How to record into spectrarlayers

So if I have a mic into my StudioLive 16R mixer and preference is set to that mixer, shouldn’t I get a signal if I try to record? nothing as record is pressed and it scrolls along. Almost nothing in the manual about any such procedure.

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That’s a great question to more Steinberg products besides Spectral Layers.
How to record comfortable and with ease, like in Audacity or many other programs for instance?
There is no loopback device in Spectral Layers or Wavelab. Even some interfaces are just not supported and so on. The customer should not record with ease, even in 2025 (!) It has to be complicated or even impossible, so that’s the wish of Steinberg. Year, that’s disappointing, but so it is.
Why not just support everything, that is “normal” today? The audio programs can do so much, but recording with ease? Naa… you, customer, are to stupid to understand the ingenious concepts behind the nonrecording possibility, you are not professional enough, if you want to record with ease !

It took more than a week to even get the SL16R mixer to be able to play my Cubase songs in Cubase 13, with the untimely email help that Presonus provides. And then more to be able to hear in headphones and come out speakers. How would I know that thing mus be sent to channels 17 & 18 to work. Info was scattered all over, directed to links with info for the non-rack mixer, wrong operating system etc.

Steinberg and RME are one of the best companies from Germany… YMMV

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Hi Marc / @Sunnyman,

SpectraLayers and WaveLab are both highly specialized audio editors, and their “domain” is mostly audio editing, not so much recording (like with Cubase / Nuendo) - although both can do that very well. If configured accordingly (slightly different on Windows and MacOS), and depending on which connected audio hardware is available.

Also, loopback should rather be seen as a function closely related to an audio interface’s physical circuitry (internal audio IN/OUT pins, DSP features and capabilities) and its manufacturer’s ASIO (kernel) driver(s) (which - in rare cases - can be somewhat imperfect).

I suppose that neither SpectraLayers nor WaveLab should be bothered with also having to supply any additional virtual loopback drivers or virtual audio cables, even if this might seem practical at times. There are various 3rd party virtual audio cables available one could use (commercial and free).

Just tried SpectraLayers Go 11 (which comes with Cubase Pro / Artist 14) and WaveLab Pro 12 on my older Lenovo laptop, which has a built-in thing named “Microphone Array” (by Realtek). After all necessary configurations, I could used both Editors for simple stereo recording without any problems (relatively low audio quality, of course, due to those less pricy miniature electret microphone capsules in that laptop):

(my 2 cts)

Cheers,
Markus

[ Screenshot 1 ]


[ Screenshot 2 ]

[ Screenshot 3 ]

We live in 2025 now and I expect, that basic functions, like recording, just work without any further hazle.

“highly specialized”… lol what does that mean?

Nope! Recording is a basic feature of any computer today - so, it should be possible to do this with Wavelab and Spectral Layers as easy as turning a light switch.

Hi again @Sunnyman,

can we please discuss this in a slightly more civil tone?
Many thanks in advance.

It means exactly what I wrote.
There are no obscure sub-texts or any “bits of secret knowledge” involved.

Those basic functions do actually work “without any further hazle”.
IF you know what you’re doing, that is.

Best,
Markus

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I think I know, what I am doing here.
Recording should work out of the box without any further installation of obscure thirdparty drivers or utilities.

But it is atleast in my end, never had any problem with recording or loopbacks with wavelab or cubendo, I only use SL for editing as it states in it’s description

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I also do not understand, why there is almost always such agitated conversation, when it comes to mentioning very basic features, such as recording.

I wanted to just do something basic, sing into a mic that is connected to the SL15R mixer channel 12 and have that record into spectralayers so I could see how well I could hold a pitch in real time. Cubase uses the SL16R as the input. So what settings are necessary in Spectrolayer to do so?

SL ARA extension in Cubase?

Hi @robirdman1 ,

sadly, I don’t have access to the SL16R, so I can’t test it directly.
By the way: are we talking about you using SpectraLayers as a standalone program, or within Cubase?
(thanks to @Jari_Junttila for the good hint!)

If in standalone mode:
what you can do is to take my 2nd and 3rd screenshot from above and then freely use those dropdown menus ( within SpectraLayers’ options) and also the checkboxes (within Steinberg ASIO driver’s grey config window) to find the right routing.
A matching combo might eventually give SL access to your SL16R’s mic channel.
But I can’t tell you for sure, sorry.

Hope I could help you at least a tiny bit, though.

Cheers,
Markus

P.S.: you’d already started a similar thread in October 2024, where you’d reported some problems with the same Presonus device and Cubase. Were you able to finally resolve this?

Audio devices not recognized

With the setting shown here, Cubase plays the sounds, and I can record to a track with a mic. In blackmagic Resolve, sound must be likewise on SL16 1 /2 to hear anything.
As far as the mixer and Cubase, I’m still unable to send the audio output of my midi files to route to record on an audio track. I don’t know where that 3rd screen comes from.