I would like to see a way to play media files via an external (software) media player in the Control Room. I.e. besides External Input, Talkbacks, Cue, Headphone and Monitor, it ought to be possible to add a local (software) media player as a source to the Control Room.
This way it will be much easier to play media files through your physical monitors without first having to import the media files in the audio pool.
You can play a file using the Audio Pool without actually importing it. Just use the preview capability in the Audio Pool’s import dialog, and then don’t import anything.
Or alternatively just use a separate media player independently. I often have both Cubase and Windows Media Player open at the same time so I can switch back and forth between listening to a project and other songs. Heck I can even play them both at the same time if I’m looking for cacophony. What benefit do you expect to get by routing a player thru Cubase instead of just playing it directly?
I use the control room expressly for the purpose of having IK ARC active for my monitors (but I never have to worry about remembering to turn ARC off for exports). Likewise, I route the headphone control room channel thru my focurite VRM box. I’d love to easily play external media through the control for these reasons.
I was just watching the new Groove 3 video series about Cubase 8 Pro. I had not been aware of the external inputs possibilities in the control room. I was just about to post a question here on whether it would be possible to somehow route my DAW’s DVD drive playing a CD into a control room input. I suspect the answer is no, but it rarely hurts to ask.
Yes, I’ve got foobar2000 (or something like that - not at my DAW). It works fine, but I can’t get it to remember to loaded VST and have to reset it every time. This is not something that’s essential, but the discovery of external inputs for control room made me wonder if there was some way to define the computer’s DVD drive as a control room input - mostly just curiosity.
Disclaimer: I haven’t actually tried this but I think it would work.
Depending on your audio interface & if you have some spare I/O on it, you might be able to do this by setting up a loopback. In Control Panel/Sounds set your default audio output to a pair of unused channels. Then in the audio device interface, if it supports this, have those channels loopback to a pair of input channels. Now when you play something in the DVD player, its audio should appear on those inputs in Cubase where you can route it as desired.
I get the idea, but unfortunately I have been unable to implement it. I have a few free (ADAT) ports on my interface (MR816csx), but it does not seem to be possible to specify any input or output ports for this interface in the Control Panel/Sounds dialog. I can only select between my PC Soundcard and Yamaha Steinberg FW WDM Audio, not the individual ports on the interface.
Looking at the MR816 Mixer application, it looks like the output from a Windows audio application comes in via the “DAW-port”. When I play audio files via a media player I see signal indication on and hear sound from the MR816csx. But I don’t see any reaction in Cubase, no matter how I set up the VST Connections (maybe I have not found the right way yet?).
I am able to play music from Cubase and an external media player simultaneously, but I am not able to control the external media player via the Control Room (like if it was a physical/external CD player).
If you find a way to implement your suggestion, I would sure like to hear about it.
The benefits of being able to play media players through the Control Room is you have easy handling of sound sources (very handy when A/Bing different sources), and you have the possibility to treat all your sound sources with (the same) VST effects, should you want to.
Look at the docs for your MR816csx and see if there is anything you need to set in order to make its individual ports available to Windows.
On my DAW (which of course is specific to my hardware) in Control Panel/Sound I can see and set my default to 8 different stereo outs on my Fireface 400. Additionally I have available digital and analog outs built into my motherboard and 4 outs on my graphics card - all of these I’ve disabled since I don’t use them. But I could set my default audio to go to any of those if I wanted. Control Panel/Sound should show you every available audio output in the Playback tab and every input in the Recording tab. But it is the drivers for the devices that lets Windows know they exist. So the driver for your MR816csx should be making all its ports available to Windows.
This is what I’ve been doing for some time - it allows me to use control room features (multiple monitors, Bass Management, etc) on everything.
I have 2 ports on my interface (RME) assigned as playback device in Windows.
Then I loop those back to the corresponding inputs (RME allows this in software).
I assign those inputs as an external source in Cubase. Done.
I can then bring it up in the control room.
Also makes it very easy to record something off the internet in Cubase.
If loopback is not a feature on the Steinberg interface then you could do it with a cable, I suppose.