Hello,
I am running into issues attempting to mix a piece in that no matter how much I adjust the values of the faders (0-127, i thought fader values start at 0 and had plus and minus values) it does not affect the volume of the audio.
Need more info…
Are you talking about faders on an external device, or the “virtual” faders that you are seeing on screen?
If the former, are you using a Generic remote Device (or dedicated manufacturer’s device panel) in Devices>Device Setup, to set up what the incoming faders are supposed to control, and is the receiving audio channel Write-enabled?
I am referring to the digital faders within Cubase.
It seems like the only way I can get a balance difference when exporting is to go to an individual track’s midi modifier window and set a negative value to vel. shift.
Well, the first thing to take into account is that the receiving MIDI instrument might not be set up to respond to MIDI Volume (i.e. MIDI CC#7), so that is the very first thing to check.
But, an important question… is that same instance of the MIDI instrument playing several different sounds, on different MIDI channels (i.e. is that instrument what we refer to as "multitimbral?.. an instrument that can play up to 16 different sounds at once), and if so, is each sound going to the same audio output (i.e. audio channel on the mixer), or does each have its own output?
I ask, because, if all going to the same audio channel on the mixer, then, yes indeed, you need CC#7 (for each MIDI channel) to balance up the different sounds for that multitimbral instrument, but… otherwise…
If each sound is coming from a different instance of an instrument (and therefore, each having its own audio return channels in the mixer), then it is much better to control the audio output from those instruments, just as if they were regular audio tracks.
Ok, so since I am using a single instance of Play (using EWQL) for multiple tracks, I will not be able to use the tracks faders within the mixer to adjust the volumes- even though each track is showing a fader with its own activity. Is there a way to get the faders within Cubase’s mixer to adjust CC7 commands then?
Unfortunately, I don’t have Play here, so I can’t really see what is happening.
So, what is working while editing (and presumably, also while playing back?)… you mean the MIDI faders for each channel of Play? And have you automated these faders?
It shouldn’t really make any difference, but when exporting, try using the export option “Real-time Export”
Btw, you can increase the number of Play’s available outputs (In Cubase’s VST Instrument Rack, it is the little widget on the extreme right, at the level where you see “Play” 
. You should then be able to route any of Play’s channels to these newly-available outputs.
The only faders I am talking about moving are those within Cubase 8 Pro’s Mixer, or the individual midi mixer fader within the track inspector.
I effectively havent done anything crazy in terms of setting up my instruments. I have followed the Steinburg tutorial videos and the manual. I do not believe I have actively automated any faders.
Currently I have 1 instance of Play which is going to 12 tracks. Each track has its midi channel assigned. While editing I went into Cubase’s mixer and began fiddling with the individual tracks’ (or instruments’) faders to adjust the balance. At that point I noticed that while editing, the changes I made to the faders would not always adjust the playback. However, it would work when I would nudge the fader again. Once exporting, all of the changes I thought I made would not have any affect on the audio. I even went through and moved all the midi tracks’ sliders to 0 and in the final export it was still blurting everything out. I did this after you made the comment about everything being routed through the VST strip. It seems my final export is dependent on the volume of my instance of play VST instrument track/strip, but this does not allow me to lower individual instruments (Those pesky drums).
I do not know if this may be causing part of the issue, In my instance of play I have each sample patch routing to a specific midi channel (1-12) but they are all going to Output 1-2. I tried giving each instrument its own output but it would not produce any noise unless it was on Output 1-2.
From looking at it, it seems like I may need to try what you just suggested about increasing the number of outputs in Play from the Vst rack within Cubase?
I just attempted doing a Real time Export, it did not work due to CPU issues. On a seperate note, aside from this thread’s problem, what is the difference between Real time Export and regular?
Currently in the process of setting up the additional outputs- do I need to do any routing, within cubase, of the midi tracks to the new output strips; or within PLAY, do I just assign the midi channel to the corresponding output?
Nothing extra to do in Cubase, apart from what I already wrote. Nothing changes as regards MIDI.
However, in PLAY (dunno exactly where you’ll find it) you should now have the option to assign each of its virtual instruments (channels) to the newly-available outputs (I’m guessing, somewhere near its faders?)
Well, real-time means it can (and will) play exactly as during normal playback while it is exporting (one advantage being, that if there is extra MIDI control happening, it too will happen exactly as played).
Non-realtime (sometimes referred to as “offline”) doesn’t play while exporting, and, if possible will export considerably faster than realtime, while, if necessary, slowing down to compensate for any “bottlenecks”… usually good enough for most purposes, but with realtime you can at least check that it is sounding ok while exporting .
So adding the extra outputs seems to be helping; except now I have the midi track faders in my mixer along with the new output faders. Is there a way to clean this up so I dont have 2 faders, only one of which work?
Do I need to keep a dedicated channel for my vst instruments plugin? Currently my vst instrument Play is using channel 1-2. Since I am splitting everything out, can I remove channel 1-2 from it and use it for one of the other instruments?
(at least for the full version of Cubase… dunno about Cubase Artist/Elements etc.). You can set Cubase’s Mixer to show/hide any channel of your choice, via its “Visibility” side panel. You can also choose to hide certain channel types, such as MIDI channels.
Do I need to keep a dedicated channel for my vst instruments plugin? Currently my vst instrument Play is using channel 1-2. Since I am splitting everything out, can I remove channel 1-2 from it and use it for one of the other instruments?
Each MIDI track has its own set of 16 MIDI channels . (a bit like the old telephone with its “multiplex” system, allowing to carry several independent lines along the same wire). The only time MIDI channels will “collide” (in fact… “merge”… which can be useful sometimes ) is if two or more MIDI tracks are routed to the same instance of an instrument.
Remember, so long as you Save any important work, you can’t break anything by experimenting … that’s how most of us here learned anything! 
In regards to the original problem, the adjustments I make on my faders still do not have an effect on real time playback unless I click on each fader right after I hit play (even then it will reset halfway through as if nothing happened); it doesnt matter what I do- I just have to click them. Having each instrument on its own output does have some effect on the final mixdown, but not as much as it should be. I have moved some things to -40 and they are still loud.
Now in regards to having each midi track (Coming from a multi timbral vst sequencer) routed to out-puts 1-2, shouldnt that just be a sort of master volume (Outputs 1-2 are the VST instrument). After starting playback-- if I move the midi faders to 0 they sometimes mute, sometimes they will make noise at 0, and sometimes I have to move the midi fader to 1 to lower a tracks volume; but during mixdown- they always produce sound. This problem continues to tumble over to the output channels in its own way, as mentioned above.
The reason I am asking about using the midi faders is because if I can figure out why my balance changes are not registering (including if I am using multiple outputs), that means I should be able to get more use out of each instance of my vst instrument.
If I use multiple output channels, I can only have 8 unique outputs per instance of play play since 1-2 is the over all output of the sequencer into the DAW, leaving 3-4 through 17-18 for use. This forces me to limit myself to 8 sample patches per vst instrument. This also means if I have multiple instruments sharing a sound patch, I would have to load the same sound patch multiple times and across several vst instruments in order to modify their volume independently since they would each need to be balanced. An example is having two independent trombone lines sharing articulation patches with first trombone being a little louder than the second.
–I apologize if this is incoherent, I have spent the past few days attempting to figure this out and I am completely brain fried. The part that is really frying my brain is Cubase willy-nilly selecting when it wants to acknowledge my fader commands and when it doesnt. 
The main thing to bear in mind, is that it doesn’t matter how the MIDI faders are set, if the the receiving MIDI instrument isn’t set to respond to them. (The same thing goes for the pitchwheel… you can move it to the maximum, but it is the receiving instrument which determines how much pitchbend that will amount to… could be set to 2 semitones, or to one octave, for example )
And (as regards your “trombone” example), that’s exactly how MIDI works!.. MIDI controllers affect everything that is on the same MIDI channel (and same MIDI port, of course), so if your two trombones are receiving on the same MIDI channel, they are not independent, if the two are playing at the same time, you effectively have a “two-note chord”, and the fader will act upon the “chord”.
So I did a test file adding an additional instance of the same trombone patch and it did help. So when in doubt, just load multiple instances of the same instrument and set them to separate midi channels? For a french horn section I wrote I just put Horns I II and III IV all on the same midi channel and they do not seem to be having the same issue as the trombone is.
Also, I have been going through the midi data, and i have noticed that there is absolutely no values set to volume. So I wonder if the reason I have not had any reaction from the midi faders is due to the fact that they are not actually reading any volume data; hence why I got the change with the multiple outputs but not with the midi faders.
HURRAH! I believe I have solved both of my issues in regards to only using the midi tracks. I found out that the midi faders do absolutely nothing in terms of balance if I am using a single output, nada. However, in order to balance things out, I have to move the cc7 line to do the job of the fader on an stereo strip. Doing this has resolved my loud percussion.
Now in regards to my trombone section randomly dying, I just created a separate channel with the same articulation. It seems like depending on the notes and everything that is going on, it may not be able to use a single midi channel to produce both track’s audio. I am still puzzled why it doesnt do that to my two horn tracks, but I believe I know how to fix the problem if it happens again.
If I am not mistaken, the cc7 suggestion was in one of your earlier posts.
You’ll be driving like a champ in no time at all now!