hi all, well I’ve gone and done it! unhitched myself from the logic wagon and hit the Cubase pro trail, so it’s all kinda new to me and i’ll prob be asking quite a few obvious newb questions so bear with me (I was a logic user for over 15 years btw).
i’m importing an unspeakable amount of audio that I’ve bounced from logic, both stereo and mono wavs and I was wondering if there was a simple way to change an existing mono track channel into a stereo one at the flick of a switch?
I have trawled through the boards and was hoping there was a ‘yes u can’ answer to this but I haven’t found it.
thanks in advance.
Believe it or not, it’s not possible in Cubase! That’s cheesy, many users ask for this for years. It was implemented in Cubase SX1 (around 2002) already, since SX2 this feature was gone. Indeed a bit ridiculous as the whole DAW is a spaceships’ cockpit but leaves such simple things out.
You really have to create a stereo channel and drag your audio from the original mono channel there. If you have plugins inserted already you just can copy the complete channel settings by dragging it to the new channel (in the mixer, doesn’t work in the project window). Automation gets lost, if you have any you need to copy it manually.
Sorry that I couldn’'t tell you what wanted to hear 
Chances are, this feature gets reimplemented but it doesn’t seem to be very high on the priority list. Maybe it’s way harder to implement than it seems for the user, whatever…
Apparently they removed the ability to change the number of audio channels in a track after it’s created because it caused issues while they were expanding the routing capabilities of Cubase and Nuendo. It’s something more complex than it seems.
The standard procedure in Cubase when working with mono audio is to either drag it to a stereo track or use Group Tracks or FX Channel sends when stereo effects are required. Most stereo effects are stuff that works better as sends anyway, like reverb, delay and chorus.
Another option is to just batch convert these mono files to stereo before working on these old files exported from Logic. This can be done using the Pool Window in Cubase. Import your audio files to a dummy project, open the Pool Window (Ctrl+P), then select everything and convert the files to Stereo Interleaved. This will create separate stereo versions of all mono files. Anything that’s already stereo will be left unchanged.
great, thanks for the info, think that using stereo tracks seems to be the easiest way, i’m missing some of the features i’m used to with logic but equally finding some really nice new ones. my next question is how the hell am I going to convert my huge sample library for use in cubase? but i’ll do a little research before I post that.
Another quick question about mono or stereo; are there any limitations to using a mono track further down the line, i.e are some of the the plugins only available to stereo tracks, if stereo plugins are used does the track render as mono or stereo?
Considering the amount of tracks i’m converting it would be useful to keep some in mono to cut down size, also some mono tracks I can drop straight in to cubase, this will save me time bouncing them into stereo.
You can usually use any stereo plugins on a mono track, it will just play through the left channel inside the plugin so no problems with that. The track will still render as mono as the output of that track is still mono, at least until it hits the master bus.
Also why do you need to convert your sample library?
I would not bounce anything. What’s the point of making your perfectly good mono audio into dual mono audio and adding a stage of processing to it.
Just drag the mono audio to stereo tracks if and when you want to use a stereo insert effect.
Thanks guys, yeah the mono tracks i’m talking about are all project audio I have to bounce down in logic to use in cubase as I’ve just moved over, in logic you have an option of switching the tracks from stereo to mono or just the left or right channels of a stereo track, since this is going to be laboured enough i’m just trying to get my head around how to do things the easiest way in cubase, so for instance I have a mono kick, mono snare and stereo overheads tracks that I need to bounce separately to use in cubase, if I keep the kick and snares in mono or bounce them as stereo tracks, are there any disadvantages to keep them mono?
Sample library is solved, i’m using Kontakt as it’ll convert logic exs format
As someone else has said, just keep the mono tracks in mono. AFAIK there is no disadvantage.
Yep, gonna do it like I knows and stick with the mono bounces, haven’t had much time in cubase yet but once I get stuck in I should be ok, after 15+ years of using logic i’ll no doubt be thrown a wee bit here and there, think i’ll have to import a few key commands too to help me along. Cheers
Update- Spent all week bouncing, dropped it all in, really pleased with the results, starting to explore and get a grip on cubase, I can see why users are as passionate about it now, I think I’ve been converted!
Just curious, what was lacking in Logic that made you jump ship?