Subject: Feature Request: Auto-Routing for the new Group-Folder Tracks (Inherit Output)
Body:
Hi guys,
The new “Group Folder” functionality in Cubase 15 is a great organizational tool for cleaning up the MixConsole, but it lacks a crucial professional logic: Automatic Output Inheritance.
Currently, when I move selected tracks into a Group Folder, I have to manually re-route the folder’s output. If I’m working with a complex, multi-stage bus system, this is a massive workflow killer and a huge source of errors.
My suggestion for the dev team: When creating a Group Folder from selected tracks, the folder should automatically “inherit” the output destination that those tracks were originally routed to.
Why this is essential:
Consistency: It prevents the sound from changing immediately (e.g., if tracks bypass a dedicated sub-bus and go straight to Stereo Out).
Speed: In a professional mix with 100+ tracks, I shouldn’t have to fix the routing every time I want to organize my tracks into a folder.
Professional Logic: If 5 tracks are going to “DRUM BUS A,” the folder containing them should logically go to “DRUM BUS A” by default.
Please make the Group Folder “smart” enough to understand the existing signal flow. As of now, it feels like a half-finished feature for professional routing environments.
This really should be an option and not the default I think, and possibly it should be a dialog-box option when you drop tracks into the folder. There are going to be a lot of people who want to set up a group-folder first and then when they dump tracks into it they want them to be automatically routed to the group.
In fact, to me this seems more intuitive. For one, consider a situation where you have multiple tracks where they go to more than one destination. If you don’t want to retain those destinations (and bypassing the group-folder routing) then how would the system know which of the tracks’ outputs should be the one it should adopt for the group-folder? Furthermore, if you have taken your “DRUM BUS A” tracks and put them in that group-folder with it now getting that destination and you want to add your percussion tracks and want them to go to the same destination but they currently go somewhere else then dumping them in that folder would break the pre-existing group-folder routing.
I think your suggestion is good as an option, but I disagree with it being the default.
I’m with @MattiasNYC : The feature request should be an option as Group-Folder tracks can potentially serve very different workflows.
A preference setting would be helpful to define either a default or the option to be asked each time via dialog window.
BTW: “Group-Folder Track”. It’s seems impossible to come up with a dedicated name instead of a hybrid construct. Steinberg is avoiding the naming dilemma in the manual by simply describing what they do. Not an easy one.
The funny name problem stems from the fact that the folders containing tracks in the past never have been tracks. They were just folders. Track-Folders. Not Folder-Tracks.
Actually it is that simple imho: the fact that the tracks contained in the folder could be edited simultanuously did not make the folder a track. It is just a consequence of a container in general.
But well. It boils down to the question what a track is. Cubase never was too consistent with its naminglogic. Chanels, busses, tracks… poorly defined terms.
In other wotds an egg & hen kinda question.
Steinberg could let the users decide via voting … To make it more interesting: there’s also a first price. One voter gets to pick one bug which will be adressed first. Now, we’re talking
"I think some of you are missing the typical workflow here.
Most of the time, we don’t start with an empty Group-Folder. We already have existing tracks that are already routed to a specific sub-bus (like a dedicated RME-bus or a Vocal-Bus).
When I decide later to wrap these tracks into the new ‘Group-Folder’ to clean up my Mixer, Cubase should be smart enough to look at where those tracks were going.
The logic is simple:
If all selected tracks share the same output, the Group-Folder should inherit that output.
If they don’t, give me a warning.
To those saying ‘just use a regular folder’: A regular folder doesn’t give me the processing and the VCA-style control of a Group-Folder in the Mixer. I want the organization and the routing, but I don’t want Cubase to ‘reset’ my carefully built signal chain to Stereo Out every time I try to be organized.
It’s about making the software follow the engineer’s intent, not the other way around."
That is one possible workflow and for a mixing engineer probably the common one. But there are other people working differently and they have different requirements.
An additional user interaction required? What a nightmare - from my persective. YMMV.
"That’s like being sold a brand-new car with square wheels. When you complain that the ride is bumpy and ‘hoppy,’ the salesman just shrugs and says: ‘Well, if you wanted a smooth ride with round wheels, why didn’t you just stick with your old car?’
The point is: Steinberg marketed this as a new, better way to organize and route. If the implementation is fundamentally flawed for professional routing scenarios, telling us to ‘use the old way’ (regular folders) completely misses the purpose of the new feature."
To make it more interesting: there’s also a first price. One voter gets to pick one bug which will be adressed first. Now, we’re talking