I’m trying to figure out how to add an Analog V instrument to a Cubase track. I have added Analog V as a track and I can open the interface and see all the instruments. If I double click on an instrument’s name in the Explore window it does nothing. I can play the instruments, but all I have is a track named Analog V that says Page 1 with a bunch of dials and buttons to modify the sound, but where is the instrument I last played in Analog V?
Hi,
Just record the MIDI data to the given Instrument track.
Or are you asking, where can you select the patch/sound?
Yes, where do I select the instrument sound? It looks like some demos show you double click on one in Analog but that does nothing (on my PC). Do I have to search for that particular instrument by name and add it as another track?
Isn’t this pretty much the same you asked here?
If you mean Arturia Analog V, that is a virtual instrument plugin. You obviously already added that as an instrument track in Cubase, but what happens inside the plugin window has nothing to do with Cubase, so regarding instrument/sound selection, maybe you need to check the Analog Lab Manual? (https://downloads.arturia.net/products/analoglab-v/manual/analog-lab-v_Manual_1_0_EN.pdf)?
What I was asking before was how to view the Arturia V Collection in Cubase. I got the answer to that, which was to add Analog V as a track. I know how to select an instrument in Analog V. I was asking how to add that selected instrument to Cubase. Is the only way to do it to select Add Track Instrument and search for the instrument I want in Analog V? Is there no direct connection where if I select it in Analog V it is added as a track in Cubase without having to manually search for each one?
No. Analog Lab is an “instrument”, well more like a VST Host itself. It’s used for its own effects and also the power to combine 2 V Collection instruments.
I think there is some confusion in this thread in part due to imprecise nomenclature.
First of all, Arturia does not have a product named “Analog V”. My best guess is that “Analog Lab” is the one actually being referred to.
Analog Lab is an instrument that can be added in Cubase via an Instrument Track. Once this instrument is added to a track, it allows you to browse through a myriad of presets based on a whole host of Arturia instruments. If you find a preset you’re happy with, you don’t have to do anything further. That preset choice and all accompanying parameters will be stored in your Cubase project. If you wish to tweak the underlying parameters of a particular preset and you have a license for Arturia’s “V Collection”, you can open that instrument directly in Analog Lab.
Also for the sake of clarity for the OP.
You can create several instrument tracks all playing a separate version of Analog Lab…each one can have a different instrument loaded.
After you have that working, you need to read the Analogy Lab manual…there are many many ways to edit any Analog Lab instrument.
Putting all the discussion of Analog Lab V above aside for the moment, if what you’re really wanting to do is add specific V Collection instruments to your Cubase project, there is no need to use Analog Lab at all. Just load the individual instrument (e.g. Piano V3, B-3 V2, ARP 2600 V3, Jup-8000 V, Augmented Voices, etc.) by selecting it when adding an instrument track in Cubase.
Analog Lab is useful if wanting to combine two V Collection instruments in a single Cubase Instrument track. It’s also useful if you know you want to use a V Collection instrument but don’t know which one (since you can audition patches from multiple instruments under one hood, rather than having to switch instruments in your Cubase track to hear another option). But, if you know which V Collection instrument you want to use already, there is no reason not to just choose that specific instrument when adding your Cubase instrument track. (And there’s probably at least slightly less system overhead to use the instrument directly rather than under Analog Lab.)
Thanks for this explanation. I see my confusion results from the Analog Lab being loaded on a track as an instrument and called “Analog Lab Page 1” (whatever Page 1 means) and not the name of any specific instrument. When I open the track from Cubase I see the entire Analog Lab interface and can choose any instrument. I think what you are saying is the last instrument I played is loaded on that track? You are calling Analog Lab an instrument, but I see it as an interface showing all the available instruments. I understand that if I know which instrument I want I can add it by searching by name but having an entire plugin sitting on a track still confuses me.
Yes, my mistake. The correct name is “Analog Lab V” so it’s actually Analog Lab, and I presume the V refers to the V collection.
As far as the manual - it is an Analog Lab manual so what it says about DAW integration is:
- You can use more than one instance of Analog Lab V in a DAW project (in
standalone mode you can only run one instance of Analog Lab)
From the standpoint of Cubase (or any other DAW that supports VST3 instruments) Analog Lab is the specific instrument. It just happens to be an instrument that includes the potential to use up to two of the instruments in the entire V Collection suite within it. Its presets are sometimes based on a single V Collection instrument and sometimes based on a blend of two V Collection instruments (or two of the same V Collection instrument). However, unlike a virtual synth where you make sounds by choosing combinations of oscillators and setting other parameters, in Analog Lab you start by choosing one or two V Collection instruments (or perhaps just a preset based on a specific instrument or combination of instruments), then making additional modifications, in how your blend those, or potentially within the individual V Collection instruments themselves (be it at the level Analog Lab makes available within its interface or, if you own the underlying V Collection instrument, within that instrument’s interface).
When you open Analog Lab V, it loads an initial preset, which now appears to be the last preset you’d loaded last time you used Analog Lab. Quite honestly, I find the new Analog Lab interface more confusing (it changed from V4 to V5), as they seem to have tried to make it prettier and more preset-oriented. The preset could be using only one specific instrument, or it could be a blend of two instruments, in either case with instrument-specific settings within the component, along with pedalboard-type effects modules and settings and initial macro knob settings (where the macros control parameters within the instruments in the patch).
To do more tweaking you need to go to the Explore page (after having first clicked the bookshelf icon to get to the Home screen, which is where you are seeing the list of instruments). If you hover over the instrument picture and preset description on the right, it will give you the “Open” option for whatever instruments are used in that preset and the “Add Instrument” option if there is only one instrument in the current preset. There is also an “Edit Preset” button to get to additional preset-specific settings (e.g. the pedalboard-style effects):
Once you click that button, you can more clearly see what is going on:
Well, it is an instrument – it’s just an instrument that is comprised of one or two component instruments plus some effects and other settings, rather than a simple instrument that only does one thing (e.g. Piano V or Mini V, which emulate an acoustic piano or Minimoog, respectively). In that sense it’s not all that different from a Sampler like Kontakt or HALion, where you could combine patches from multiple sample libraries in a single complex virtual instrument, for example if, in Kontakt, ou wanted to layer strings with a piano. It’s just that, instead of choosing and possibly layering sample-based patches, here you’re layering virtual instruments that could also be used on their own (unlike with Kontakt or HALion libraries, which require those samplers to get the sounds – e.g. you can’t have Alicia’s Keys on a track without having Kontakt on that track, but you can have Piano V on a track without having Analog Lab V).
Right, this is really the same with most any virtual instrument that also has a standalone (i.e. not needing a DAW) mode. The reason for the difference is that you can have multiple instrument tracks in Cubase, just like you can have multiple audio tracks, so you can have one instance of any virtual instrument you pick on each instrument track. In the case of the V Collection, that one virtual instrument on an instrument track might be Piano V or Mini V, or it might be Analog Lab V, which could then layer both Piano V and Mini V within it. And there is nothing, other than possibly system performance, to stop you from having multiple Analog Lab tracks with layer sounds.
Thank you so much for these explanations. You guys are the hidden manual that doesn’t exist as far as I could find. I have found it very frustrating that the “how to” videos that I have looked at on YouTube spend most of the time playing samples instead of explaining how to do anything.
I’m finally beginning to understand what’s going on. When I first opened Analog Lab and saw just a few instruments as a slide show, I had no idea that it held more than a handful of instruments that came with Kelab. That’s why I was asking where the V Collection is. Who would guess that you have to click on the library book? Or Explore?
But now that I’ve figured out what Analog Lab does, I still need to play with it some more to figure out how it works. If I have two instruments selected in the right panel in Explore when I click on one and that is highlighted and play them there is no difference in the sound so it’s only playing one. And the pedal page with “click here to add an instrument” is again, extremely counter intuitive because you’ve already added the instrument in the Explore page, I would think. These should just affect instruments that have already been added. However, I’ve joined the Arturia forum so I will ask them about this.
But finally, as I asked above, in Cubase the track is only identified as “Analog Lab - Page 1” - it doesn’t say what the instrument(s) are that are on that track. I guess I can’t tell what is on that Cubase track without seeing what has been selected in Analog Lab.
There is actually a place within Analog Lab that links to the user manual, but even that was confusing as it goes to a web page, rather than directly to the manual, but you can download the PDF manual from there. There are multiple versions of Analog Lab, though (at least “Play” and “Pro”), so make sure you’re getting the right manual (I’ve got Analog Lab V Pro, but, if you’ve got a version that came with a keyboard, it may be a cut-down version). Here is an Arturia web site link that can get you to the various software instrument manuals:
Yeah, finding tutorial-type videos on YouTube can be a challenge, especially since many of those that claim to be tutorials may be more like in-depth product reviews, rather than educational tutorials or “how to” guides, and Analog Lab is definitely a deep product.
I just checked and Groove3 does have a detailed course on Analog Lab V. Here’s a link:
https://www.groove3.com/products/Arturia-Analog-Lab-V-Explained
Their courses are not free, but they are generally quite good. However, if you are looking for lots of courses on music technology products (e.g. Cubase, Kontakt, UAD plugins, etc.), they have an all-access pass. It looks like it is currently $150 for a year or $15 for 30 days, that gets you access to all their in-depth video tutorials – they were my main source for learning Cubase on the front end – not to mention online access to lots of sheet music-type books, instrument instruction books, etc. (I think the last time I renewed my subscription it was still $99 for the year, and I think they do have sales at times.)
Yeah, to be honest, while I’d gotten used to the books icon (since I have all Arturia V Collection and FX Collection products, and they’re consistent across their product line), when I brought up Analog Lab V the other day to check on how you got to the instruments to edit them, I could not for the life of me figure it out – it went to the home page, and there’s no way I would have guessed “explore” was the path to actually editing – it sounds like just browsing. That caused me to look for the user manual, and that is what gave me the clue to try the Explore tab. But, I only did that after bringing up the Analog Lab 4 manual, which I’d already downloaded, and finding everything was totally different (and more like I’d vaguely remembered)!
Maybe you didn’t click the Done button near the instrument you added after selecting a preset? If you do that, it should have the instrument already there when you click the Edit Preset button and get to the page with the two instruments and pedalboard and such.
Yeah, Cubase has no clue what preset (or custom setting) is being used within Analog Lab. It’s the same thing as if you load libraries in Kontakt, or a patch in a single synth virtual instrument – Cubase doesn’t know what’s going on inside that virtual instrument, only what instrument you’ve loaded, Analog Lab in this case.
Thanks again for all this info Rick. It’s been very helpful.
I bought the V Collection when it was on sale last December. As you said, there are Analog Play, Pro and 4 manuals, but none of these have a V in the title so I didn’t know which one to download. When you go to the Pro download page it’s called Analog Lab EN Manual, and the title page of the PDF says “Analog Lab” - no indication of which one.
In the Analog manual that I mistakenly first read (that said when you open it you go to the Home browser page) I found buried somewhere down in the 4th section the explanation that a “Page” is actually an “instrument.” Why they called it a page is beyond me. I’m not sure if that’s even in the Pro manual.
Groove3 doesn’t give much detail, but for $12.50 I could give it a try given your recommendation.
Having spent several days reading the correct manual and making notes, I’m still at a loss as to why you can’t just select the list of instruments that you purchased by their collections (like V or FX), instead of them being mixed in with the 2,000 instruments that you get by default, which the manual says they are.
Even finding a list of instruments that are in the V Collection is difficult - I did eventually find it somewhere. I don’t trust that the list in the manual is up-to-date. The Arturia page shows “New Instruments” and “Major Updates” only.
I’m just wondering what splits and layers are. I guess splits splits the controller keys between two instruments, but what are layers? Under Splits and Layers the manual says “…with Multis, you can drag the edges of the color bars above the keys to set the key range for each part this will also be reflected in the Keyboard Settings Part 1 is orange, Part 2 is green [p.64].” That doesn’t tell me what they actually are.
Now I need to spend time trying to integrate this with Cubase (I bought Cubase 15). Several years ago I bought the Steinberg UR44 box to do some home recording and it came with an old free version of Cubase so I was already somewhat familiar with Cubase and decided to stay with it when I bought the Keylab MK3 last year.
If you bought the full V Collection (as opposed to the V Collection Intro version) last December, it would be V Collection 11, and the version of Analog Lab included in that would be Analog Lab V Pro (or is it Analog Lab Pro V). The user manual name for that is analog-lab_Manual_5_11_1_EN.pdf. (“V” is the Roman numeral for “5” – they also used “X” for V10 of the V Collection – i.e. “V Collection X”).
Just make sure the specific course is the right one for your version of Analog Lab as the user interfaces changed from Analog Lab 4 to Analog Lab V. I haven’t gone through that course, but the Groove 3 courses are always quite detailed, and the specific type of course would be of a tutorial nature.
The specific course you’d want for Analog Lab V is “Analog Lab V Explained”, and it does have a course outline and description at:
https://www.groove3.com/products/Arturia-Analog-Lab-V-Explained
I think you’re confusing presets (the 2,000 number) with instruments (I think 45 total). If you want to use a specific V Collection instrument (e.g. Mini V), you’re much better off loading that instrument directly on your Cubase instrument track. On the other hand, if you want to use the Analog Lab presets that could be for any of those instruments, or up to 2 of those instruments layered together, including any additional FX in the presets, or if you want to create your own complex instrument or 2-instrument layer, blending and using the FX within Analog Lab, then Analog Lab is the place to do that.
Within Analog Lab’s system for browsing, filtering, etc., you can specify to look for only presets that contain a specific instrument. But, if you already know you want that specific instrument, unless you also want to use the presets (including FX settings) within Analog Lab, why wouldn’t you just load that specific instrument on your Cubase instrument track? It is much more straightforward than having to navigate the inherently more complex Analog Lab interface.
You can use the list Cubase presents when you set up an instrument track for this, including typing in a partial name or browsing based on how you have your Cubase VST menus set up. I use custom menus, and put each individual instrument in whichever category makes most sense for how I think of things (e.g. Mini V would be in synths/classic synths, Piano V would be in pianos, B3-V would be in Organs, etc.), but, if you don’t use custom menus (when you do you have to add the instruments to your menus manually), Cubase will sort the plugins either by manufacturer (in which case all your Arturia plugins should be together) or the vendor-supplied classification (I don’t recall what Arturia uses on this front). But, yeah, Arturia’s website can sometimes make it challenging to find what all is included – you have to scroll down far enough on the V Collection 11 Pro page, then there is a list on the left-hand side:
This is pretty stock keyboard terminology. Splits are basically when you have different sounds assigned to different ranges of your keyboard – i.e. different MIDI notes in the context of splits in virtual instruments. So maybe the lowest range of your keyboard might be assigned a bass sound, while a middle range might be assigned some sort of comping instrument, and a higher range might be some sort of lead instrument. Of course, you can split things up however you want, including having overlapping ranges.
Layers are having multiple sounds play from the same keys. For example, a piano sound layered with a strings pad, or two different synth sounds layered to make a more complex sound. And you might want to combine layers with splits, too, so that certain of the layered sounds only are used in low (or high) ranges, while another layered sound is used across the full range of notes.
Yes, this looks like the right one for me.
Well, again, my confusion comes from a not very well written manual. You’re right, it does say Presets, but what confused me was this:
You’ll enjoy more than 2,000 presets (more if you own other Arturia
software instruments).
Probably what I’m going to do. I’ll research the instruments in Analog Lab V and then search for it in Cubase and load it as a track I can understand there.
Custom menus look like a good organizing system, which is what I’m looking for.
Thanks for the splits and layers info. As a beginner to synth world I’m not familiar with all the standard terms and as we agreed the information out there is most often about new features and product reviews. If there is a tutorial it’s so specifically related to a deep dive topic that I often don’t understand what they’re talking about.