Dealing with External FX and their I/O

Hi all!

New forum user here. I’ve been a casual Cubase owner for about 10 years, just dug-in for the last year or so and began taking my studio seriously. Quick question:

I have a 12x12 setup consisting of an RME Babyface Pro which is expanded via ADAT and a PreSonus Digimax DP88. I chose the DP88 because it has both XLR preamps and DSUB connectors for line-level I/O. I have a lunchbox connected via the DSUB, and simply switch the channel on the DP88 to “direct” on any slot/channel I want to utilize on the lunchbox.

In other words, I do not have converters that are dedicated to the lunchbox. They are “borrowing” the converters on the DP88.

In Cubase, I’ve tried setting up External FX, but I am noticing that it seems to expect you have busses dedicated to those External FX. For instance, if I have a 500-series module that I want to mix through as an effect, I choose the corresponding ADAT channels and it works, but it “steals” those busses from the Inputs and Outputs that are setup in VST Connections. So, in essence, I’d have to revisit the VST Connections tab every time I want to switch between recording through the DP88’s mic pres or mixing hybrid utilizing my 500 modules.

Any thoughts on how to avoid this? I hope the description makes sense!

Thanks in advance,
Nick

Hi and Welcome!

There isn’t any auto smart way, cubase deals with this.

You have to save presets of your in and outputs.
On the external fx you save the fx as favorites.

Now you can load your in/outs and fx as you need them. No glam, but it is quicker when the setups are saved and can be loaded.
So when your finished with the external fx, you just remove it and reload your in/outs. Need external fx you just load it from favorites. External FX will remeber wich ports it was saved with to favorites, and will clame them everytime you load it.

Thanks for the suggestion! I can definitely role with this. I hadn’t thought of just re-loading the preset every time I go into tracking. I’m surprised there isn’t a more elegant solution for this, but a repeatable manual process will work just fine.

Thanks again!