I am a bit confused if there EVEN IS a difference between an FX track and a group track since BOTH can be send to using the OUTPUT or the SEND signal-path
I am currently constructing my new orchestral template and need to split my Instrument to 2 separate tracks (one for close setup, one for room setup).
So I use my instr.track OUTPUT for close, and a SEND for my room tracks.
From a functional basis they are pretty much the same. The difference is more in the intended use. The advantage of having 2 different Track types is it lets you do something like hiding all the FX Tracks but not the Groups. The difference is more for organizational rather than functional purposes.
FYI if you are using Cubase Pro you can use Direct Routing to send a signal to 2 (or more) different Group Tracks - so you could use Groups for both your close & room tracks.
Hi,
This comes from Cubase past. In the past, via Sends you could route to the FX Channels only and via the Outputs you could route to the Group Channels only. So it was meant for different use cases, as @raino described.
Later on, this changed and you can use both of them the very same way now. I can’t come to any difference nowadays.
Direct Routing - OK, I’ll check it out.
For now I send one signal from my VSTi through the “output” and the second through a “send”.
I’ll see if direct routing makes it easier.
You need to enable “Summing Mode” on the Track to have multiple destinations. Right+Click on the Direct Header to enable it
ahh never stumbled over SUMMING MODE until you pointed it out.
Quiet interesting - thanks a lot
RE FX vs. Groups;
This has been a common source of confusion ever since Cubase SX was introduced 20 years ago. I’ve posted many times about this.
The short answer; the only difference is the default color.
I’ve always maintained that we should have effect “returns” like a traditional mixing desk. The main difference being that an effect would be hard-wired to the top of the return, not inserted into a buss.
And, of course we’d need an effects “rack” to neatly host all of our effects plug-ins where you could quickly go and make adjustments with intuitive ease. We actually had an effects rack in Cubase VST days.
Until Cubase SX I had never heard the term “effects track”. And at the time I think you had to first create an effects “track” and then go back and insert an effect yourself. It’s since been refined so the effect is chosen, inserted and labeled when you create the track. I’ve long since submitted to the design.
Please excuse the rant. I continue to carry this flag and wave it whenever I get the chance.
As raino points out, Summing Mode should solve the other part of your question.
This topic has been so confusing to me. A lot of older online comments suggest there is a difference and then present-day comments say otherwise. I find myself asking, “Why would they create the same feature that works the same? Why not merge them into one feature?” Then I realize this is just how Steinberg chooses to develop software. How odd.
To me the only difference seems to be how you can access the effect, not functionality. An FX track with an inserted effect plugin is basically the same thing as an effect being hard-wired to the top. Functionally what you’re talking about would be a bus regardless since it has to sum signals before the effect. So to me it doesn’t really seem to be much of a benefit. But see below:
First of all I think it may be legacy, not originally intended.
But secondly I do think there are advantages to having these be separate items. If you only have Group tracks, like Pro Tools has only Aux tracks, then you can’t quickly change visibility according to category. In Nuendo at least I have four mixer views available, and I can quickly set one up to show FX tracks only - or I can use a key command to make sure I only see the type of track I want to see. You can’t really do that in PT for example, and it’s actually pretty convenient.
And that’s of course in addition to being able to pick a separate color for those tracks which helps navigation.
I think Raino gave the best answer:
To have different names for basically the same thing also might help some users in their mind: effects belong to FX channels, bussing belongs to Group channels.
I disagree. I appreciate that we’ve grown accustomed to the current method. Familiarity Bias is a powerful force. I have the misfortune of learning my skills on real equipment. That’s my familiarity bias, I suppose.
On a real mixer you would not insert effects into a group for the purpose of “send” style effects.
I’ve been saying for years that it would be amazing if Cubase had an effects “Rack” like you would see in say… a recording studio, and then when you add a send effect to that rack it’s automatically hard wired to the top of it’s own “Return”, (or “track” under the current nomenclature.) . The same way that every other track type works. When you add an instance of Groove agent and you open the inserts you don’t see that instance “inserted” into the Groove agent track. It’s just a groove agent track with vacant inserts.
Said “Return” could have all the same functionality that an “effects track” does now. But the source of the return is permanently defined. Just like every other track type.
This kind of functionality used to exist in ancient versions of Cubase but was lost when Cubase SX was introduced. (Although the effects returns were hard wired to the master out back then. Not ideal.)
I think SX was rushed out the door to accommodate radical operating system changes happening in both Mac and windows at the time. Many features and functionality were lost. The SX code was improved very quickly but some bits and bobs still persist. Effects “tracks” is one of them.
There is no such thing as “effects tracks” on a mixer in the real world.
With what exactly? It almost seems as if your objection is about cosmetics, because I don’t see a functional difference. You send from multiple sources into a target which means you need to sum those signals which means a “bus”. Then in that ‘target’ you have the effect, a plugin. Then there’s the option to add other effects after that which means inserts, and finally output control which means a fader. It basically just seems like an effects track with a plugin inserted.
I have no idea what you mean by “hard wired to the top of it’s own “return””. It really sounds like all you want to do is extract what today is a plugin in an insert on an effect track and place that in a rack instead… but then still return its output to that effect track.
Ok, fine. But now figure that you want to add effects after that first effect. And figure that this is now just one of several chains. Would you have multiple “racks”, one for each send’s primary “destination”? Because if you do it really sounds - again - like you’re just ending up with several effect tracks again, with the only difference being that some of the parts are separated out… for no clear benefit it seems.
Right, but there also weren’t the same ability to automate literally any parameter on any rack effect either, and that’s a big difference.
Again, I really see essentially zero benefit to what you propose.
Seems to me that, at the end, FX and Group tracks have no true differences :
OTOH, I like the way they are visually separated. It’s a true help to keep everything clear, at least in the arrange page of a given project : FX tracks for sends, Group ones for summing audio outputs.
Exactly.
I get that. First, understand that what I’m suggesting is NOT to loose any of the functionality of the FX “track.” What I AM saying is that the way send effects are handled could be more logical and intuitive. AND more elegant if we had an FX “rack” for send effects along the lines of Sound Toys or Reason. At the very least an FX tab in the “Right Zone” would be an improvement.
Really the only potential benefit I see here is that you get to see your effects in a more or less standardized way. In terms of routing you’re not gaining anything since basically all you’ve done is move the insert of the actual effect from the insert to the “input” slot under “routing”, practically speaking. Unless of course you want to be able to choose the effect in that “input” slot in which case you just made everything more complicated in terms of routing.
Thing about it though is that first of all your “rack” would be either just all “first” effects and no subsequent effects that you have listed as going in the normal inserts or you would have to select a track to see only its effect chain. So really all you’re doing is “expanding” all inserts in the selected track into a separate (right) zone.
But then if that’s the idea then someone will have to code all plugins so that they “fit” or “conform” to a standard that works in that zone/rack, right? Because right now when you open a plugin you get the manufacturers GUI and that obviously has to change.
So I really don’t see anything more logical with any of this and it certainly doesn’t seem more practical to me.
One should always try to be constructive and positive but in this case I’ll go the other way: I don’t like any of the proposed ideas.
Nothing personal, I just think it is a step back to the 20th century.
FX tracks and Group tracks are VERY different in the way Cubase compensates their LATENCY.
When you ABUSE a group track for a send/return effect like a high quality reverb which has a latency, then Cubase will DELAY your dry signal of the track you’re playing in real-time, even when you turn on the “constrain latency compensation”.
When you USE an FX track for that same send/return effect, then will NOT DELAY your dry signal of the track you’re playing in real-time when you turn on the “constrain latency compensation”.
So, the difference in the latency you feel can be huge when using HQ effects!
In any case, I think I’ve found another difference here, which is probably a bug.
