I don’t know why but I remember when Instrument tracks where added to cubase I was excited to use them and then for some reason which I cant remember I stopped… I think it might of been something to do with exporting? I really dont know…
I have always been in the habit in doing all my midi parts then mixing them down and then mixing and processing but now I would prefer to make that a part of the production as it can add inspiration and shake up a track etc… So I think the best way to do this would be to use instrument tracks and do all the processing etc on that as inserts and sends etc can be routed just like an audio channel right? Is there any drawbacks to instrument tracks?
Thats pretty much how other daws such as logic work standard right? I was never much of a logic user but I remember you could insert directly to your tracks etc. ?
Is this how most people work now? What are the pros/cons (mostly cons if any) to the instrument track approach.
Ah I remember why I stopped using them… No midi channels and also I like to program drums to one track then dissolve the part, IIRC with Instrument tracks this will duplicate the VSTi eating more power, and for large productions this was just silly. Have they sorted this now in 8 or does it still work the same way?
The multiple MIDI channel point you bring up could be an issue if you use them simultaneously on stacked notes, AND you want to use only 1 track per instrument. Otherwise, you can use VST Expression Maps to assign different MIDI channels to individual notes to trigger several articulations/patches from a single VSTi.
As for drums, you can do what you want with Instrument Tracks. That is, have a single track with the MIDI data in it but separate tracks to mix the individual drums. Simply enable the multi-out feature and you’re set. There are plenty of YouTube videos explaining the multi-out method for pretty much any DAW you can think of, including Cubase of course. The difference is that now Cubase 8 enables you to do this with Instrument Tracks as well.
So is there a quick way to dissolve parts or do I need to create the MIDI channels then copy and delete the notes I don’t need? If so that’s quite tedious. Thanks guys.
The dissolve parts function, as you know, is not very efficient when using Instrument Tracks because of what you just mentioned. Instead, why not use the multi-out function also available for Instrument Tracks? That way you only have one MIDI track to edit, yet still maintain the flexibility of processing several tracks individually. It’s a much better workflow, unless there is a specific reason why you would want separate MIDI tracks that I’m not aware of.
Cubase 8 comes with lots of tutorial videos that explain several of its functions, including the above workflow. You can also find these tutorial videos on Steinberg’s Youtube channel. Here’s one that explains VST Instruments 2.0, with steps on how to do exactly what you want starting at 1:53 mins, though I suggest you watch the entire thing:
I don’t know Maschine, but I assume it CAN be configured to output channels in Mono or Stereo. On the other hand, I believe Cubase always uses Stereo outputs when configured using the multiout method. I’ve personally never had a problem with this since it is basically the same as having a mono track output to a stereo track (i.e. a mono vocal track routed to your Master track). Same principle here. Just make sure that Maschine is set to output the desired track configuration (Mono or Stereo) into Cubase.
