Using Cubase 12 and Neural DSP plugins. If the amp sim has an overdrive or compressor activated, adjusting fades/volume on parts in the project window has no effect. Surely there must be some kind of workaround?
Just to understand correctly, you change the volume of the events going into the amp sim?
That will definitely have an effect on the volume, but it might just be that due to the compressor and/or distortion the audible effect is so minimal that you don’t immediately hear it. Cubase does not care what plugin is in the chain, it will properly change the level of the event (you can test that by disabling the plugin), but of course compressors and distortions change the envelope of the audio and add harmonics, reducing the dynamic range of the signal, so little volume changes might just not have the effect than without, especially if you have very high levels of distortion.
Try increasing the event volume by bigger amounts, and at some point you will hear a difference.
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@fese already explained it well.
I always use automation for volume changes in these cases, because even if you lower/higher the volume by that much on the event, that you notice a difference, it most of the times is not what you want.
If you do that, it gets cleaner automatically, as the DI isn’t hitting the AMP hard anymore, and thats usually not what you want either.
So automation the volume of that track is your solution.
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If it’s a high gain amp then what you are experiencing is totally logic.
Since Event fades and volume are pre-insert, they apply before hitting the amp, and in case of a high gain amp, lowering the input signal by let’s say 10 dB will not produce much audible difference as the amp will roughly sound the same.
This is actually the exact same thing as playing on a real amp and turning down the volume knob on the guitar, if the gain is very high on the amp or pedal effects (I mean distortion), then even a low input level will be enough to drive the amp.
If the volume pot is completely down you have no sound, but as soon as you start turning it up a little bit it’ll start crunching then become fully driven very fast, and the remaining 2/3 of the pot range will only fatten the distortion.
In short in Cubase, changing the volume of a guitar pre-amp does not act as an actual volume control, just as is does in real life.
If you want to change the volume of the final signal, then just do it with the track fader or the plugin’s output volume, just like you would do with the master knob on a real amp.
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