Hi - I’m trialing this excellent guitar instrument in Cubase 14 Pro. Any users around … can anyone help me with a few questions please?
1. Only 1 Stereo Track output even though I’m using RealRick (2 Stereo, 12 - string):
Reading the RealRick manual, including the parts about Launching RealRick, as well as double tracking: My understanding is I should have two RealRick channels in the MixConsole, and I should pan each one hard left/hard right.
I only have one RealRick channel in my MixConsole however. Can someone tell me why I don’t have a second one?
I’m using guitarix “Waiting For Springtime” preset, with the Stereo button at the top left activated, and the default output cabinet and verb being in stereo also. The only edit I did to the “Waiting for Springtime” preset was to add a JCM 800 preamp.
2. Best way to have Amp Presets change while MIDI track is playing?
I’ve recorded some MIDI piano into Cubase, and then am playing the track through RealRick. The track goes from a Verse to a Pre-Chorus then a Chorus, and I’d like to have different preamp settings for each song section.
Can I do that on one track, with Read/Write automation of some sort, or do I need to split the MIDI track into several ones, one for each song section, and then apply the different amp presets to each track?
I believe the answer to Q1 is to load RealRick as a Rack Instrument and activate the 2 available channels. Add a single MIDI track and the (MIDI) output will go to both RealRick outputs
I don’t use Guitarix so I can’t answer Q2. (I have RealEight V6, still use my preferred BX amps and Waves FX.)
I use separate instances for this, much easier to handle.
[EDIT No.2]
I think this should be moved to the Cubase forum. The lounge isn’t really the place for issues/queries/&tc. It doesn’t get visited as often.
Over and out!
I’m sure you’ve found out how by now, but this is for anyone else - click that tiny icon on the right and a menu with all the outputs drops down. (Instruments such as HALion allow you to do it from the instrument, as well, but I don’t think the Real-series does.)
Yes indeed, I’d forgotten so much about “Racks” … thanks for the reminder!
@Googly_Shakespeare , or any other users, one thing I’ve been wondering , do Musiclabs RealX guitars take very “piano like” voicings I might play on my keyboard and convert them to realistic-sounding guitar voicings?
I just use a mouse. But… I think whatever input method you use, to get a realistic-sounding guitar, you have to use the key switches for the different articulations. And listen to a lot of suitable guitar playing to hear how it’s done. (Chords voiced for the guitar, bending notes up or down to another, hammer-ons and pull-offs, palm muting, slides, legato, vibrato, whammy bar dive bombing, &tc, &tc.
(This applies to any sampled instrument. If you want realism, you have to listen to how real players play, and emulate them, whatever style you choose.)
Cubase only creates one instrument track when you add the instrument. To get both audio outputs, you need to go to the Track Instruments section in the right zone of the project window, pull down the dropdown menu in the RealRick entry, pick Activate Outputs, then choose to activate the second audio output. (NOTE: I haven’t used this option before, only the variation where it does the doubling within a single instrument track, then I mess around with panning pre-fader sends to additional tracks to deal with multiple amp simulators and panning of the signal itself, different fader levels, etc. But it’s possible doing it this way might be more convenient.)
One thing I wonder about the auto-doubling thing, be it the way you’re doing it or the way I’m doing it: MusicLab suggests using different amp simulators and signal chains for each side of the doubled track – makes sense since one reason for doubling (beside the slight timing differences) is to have different sounds on each side)? But if you use Guitarix within RealRick (or another Real product) isn’t it putting the same setting on both sides? (Or are you using Guitarix as a separate plugin at the track insert level? I don’t think I’ve ever used Guitarix on a real project to date. In fact, my first experiment with the MusicLab doubling, using RealLPC, was on my most recent completed project, and I was splitting it out to channels with UADx Paradise Guitar Studio on them, with different configurations on each side.)
No clue on this one, but you could open up the automation options for the instrument in Cubase to see if the relevant parameters are available for automation. Even if so, you’d probably need to not do it at a preset level, but at a specific parameter level. I have done this sort of automation with other guitar-oriented plugins, for example controlling a wet/dry parameter in one of the signal chain inserts or maybe even automating a bypass button, between guitar solo sections and other song sections. (I don’t recall which specific plugins I was using when I’ve done this, and they definitely would have been separate plugins, not the Guitarix integrated with the Real series.)
Depending on how much you’re needing to do between sections, though, it may end up being easier to just use additional tracks for different song sections.
Great point, @rickpaul . The latest RealRick (V6) manual talks about adjusting the delays between the (doubled) tracks to distinguish them more, but nothing about choosing a different amp for each. I’m just getting into all this, but as of now, I don’t know how to do that; I haven’t tried to see if Guitarix can be used as a separate plug-in at the track level yet, however.
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You’re absolutely right - at least I’m not able to see how to access automation at a preset level.
I think I’ll follow the good advice of you and @Googly_Shakespeare , and just use different tracks for sections I’d like to use different amps for.
Note that there is no need to make RealRick a rack instrument to do this. It can be done with an Instrument track. The same capability for adding additional outputs is there. I thought I’d posted a screen shot in my response yesterday, but I evidently forgot to include it in the post, but the same capability works with Track Instruments. And that really makes more sense with the Real guitar series with the doubled voices because they are making the double from a single MIDI track anyway – all that is needed is the second audio output (and panning one left and one right on the resulting tracks if using the two track version instead of the single track version – the single track version does that panning for you, so you just need to separate the processing out by panning sends to go do different signal chains).
I learned something I felt embarassed I didn’t know/ (had forgotten?) when I went to Greg Ondo’s cubaseindex .com and found I can access multiple Instrument Track outs (Including Musiclab’s RealRick’s) from the Inspector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPYJokwlxG0&t=3086s
