This doesn't make any sense

Cubase
1

Even on the best software, sometimes things don’t make any sense. There may be a workaround for this that I don’t know of yet, but it’s not very intuitive.

Cubase/Nuendo (can we call it “Cubendo” when we talk about something that refers to both equally, or will that offend someone?) has a great feature, that “L” button that gives you a further solo when you have soloed a group of tracks. I really have a use for that many times.

One problem: it only works if your output is set to the Control Room. If your output is set to the regular stereo bus, the L button doesn’t do anything. This also works in this particular way for the scrub function in an audio file. Stereo Out bus = no sound on scrub. Output set to Control Room = scrub can be heard.

What’s another feature that is used on a regular basis? The metronome. However, the only way it can be heard is by setting the output to the stereo bus. Control Room? No metronome.

I don’t know what’s the reasoning behind this, if maybe this works in a way that makes sense in music studios, but to me it’s absurd. I have a use for all three features, and yet, if I have to use one that is not available in the current output bus, I need to press F4, and switch to the other, first selecting by audio interface, then clicking on the left channel, selecting it and having to click continue in this lovely popup:

Screenshot 2024-05-27 at 18.42.18
Screenshot 2024-05-27 at 18.42.181330×316 29 KB

Same thing for the right channel.

What is the point behind this? I just don’t get it.

2

I can use the scrub tool without the Control Room.
I can use the metronome with the Control Room.
If that does not work on your side than you might have a problem with your system.

1 Like
3

First the L refers to Listen and it isn’t really a secondary Solo function, although you can use it like that with extreme settings. It is part of a whole set of capabilities like, Talkback, Cue Sends, and room correction that are integrated into the Control Room - they are the reason the Control Room even exists. What the Listen button does is it reduces the level of all the other tracks by a set amount. The Control Room is where you adjust this level. This lets you hear a Track in the context of a mix but louder than normal.

Not sure why you are jumping back & forth between Stereo Out & the Control Room. The design intention is that you would normally either always use the Control Room or never use it.

When the CR is disabled your mix goes to Stereo Out and it will be both sent to your speakers and also used to Export your mixes to Audio Files. This works fine as far as it goes, but there are situations where you’d want the Audio you are hearing to be different than what you are exporting. For example if your room has a resonant low frequency problem you might use an EQ to mitigate it. But then you’d need to remember to enable the EQ while adjusting the mix and then disable the EQ while exporting so it doesn’t get printed to the Audio file.

The Control Room is designed to help with this and a lot of other workflow issues by separating your mixing & listening environments from each other. While Stereo Out is always sent to your export file, that signal is also routed to the Control Room. The CRs only purpose is to manage your listening environment. So if you have room correction software it belongs in a CR Insert.

Pick one output bus & stick to it

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4

I use metronome and srub with control room without issues. There is one additional step to turn on metronome on control room, check the CR panel to find it.

I use the listen feature a lot (It is an amazing function), but don’t remember if works without control room or not (because I’m always using CR).

5

Ahhhh, since the OP thought it was a Solo function because they didn’t know it had a level control, I bet most of these problems will be the level settings changing depending on if the CR is used or not.

6

Well, it’s been like that in Cubase Pro 12, 13 and Nuendo 13. What problem could be possibly causing something like this?

7

The Listen bus is an advanced PFL feature and needs an extra bus to function.
It doesn’t interrupt the signal in the main out bus like the solo feature is doing.

8

Well, yes, I just thought that was obvious enough that I didn’t feel it was necessary to put it in my post.

I don’t know if it’s extreme or not, I just know that it’s a very useful feature, because sometimes I soloed all the strings for example, and I want to listen to the violins for a moment, for which I don’t want to remove the solo group that I’m working with, I just want to solo one track for a moment, and that Listen button gives me that choice.

As I stated, because I don’t seem to have a choice. I would prefer to stick to one output, but the way it is doesn’t allow me to use three features that I need.

9

OK that’s great, thanks for the tip. But what if I want to edit in 5.1 or Atmos? As far as I can tell, CR only allows for stereo.

I just don’t understand why audio scrubbing and the Listen button don’t work with the stereo output as much as they do with the control room one.

10

I don’t know where you get your knowledge from…
You can configure what your listen environment needs to be.
It is possible to listen to ATMOS without a full ATMOS setup.
The CR is adapting the buses as you configure it.

Really?
The Listen Bus is a PFL bus, that will not work with the main stereo out.
It is not a solo feature. It leaves the bus structure untouched.
The audio passes through the system. You can listen to channels while recording.

Scrubbing uses the monitor bus feature. You can route it to the phones or to the main monitor path. No monitor path, no scrubbing.

Main left and right is not a monitor path.

1 Like
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Well, let’s see… partially here, then YouTube, the occasional online article and the manual, the latter being the least used because usually it doesn’t provide much detail or screenshots and it’s so white that when I open it, I’m like one of the aliens from Alex Proyas’ “Dark City” when Rufus Sewell breaks the wall and the sun comes in. Can we have a dark mode, please???

You can’t listen to Atmos unless you render the final mix and then encode it to an MP4 that your home theater can decode. That is, if you have at least a 5.1.2 speaker setup with an Atmos certified receiver. No BS Atmos sound bars or TV set speakers that are supposed to be Atmos. When TV sets that have the Dolby Atmos logo come bundled with a 5.1.2 speaker setup, or at least a set of floating speakers that can position themselves as needed in the location of the Atmos objects, then fine. But until then, just because some device has the Atmos logo doesn’t mean squat.

If you say you can “kind of” listen to Atmos, fine, if you mean that you can listen to the objects. Sure, you can listen to them, but they won’t be accurate. You can even listen to them on headphones, but headphones can’t even do 5.1, much less Atmos.

Really.

Look, I’m new at this, so I speak mostly from my own experience. You can explain how it is supposed to work, and I appreciate it, but I can use it any way I want if it works for me. If the Listen button wasn’t designed exactly to be used as a “further solo”, but it provides me with that functionality and it’s something I use and it saves me time, I will use it that way.

Are you going to tell me that you never used anything at all in a way that it wasn’t designed for in some other way? Besides, I think we’re talking about two different scenarios here. You seem to be talking more about how it works in a studio setting, recording several audio tracks. I’m talking about just me, at home, either doing mockups or composing my own stuff and then editing it.

That said, if I’m editing a project with just audio tracks, I find that the listen button is a very useful thing, in fact, I remember a YouTube video from an experienced sound engineer showing how Cubase was better than Logic, and one of the things he mentioned as a great reason was the Listen feature to solo a channel or two within the group that was soloed.

So if you don’t think it’s the proper way to use it, no disrespect, but I don’t care.

Sounds good. It still doesn’t make any sense to me. Scrubbing, metronome and the L button should be usable in the main output bus and in Control Room.

12

You are reading way more into what folks are trying to tell you than is really there. Nobody is suggesting you avoid using the Listen button as a kind of 2nd Solo Button, that’s totally legit. Use the tools however you want. However your descriptions of what you are doing & why suggests you may misunderstand some of the basics.

The L button is an example. It sounded like you thought it only behaved like a Solo button, where in fact it only behaves that way when its Level Control (in the CR) is set all the way down to to its minimum of -infinity. If the Level is set all the way up at 0, then the L Button will have no effect at all on anything. And in between is indeed in between. FYI, the minimum & maximum settings for a control would be the extreme settings for that control. It’s not a judgment, just saying that’s as far as the knob can turn.

13

Yes, the official intend for the listen is what you described. But I use it as a kind of second solo button (like the OP). I didn’t even know that only works with CR (because I’m always using CR anyway).

14

The OP is asking why the L button does not work with the main bus.
The reason is, it is not designed to work with the main bus.

2 Likes
15

Are you stoned?
The manual is a reference for the software, so why should it be the wrong resource?
It is indeed very helpful in many situations.
And I didn’t tell you that you can’t use the Listen bus as you use it.
I just explained what was the intention and why it is not working in the main bus. Nothing more.

16

They’re trying to help you.

The problem here is that language matters, especially when we’re dealing with engineering, which is what this is. “Solo” is one thing, “Listen” another.

It doesn’t make sense to say “I want to use ‘Listen’ as if it was basically ‘solo’, but it doesn’t do what I want and I don’t want to hear that it’s not designed to be ‘basically solo’ because I want it to be what I want”.

It is what it is, for a very good reason.
It has been explained why.
It is what it is.

One thing to realize about Control Room and the power that it has is that it basically takes ‘copies’ of signals from the mixer and then you can use those ‘copies’ for monitoring. When you do that the mixer’s signal flow is entirely untouched. This is very powerful. You can listen to things without interrupting the mix as it is playing back. This is definitely one of those things that should be cut-and-dry with zero confusion about what the expected behavior is (once the functionality is understood) which is why it isn’t 100% flexible.

2 Likes
17

I discovered that if I hold a big screwdriver by the blade it I can use it as a mallet.

1 Like
18

Oh, you should try that with a machete, it’s even better

1 Like
19

Not really. Couldn’t even get the stuff if I wanted to. Wouldn’t know where to look for it. And I really don’t care.

Well, it should be, but at least 50% of the time I check on it, it has a really short explanation that doesn’t help much, so I go online and I find a YouTube video that explains it and shows it (which is very important because some people like me are visual learners, so they need to see the screenshots and videos), and if that doesn’t work, then I come here, where I search the forum, and if I can’t find it, then I ask, and you all very nice gentlemen reply with an answer that most likely helps me with the problem at hand.

Well, I didn’t say that. I said, to me it doesn’t make any sense that a function that is so useful only works in Control Room mode. I can have opinions, right? Doesn’t make me a bad person, or an ahole, just someone with an opinion. And you can talk for years about how it was designed and what the purpose is, and I will keep telling you that I am free to use it as I please.

And some day I even may use it for the purpose it was designed for, but right now, I’m using it as a further solo, and it works for me that way. So I cannot see what’s the problem here. It’s not like I’m forcing everyone to use it like that.

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No problem for us. You asked why it works one way and we told you. Now that we’ve told you apparently you still don’t think it makes sense. I guess if there is a problem then that’s the problem, for you. Not us.