Do I need to create "Dummy" Busses to record a VST "live"?

Cubase
1

Sometimes I want to record a live performance / jam session on Maschine. Since Maschine does NOT send out MIDI for things like pattern switching/mutes/solos you can not render MIDI to audio and the ONLY way to really capture a live Maschine performance / jam is to capture it as audio.

I figured out how to set this up: see my step by step instructions below. This will allow you to not only record your Maschine performance as audio, but also record it on seperate Maschine outs (to keep the example simple I limted it to three outs - kick, snare, closed HH - but you could easliy do this on all 16 outs).

This setup works great, but as with many things in Cubase, I always feel there is a better way to do this. Questions for power users: do I have to set up dummy busses like I have below, or is there a cleaner way to directly rout a VST out to a audio track in?

Thx - BBJ

How to set up Cubase to Record Maschine Live Audio on Multiple Channels (Kick and Snare Example)
1 Go to “Devices>VST Instruments” and select Maschine
2 While still in “Devices>VST Instruments,” set Cubase to see the multiple Maschine outputs by clicking the output icon and checking “Maschine Out 1 [Stereo]” & “Maschine Out 2 [Stereo]”
3 Go to the Maschine VST GUI and load a kit; click on the “Kick” sound and set it to “Out 1”; click on the “Snare” sound and set to “Out 2”
4 Create two audio tracks in Cubase and name them “Kick” and “Snare”
5 Got to “Devices>VST Connections>Outputs” and click “Add Bus” and create two new busses
6 Set the “Audio Device” to “Not Connected” and rename them “Maschine Out 1”, “Maschine Out 2”
7 Go to “Devices>Mixer”
8 Change the “Output Routing” of the Maschine instrument tracks: rout the “Maschine Out 1” channel to “Maschine Out 1” and rout the “Maschine Out 2” channel to “Maschine Out 2”
9 Change the “Input Routing” of the Cubase audio tracks: rout the “Kick” channel to “Maschine Out 1” and the “Snare” channel to “Maschine Out 2”
10 Arm the audio tracks “Kick”, “Snare”; turn the monitoring “On”; Record

(Edited to update the title)

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I can’t seriously belive I am the only Cubase 6.x user who a) owns Maschine and b) likes to record a live session, so I am bumping this.

Questions for Cubase power users: do I have to set up dummy busses like I am doing in the example above, or is there a more straightforard wat to directly rout a VST out to a audio track in?

Thanks.

3

Nope - that’s how you do it. You could create group tracks instead of dummy outputs and accomplish the same thing, but that doesn’t really save you anything.

Ron

4

Yes you need a summing bus of any kind (though that can even be your regular master output as long as youre not creating a loop). direct connection does nor work.

5

I only had a chance to partially read the original post, but maybe this can help?

6

Thanks for confirming thinkingcap; alexis - thanks for the link. Unfortunatly rendering a VST as audio doesn’t work in this case due to the performance nature (and crap realtime MIDI output) of Maschine.

Hi Ron - thanks a ton for confirming. Sometimes it’s enough to know you are doing it the “right” way.

That said, if it doesn’t take too much time, could you explain how you would accomplish the same via group tracks? If it is too time consuming to notate, I assume this is covered in the manual? I had never considered this rout before. It may not be faster as you mentioned, but it may be a better workflow.

Thanks again all!

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It’s exactly the same as what you are already doing except you create a group track instead of a dummy output. You then set up your routing to VSTi-> group-> audio. Just like you are doing now except the group replaces the dummy output. I personally use the dummy output approach.

Ron

–

Using your own steps modified for group.

How to set up Cubase to Record Maschine Live Audio on Multiple Channels (Kick and Snare Example)
1 Go to “Devices>VST Instruments” and select Maschine
2 While still in “Devices>VST Instruments,” set Cubase to see the multiple Maschine outputs by clicking the output icon and checking “Maschine Out 1 [Stereo]” & “Maschine Out 2 [Stereo]”
3 Go to the Maschine VST GUI and load a kit; click on the “Kick” sound and set it to “Out 1”; click on the “Snare” sound and set to “Out 2”
4 Create two audio tracks in Cubase and name them “Kick” and “Snare”
5 Create 2 new group tracks named “Maschine Out 1”, “Maschine Out 2”
6
7 Go to “Devices>Mixer”
8 Change the “Output Routing” of the Maschine instrument tracks: rout the “Maschine Out 1” channel to “Maschine Out 1” and rout the “Maschine Out 2” channel to “Maschine Out 2”
9 Change the “Input Routing” of the Cubase audio tracks: rout the “Kick” channel to “Maschine Out 1” and the “Snare” channel to “Maschine Out 2”
10 Arm the audio tracks “Kick”, “Snare”; turn the monitoring “On”; Record

8

^^^Cheers Ron - I had no idea it was that easy (or that similar). Thanks for your time on this one! Well, two paths get you to the same destination.

Thanks again everyone.