In 6.5 when I selected listen on a bus then it’s output was reflected in the control room meter. It seems in 7.0 that the Control Room meter only shows the output from the bus selected as Main Mix in VST Connections - with the selection of ‘Listen’ only affecting what you actually hear via the Control Room monitors.
My current workflow involves seeing the Control Room meter reflecting the sum total of all the buses I have enabled to ‘Listen’ to and acts as a way to keep my eye on what the overall level of the mix is. Has this functionality / workflow option changed or is this not expected behaviour?
OK, so I finally faced the music and RTFM to discover:
“Outputs other than the Main Mix are not routed through the Control Room Mixer.” Arse!
So I thought I’d ask my question in a different way…
My current workflow is that I route my VSTi outputs to a series of output busses - essentially hi & lo versions of orchestral sections matching what clients require as stems - and very handy to be able to mix down using Channel Batch Export to bounce all in one step. I use EQ, Limiting, Reverb etc. as inputs on these busses - largely because with around 30 x VSTi outputs it would be impractical and frankly unecessary to apply a cpu hungry set of inserts to each one. I leave the ‘Main Mix’ bus as a ‘Master’ for plaing back the audio files once I’ve mixed them down.
So, the obvious issue is now that I have no way to monitor my overall mix other than to mix it down and route the resulting audio track through the Main Mix bus. I can use ‘Listen’ to hear it via the Control Room - but have no idea what the levels are as I mix - which is part of the point of mixing!
As far as I can see there is no way to apply sends to busses (my first thought was what if I did a send from each bus to the main mix at 0dB). So - can any of you clever chaps think of a workaround (or a way to perusade Helge to put this functionality back where he found it - with clicking all the relevant buses with ‘Listen’ routing them via the control room mixer ) ???
It seems odd to have a brilliant function like batch bus mixdowns for people who work like me - but no way to monitor the mix before you get there?
The Cue Sends as far as I can figure it send to outputs from the audio card (to which I guess you connect monitors / cans in different locations via some form of d/a converter). They don’t allow you to route to a bus as far as I can see. And certainly as far as my audio card is concerned they must have their own unique ADAT channels. Nice try though
Huzzah! I think I’ve sussed it - Group Channel Tracks!
It is more fiddly to set up, but does come with the added bonus that I can now fully automate much of my stem creation. I basically create a Group Channel Track and treat it just as if it were a bus - pointing all the Group Channel Tracks to the Main Mix Bus. With the ability to drag and drop inserts etc in the mix window it shouldn’t be too much hassle to import 6.5 projects.
For an Orchestral template, the added bonus is that you can send several group channel tracks to another one. For example, I can now create a group channel for high woodwinds and one for low woodwinds but send them both to a woodwinds channel for easier monitoring of say woodwinds against strings. Then when it comes time for a batch mixdown, I can select the hi & lo woodwinds separately (no more mute all, solo, mute the solo, solo some more mutes - coz if you do it the wrong way round they stay muted anyway - malarkey!).
I still think you should be able to route any bus to the master mix - otherwise, what value do busses add?, you may as well not have them if you can’t monitor the sum of their outputs - but for the meantime, I don’t have to switch back to 6.5, which will do for me!
Now if only there was a way to link specific midi tracks to group channels so they had linked solo & mute capability I could automate all of my stem creation …
Now if only there was a way to link specific midi tracks to group channels so they had linked solo & mute capability I could automate all of my stem creation …
Put them in a folder (midi and groupchannels) and use the solo/record/mute button of the folder? (dont know if this will help on batch exports…)
And if you use groups before busses or groups as busses you could indeed set it up like this: group 1,2,3…to “submix” group, submix out to mainmix and/or use an aux send on 0db on every group (or the “submix” group) to the main mix for (switchable) metering purposes.
You can also use group channels as FX returns for this very reason (being able to send fx signal to all groups or busses by using aux sends on the “FX return group-channel” (not possible with “normal fx returns”)…
Sadly not, as the groups would relate to more than one subgroup - so if hi woodwind were in the same folder as flutes it couldn’t then be in the same folder as clarinets etc.
The only way I can think of to do it is to create more busses in VE Pro - so that every instrument I want a separate stem for has its own input in Cubase for which I can create a Group track. I don’t often need to output a stem for every instrument - but it is sometimes necessary.
Interesting idea with the 'Group Channels as FX returns concept - might well be worth a shufti? - but my search for the perfect stem solution goes on!
) ???