After using Cubase for 20+ years, I’m setting up Cue mixes for the very first time!
Cubase Pro 10.0, Windows. Direct Monitoring is turned on for my RME interface.
I’ve turned the Control Room on in Audio Connections, and set up a Cue mix going to the Headphone output. So I’m sending a Cue mix to the Headphone output successfully. That part is fine. But of course, the singer wants reverb that I don’t want to record.
I set up an effect send in the normal way, and use the fx send from the Recording channel for reverb. But signal only goes to the reverb AFTER recording. Not during recording, or when monitoring pre-record.
After I’ve recorded the track, then the reverb sends work normally, of course, and I can set the amount of reverb to taste.
But, how to send vocals to a reverb effect while recording, and only to the cue send?
I’m sorry if I’m just missing a basic step. I’ve looked through the manual and several videos, and they all seem to gloss over this, or don’t mention it step-by-step. On every video, it just works, but not for me.
What’s the crucial thing I’m missing?
Thanks, John.
Direct Monitoring is a way of bypassing cubase (kind of!) to reduce/remove latency when recording
It’s a great idea but limits your routing options as you’ve found out. You don’t have DSP so can’t use Totalmix to add reverb but you could patch a hardware reverb in…BUT
I don’t bother with direct monitoring - I run at 32 samples buffer which is low enough so that latency isn’t an issue. I reckon I can just about tell on vocals/headphones but it’s dealable with.
Try turning off direct monitoring - and in total mix you can use DAW mode (google it ) - then all of the cubase routing becomes available. You will need to set your buffer size to something fairly low and this will affect CPU usage.
Hope that makes sense - give it a go and see if works for you - if not then there are some workarounds
Dr Strange Love. I think you’ve done it. The simple step that I was looking for.
I swear I watched a video that advised to check that Direct Monitoring was On to get this happening. But turning it off seems to be working as I expected. Low latency, yes, I can set that up, it will work fine, my system can handle it.
Clearly I have spent most of my time in either MIDI-land, or recording audio where singer-reverb doesn’t matter. So I salute you, good doctor, for pointing me in the right direction.
I don’t know Totalmix, so that is maybe a better way to do that and other things. But I know simple way to record a vocal with zero latency still being able to give the singer a reverb that it is used only for the singer: you can setup your vocal track and route it to nowhere. From the sends of this track you send signal to an FX track where the reverb is. You activate monitoring only in this FX track. Now in your interface you set the monitoring knob (if you have one) at 50% hardware, 50% software. This way the singer will hear the dry voice directly from hardware monitoring, without latency, mixed with the reverb from the DAW, with latency, but as is the reverb, it won’t be a trouble. It works well.
yes - if you desperately want to use Direct Monitoring there are various workarounds - depending on if you have and RME-DSP(totalmix) / External FX / etc etc.
That solution (kinda) works - and the latency is a ‘predelay’ to the reverb…might work if the ‘predelay’ (buffer) isn’t too large. The problem with that is when you want to listen back or do drop-ins. You don’t have ‘easy’ access to the recorded signal because it’s routed nowhere.
