Instrument tracks and multis

Cubase
1

Hello there,

I’m afraid I don’t understand how Instrument track works.

I take it that every time an Instrument Track is created and you assign a VST instrument to it, there will be a new VST instrument instance.

Let’s say I create an Instrument track and assign Halion Sonic to it. Then I load Piano sound on channel 1 and Bass sound on channel 2. In order to play both Halion Sonic channels on their own separate tracks so that both tracks use the same instance of Halion Sonic, I have to create one MIDI track in addition to the already existing Instrument Track, because I can’t assign the same VST instrument instance to more than one Instrument track.

So, the Halion Sonic Instrument Track would be used for Piano on Channel 1 and a separate Midi track would be created and assigned to the instantiated Halion Sonic instance and midi output would be set to channel 2 to play the bass sound. Is this the right way to do it?

Thanks for your help, I hope this makes sense.

2

Hi,

Yes, this is exactly the way to do it. You understand it correctly.

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3

Like Martin said this is correct. However there is no requirement to split out the different Channels onto separate Tracks. In your example, using 2 Tracks makes perfect sense. But say you are working on a string quartet with each instrument on a different MIDI Channel 1-4. In this situation having all 4 voices contained in a single MIDI Part on an Instrument Track with no additional MIDI Tracks generally makes more sense.

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4

Hi,

I would like just to add, you have to set the MIDI Channel to Any on the Instrument track in this case.

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5

and why you couldn’t?
On the contrary, it is easier
I only create instrument tracks and no midi tracks
This is precisely the interest of the instrument tracks

6

And to add to the idea of using a single track with multiple midi channels, it can be useful in some workflows to use separate lanes for each midi channel. e.g. use lane 1 for channel 1, lane 2 for channel 2, etc.

Also: Cubase makes it pretty easy to split a multiple channel track into lanes or vice versa.

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7

Yikes, I never even considered this as a possibility - intriguing idea.

8

It has limitations, since you can’t force a lane into a channel, and it won’t automatically move a note to a different lane when you change its channel.

But it can be handy to visualize a multi channel track a little better, and it’s fine for editing if you don’t intend to change channels on individual notes that much.

9

For a day I lived in a perfect world. :grinning:
But thanks for the ideas!

10

But the split function is not aware of channels, is it? It is only aware of takes, right? If I have an Instrument track with midi on different channels, what is the prerequisite for the split to work so that every lane shows midi for only one specific channel? :confused:

11

  • Select the desired multi-channel MIDI part and go to the MIDI menu
    OR

  • Right click on the desired multi-channel MIDI part

    and on the resulting drop down menu choose

  • Dissolve Part, which triggers a dialog box:

image

  • check Dissolve to Lanes
  • press the Process button
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12

Excellent! Thank you very much!
These concepts around Cubase are very confusing at times and the manual, well, let’s say it is comprehensive but not a user’s guide; I would’ve never guessed to look for an answer under ‘Midi Functions’.
Cheers!

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13

Agreed. Cubase is a big beast of rich functionality assembled over a few decades.

And that creates not only a huge body of possible knowledge, but also unavoidable inconsistencies and resulting confusion.