Advanced Bypass would be a customizable global bypass with many features. Perhaps it would be placed in the Control Room rather than the mixer.
User Adjustable Gain Compensation (when Bypass active) - Would increase/decrease volume at the final output stage.
Would also include the ability to mute certain channel types (FX for example) with an additional option to negate Bypass automation (in the event an FX channel has bypass automation)
Users could select which/per channel type would bypass which MixConsole elements… For example: A user could Bypass Inserts for Group and Audio channels, but leave inserts unbypassed for FX Channels.
There could be a more customizable section that actually lists all the channels in the project in which a user could create a custom bypass per channel per element.
An option to have this bypass active only within certain cycle markers.
The ability to save both project presets and global presets (global presets would exclude the per-channel options)
What this could be useful for:
Finding problems and understanding where changes made things go in the wrong direction
A/Bing
Showing the client how things used to sound vs currently
Aids collaborative work teams, where someone or a number of people have oversight and need to be able to look back in time.
A fast way of creating alternate/reference mixes, A/B prints for client/directors/etc.
Further editing after mixing, sometimes editing needs to be checked with off.
Testing a change in project direction or looking for different direction opportunities
The idea overall is sort of MixConsole Snapshots and Current MixConsole bypasses had a baby.
Sounds like you’re trying to solve a problem that shouldn’t really exist in the first place. Having to adjust gain depending on bypass is a crazy amount of extra work setting that up.
If you’re just wanting to A/B different mixes then print as you go, assign to a different control room output, and set up a control room input source so you can toggle A/B on the fly.
in fact I’ve set up a very intricate Library system that keeps track of all stages of a project from writing, recording/production to mixing and mastering.
I’m not sure what you mean by a “problem” that shouldn’t exist in the first place or how it is a crazy amount of work.
Enabling the Advanced Bypass would enable a master volume increase/decrease that the user has set for that specific Advanced Bypass template/preset.. So if that specific bypass has an overall difference of 2db, the user just enters that.. and then whenever the user enables Advanced Bypass with that specific preset loaded, it implements that 2db difference.
We’re already essentially doing this by dragging our Library prints into the session, assigning them to cues, and then using the cue gain fader to compensate overall loudness differences to be able to properly A/B/C/D reference.
Some our productions are fairly complicated and big, even when dealing with music clients - we approach our projects as if they are a million dollar branding/marketing job where everything needs to be absolutely just right… Sometimes we are at mix revision 50 and decide that a different direction needs to be taken. That’s just part of it. Advanced Bypass could help suss out some of these decisions, or problems, or client change wants/needs.
Can’t say I agree there. Bypass what? Only master bus? All plugins? You’re going to have vastly different levels and it wouldn’t really serve any purpose in the context of a mix.
Sometimes we are at mix revision 50
Ouch. Mix 1 is where it’s at. Try top-down mixing if you haven’t already. Solves a lot of these issues and what you hear is what you get. Mastering should have nothing to do but give it a thumbs up and send it on its way.
Seeings as this is a rather niche use case for a specific workflow, I would say that this is a prime example of why a scripting engine with bindings to all Cubase functions would be desirable, like Soundflow for Protools or Reascript/lua in reaper. Then this request could be made as a custom extension.
Agreed. Still, I didn’t see anything in this particular request (apart from saving, and this is actually doable too with some extra work) that can’t be done using the MIDI Remote. That being said, I agree with @twelvetwelve too
Well, Thriller was mixed 100 times and they ended up using Mix 5
Bypass what? - Well that’s the point of Advanced Bypass - you are deciding on a case by case basis and customizing what will be Bypassed and vastly different levels is the point of the gain compensation… The vastly different levels still end up at the same place - the main output - so there is only one level to be adjusted.
We do top-down mixing a fair amount - but we don’t arbitrarily apply techniques to projects, each project has its own needs, sometimes even the need for an entirely new creative process topology… Sometimes even, there will be multiple split divergent processes being worked on in parallel to see which ends up best.
Thankfully, Cubase is a program full of niche features that are absolutely amazing
The other potential benefit to Advanced Bypass, is it could tie in nicely to the export job programmer.
You could theoretically create multiple alternate dry mixes.
There could even be a feature to export a new .cpr based off the Advanced Bypass settings.
Advanced Bypass could also manage frozen channels for the user, momentarily unfreezing and bypassing those channels but then re-importing the freeze file and re-freezing the track when Advanced Bypass is disabled.
What is the point of all of that? Just to get a version that sounds unprocessed? In my experience the client wants to hear a finished product they hired you to do, not do endless A/B comparisons. If it’s the producer/engineer that needs to hear it then there’s likely no clear creative direction or second guessing your decisions. I think you’re trying to solve a problem that shouldn’t really exist.
Different processes are going to affect relative balance between elements so a global bypass isn’t going to really achieve much aside from undoing work
Use render in place of you want channel prints without inssets.
Don’t need a workflow/production lecture after 20+ years. I guarantee you my workflow in Cubase is beyond what you know is possible in Cubase.. guaranteed. Especially if you are hung up on minor GUI changes.
Also, sometimes the production process includes sending projects out to a different mix engineer - in which they might want both dry and wet - in which Advanced Bypass would make it very easy.
There are all sorts of other applications - project archival, sample creation… a thing called… experimentation…. sound design….
Right… and the feature request/idea is to be able to do it faster, and be able to recreate a complicated Bypass to be used in quick succession and throughout the length of a project.
Considering a MIDI Remote revamp was promised almost 5 years ago and nothing changed, I wouldn’t put money on that being a feature. Or it’s gonna be one of those features that benefits every Cubase user (like Expression Maps) but it’s tied to Pro only.
