When do you lose your LR panner? You need to use the panner on the bus. Add specific functions for a single use-case are usually not a good design. And from what I see it you can use buses or split the channels, adding a third way you need some good arguments. Workflow is important, but they need to be very generic.
@GlennO is right, the moment you add an LRC channel, those are the panners you get, and that can change the whole project structure.
Also, Cubase is already full of highly specialised, use-case-specific features that arenāt āgenericā. Thatās literally why itās more powerful than many other DAWs, in my opinion. Iām sure there are plenty of features you donāt use or arenāt even aware of, but that doesnāt mean they shouldnāt exist or that other people donāt use them. Youāre not the only Cubase user in the world.
Cubase is widely used by rock and metal musicians, so thereās a big group of guitarists and bassists who would benefit from a more streamlined DI + processed workflow. If you donāt like the feature, you can ignore it. Your approach is unnecessarily complicated and insisting on a more complicated setup is counterintuitive. That doesnāt make the slightest sense and seems very illogical.
And yes, you can use buses, you can split channels, you can build workarounds. But the whole point of my request is to avoid having to do that every time and reduce friction, especially when youāre trying to write fast. A workflow improvement that saves clicks, reduces routing complexity, and keeps things organised is a valid argument on its own.
Itās a feature request to make Cubase faster and easier for the people who need it. Take it or ignore it.
Can you give a example where it is not generic?
MixConvert is not the same as mix6to2.
You will need two to create separation. Buses is the way routing works in cubase.
What modeler are you using? If you donāt understand the issue here, maybe itās because of an idiosyncrasy of your modeler?
Does it mater what modeller it is? I use waves, ik, softube plugins and real fender or laney.
The issue being discussed here is primarily of interest to people using a modeler device. Other people might not appreciate how cumbersome the current workflow is. The OP has proposed an interesting feature request to help address this issue.
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Not being a guitar player, I didnāt realize how widely useful this could be. Iāll edit the title to be more specific to attract participation from others who do this.
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Iām one of those people. Iāve read through the thread but fail to see the hardship. Is it setting up a second track with the DI input and arming it?
Although I typically donāt record modelers, I record guitar amps on a regular basis and almost always record a DI signal for safety so I feel like whatever is being proposed should benefit me as well, right?
Once my tracks are recorded I use Group Editing to keep all edits in sync. How would this differ with the proposed new feature?
Letās break down the steps involved for each new guitar track:
- Create a stereo main out track
- Name it
- Set its routing
- Create another mono DI track
- Name it
- Set its routing
- Arm both tracks and record
- Disable DI track after recording
- Group both tracks
- You might also need to set up a bus and a folder
Thatās 9-11 steps for each new guitar track. And this is just for recording. I havenāt even mentioned the additional steps involved during reamping, or the extra setup required in the modeler itself. I play rock and metal, so you can imagine how many guitar tracks I deal with. Now imagine doing all of this every time you record a new guitar track, or when you open a new project and just want to capture ideas quickly. Itās also very easy to forget setting up the DI track when youāre trying to capture ideas fast.
These steps add up when you have many guitar tracks and quickly become cumbersome and harder to manage. Iām not saying this is the end of the world or that itās not doable. It just adds unnecessary friction where the workflow could be more streamlined.
In practice, the idea is to have a DI/Reamping tab in the Audio Connections window. There, you set up the DI input (the DI signal output from the modeler) and the DI output (the USB input on the modeler). You also setup the reamping chain in the same tab. You then create a single track and activate the DI feature on it. This will always record the DI in the background while also following any edits or comping. Now when you need to reamp, itās just a push of a button and voila! Reamping starts immediately since all the routing is already set up. Cubase simply takes the DI signal and routes it through the predefined reamping chain to create a new reamped version.
So can you see the difference? With this approach, the workflow for each new track is literally less than half the steps mentioned above, while offering better management, less clutter, and a much more streamlined experience. This also allows you to add as many tracks as you want at once without any hassle. This feature could also be used to other reamping scenarios, such as reamping through a real amplifier or reprocessing through external hardware.
I used to record with plugins before moving to the Axe-Fx III, and I appreciated how easy that process was. Thatās what led me to this idea. Itās more of a quality of life improvement than anything else. If we can have a better and more innovative workflow, why not?
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Probably not. Since thereās no recabling necessary with modeling devices, reamping is far more common and the DI is less likely to be recorded just for āsafetyā.
Also, because no recabling is necessary, the cumbersome aspect of the process shifts from the rig to the DAW. Between recording and reamping there are a lot of steps and session clutter that could be streamlined.
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Hereās how I record my guitarsā¦.I have a doubleneck electric and a 12 string acoustic. The 12 string is recorded DI in stereo, the electric is recorded DI in mono. For the electric I record clean with an amp modeler as an insert(just to hear the rough guitar part). This creates a clean track thatās ready for any amp modeler. Just monitor during recording to hear the amp sim while recording clean!
Iām not sure if youāre talking about a plugin modeller or an external modeller like the Axe-Fx III which is the topic of this thread. If the latter, this setup creates many problems.
First is latency. You are creating unnecessary buffer latency on top of the modeller latency, which might cause sloppy playing (this differs from player to player and how sensitive they are to latency). Also, if you have a big project with lots of CPU-intensive plugins, you canāt even set a low buffer size, which makes it impossible to record in such projects.
Second problem is that you can hear only one processed guitar track at a time, and the rest will be DI tracks. This makes this setup usable only if you have one guitar track in your project, which I never do.
Third problem is that if you work with a band collaboratively or remotely, you canāt use this workflow since they donāt have access to your modeller. So youāll have to export all the tracks one by one, and if youāre using multiple presets on many tracks, itās going to be a lot of work and time.
You can significantly cut down on the number of steps by utilizing Track Archives. I have a few variations of track archives stored for guitar recording with slight variations. (The ones that include a DI track have the output routing for it set to a dedicated re-amp output. No track disable is necessary. Alternatively, the output of the DI track could be set to āNo Busā.)
If you often record several performances using the same input bus, you could consider multiple copies in your track archives. Or create templates with enough guitar tracks configured to cover most scenarios.
Iām all for for that! 
Thatās only true if youāre using your modeller as an audio interface, no? That alone makes it quite niche in my view.
Besides, if you are someone that tends to reamp often, you would likely have most of that cabling set up permanently thus requiring you to only connect one cable from your reamp box to the amp.
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Yup, Iāll start implementing track archives in my workflow. Iāve never really liked templates for some reason, but Iāll give them a go as well. That said, I still wish the devs would implement my idea. If Steinberg were to do this, I genuinely think it would be a game changer for guitar recording, and other companies would end up copying it.
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No, thatās not true. The Axe-FX is quite flexible in that regard.
Thatās missing the point though. The bottom line is there is opportunity here to streamline a workflow that is becoming increasingly popular.
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What is it you donāt like about templates?
In my template, I have a record folder that has all my record ins ready to go that I can use if in a hurry, and then I have folders per instrument as well.
The guitar folder has a DI track, and then a few guitar amp tracks. Everythingās ready to go.
Just duplicate the folder for overdubs and you have an exact duplication of everything that is already set up.
I just press shift+d (for me thatās duplicate track) on the folder, and then ārā to record arm everything in itā¦ good to go.
I guess itās just the fact that Iām used to my workflow where I only added tracks that I needed to reduce clutter. But that was when I used plugins before I got the Axe-Fx III and changed my workflow.
But yea, I said I will give them a go, it seems to be the most suitable workflow for my current needs in addition to using track archives.
This is where Hiding (and often Disabling) Tracks in a Template becomes useful.
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