora y fresca de producir increíbles variaciones de ritmos y loops. Groove Agent One une un potente muestreado de baterías con un detallado modelado sonoro – todo integrado perfectamente en Cubase y funcionando mano a mano con el nuevo plug-in Beat Designer, así puede capturar sus ideas rápidamente y experimentar con libertad.

VariAudio le ofrece una integración completa de la edición de tonos y longitudes de notas para notas individuales en grabaciones de voz monofónicas - uniendo el espacio entre el MIDI tradicional y la edición de audio. El nuevo plugin Pitch Correct de Cubase introduce un control automático de la entonación y la corrección de escala de voces y grabaciones monofónicas de instrumentos. Si se dedica a la composición, estará contento con VST Expression ya que le facilita el trabajo con múltiples articulaciones de instrumentos de grandes librerías introduciendo una edición integrada, transparente y personalizable, con acceso a la precisión en los Editores de Teclas y Partituras. Estos son sólo unos pocos ejemplos de como Cubase apoya y expande su visión creativa.

No olvide registrarse en MySteinberg y obtener acceso a las ofertas de soporte en línea y servicios exclusivos adicionales. Le damos también la bienvenida a la comunidad Cubase en nuestro foro en línea cubase.net.

¡Nos vemos! Su Equipo Cubase Steinberg

Acerca de los manuales y la ayuda

La documentación de Cubase está dividida en varias secciones, según se describe más abajo. Algunos de los documentos se hallan disponibles en formato Adobe Reader (extensión “.pdf”) – y puede acceder a los mismos de varias formas:

• Puede abrir los documentos pdf del submenú Documentación del menú Ayuda en el programa.

• En Windows puede también abrir estos documentos desde la carpeta Documentación de Cubase del menú Inicio de Windows.

• En Mac OS X los documentos pdf se hallan en la carpeta “/Library/Documentation/Steinberg/Cubase 5”.

Ö Para leer los documentos pdf, necesita una aplicación de lectura pdf adecuada instalada en su ordenador.

En el DVD del programa se proporciona un instalador para Adobe Reader.

Introducción

El manual “Cómo Empezar”

Éste es el manual que usted está leyendo ahora. Cobra los siguientes temas:

• Requisitos del sistema.

• Aspectos de la instalación.

• Ajuste de su sistema para audio, MIDI y/o trabajo con vídeo.

• Tutoriales describiendo los procedimientos más habituales para la grabación, reproducción, mezcla y edición en Cubase.

En otras palabras, este manual no entra en detalle sobre ninguna de las ventanas de Cubase, sus funciones o procedimientos.

El Manual de Operaciones

El Manual de Operaciones es el documento de referencia principal de Cubase, con descripciones detalladas de las operaciones de Cubase, sus parámetros, funciones y técnicas. También incluye información detallada sobre el Editor de Partituras.Debería familiarizarse primero con los conceptos y métodos descritos en el manual “Cómo Empezar” antes de pasar al “Manual de Operaciones”.

Dispositivos MIDI

Este documento pdf contiene descripciones de cómo manejar los dispositivos MIDI y los paneles de dispositivo.

Referencia de Plug-ins

Este manual describe las características y parámetros de los plug-ins VST incluidos, efectos de audio en tiempo real, los instrumentos VST y los efectos MIDI.

Dispositivos de Control Remoto

Este documento pdf lista los dispositivos MIDI de control remoto soportados.

Referencia sobre los menús

Este documento pdf proporciona una lista de todos los menús y sus opciones con una breve descripción, para una referencia rápida de los mismos.

La ayuda de diálogo

Para obtener información sobre el diálogo activo, haga clic sobre su botón de ayuda.

Acerca de las versiones del programa

La documentación abarca dos versiones del programa; Cubase y Cubase Studio, para dos diferentes sistemas operativos o “plataformas”; Windows y Mac OS X.

Algunas características descritas en la documentación son sólo aplicables a la versión Cubase. Siempre que sea éste el caso, se le indicará claramente en la cabecera del tema correspondiente.

Algunas características y ajustes, de modo similar, son específicos de una de las plataformas, Windows o Mac OS X. Ello se indica claramente en los casos en que sea aplicable. En otras palabras:

Ö Si no se indica lo contrario, todas las descripciones y procedimientos en la documentación adjunta son válidas tanto para Cubase y Cubase Studio, bajo Windows y Mac OS X.

Las capturas de pantalla pertenecen a la versión Windows de Cubase.

Convenciones de comandos de teclado

Muchos de los comandos de teclado por defecto de Cubase usan teclas modificadoras, algunas de las cuales son diferentes dependiendo del sistema operativo. Por ejemplo, el comando de teclado por defecto para deshacer es [Ctrl]-[Z] bajo Windows y [Comando]-[Z] bajo Mac OS X.

Cuando en este manual se describen comandos de teclado con teclas modificadoras, se muestran primero con la tecla modificadora de Windows primero, del siguiente modo:

[Tecla modificadora de Win]/[Tecla modificadora de Mac]-[tecla].

Por ejemplo, [Ctrl]/[Comando]-[Z] significa “pulse [Ctrl] en Windows o [Comando] en OS X, y posteriormente pulse [Z]”. De modo similar, [Alt]/[Opción]-[X] significa “pulse [Alt] en Windows o [Opción] en Mac OS X, y posteriormente pulse [X]”.

Introducción

Ö Tome nota de que este manual a menudo se refiere a “hacer clic derecho”, p.e. para abrir menús contextuales. Si está usando un ordenador Macintosh con un ratón de un sólo botón, mantenga pulsado [Ctrl] al hacer clic.

Cómo puede contactar con nosotros

En el menú de Ayuda de Cubase encontrará lugares a los que podrá dirigirse para obtener información adicional y ayuda:

• En el submenú “Steinberg en Internet”, podrá encontrar

enlaces a varios sitios web de Steinberg. Al seleccionar uno se lanzará automáticamente su navegador de internet y abrirá la página web correspondiente.

Encontrará soporte así como información sobre compatibilidad, respuestas a las preguntas más comunes, enlaces para la descarga de nuevos controladores, etc. Es necesario que tenga instalada en su ordenador aplicación para la navegación web y una conexión a internet operativa.

100

Introducción

Steinberg Cubase Studio - 5.0 User Manual [es]

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome

About the manuals and the help

About the program versions

Key command conventions

How you can reach us

System requirements and installation

About this chapter

Minimum requirements

Hardware installation

Installing Cubase

Defragmenting the hard disk (Windows only)

Register your software

Setting up your system

Setting up audio

Setting up MIDI

Connecting a synchronizer

Setting up video

Optimizing audio performance

Tutorial 1: Recording audio

Creating a new project

Setting up the VST connections

Level settings and recording

Playback

Recording modes with cycle off

Cycle recording

Stacked recording

Tutorial 2: Editing audio

Event operations

Event envelopes

Processing audio

Offline process history

Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

Introduction

Creating an Instrument Track

Browsing sounds

MIDI recording

MIDI playback

Recording modes with cycle off

Cycle recording

The Key Editor

The Controller lane

Tutorial 4: Working with loops

Loop Browser

Adding loops

Making copies

Insert into Project

Introduction

Setting up MIDI devices

Setting up VST connections for external instruments

Monitoring external MIDI instruments

Recording MIDI and external instruments

Tutorial 6: Mixing and effects

Introduction

Setting levels

Setting panorama

Mute and solo

Adding EQ

Audio effects

About automation

Exporting

Surround busses

Setting up a surround mix

Recording in surround

Exporting a surround file

Background

Drum loop, tempo known

Drum loop, Auto Adjust

Drum loop, Manual Adjust

Working with selections

Changing pitch using VariAudio

Editing segments using VariAudio

Tilting notes using VariAudio

VariAudio and vocals

Tutorial 9: Media management