I’ve used external effects in Cubase for the past few months with great success. I typically group my Drums and then use a send on that dry channel to route a signal to a new group channel that is running an 100% wet external reverb unit on the insert. I call that channel “Drums - Reverb.” That way, I can have my dry drums on one fader and slowly blend in my external reverb on another channel.
I do the same with compression - I guess people call that the NYC Compression technique.
That setup was working just fine, but now the send for the reverb on the Drum Group is actually being heard on the Drum Group channel - the same channel that is sending it to the “Drums - Reverb” channel.
So, I’m hearing same reverb on the dry “Drums” channel AND the “Drums - Reverb” Channel. I can pull down the fader on the “Drums - Reverb” channel and reduce the amount of Reverb, but the dry Drums channel still has reverb on it. The only way to eliminate that reverb is to turn it off on the dry “Drums” channel is to turn off the send
It’s driving me nuts trying to track down the issue.
This is really confusing. Ok - so you have an external reverb running on a hardware insert plugin. On which channel is the hardware insert plugin loaded? On the dry drum group? - or on the drum reverb channel?
A Dry Reverb channel send is routed to the the Drum Reverb Channel and The External Reverb Plugin is running on the insert of the Drum Reverb Channel. What’s crazy is if I swap out a regular in the box reverb plugin on the channel insert of the Drum Reverb channel, everything works just fine. So this seems to be isolated to running an External Reverb “Plugin.”
Dry Drum Group → Main Mix
AND
Dry Drum Group → Effect Send → Wet Drum Group → External Hardware Plugin → External Reverb → Back into Wet Drum Group → Main Mix
You’re saying the effect return reverb is somehow ending up back on the dry drum group channel…
Hmm…
What buss is the Wet Drum Group output assigned to in the Cubase mixer? It’s not assigned back to the Dry Drum Group by any chance? If so, that would cause a feedback loop and explain the issue…
I was thinking that at first also, but he doesn’t have Totalmix… he has the Steinberg UR824. Then it’s attached to external RME A/D/D/A converters. Maybe it has the same routing capabilities though as Totalmix? I don’t know… If so, maybe the “input channel” that is receiving signal from the external reverb - maybe that input channel is also being direct monitored and being sent to the main monitoring output within the audio interface…
So, the external reverb is appearing on every drum channel. If I hit the L (Listen) button in the mic console on any drums track that is being routed to the Dry Mix bus, there is reverb on it - even if I have the Wet Reverb fade all the done.
I’ve gone through every setting, I can possibly think of an nothing seems to be curing this.
So, I discovered this had nothing to do with the actual External Effect and Group Channel setup scenario.
This had everything to do with, Cubase’s vanishing Audio Hardware Setup option. The one that mysteriously disappears from the Devices menu. What was happening had to do with the Yamaha Rev-X plugins that are setup for the headphones. Somehow those reverbs were being locked or tied to the previously mentioned Ext Effect/Group Channel setup.
I was able to access the Audio Hardware Setup through the Hardware Tab in the Console Window and click on the headphone icon. The UR824 Hardware Setup Menu appeared. Once I lowered the Reverb Routing signal and closed out, everything related to my Ext Effect/Group Channel magically cleared up. Just to be safe, I opened the Audo Hardware Setup again and adjusted the level of reverb and the ghost reverb on my Group Channel cleared up.
Not sure if this is a bug in the UR824 Hardware Setup or my ignorance, but there is the workaround in case you experience the same thing.
