Cubase 6.5 Rewire with Reason

Hi folks,

It’s my first post here although I’ve been a reader of the board for a long time. After putting aside Rewire while it wasn’t available, I just jumped back into rewiring Reason 6 with Cubase 6.5 and things are working well so far. But I was reminded of a quirk with the rewire audio channels that always bugged me.

I’m in the “Reason Rewire” view from the Devices menu, and want to activate additional audio channels to come into Cubase from Reason. I activate the first two channels, Mix L and Mix R. Those channels now show up in Cubase’s mixer as one single stereo channel strip, with Mix L from Reason feeding left and Mix R feeding Right. Perfect - this is what I want.

However, the additional channels do not behave like this. When I activate the next two channels 3 and 4, they each show up in Cubase’s mixer as a stereo channel, but the signal from Reason’s Audio IO device is obviously mono for output 3 and mono for 4. So a mono output from Reason IO channel 3 comes into Cubase’s mixer onto a new stereo channel panned to center. Same with 4 and all additional channels from Reason when you activate them in Cubase. This just gets clunky really fast and it’s just not useful - a stereo Reason instrument or track ends up in Cubase on two stereo mixer channels and ultimately the stereo-ness is lost because you end up with a mono sum since they are panned center. What I’ve done occasionally to work around is fix the pan to hard L and R and link cubase mixer channels, or bus them to a group channel. And then hide the “send” channels in the mixer. It works, but it is clunky and a bit of extra work.

So what am I missing here? How can I bring channel 3 and 4 from Reason (and any subsequent pairs) into ONE Cubase stereo channel as 3-left and 4-right without resorting to a group channel?

You can’t. It’s been that way as far back as Cubase has implemented Rewire.

I’ve heard it stated that this is somehow related to the rewire spec. That’s actually BS. Nothing in the rewire technical spec would prevent Steinberg from grouping left/right output pairs in its implementation, if it chose to allow it as an option.

The good news is, as you know, using a group channel. Not difficult at all. Just a small extra step.

Ok, I was afraid of that. It seems a little strange since the first two channels come in on one stereo track. I guess it’s time to set up a bunch of group channels as a project template.

Thanks!

Bump, Steinberg please hear this plight!

This feature is the missing link between using a two-computer workflow (eg. Laptop w/Reason and main DAW at studio).

It’s the reason why I don’t load up my Reason songs anymore because as mentioned it’s just too cumbersome to get done as easily as a simple VSTi.

I would love to be able to work this way once again - P L E A S E

Why are you letting it stop you?

It’s almost as big a pain additionally setting it up on the Reason side, routing to the rewire out instead of the mixer.

Set up some templates for both. Get on with things.

Hi guys. I just upgraded to 6.5 because 64bit Rewire is supposed to be supported. When I look in the Devices pulldown, Acid Pro7 & Reason 4 aren’t showing up.
Do these have to be 64bit as well for Rewire to recoginze them?

Thanks Dan

Yeah, they need to be 64 bit rewire slaves if 64 bit Cubase is going to see them.

If you need to rewire to them, you’ll have to use 32 bit Cubase.

Before i bought Cubase6 i had a cubase sx version and it was possible to use “stereo rewire channels”. I was really disappointed Steinberg removed this possibility. Of course it´s possible to work with group channels, but it could be so much easier. For all i know there are other DAWs which support stereo rewire channels, so it has to be possible.

Imo this is an essential issue. Instead of adding new plugins (which i also can buy from other providers) Steinberg should first concentrate on these essential issues.

But the new Synths seem to be very nice.

hi

just upgraded to cubase 6.5 so i could get rewire function like in the good old days. so i open up device menu and select 'reason rewire and activate l&r mix channels and then double clicked on reason 6 but get error message saying

'engine not responding

please check your rewire host’

using windows 7 64bit & reason 6.02

any help or ideas would be really appreciated!

many thnaks

Ian

Hi,

I am having an opposite problem to Petoet using ableton Live. Using Live as a Rewire slave, Cubase 6.5 is offering me only stereo Rewire buses. The I/O configuration on the LIve channel offers me the possibility of routing to only Rewire bus 3 but Cubase will not allow me activate bus 3 without creating a stereo bus called 3+4.

I suspect this may be a issue with Live as the CUbase manual states that Rewire channels may be mono or stereo depending on the slave.

Any thoughts?

Hey plus one for this. Not having stereo rewire channels is baaaad