Cubase Mixer issues

[fallward]

Is there any way to assign different tracks from the Virus into separate mixer channels to Cubase? I'd like to be able to side chain, and EQ certain sounds differently. As of right now, the only way I can get them into new mixer channels is by adding a MIDI track but I can't add any of the FX I want when it's just a MIDI track.

Here's a screenshot:
http://i.imgur.com/EARlWlL.png?1

Blue = Virus

[MBTC]

Have you looked at the Cubase Tutorial (available from the question mark on the plugin)? I believe it's covered there.

I have a Snow which only has two outputs and up to 4 parts, so I can't do the same things I might with a TI Desktop, but the way I use it is typically using one instrument track for the plugin and one for the audio output, and bouncing everything from that point on. I only expect good polyphony from one "epic" sound at a time out of the Snow.. maybe I could do more, but if I use multiple parts I tend to just use them to beef up the single sound. If I added a desktop I might aim for 3 sounds for the 3 analog outs, in which case I would set up a bus like stereo 1, stereo 2, stereo 3 and make sure the audio track is mapped to that bus, then a MIDI track to hold the notes/automation for each part.

At least I think you said you have a desktop or keyboard model? The plug in is a bit different between that and Snow.

[fallward]

Originally Posted by MBTC

Have you looked at the Cubase Tutorial (available from the question mark on the plugin)? I believe it's covered there.

I have a Snow which only has two outputs and up to 4 parts, so I can't do the same things I might with a TI Desktop, but the way I use it is typically using one instrument track for the plugin and one for the audio output, and bouncing everything from that point on. I only expect good polyphony from one "epic" sound at a time out of the Snow.. maybe I could do more, but if I use multiple parts I tend to just use them to beef up the single sound. If I added a desktop I might aim for 3 sounds for the 3 analog outs, in which case I would set up a bus like stereo 1, stereo 2, stereo 3 and make sure the audio track is mapped to that bus, then a MIDI track to hold the notes/automation for each part.

At least I think you said you have a desktop or keyboard model? The plug in is a bit different between that and Snow.

I do have the desktop model.
So you just bounce each part once your satisfied with it and move on? I was planning on just bouncing the tracks back into Cubase as an audio track and just automating everything from there with FX.

I selected the 3 outputs and saw that mixer channels had been created for them but I can't see where tracks are or how to create them. I only see the initial Virus instrument I created

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by fallward

I do have the desktop model.
So you just bounce each part once your satisfied with it and move on? I was planning on just bouncing the tracks back into Cubase as an audio track and just automating everything from there with FX.

Yes and no. The Snow lets me have 4 parts, so I might have 4 patches loaded into the editor at once, but because the Snow only has 2 analog outs (remember I excluded USB from my world entirely for audio), that means only one stereo audio track at a time. If I wanted mono it could be two.

But with a desktop you have 6 audio outs so you could look at it like 3x the workflow flexibility if you were doing everything the same way I am. But keep in mind my way is not necessarily the right way or best way.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think the part you haven't learned yet is how Cubase maps busses to analog outs. I have a bus called Stereo 2 that refers to the two input ports on the audio interface that the only set of two analog outs on the Virus are feeding into to create one stereo signal. You have three times that on the desktop so you could have up to three stereo audio tracks with separate Cubase mixer settings on them without using USB for streaming.

As far as how the tracks get there, I just created them. It doesn't look like you have an audio track in that pic.

[MBTC]

Sorry I didn't fully address your question about bouncing and moving on. I do tend to do that -- bounce to a clip (but at that point I might move the clip elsewhere, so the tracks I use to create on aren't necessarily the tracks used for final mixing).

But, I leave the patch config for each part so I can go back and edit it if need be. I wouldn't just bounce then discard the edits I've made to patch and MIDI because I will most likely want to change something later.

If I were using a desktop I'd probably just do the same workflow, except with 3 times the stereo tracks depending on how much polyphony I could get out of it.

By the way how is the latency issue in Cubase vs FL?

[fallward]

Originally Posted by MBTC

Sorry I didn't fully address your question about bouncing and moving on. I do tend to do that -- bounce to a clip (but at that point I might move the clip elsewhere, so the tracks I use to create on aren't necessarily the tracks used for final mixing).

But, I leave the patch config for each part so I can go back and edit it if need be. I wouldn't just bounce then discard the edits I've made to patch and MIDI because I will most likely want to change something later.

If I were using a desktop I'd probably just do the same workflow, except with 3 times the stereo tracks depending on how much polyphony I could get out of it.

By the way how is the latency issue in Cubase vs FL?

So far I'm not having any latency issues. But I haven't been able to record anything since I get a "CPU overload" error when I'm trying to bounce audio from the Virus. I don't know how many issues I'll run into once it's recorded. I don't really understand how I'm getting CPU overload. I run a 3.4gz processor with 12gigs of ram. It's just incredibly frustrating dealing with all these issues .. I haven't been able to properly work on a record in over a month because if it's not one issue it's another. I figure I'll run into the problems anyway in the future so it's not a biggy. If anything, I've learned a TON about audio lol but I'm still a noob when it comes to the terminology.

As for the audio track I thought you were supposed to add an instrument track? Aren't audio tracks for samples? I guess I just don't understand how the Virus works with audio tracks in Cubase. The integration of hardware and software is insane haha. Feels like the game has changed completely on a personal level.

[MBTC]

Ok bounce is one of those terms that I guess means different things to different people. For purposes of this thread, when I say bouncing a track I simply mean making an audio sample out of the MIDI track data. So yes, audio tracks are for samples... your MIDI data of notes and automation stays in one place, the audio output is on a different track entirely. This is something you're not used to doing if you have only worked with soft-synths, and because of the TI aspect of the Virus it's not completely necessary but it solves a lot of problems. But if you do anything with hardware synths (most of which won't have TI or USB streaming at all) or external instruments/voice of any kind it's just necessary.

Working with hardware definitely impacts your workflow so yes you may have some teething pains on your first hardware synth, but at some point you get everything set up the way you want it and you create some templates. Also you're learning a new DAW along the way so allow yourself time to adjust. I think you're not really as far away from getting the stuff figured out as you might think, sometimes you just take a break from it and come back to it when well rested or whatever and you see something you didn't see before.

The part about Cubase that I think you're still yet to arrive at is the notion of buses. At some point you will need to say "ok this output from synth, mic, electric guitar or whatever goes into input X on my audio interface. How do I capture that input into an audio track?" and in Cubase the answer is you must first create a bus and name it something you'll recognize, then you say that bus is the input for that audio track.

Check out this tutorial, it's an antiquated version of Cubase and Windows but the basics still apply. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-YB-0pC1RE

Now, whatever you create in that process you will have as an option on the input for your audio tracks.

Pain in the ass alert -- Cubase won't let you save these fucking named bus configurations! Well it sort of does, you make templates. What I do is create one monster template that has 95% of everything I'm likely to use in a project, then I make smaller templates from that one that are subsets of the monster template for when I don't need everything. Trust me when I say templates will be important to you, you don't want to map those busses every time you start a new project. Most Virus users create templates in FLStudio for a similar reason, you don't want to manually set all that stuff up every time.

[MBTC]

Any luck with busses and audio tracks?

[fallward]

Originally Posted by MBTC

Any luck with busses and audio tracks?

Sorry I've been REALLY busy lately with finals and once I was able to sit in the studio I was having some ground loop issues that took me a day or so to solve.

I'm beginning to understand the mixer a lot more now and I understand how to send different tracks to different outputs. So basically I create a MIDI track and send that data to an audio track that allows me to mix down individual parts? Problem is I don't have any options to input the MIDI data on an audio track. Or does the different parts have to bounce into an audio track ?

By the way, I'm loving Cubase so far.. I should have made the switch LONNNNG ago.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by fallward

Sorry I've been REALLY busy lately with finals and once I was able to sit in the studio I was having some ground loop issues that took me a day or so to solve.

I'm beginning to understand the mixer a lot more now and I understand how to send different tracks to different outputs. So basically I create a MIDI track and send that data to an audio track that allows me to mix down individual parts? Problem is I don't have any options to input the MIDI data on an audio track. Or does the different parts have to bounce into an audio track ?

By the way, I'm loving Cubase so far.. I should have made the switch LONNNNG ago.

Glad you're liking Cubase. I think you're definitely better off with it if your primary interest is synths and moving toward hardware. FLS does some things really well, but is weird and non-standard in other ways.

I'm not quite sure what you mean "Problem is I don't have any options to input the MIDI data on an audio track". MIDI data and audio are two very different things. Coming from a soft synth background you might think of them as one in the same and therefore be expecting them to live in the same space in the DAW. Maybe I have an advantage because I'm old enough to remember when the MIDI standard was actually created (and was into hardware synths BEFORE then! . Learn to separate them in your mind and you'll be in better shape. Part of your perspective might be as is because of how FLS decided to separate patterns and arrangements from the mixer. In Cubase, the mixer is more like an actual hardware mixer than it is in FLS.

You are sending MIDI data to the Virus, but you're receiving the audio output into your Cubase track. Sorry if that's too basic and I mis-understood your question, but it helps in creating your templates to think of it like that, and it is not the same as the Virus plug-in behaves by default.