Cubase - External Effects Routing...

[harry]

Hey Guys,

i've gathered that quite a few of you use CUbase and have the external input thing down?

i'm routing a recorded part to an external effect unit and was wondering how to go about rendering or re-recording the effected version to another track?

so far i cant seem to find a way of getting a 'send' to route to an 'input' - is this possible or must i 'freeze' it or something (never tried a freeze before..)


thanks everyone,

h.a.r.r.y.a.r.v.a.n.i.t.i.s

[Kurt]

I don't use Cubase, but wouldn't a send route to an output?!

[harry]

whoops- i wouldnt either - generally speaking..

[chribble]

F4 - studio connections.
Create new bus.

if you're like me and group your tracks, assign groups to output buss.

[Chinagraf]

Hi Harry have you set the effects unit up as an 'external effect"? Press F4 for VST connections page then choose 'external fx' tab. Then you set up the ins and out and ping the unit set to 100% dry so Cubase can set the delay compensation. After that you add the unit as an effects track, choosing the external effect from the plugins drop down menu instead of a VST one. Once you've done that and set the send level the way you want it, you add a new audio track, stereo or mono depending on the effect, and then on that audio track's main channel view where you can see the input and output settings, you click on the input window and your external effect track is selectable as an input for that audio channel. Hit record and print away. You can also select group channels as an input for an audio track and print them , which is handy for setting up subgroups with processing and printing them back into the master project. You can also select group channels as an input for an audio track and print them , which is handy for setting up subgroups with processing and printing them back into the master project. Also a good way to setup mults, send a bass drum to a group then you can select the bassdrum group as an input to 3 tracks and procees them all seperately.
This is how I have all my reverb and delay units set up, so for instance, I have the Bricasti as an external plugin and put it on individual instruments with a short ambience and print them individually. Then I group the reverb print track faders with the original audio track so it moves up and down with it.

If that's not all clear ask and I'll clarify more. It's a really cool setup once you get it setup right.

[Chinagraf]

Further to this subject, external fx routing is not saved the way your normal input/output connections are. It just saves the last state it was in when it closed. Total PITA, but anyway, if you change any settings for external fx, or god forbid have some sort of crash etc, your settings are gone. I've got like 32 channels of external fx, all with different delay compensation settings which took a while to setup.
What you can do to workaround it is backup the settings file Cubase makes. So once you have all your outboard setup the way you want it, close Cubase and it will all be stored in a file called "External Plugins.xml" Then if there's ever any dramas or if you need to change all your external fx settings for some messed up session configuration, all you need do is reload the xml file to it's drectory and reopen Cubase and all your in/outs and delay settings will be back.
On Windows the file is stored at: C:/Documents and settings/(User)/Application Data/Steinberg/Cubase5/External Plugins.xml
On Mac, I'm not so sure as I don't run external fx on my Macs, but if you create any external fx setup and then close Cubase the file should be written, then do a drive search for 'External Plugins" and you should find it. The directory it's in is obviously where you restore the original copy of the xml file to as well.

[harry]

Thanks for your responses guys,

i got the effects thing working setup i/o and gain matching, delay compensated ect, i was just thinking that in this case i had a clav part that i wanted to put a phaser on but i still want to keek the dry version and blend the two instances. (print the effected version but leave dry version intact)gvb

Im guessing the neatest way to have both would be to duplicate the track (including audio wavs) first, then effect one of the tracks using the freeze?

my card has 16 i/o so if this works well i might create a nice mixing template where all my comps and eq's and effects hang off channels 3-16 ..

looks like fun..... will hopefully get rid of the dust accumulating on my outboard racks (i'm too lazy sometimes to get up and patch em in)


oh and Andy - just a longshot but would you be available / bothered to tutor me for a couple hours on the finer points of cubase in exchange for some $$$. All my colleagues are protools heads so sometimes i feel isolated not being able to exchange tips and working methodologies.

cheers guys -


h.a.r.r.y.a.r.v.a.n.i.t.i.s

[chribble]

hey andy those are some great tips on joining faders after printing.
i'll look forward to any other tips you have

Normally i get lazy and just group them using a group channel.

harry as a general rule of thumb i always set up 5 or 6 stereo group channels when i start a mix.

[Chinagraf]

Cheers guys. Harry, I'm pretty solid up till Christams then away till early Jan, but we could do something after that if you like. Not for cash, but maybe beer could be involved. You are in Melbourne yeah? In the meantime do you guys belong to the forums at cubase.net ? It's really worth a read, heaps of tips. Chris has a good point about groups. You can set up what you want and save that as a template so you can open it everytime you start a new project.
I have a bunch of groups as defualt , both mono and stereo, and also some groups are then sent to a master group, like for drums.
Kick (M)
Snare (M)
Drum mix (S)
Drum Master (S) all 4 previous ones grouped to this.
Elec guitars (S)
Acoustic Gtrs (S)
Keys (S)
Synths (S)
Brass/Strings (S)
Backing vox (S)
Lead vox 1 (M)
Lead vox 2 (M)

I tend to process groups , like the elec gtrs almost always have mu LA3A's inserted over them, Backing vox have the 2254's etc. The extra lead vocal track is because sometimes I do duets. Sometimes even with myself. Also good if you have a really dynamic verse chorus thing and need to treat them differently as far a reverb sends etc. Less tedious than automating.
The handy thing about this setup is you can then send from a group to a plugin comp for parallel processing, like with the kick and snare, or you can do like I mentioned before and setup say 3 audio tracks with the snare group as the input source and you have a 3 way mult without patchcords.
The other thing is setting up all your key commands the way you want them. Easy to do in the file menu. I have a few faves like 'A' adds a new mono track, Shift A adds a stereo, things liek that. They save you hours.

I have a really good way to insert two mono plugins on a stereo fx track, but I'm trying to work out how to explain it without a video. It'a really handy thing, like I do it with 2 hardware LA3A's over the stereo electric guitar group, but it's also really good for setting up two mono instances of the same plugin reverb on one stereo fx track, so you can slightly tweak each instance differently settings wise and it sounds quite wide and deep. Plus you only use one send, same as if you were sending to a single reverb. Just need to think how to explain it.

[harry]

Chris and Andy thanks for your excellent suggestions, Andy - i will be in touch in late Jan,

I will really try and study the routing in the meantime, the group thing is great, just been using it so far to set up individual headphone mixes and drum busses, never though of the other applications mentioned.
well/
in the meantime, looking forward to holidays and making a heap of looms from ad convertor to patchbay to all my outboard stuff....

btw - the most solution to my desire to achieve wet /dry processing of extrnal effects was to duplicate track - using the 'duplicate track' function and then select the external effect and freeze one of the tracks - easy and both can be blended via their faders to achieve right balance - i couldnt detect any 'phase' issues so it seems the delay compensate thing (both for the soundcard ad/da which is set automatically, and the effect) works really well!

thanks again

h.a.r.r.y.a.r.v.a.n.i.t.i.s

[chribble]

harry i never freeze but this is a good idea as sometimes i get phase issues by real time export and printing. dont know why

however werent you printer a hardware phaser??

andy good idea, conversely - you will need a stereo group for adding stereo effects like delays etc without using FX routing .
I only insert ever inster eq/comp but i tend to do that on the way in these days

[Senad]

just "solo export" the track you're insetring the external FX on and choose "import onto another track" or something like that in the export dialog. It will export in real time and automatically import your effected track onto a newly created one that will appear down the bottom of the project window..
sory, seems like it was covered already..no phase issues here tho, when importing the exported track