Trying to use instrument track Groups and spending way to much time trying to figure out why audio from some tracks (not all) in a group does not “make it” to the group. i.e. sound is generated by the trk but not connected to the group trk. Virtually ALL Channel Settings are identical for adjacent instruments in a Group but some do not “sound.”
What Cubase controls outside the Channel Settings could cause such a problem? And no, all the instrument settings are correct. Like I said the instrument itself is generating audio.
For these bad trks I can “make” the audio connection via a Send but that shouldn’t be needed, right? (the “good” trks don’t need it).
Also I’m seeing illogical repeatable behavior with Direct Routing entries for trks. e.g. if I deselect the Direct Routing entry to a Group and then re-select it the Group audio from that trk remains dead, even after closing and re-loading the project. Why???
–Chris
Can you post some screenshots showing the routing for a working Track and also one the doesn’t. It’s pretty hard to know what might be going on based on incomplete text descriptions.
Do you see the same issue with Audio Tracks. How are you determining that the Instrument is producing Audio - meter movement?
Also, do you actually have two problems - one with Direct Routing and the other with regular Routing?
I can’t follow this description. Are you saying that the Track’s Audio isn’t making it to the Group Destination so then you deselect the destination & reselect it and after that the Track’s Audio still doesn’t go to the Group Channel?
I set up 5 groups. Each group has from 3 to 8 instrument tracks in it. Not doing any audio tracks. The track audio meter always shows activity for all tracks-- for some tracks the track audio gets thru to the group track (meter), for others it does not. Channel Settings are identical in both good and bad track cases.
Yes I have been experimenting for 2 hours and among many other things tried de-selecting then re-selecting the Direct Route destination for a “bad” track to the same appropriate group.
As I said above I can re-establish the Group audio route by adding a Send but that should not be necessary.
More info on the defect. I have been able to get group audio back randomly for some of the bad tracks by simply changing Direct Routing to Stereo Out, then back to the group name. But then other trks drop their group audio route and cannot be re-enabled that same way.
As best I can tell, after almost a day of wasted test time, this is a group routing defect that “latches” a broken track route to a given group bus.
One cheesy work-around is to add a Send (0dB) from the bad track to the group. Even creating a new group and assigning the “bad” track (i.e. the one who’s audio does not route to its group bus) to a new group does not route that track to the group bus. Best work-around is to DELETE the track, then add a new one with the same instrument, then add it to the same group (via the Direct Routing setting). That works…JUST DON"T TOUCH THE DIRECT ROUTING SELECTION.
Is there a specific reason you are using Direct Routing (right side in pic above) instead of Regular Routing (left side)? Do you use Direct Routing for everything or only some Tracks/Channels? Do you use Direct Routing in Summing Mode (circled in blue)?
If you put the TestGenerator plugin on an Insert for a Channel that isn’t working, can you hear the test-tone? Can you see its signal on the meter?
Are you using Inserts on the Channels & if so is there any pattern between broken Channels and which Inserts are on those Channels.
Thanks again for responding, even tho’ I have a work-around now.
FYI direct routing is how Cubase12 adds selected tracks to a new group. The problem started when I simply wanted to add a new track to an existing group and found no intuitive command option i.e. no right-click option to add to an existing group. Steinberg help offered nothing useful to an “add new track to existing group” search. A search of forum help returned an answer to someone else who asked the same question: they were told to use “Direct Routing.” So to add a new instrument track to an existing group I set Direct Routing to the existing group. If there is a “better” way I’m all ears. “Send 0dB” would make the same connection.
This project is an orchestral template, my first time using groups. BTW I used the Cubase “Save MixConsole snapshot” button and have no idea where it saved the snapshot. Typical. Anyway attached is my mix console showing 5 groups and a reverb track. Most of the instrument tracks are off the left side but they are all identical. Reverb and Strings have their own reverb instantiation, the other 4 groups send to the reverb track.
All the tracks work in the snapshot. As I said before to break any track’s audio route all I have to do is bring up the Channel Settings dialog and change the Direct Routing to Stereo Out or any other group. Try changing it back to the original group–no go. Nothing else changes visibly in the Mix Console: the track audio meter still indicates audio activity but nothing makes in to the group. Once the track’s audio goes silent you can’t bring it back unless you (like I said before) delete the track and re-enter it then add it to the group.
And just for the hell of it I enabled “direct routing summing mode” whatever that is and it has no effect.
Still looks like a bona fide defect to me but I’m always open to Greater Cubase Wisdom.
More testing. I now notice that when a track’s audio connection to the group is broken the routing name’s font thickness at the top of the mix console is slightly thinner, as in not bolded, although the difference between the two font states is very minimal, easily missed. However, the direct route name’s font in the Channel Settings dialog is totally unchanged.
So when I change the broken track’s Direct Route name in the big MixConsole it seems to always restore the audio connection. But when I do the same thing in the Channel Settings dialog it does not. Looks like a bug specifically when you try to change the Direct Routing in the Channel Settings dialog.
When you make a new track a dialog window will pop up. Click on the field “Audio Outputs” and select the group channel that you want the track routed to.
Can you make a screenshot of that?
The reason we are asking is we don’t have that problem and we try to use our imagination what could possibly have gone wrong.
From the images you posted it doesn’t look like you are actually using Direct Routing. Regular Routing lets you route a Channel to a single destination like a Group Channel while Direct Routing lets you specify multiple destinations (like the Channels on the right in the image I posted). When you use regular Routing the chosen destination is also displayed in the first slot of the Direct Routing display. But it’s still really just regular Routing. As far as I can see none of your Channels specify multiple destinations.
When using Summing Mode you can not only specify multiple destinations, you can also have more than one of them active at the same time so the signal is actually sent to several destinations. In the image I posted you can see the Channel with Summing Mode enabled the destinations are colored blue while non-Summing destinations are green FYI.
Direct Routing is often used to simply replicate regular routing, but it can also be used to create more complicated routing schemes for special purposes. The reason I was asking questions about how you use it was to try & figure out if you were doing something fancy with Direct Routing that might be the source of your issue. But you’re not even using it, so that’s useful to know as it limits possible causes.
You can just select the destination from the Routing tab in the MixConsole (or use the first slot in the Direct Routing list which is functionally equivalent)
I just noticed that the fader knobs in your image are cream colored which by default indicates a MIDI Channel. But a MIDI Channel wouldn’t have Audio destinations. I’d been assuming these were from Instrument Tracks which are dark green by default. Of course you can customize the colors, but can you confirm what type of channels those really are.
@Johnny_Moneto I was hoping someone else would pop in here. This one is rather puzzling.
Yes, I identified that I was using instrument tracks in my 2nd post. And I’ll say again: Cubase uses “direct routing” when attaching instr. trks to a group, not me. If it’s not actually direct routing then the Channel Settings dialog labeling is faulty.
In any case the bug is reproducible. After 1+ days on this I’ll leave it to someone else to file the bug report. Thanks guys for your help!
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Isn’t that a Nuendo only feature.
Really? I’m pretty sure (but not totally) that I never changed those colors from the defaults but here’s my VSTi. Maybe Cubase changed the default at some point & I’ve got old stale colors…
