How to connect subwoofer with Control Room

[WK1]

Does anybody know how to connect a subwoofer regarding Audio Connections and Control Room?..im lost

I have 4 mono outputs, my subwoofer accepts stereo, so 2 x mono.
My main speaker are normal stereo.
So my connections are basically 2 x stereo, at the same time.

I tried setting up 2 monitors in Studio->Audio Connections, but i can only switch between them, not playing at the same time.
ive treid Cue’s but i can only hear full mixes, and i cant control volume with big red knob in Control Room.

I tried the different monitor options (like LRC+Lfe) but i have no idea how this works…i cant get the sub to sound at all, plus all sub connections (LFE?) are mono.

Is there a Youtube tutorial on this? Its pretty complicated to me, but important since so many people now use subs, i guess?

[MattiasNYC]

If you want to just extend the range of your main speakers you’ll be doing bass management. The first option if the subwoofer allows for it is to just use a regular LR output and have it go through the sub and letting the sub do the crossover. Of course doing it that way might mean that you can’t switch the sub in and out.

If you want to use Control Room instead then you could indeed use an LRCLFE output. You would route LR to respective speakers and LFE to the sub. In order to then cross over to the sub you’d have to do that using some sort of bass management plugin. Nuendo has one included and I’m not sure if Cubase does. Perhaps there’s an alternative one you can get. Either way by doing it that way you get the low end signals from LR into the sub and you also have the option of setting up a separate monitor option in CR - and it can be regular stereo going to the same physical outputs. That way you can have the regular LR output full range and the LCRLFE with bass management which is a way of basically switching the sub in and out.

Not sure if that helps.
I’m on Nuendo btw.

[cameron206]

I use a sub, but its on a different channel than the big red knob. I use the hardware knob on my interface for volume.
Here is my Audio Connections:

And my studio Strip:

I have a midi button assigned to i/o the sub when I want it.

Let me know if you want more details. Your interface might have some options, too, whatever it is. On mine I can just duplicate a mix to all the outputs, which is what it sounds like you want

[WK1]

hi Cameron and Mattias thanks for your replies…

I was able to have sound from my main monitor speakers and the sub connected to Cue’s. But this way, like you said, i cant use the big red knob.
Maybe i can bind a short key like -/+ to the Red Knob and Cue level at the same time?
I dont have a midi controller, just a big piano with mod wheel, and not even that when im on the road.

My point/goal is to control it from within Control Room (makes sense, right? lol)

Isnt there a way to simply play two monitor paths at the same time?
Instead of switching?

When im on the road, i need to have real control over my outputs, and change the volume easely without a controller, while keeping the mix in balance.

To make things even more complicated, i also need to insert eq’s on every channel (i use a Subpak on the road, which is insanely precise for low end monitoring, and i dont need to bring my 2 x 18" to the hotel room haha).

I just bought a Motu m4 interface, while i am waiting on my big RME interface (they said it can take months!) Ive seen some videos that the RME Totalmix software does exactly what i want/need.

Cubase could change the Control Room, and do something similar.
Just make a mixconsole like the other consoles in Cubase, but for inputs and outputs.
So you can route everything to everything.
Not this jungle of options, with menus and options all spread around the DAW…its just too confusing to me

PS On mac, i do this with Audio Hijack, but it gives big latency and buggyness when doing heavy stuff. On Win 11, i do this with Voicemeeter Potato which is even worse. If i would be in the same location, it would be much easier, but i travel all the time.

[MattiasNYC]

@WK1

I was able to have sound from my main monitor speakers and the sub connected to Cue’s. But this way, like you said, i cant use the big red knob.
Maybe i can bind a short key like -/+ to the Red Knob and Cue level at the same time?
I dont have a midi controller, just a big piano with mod wheel, and not even that when im on the road.

My point/goal is to control it from within Control Room (makes sense, right? lol)

Isnt there a way to simply play two monitor paths at the same time?
Instead of switching?

Did you try what I suggested though?

I didn’t suggest using Cue outs, instead I suggested just using more monitor channels and connect accordingly. Here’s one of my template setups (Nuendo):

As you can see my main output path is 5.1 surround and my primary monitoring path is surround as well. The second is stereo. If you look at the red marks in the image you see which paths you would connect for a “stereo+sub” setup. You would choose (for example) 5.1 surround and then connect 1 and 2 to your left/right speakers, and then the LFE path to your subwoofer.

After you’ve done that you just have to either “crossover” on the speakers and sub, or use a plugin in that Control Room surround path to do software bass management.

You can also see that I used a second monitoring path in CR but in stereo, and it outputs to the same physical interface outputs as the 5.1 does which means that I can easily switch between surround and stereo only on that one set of speakers (I have a 5.1 setup).

So if Cubase allows for it then what you would do is choose either 5.1 and do what I did or pick something like “LRC+LFE” as an output (i.e. a quad-channel output).

You’d get monitor control of all those channels via the big red knob in CR.

Yes?

[WK1]

hi Martin, thanks for getting back to me, and for your time

I tried what you said, with the exact connections, but i can not get any sound from my sub this way.

Here is what i tried (in different configs with the sub’s 3/4)

None of these configurations seem to give any signal to the sub.
Only Monitor C (Sub Only).
Also, when i press the Stereo/Mono button the sound gets completely silent, like muted :\

My ultimate goal is to control these speaker with EQ for each channel. Is that possible at all, in Cubase?
What bass management plugin can i use with Cubase?

Right now,on Mac i use this:

It is a program called Audio Hijack, and it gives you a lot of routing options. You can even combine more interfaces if you’d like and have one big system.
I select the M4 ASIO driver in Cubase 11/12.
If you have more interfaces you’d have to make an aggregated device, and select that driver in Cubase.
Then Audio Hijack ‘grabs’ the audio stream and you can do with it what you want, basically.
Ive used this for years, and it had a lot of latency, but an update i downloaded yesterday (!) seems to solve that!

[MattiasNYC]

@WK1

None of these configurations seem to give any signal to the sub.

You would need a bass management plugin as an insert to route part of the signal from the main LR to the sub. I said here or in the other thread that if Cubase doesn’t have it then maybe see if Voxengo still has a freeware one, or just search the web for one.

@WK1

It is a program called Audio Hijack

I don’t know that software at all but you could maybe see if anyone is using it for bass management.

Bass management is really just splitting the L and R signals into high frequencies that continue to mains and low frequencies that go to the sub. So there’s a crossover filter in the path somewhere. If you wanted to you could probably just set up a path like the one you have now but low-pass the sub’s signal and high-pass the mains.

@WK1

My ultimate goal is to control these speaker with EQ for each channel. Is that possible at all, in Cubase?

Not sure about EQ per channel.

[WK1]

thanks again Mattias, you are the best

I tried the Voxengo plugin, Audio Hijhack seems to work better for me