External instrument monitor

Cubase
#1

Hi @ all,

I have several External Instruments set up in Cubase, it all works fine.

My question is related to monitoring of these instruments.

At the moment for best latency, I must monitor the live synth audio signal in my interface (with the external instrument fader DOWN in Cubase). Once it is recorded, I stop monitoring at interface and bring the External Instrument fader UP in Cubase.

This works, however, I am wondering if there is something I am missing, a more elegant way to swap from live monitoring to playback? With fewer moves to swap over.

Thanks in advance :wink:

#2

Have you tried monitoring through Cubase, but using Constrain Delay Compensation while midi recording the external synth?

#3

Hi and thanks for the reply.

CDC just removes any plugins on the channel I think? I’m monitoring outside PC+Cubase to avoid the system latency.
I’m not sure CDC does anything for that, but I will try tomorrow when I’m back in the seat

Cheers.

#4

@PuRe_AdDicT

Firstly, it may sound too elementally but are you sure that you are sending MIDI notes to the MIDI device set in the external instrument, not to the physical port?
Say you have an analogue synth connected to a/d input 1 of your i/f, and midi is connected to a usb midi port, you set these up as an external instrument in the F4 menu. In order to do so you have to create a “MIDI Device” and set the usb midi port to the midi device.

Even after you’ve created the midi device uses the USB port 1, the same usb midi port can still be seen for destination of any MIDI track, sending notes to this port will play the synth then audio returns to the external instrument track.
If you use the synth this way, the problem like you’ve described here can happen.

If this is not the case, then you must be sending the external instrument to master, group or fx bus that has buffered plugin inserted. This indeed needs CDC switch to be enabled as @Nico5 says.

If you already have a mix balance with buffered plugins on master, make sure to avoid sending the synth to such path. Move the master effects to a group and route everything else to the group instead, and monitor the synth through clean master.

If only steinberg implement a time machine function to send your keyboard play to future by just 30ms, you can use any buffered plugin in realtime, I had been asking such feature for ages but sadly they haven’t made one yet. So good luck using the workaround.