I am trying to route my stems in the following manner:
The basic idea is that each stem is sent to a parallel group. These parallel groups feed another group that duplicates the master fader but we don’t actually hear the audio from this group. This group is used to trigger a side chain compressor input on the original groups. The idea is that this allows me to replicate master bus compression but the compression happens on the stems.
My issue is that Cubase seems to prevent side chains when the audio is routed back into the original track. It seems to be preventing a feedback loop, which wouldn’t actually happen given my routing scenario. Anyone figure this one out?
Wow this looks really interesting and useful for stem mixing. I just tested that setup using vienna ensemble pro 7. Just route the audio into vienna ensemble and then back and cubase anti-feedback thing is outsmarted.
If you don’t own vienna ensemble pro 7 I would suggest you try the free alternative audiogridder I think there is a good chance this will work aswell.
Wow! Great idea. I am a VE Pro user and will definitely try this. Really appreciate the post , I don’t think I would have come up with this solution on my own.
Still wish there was a way to do this within Cubase. As far as I know this routing is possible within both pro tools and logic.
I would guess the timing would be all wrong. It’s like back to the future. The thing that is feeding the side chain will be affected by the result of the side chain. Even if a program can make it work i think the compressor trigger will be out of sync compared to the same on a master bus.
You could try taking your tracks you want for the trigger and exporting the summer of those buses as one track and importing the audio back in as a trigger track with no output. So there are no sends to the master compressor, just an import of the combined stems as a real audio track feeding the side chain.
I always thought the sends are post insert so you cannot send, even a dummy version, back to control a compressor on the string group because that compressor is going into the dummy send. It’s like going back in time.
It might work if you create the dummy group going into the side chain, like you have, then another group with a send from the original string group and put the compressor on that new group with the dummy side chain feeding that compressors side chain. Then it’s no longer a feed back as the original string group has no compressor.
But i am trying to answer a question i do not fully understand and i should not be doing that lol. I thought it was trying to have the equivalent of the mix buss effects on individual stems group for export, otherwise those stems cannot be combined later to sound like the mix bus version.
