The title of the post may sound confusing, here’s a screenshot of what’s going on:
I created a rack instrument (could be track instrument as well), and activated a few outputs. The MIDI track “Vienna Ensemble Pro 01” is going to Out 1/2. When I solo that midi track, it shows all other Output tracks as soloed (3/4 and 5/6 as well). This is very inconvenient because if I drag those output tracks side by side to their related MIDI tracks, now if I solo one, I’ll see ALL the other ones as soloed.
Why doesn’t Cubase know, if for a MIDI track you can select what’s called “multi-out instrument return channel” ?
People just learn to live with this inconvenience? The solo function is working properly of course, but it’s very confusing to see all Audio Return Channels soloed when no signal is going to them
Yes, you can select this, to make your workflow easier (so you can see the correct Audio Return Channel in the Inspector, once you select the MIDI Track). But it’s not a must and Cubase cannot rely on this.
Yes, people learn, how to work with Cubase.
Be also aware, Solo of the MIDI Track in the Project window is not the same as Solo the Audio Return Channel in the MixConsole.
Yes, but I still don’t understand what prevents Cubase from showing only the Return Channel and the connected MIDI track both as soloed (and not all the other Return Channels), when you solo one of those two. It would be so much more convenient to work like that, and the “multi-out instrument return channel” is an indicator for Cubase to know.
Why not make Cubase nicer to work with…
Anyhow I appreciate your help and taking the time to respond, thank you
Because there is no one-to-one relationship between a MIDI Track and the VSTi’s Audio Outputs. A single MIDI Track might be generating sound on several different Audio Outputs at the same time. It could also go the other way where several MIDI Tracks all generate Audio on the same Output. The mapping between MIDI data and Audio Outputs is entirely under control of the VSTi and not the host, in this case Cubase.
That’s exactly why Instrument Tracks were created. They combine the MIDI & the Virtual Instrument into a single easy to use Track - so unlike MIDI Tracks we don’t need to manage that relationship. Folks use MIDI Tracks because they are more flexible for routing data, but that comes at the cost of needing to do extra work & having additional ways for things to go wrong.
This is a major simplification & generalization, but it’s easiest & generally best to use Instrument Tracks with only a single Instrument on each Track - even for VSTi’s like Kontakt & Halion that can host multiple Virtual Instruments.
Unfortunately for me in this case I cannot work with Instrument Tracks, as this is a template I’ve built for Vienna Ensemble Pro. But the workaround I’m leaning towards is to just use the command “show tracks with data”, then the Output tracks disappear and I temporarily see just the Midi tracks and those are soloed individually.
You might want to explore using the Project Logical Editor. You can build Presets to Select Tracks based on Track Names and even The Track Color’s Name. For example Select all the Tracks which have “voc” in their name.
