Cubase Pro 11- Pre Fader Metering?

[vncvr]

@lmiller1220

Lots of well-respected users of various DAWs use pre-fader/post-insert metering to quickly see where any given track’s levels are agnostic of fader position. In large sessions it makes it super easy to see where gain staging issues might be building up as plugins are added/removed/tweaked over time, as new tracks are added to a bus, etc. Sure, I can try to keep track of this as I go per plug-in, per track, per group/bus, and dive back into the last plug-in on my chain to look at Output metering, and/or do some fader math on each track or bus at any given moment. Or: I could just instantly know that whatever a meter says about a track is the Truth about the level of that track before the fader.

As stated in the other thread, this is a user-engineering-error. Gainstaging issues - should not be building up. Pre-Fader/Post-Insert meters weren’t invented for gainstaging issues to build up and then fix. Proper engineering, is gainstaging as you make changes per-insert per-parameter. You don’t need pre-fader/post-insert to do this as you can just gauge the level change post-fader regardless of the faders position.

This is proper efficient audio engineering workflow. Letting gainstaging issues build up and then checking pre-fader/post-insert levels and then having to fix them and screw up your mix is not efficient workflow

I’ll quote my last to posts I made in that thread

@vncvr

And no one is yet to explain still why this is technically or pragmatically needed, only that “Protools had this when I used it, so Cubase should have it to”

It has been a while since I’ve used a console, but I thought on a console Prefader metering had the purpose of monitoring what is being sent to the DAW/Tape machine, because faders on the console are used for balancing listening levels/production mix for everyone in the control room which isn’t being recorded.

What purpose does that have in a DAW?

@vncvr

@theRoyal1

It’s amazing how many people will argue when someone asks for a feature that’s important but not important to them.

As if having an extra feature for someone else to use is going to make their lives worse.

There’s more important features than this needed, way way way more important, not even in a subjective sense but in a rudimentary structure of the program sense that will server everyone better.

So in a sense, this feature taking up Steinbergs resources, instead of other features, does make our lives worse.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing for the user community to critique and dissect feature requests to help the devs sift out what we actually need and don’t.

As to why other DAWs have it, perhaps they are copying ProTools thinking it will help transition users to their DAW. And as to why ProTools has it, this was probably to transition people from recording consoles and tape and imo, I actually think it’s a old defunct legacy feature of ProTools. Something they added to emulate consoles, but didn’t really need to.

maybe, it would be used in some sort of digital->analog tape or console situation… but I don’t know, don’t think so.