This is indeed a great feature in Studio One and other DAWs, including Reaper, as mentioned above.
While we are waiting for Steinberg to hopefully implement something like this in the future, there are some great third party options out there, including:
- Waves StudioRack (already mentioned above)
- DDMF Metaplugin
- DDMF Superplugin
- Blue Cat’s Patchwork
- Blue Cat’s MB-7 Mixer
- NUGEN SigMod
They all work great, and have different features, in some cases going well beyond what Studio One’s Splitter and Reaper’s FX containers can do. I strongly suggest you check those options out. Now in terms of sheer routing power, modulation, and flexibility, you won’t be able to match what Bitwig can do on its own of course, since Bitwig’s design is built around a modular concept in the DAW itself (and therefore Bitwig is a great companion DAW to Cubase BTW!).
BTW, using one of the above plugins to host your chains has other advantages that go beyond Studio One, Reaper, Bitwig, etc., in a different sense, since you can create complex chains and use them in ANY DAW. So if you are using more than one DAW and want to share complex chains across DAWs, then your best bet is to get one of the above plugins anyway!
Also, there are other workarounds and clever ways to do this inside Cubase in sync with other DAWs in fact. For example, you can route audio out of Cubase over to Reaper or Bitwig with Blue Cat’s Connector plugin, and then use the FX containers in Reaper or brilliant modular routing in Bitwig, then route the audio BACK into Cubase with another instance of Blue Cat’s Connector. The sky is the limit, folks!
In addition to that, Blue Cat has another cool plugin called Blue Cat’s Late Replies, which also can host third party plugins, but it can apply them to a matrix of delays… so it’s a multi-effects delay+reverb third-party plugin hosting system. Just another option to explore.
Anyway, as for the OP, I’m 100% in support of Steinberg offering some kind of built-in complex FX container/chainer or splitter kind of functionality, BUT the truth is, if you use one or more of the above plugins, you can potentially do WAY MORE things, well beyond what any single DAW’s chainer or splitter could possibly do, especially in sync with other DAWs if you want to get really clever.
So while Steinberg should have this kind of functionality as a native feature, once you start integrating something like the above plugins into your workflow, and especially if you use more than one DAW, you probably wouldn’t be using Steinberg’s version of the feature anyway. Just saying.
Cheers!
