Is realtime audio recording of VST instruments possible?

Hi there, sorry if this is a silly question, but I wondered on the off-chance, in case it was at all possible…

I’m sure many, if not all, of you use VST synths in Cubase. I’m currently favouring the Arturia V Collection 5, along with the D16 LuSH-101 and Steinberg’s own Padshop Pro. Anyway, whilst using the Arturia ones, in particular their Moog Modular and ARP 2600 emulations, I wondered if it was possible to somehow record the realtime audio output of a synth that you’re doing live MIDI parameter changes to, in the box, as well as just recording it as MIDI information. Because sometimes, no matter how faithfully Cubase can record all the MIDI information, the end result when rendered into audio can be slightly different to what you heard whilst you were recording it - I’m supposing this can be because of things like LFO cycles not starting in exactly the same place every time, or various other inherent instabilities that Arturia have made a part of their analogue emulation process.

I realise one way to deal with this is to simply play the synths as an instrument on another computer and record them directly as audio, but I wondered if there was any way to do this all on the same computer. Perhaps the processing needed would be too much, perhaps the latency would be too much of an issue, perhaps recording MIDI and audio from the same instrument simultaneously just isn’t possible, but I just wondered.

Sorry again if this is a silly question!

Hi,

You can do so with Cubae Pro.

Add Stereo Out2 in the VST Connections > Outputs. Don’t route it to any physical output.

On the Instrument track/channel, set the Stereo Out2 as an output. Add one more Audio track. Set Stereo Out2 as an Input and your common Stereo Ou as an Output. Don’t forget to enable Monitor on this Audio track to hear the signal. Enable Record on the Audio track and also on the MIDI track. Start recording.

Your question is not silly at all. It can be done, but the set-up is more complicated than it should need to be. Unfortunately, you can’t select an Instrument Track as the input to an Audio Track (This is a long-standing request. CB9?). Neither can you select an Audio Track as an output of an Instrument Track. Looks like a catch 22, doesn’t it?

The trick is to add a third channel, A group channel.
MixConsole channels.png
Now, select the group channel as the output of the Instrument Track and select the Group Channel as the input of the Audio Track. Depending of which monitoring scheme you are using for record-monitoring, you may need to set the group channel to “No bus”. Just make sure that the Group Channel and the Audio Track are not both routed to your master stereo out-put simultaneously.

Now, you can arm the Audio Track and record your doodlings on the VSTi instrument “live”

Or, you can use Direct Routing, and route the signal from the Instrument Return Channel to the Stereo Out, and also as an output (whic will be the Input of the next Audio track) to the Audio track. Then make sure, the Audio track is not routed to the main Out (Stereo Out), or is muted. To don’t get the signal twice.

I don’t see how that is possible.

  1. What is the “Instrument Return Channel” you mention. There are Instrument Tracks for VSTi’s, but no Return Channels.
  2. It doesn’t matter if you use “normal” or “direct” routing, the destination options are identical. The only output options for an instrument track are No Bus, the “Main” output buses and Groups. The only input options for an Audio Track are No Bus, the input channels set-up in VST Connections/Inputs and Groups (with a matching minimum channel configuration).

There is no way to rout an Instrument Track directly to an Audio Track! As I’ve said, this is a long-standing request.

Hi,

  1. If you use an Instrument Track with one output only, the Instrument Return Channel is glued, so there is only one Channel in the MixConsole. But you can enable multiple Outputs. Then you can see the Instrument Return Channels.

  2. The advantage of the Direct Routing is, you can route the output to the multiple Channels, if you enable it in the Project window.

It’s still unclear what you mean with “Instrument Return Channel”? As with taxes, you need to put something in in order to have a return. You can have an FX return, since you send audio to an effect and then return it. On an Instrument track, the audio is generated by the instrument. Therefore there are no such things as " Instrument Return Channels"

Perhaps you could post a screen grab, to illustrate your point.

Yes it is, but you can’t make any routings, other than those that are allowed by Cubase. And Cubase don’t allow you to make any direct routings from Instrument Tracks to Audio Tracks. Period!

And Cubase don’t allow you to make any direct routings from Instrument Tracks to Audio Tracks. Period!

Which is why as Martin explained in his first post you route to an unassigned output bus and set the bus as the input to the recording track.

Which is essentially the same method as I suggested in my posting. Only I recommended a group channel, thus removing the extra step of setting up an extra output bus.

What martin describes here isn’t possible, because an Instrument Track can’t be routed directly to an Audio Track (how many times am I going to have to say this?)! Perhaps you can be so kind to explain what Martins mysterious “Instrument Return Channels” are?

What martin describes here isn’t possible, because an Instrument Track can’t be routed directly to an Audio Track (how many times am I going to have to say this?)! Perhaps you can be so kind to explain what Martins mysterious “Instrument Return Channels” are?

He never said you can route Instrument track to audio directly.

When you load rack instrument, you have a midi track and a “Instrument Return Channel” in the mixer.
At least that’s how I understand what he meant.

Which is essentially the same method as I suggested in my posting. Only I recommended a group channel, thus removing the extra step of setting up an extra output bus.

You can create a phantom output once in vst connections and have it always load into new projects…while you have to add a group in every project you need to do this. Both methods will work fine but I wouldn’t say yours is removing any step.

What martin describes here isn’t possible, because an Instrument Track can’t be routed directly to an Audio Track

Well it wasn’t put very clearly but in context I understand this to mean VIA the aforementioned phantom bus.
To be clear Direct Routing (the Cubase feature) is what Martin means in this case (hence the caps)…not to be confused with just directly routing something. It allows routing to multiple outputs simultaneously.

Instrument returns…well yeah, not what I’d call them either but seems fairly obvious that this is just the instrument output channels.