I am reasonably computer literate but I spent an hour trying to set it up in control room (which personally I have no other reason to use) and then I gave up.
I do this using Cue Sends. Specifically, I put a reference recording on an audio track, turn the output of that track to no bus, and enable a cue send. Then I can toggle back and forth between my mix and the reference track in Control room by toggling between the mix and the cue bus. It works exactly like an A/B switch in that sense. The main limitation is that, if I have additional reference tracks, I end up disabling (or muting) all the ones that I’m not using at the time. But it might be possible to just put those on separate cue sends and have more than the one cue bus to toggle – I just haven’t done that, trying to keep things simple (and usually not minding only being able to compare one reference at a time).
@rickpaul yes, just a simple click with Cue Sends
In Control Room its just a “simple A/B toggle.”
This is pretty straight forward.
Yes, me too. Exactly this.!
I’ve tried every option out there to A/B tracks and they never really worked for me.
I found this plugin that I use with every session and has tools to really help you focus on low end, midrange, etc.
It’s the single best thing I have ever purchased.
Not cheap but worth it. It doesn’t go on sale very often too.
They have a free, fully working demo so worth a look at least.
I can confirm - it’s a very helpful tool for comparing reference tracks and it comes with almost all needed functions at your fingertips.
Sometimes, it’s at 50$.
Since Dirk bought PA back, maybe it might even be less?
In the good old days before Dirk sold PA this could be purchased at $30. You have to be patient. The market has changed since 3 years ago, but he is already doing 24-hour $30 sales.
Really? I purchased it at full price and feel like it was worth it.
Yes, I got it for 50$, definetly worth it. Lowest price was 39,99$ in 2024 like @Greg_Purkey said.
It’s easy to put a price monitor on any item if you’re not in urgent need of a plugin. This will also give you a visual representation of an item’s price development over past years.
Can’t you simply solo/unsolo the reference track?
If the issue is that you have insert effects on the stereo out track that you don’t want applied to the reference track, just move those effects to a group track that precedes stereo out in your signal chain. Route your mix to that master group track and the reference to stereo out.
This also makes it easy to use multiple reference tracks. Mute them all, then solo/unsolo them one at a time.
You could, (and I did) but believe me, Metric A|B is SOOOOO much easier and better in every way. GIve it a shot. You’ll be glad you did.
Thanks, I’ll check that out. Looks interesting! But I think the OP is just asking how to do an A/B comparison to a reference track in Cubase.
When it comes to referencing tracks there are many ways to do it with varyings degrees of convenience and accessibility to helpful information.
If you don’t have Control Room simple tracks with reference songs will do. With Control Room it gets easier using Cue tracks with Solo Defeat activated. Still, both methods require at least half a dozen analyzer plugins to be turned on and off depending on your goals. That’s where ADAPTR shines - it comes with most of these analyzing tools and it will visually display both the reference track’s and your original track’s curves/plots/graphs. You can also set up different regions of multiple reference tracks for quick comparison. Very helpful.
I’m with @noise - ADAPTR makes life easier when it comes to referencing. I guess that prices will probably drop again under 50$ any time soon. Definetly worth it if you are looking for a all-in-one referencing solution.
If you don’t need all these features then Cubase’s stock options will do, too.
I do understand that this is easy and obvious to you. Maybe I just don’t understand routing enough but I spent ages trying to do this and could not get it to work. I don’t have an audio background at all, but I have spent a couple of years working with Cubase.
My point is that quick referencing is a common activity, and there should be a simple, built-in way to do it without re-routing. Other modern DAWs manage it. Not all musicians and songwriters need control room and I don’t think it is as straightforward for those of us figuring out audio principles as we go along as it seems to be to you.
I do appreciate this a lot, but 50 is a lot of money for something that should already be accessible My interpretation is that Steinberg focus on power users and don’t always give people figuring out the basics enough clarity. Cubase is already expensive and an extra 50-100 to do something that should just be a simple feature already seems a bit much.
I don’t think that works unless I’m missing something. The only way I could do it was to then solo one and mute the other, then mute that one and solo the other. That creates a delay that adds an extra step and a delay that is a barrier to accurate referencing.
No. Just select the reference track and hit the “S” key and it toggles between the two. A single keystroke to toggle between A (your mix with the reference track muted) and B (the soloed reference track).
Here’s a straight forward tutorial on referencing in Cubase.
I’m with you, there’s room for improvement when it comes to Steinberg’s manuals. However, Chris Selim has covered most topics in an understandable way. Easy to reproduce. Browse through his content on his Youtube channel Mixdown Online and you’ll see.
Referencing tasks can be quite complex and Cubase can’t provide all features although it covers most of them (more or less conveniently). That’s where specialized plugins come in and take over. Cubase can’t cover all niches of music production and that makes sense to me.
Cubase does a lot of advanced things that many of us don’t need. I have some notion of how deep it is after a couple of years working with it. But I don’t know… A flagship DAW should be simple and logical enough for basic users to do something that is relatively simple and completely essential. I gave up on referencing for a long time since it just felt like a brick wall, so my mixes suffered. Now I use it occasionally and manually, but the delay between soloing one track and muting the other too jarring. I picked up a cheap crossgrade to studio pro and might move over there. It has it’s limitations and its own issues, but the crossgrade only cost 75 at the time, in the ball park of what an additional AB plugin might cost me for cubase.
I did watch this and tried to follow it at the time. It is when I gave up. Something didn’t work. I have no idea what I did wrong or what step I missed. But look, referencing isn’t some kind of niche and specialist activity that should need a 15 minute youtube tutorial or an expensive plugin.