Hi,
I bought Cubase Pro several months ago so am new to it. For many years I’ve been using other DAWs where I can easily create the mix routing depicted in the attached picture. However, I’ve tried hard for hours to replicate the same in Cubase Pro but it doesn’t seem to be able to do it. I tried Group and FX tracks with Sends to implement the “realtime submix bus”, but no new tracks can be connected to its output – for any new track I create, the source button in the Channel Settings window is always grayed-out, disabled, saying “No Source” (the Mix Console routing input button for any new track is not responding either). I am pretty sure I haven’t created any feedback loop (and the depicted setup doesn’t contain any).
So can this be done in Cubase Pro? If so, how, please? Thank you very much.
For the first half upper part of your sketch, Group tracks are made for this. Just use the Output Routing drop down list (either in the track inspector or in the MixConsole) of bothAudio track 1 and Audio track 2 to point to a group track previously made for this. After this, things become a little more complicated. As a first motion, I would :
create two audio tracks with the needed inserts (effect 4 and 5),
create in the group track that collects the signals of both Audio track 1 and Audio track 2, two sends, one to each of the two audio tracks made in 1.
But maybe there is a more strightforward way to do so : I’ll let others chime in.
Hi, thank you for the reply. Indeed, the upper portion isn’t difficult (I had managed to do it using two audio tracks sending to a Group channel). The problems start when I try to use that first Group track as the “realtime submix bus” and want to connect new tracks to its output “pins”. Cubase doesn’t let me use it as the routing source for any new tracks, regardless of their type. The source button in the Channel Settings window is always disabled, saying “no source” (the Mix Console routing input button is non-responsive as well).
Made a few tests and it’s indeed better to directly use the Input Routing drop down list. So…
I first recorded a little acoustic guitar clip (P120 track, which has its output routing to an Audio UCX group track)
I created two audio tracks (UCXGroupRouting_1 & UCXGroupRouting_2), each of them having an input routing set as Audio UCX.
I recorded at a second stage the clip from P120 to the two audio tracks created in 2.
Result below, showing the input routing of the tracks involved. Seems to work here, at least with the Pro version you have (it probably doesn’t work with other versions) :
Well, thank you for that, but that doesn’t seem to do what I need. If I understand your description correctly, you do not have a real-time submix in your project, but instead you used a two-stage recording process replacing the realtime submix bus by recording intermediate audio data in the middle. Am I right? I’m really afraid that this type of free real-time submixing isn’t possible in Cubase Pro.
Examples: Bidule: Object oriented hosting within a host. All sorts of routing, building, monitoring, and transformation tools built in. The free demo is ReWire and stand alone only (Cubase supports ReWire), but the paid variant can be run as VST in inserts or VSTi in the rack or instrument tracks.
With bidule, ideally you’d host your complex effect/sub-mixing chains in a single instance of Bidule. It includes mixing bidules and more. With the VST plugin variant, anything you like hosted in a bidule plugin instance can also be assigned VST lane, MIDI, or OSC controls for high level automation. With the ReWire approach I think you might have to do any automation to controls of hosted effects via MIDI track.
A catch with using bidule would be that those ‘Cubase Only’ insert effects won’t be available from inside Bidule. You’d have to work with alternate plugins, or, get creative with dispersing bidule instances ‘between’ the Steinberg ones in quad or surround sound busses in a series and just using bidule to ‘reroute/sub-mix’ some things.
If you’re on Windows: ASIO Link Pro: A free, high quality, supposedly zero extra latency multi-client ASIO bridge that allows all sorts of interesting audio routing at the ASIO bridge Level. Route among ASIO and WDM apps, can also loop Cubase outputs back into the mix, double signals, etc. It can also optionally stream to other instances of ASIO Link Pro (locally or over a LAN/WAN).
The Bidule option should be pretty future proof as long as Cubase supports VST and/or ReWire.
The ASIO Link option works great now and in my experience adds unparalleled routing freedom to an ASIO based DAW workstation. The catch might be that it’s no longer supported software…someday it might stop working as OSes evolve and change.
Try to route the Group Track you call “Realtime submix bus” to two new Group Tracks… through the Direct Out option, in summing mode.
This should make it possible to route your 1. group to the two new ones at the same time… Then route the two new groups to the master out.
Wrong. I did the record just to show both the results of the routing and the detail of it. I just used one track before the group one, but could have actually added another one or even more with the same output routing, to better match your initial sketch. All this work in real time without issue, here.
I assume that the “realtime mix” thing in the middle is just a sum, and then it splits the summed signal to go to two separate chains?
You can use two effect tracks with sends for that. Use pre fader sends, and turn the fader down to zero.
I don’t know if this can match your need, but maybe it could work.
Audio track 1 and 2 directed to Group 1 which is directed to the stereo out.
Insertion of effects 4 and 5 in the first 3 inserts of group 1
Insert Routing: Make the signal mono for each insert and configure Left for the first insert and and right for the next two.
Thank you all for your helpful comments and pictures! Direct routing is apparently one way to do it. Even easier is just using two Sends from a group track to two FX tracks. The reason why the latter solution wasn’t working for me initially was just that I didn’t know the Sends weren’t activated by default when I created them – so when I clicked the little power icon in each Send field they finally started to send signals.
Sorry about that, I left it at jungle parrot colors!