I’ll try to keep this really simple!
After watching a recent Cubase Vid from Dom Sigalis about monitoring an audio input with effects enabled I find I can’t replicate what he does.
Put simply, he creates a track which is record enabled then when he opens the Channel Strip and strums the guitar he’s getting input on the EQ and can hear the guitar. He then goes on to lower the volume and then click the monitoring button to add effects.
However, I can’t get my input -from either guitar or mic - to be picked up by Cubase until I click the Monitoring button, and I never have. I thought that was the point of the monitoring button. How is he getting Cubase to process the incoming signal without monitoring it?
Go to 3:50. What I’m guessing is that by default, the interface is routing all inputs to the output, like direct monitoring, but without a switch. Depending on the interface, you can set up all kinds of routing scenarios in their mixers.
So in this case, if he clicked the monitoring button without lowering the fader first (from the interface’s panel), he would get a phasey sound. The direct sound, from interface in to interface out, plus the sound from the track in Cubase, with what latency is involved.
Sorry GG I don’t get what you are saying. My Interface doesn’t have it’s own Mixer, Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 Third Gen. Surely he’s doing all this from the DAW?
Should I be able to get input into the Channel Strips EQ without turning on the Monitoring button on the Track?
I was just explaining what’s going on in Dom’s video.
Personally, even though I have this capacity with my Fireface 400, I do not work like this anymore.
I only monitor through Cubase. No monitor button pressed? No sound.
It depends on if you want to have a “live input” always audible. Some years back when I had a vocal booth and outboard reverb and compression, I DID work like that. I always had the inputs (the microphone) going out to the person in the booth, and I would blend in or replace FX from the fireface’s mixer (Totalmix).
His guitar is plugged into the interface. From the interface’s settings, he has this input (his guitar) to go straight to the output. It doesn’t go to Cubase at all.
At 2:02 (ish) he is looking at the input channel’s EQ.
I did not phrase it right, sorry. Let me have another go.
Let’s describe our “normal” situation first. You have a signal in your input. You can see that signal in the input channel of Cubase (see EQ of 2:02 for example). But if you don’t make an audio track that receives from this input and press the monitor button, you don’t get sound. I think this is right so far?
Ok. Now, for the scenario covered in the video. That same signal that is in the input, the interface is set so that it pushes it to your output, regardless of the monitor button in Cubase. In this specific case, if you go ahead and activate monitoring on the track, holding a guitar in your hand, and load in a verrrry distorted amp on the insert of the track, what would you hear? You would hear the distorted guitar alright (monitor activated on the track), buuut you would also hear the clean signal coming out directly from input 1 to the output. And that’s the reason why he lowers the fader at 3:50 of the video, so that he is left with only the “distorted” sound.
So, it’s not that “it doesn’t go to Cubase at all”, that was a stupid oversimplification on my part and I take it back. Rather, there is a parallel path that the signal takes, ignoring Cubase’s signal flow. (Input → Track/Channel → Output [Cubase side] vs (Interface Input → Interface Output [Interface side]) If you think about it, it’s the same reason why Input Channels don’t have a monitor button.
Thank you so much for this detailed explanation mate! That is much clearer.
I’m about to leave the house so I will dig into this tomorrow and try to implement your instructions.
