Can you load and save entire instrument chains?

I’ve been learning a bit about Live and one of the cool things about it is how you can drag and drop an entire instrument chain. What I mean by that is:

  • Multiple instruments
  • Their routing
  • Their individual auxes/sends
  • etc.

The major advantage is the speed with which you can start new projects when you’ve got these things already built that would take a long time to do again. An example is, let’s say you’ve created a drum set with tweaked layered sounds from different instruments with plugins, groups, auxes, etc…you just load the entire thing up with one swoop and the entire thing is in your project, as opposed to having to set it all up again, which can take large amounts of time. Then you can tweak and assign overall outputs as you need to for a new project of course, but you can have these assembled big building blocks all ready to go in full.

Can Cubase do such a thing? I don’t mean a workaround with tons of different steps to try to do the same thing, but if that’s the only way then what’s the fastest way to do that? I never messed with that part of Cubase and am curious. I also don’t mean saving/loading a project template, at all…this is totally independent of an actual project and is instead being able to load in different instrument setups along w/the associated plugins, auxes, and groups at once into any session.

I’m not sure you can save instruments with their grouping and auxes, unfortunately. It’s definitely a major plus with some other DAWs that saves significant amounts of time, though, I agree. Cubase is only partially there with its presets but needs to take it further and be able to do what you’re talking about. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure you’re stuck with only being able to save instruments and audio tracks together (multiple amounts of each if you want with any plugins plugins). Auxes and groups don’t get saved, and I get what you’re saying about how it’s such a great feature to have, so let’s hope Cubase continues improving its preset system. Maybe we’re both wrong, though!