Clip gain !

Hi all,
This is my first question here, hope u can help!

Is there a “clip gain” in cubase Elements 9 ? To turn the level down before hitting the plugin and the trak fader… just like in pro tools.

Thank you

It’s not like in Pro Tools but yes there is a Pre gain control that you can use to bring the signal down in level before plugins.

It can be found in the “Pre” Rack on the mix console.

You´ve got volume handles on all Audio Events.

No idea what PT clip gain does but this is what I would consider clip gain in Cubase.

FWIW, Svennilenni and Grim’s answers are much closer to PT’s clip gain than my solution.

Personally I prefer using the Pre gain control as it affects the whole track without having to worry about selecting all the events but I can see it would probably depend on how one works.

(er… thanks… been using Cubase for close to 10 years and Never Knew This. Very embarrassed. And it does allow positive values too. There’s whole hours of my life I’ll never get back…)

2 Likes

Cubase had it long before protools, if the elements derivative has it, I don’t know.

Yes it has it, both the clip volume handles and the Pre gain control.

Good to know, thanks.

Interesting…must admit I didn’t know about it until I saw someone using Clip gain in PT and I came back to look for something similar.

Thank you all my friends :slight_smile: i am happy that you helped me … Love you all :slight_smile:

To add to this, the volume of the selected clip is shown in the Info Line. Where you can also use mouse scroll to in- or decrease the volume, normal scroll for 1db, shift-scroll for 0.05 db for small adjustments.

In addition to the excellent answers and discussions above, I’d just add that, of course, the input may also contain dynamics handling plug-ins and/or hardware. If elements has them, track pre-sets are useful for this. If not, then you can add compressors, EQ, etc. to the input channel to shape the sound on the way to the record track.

Again, stating the obvious for many, but altering the Gain of a recorded Clip and Trimming the Input Gain of an Input Channel are two different things, of course. Also check that you don’t have any impedance mismatches on the Inputs. Make sure your Mic/Line input select is correct (depending on Hardware), Mic. Power Supplies if needed, Mic. Pre-amp (if being used), D.I.'s…etc.

With the answers and illustrations in the thread you should be all set. Good luck.

Also one last thing

Again, I think Elements has this, but I’m not positive, but there is a clip Zoom that is just for graphical help and is not a change in the clip’s gain. The zoom control on my version is a little slider near the top, right of the screen.

I want to say thanks to Karady for bringing up this subject!

Seriously!

I had a version of Protools way back, and the one feature, the one feature, I really liked about Protools was the ability to marquis an area of a waveform, adjust the gain, and see the increase (or decrease) in the visual form. This is very useful feature when working on vocals: pre-balance the levels to put less stress on a compressor.

Well, I’ve been hoping Steinberg would copy this feature…and due to Karady’s post, it inspired me to see what it takes to achieve it.

As others have posted, the “Clip Gain” feature of Cubase has been there quite a while. Seems like Avid came around in Protools 10.

However, I didn’t realize marquis’ing a section of audio, and then a “Shift+X” would carve a new clip in Cubase (set the grid quantize to off) and then adjust the gain, would achieve this Protools feature!

So, thank you, Karady - as an experienced Cubase user (1998), I didn’t realize this was essentially the same as Protools!

Would love Steinberg to add a multi-point clip gain like Pro Tools has. Cubase does have a half-implemented version (use the pencil tool on a region) but it is not very easy to use / doesn’t allow for the range tool / starts at the top of the clip instead of the middle so hard to see gain.

It may sound weird but this THE ProTools feature that keeps me from changing to Nuendo or Cubase. I use it ALL the time - has it been updated in Cubase or Nuendo?

Are clip gain and event volume handle the same thing?

Clips would be considered portions of an Event in Cubase. But, its really just making a new event from a section of a larger event using the above ‘Shift X’ a selected region then applying volume adjusts using the volume handle of that new event (clip’ed region of the event). This works fast, just isn’t as obvious as the one thing PT does really well - super useful on vocals.

Dayz

The Cubase event volume that has the default zero at the top of the Event, but can still be increased further, so we have no visual clue if we previously increased the gain. So pleasant to use.
And not to mention the Event Envelope whose gain cannot even be increased, but only reduced.

So many years have passed and still no improvement in this regard.