Question about monitoring live drums in Cubase 7

Hi all, I’ve got a question I hope the community can help me with. Previously, I’ve been recording/monitoring my drum setup running the mics into my Yamaha mixer, then using the mixer’s digital out into the digital in on the interface, then into Cubase. I have sixteen tracks in my daisychained Presonus interfaces and now want to run the mics directly into the mic ins on the interfaces and into Cubase. My question is: how do I do this and monitor my mix with effects and EQ out of Cubase and back to my headphones so I can hear all with FX and EQ while I’m playing? Do I need some sort of Direct monitoring sound card? (The Direct Monitoring option is grayed out in the devices setup in Cubase)

I have never run my mics through the interface as separate channels, choosing instead to run out of the board via it’s two-track digital out - doing all the EQ and FX via the board. I know this is inefficient and that I don’t have channel separation for mixing. Is there a way I can set it up so I can perform/monitor real time using Cubase’s EQ and FX?

You do it the same way, you did it with your mixer, just that you now use Cubase as mixer.
In this case you always have the latency caused by the soundcard buffer settings, and the plugin delay. If this is suitable for you dpends on how low you can get your soundcard buffers, and whIch FX you use.

Thank you for that answer. I suspected that was the case and that I might be limited by soundcard, processor and memory, in regard to latency, but wasn’t sure. Thanks for taking the time.