Cubase 5 Freezing a VST - how does it work?

Cubase
1

This is an old version of Cubase, hoping the same principles apply to newer versions. I’ve just learned that I can set up multiple instances of my Yamaha S70XS (which is accessed via a VST in Cubase), but I apparently have to freeze one VST instance before instantiating another. The Cubase 5 manual says:

‘When you freeze a VST Instrument, the program renders an audio file of the instrument output […] When you start playback, the rendered audio file is played back from an “invisible” audio track, routed to the VST Instrument’s mixer channel.’

But when I render an instance of my S90XS/S70XS VST with a single MIDI track, all that happens is that the VST’s MIDI channel is disabled (grayed out), the VST’s “Activate” and “Edit” buttons are disabled and its “snowflake” icon turns orange. A “Freeze” folder is created containing a 1K WAV file, which doesn’t seem to contain any audio, and hitting “Play” in Cubase produces only silence.

What’s supposed to happen when a VST is frozen?

2

Hi,

In the current Cubase, you can use Render in Place instead of Freeze. What could solve your problem.

But the most important question is, how is the Audio Return routed back to the track?

3

Thanks Martin. Render in place sounds great, but as I said, I’m on Cubase 5 so I don’t have that option. Nor am I routing VST audio anywhere. The way I’m set up, the Yamaha synth shows up as a VST, but the VST doesn’t actually produce any audio… audio still comes directly from the synth into my audio interface. I did manage to get a Cubase VST (Halion) track to freeze and produce audio from the freeze file, so that pretty much answers my original question.

4

Turns out that routing audio from the VST into a pair of inputs on my audio interface solved my “no audio” problem. Thanks much for that suggestion.