I’m brand new to Cubase and have been building a large orchestral/synth template.
It was always my understanding that we use Rack Instruments for Multi-timbral VIs (e.g. big Kontakt multis), and Track Instruments as (any) single-channel Vis. Since working on my template however I’ve noticed a few things:
The 64 limit on Rack VIs is an unavoidable restriction.
The more Rack Instruments there are loaded in Cubase 13, the more sluggish it seems Cubase gets (and I haven’t even started writing music yet). Also load/save times are much slower.
As a result I decided to offload more of my Rack VI instruments into:
(a) VEPro 7 Metaframe, and
(b) individual-channel Track Instruments. (I.e. I make a folder called say “Omnnisphere” and put in 4 OMNI Track Instrument instances in there. That way I have a few options, pre-routed, ready for when I start writing.
HOWEVER, what I’m confused about is the following. It seems like, with TRACK Vi Instruments:
a). Any Vi wirth multi-tibral potential (.e.g Kontakt 7, Omnisphere, etc), DOES allow you to load in multiple sounds, set to multiple channels.
b) I can load multiple MIDI tracks pointing to this TRACK instrument, and trigger multiple different MIDI channels.
This already is contrary to my inidial understanding of the point of Track Instruments. The only difference seems to be that the audio RETURN it creates does not automatically default to a “VI Return” at the bottom of the Track window (as it does with Rack Vis). Instead the default (1/2) audio return comes into the same Vi Track Instrument return. Then, I can ‘activate’ the mutliple audio returns from Kontakt/Omni Track Instrument (in the Vi Rack window), and it creates what seem to be Automation Lane (audio) returns right below the original Track Instrument. So I’d then need to send the outputs of these “Track Instrument Returns” to a Group track in order to have te audio ‘return’ appear in my main Mixing desk below (i.e. so they’re all together, next to the Rack VI returns). This appears to be the ONLY difference in functionality between a Track instrument and a Rack instrument.
Is this conclusion correct? Am I missing something?
Does anyone else work like this (i.e. using Track Instruments as multi-timbral instruments)?
It seems like lots of Rack VSTs slows my template down. Would the same be true if I loaded 8-16 sounds into a ‘Track instrument’, or would I benefit from smoother performance?
Historically, there was no Instrument Track at all. The only way was to use an Instrument (nowadays called Rack Instrument) and route the MIDI Tracks to its MIDI Input.
Later on, the Instrument Track was developed. It wasn’t multi-timbral at the beginning at all. It was a shortcut for the use case when you are using only one sound from the instrument (typically a drum set, or using non-multi-timbral VSTis). The big advantage was, that you have only 1 track/channel/fader for both the MIDI data and the Audio Return. So it was much easier for lots of users.
After some time, the development made a step further and the Instrument Tracks became open for the multi-timbral use case too. So nowadays, you can route a MIDI Track to the Instrument Track the very same way, as it was possible to route it to the Rack Instrument in the past.
Why is the Rack Instrument still available? Mainly because there is no way to convert the Rack Instrument to the Instrument Track. So if the Rack Instrument were removed, you couldn’t open your old (Rack Instruments) projects.
To save the CPU, it’s recommended to use the multi-timbral use case as much as possible. So only one instance of the VSTi is running and serving as many sounds as possible.
Why not? According to Martin (above), he advised to use less VSTi’s and more sounds than the opposite (i.e. lots of single-channel VST Track instruments)…
Thanks for he background Martin. So is there any reason to believe that a (fully-loaded) Rack instrument uses more resources than the equivalent (16) Track instruments? I was having trouble with my template recently with lots of Rack instruments loaded, but had not compared that scenario with the equivalent number or sounds loaded on individual Track instruments.
…or would a Mult-timbrally-loaded TRACK instrument perform better than an equivalent Rack instrument (even though I’d find the routing more clunky).
I didn’t make any measurements. But my expectation is, that 16 Rack Instruments would eat the same CPU power as 16 Track Instruments (of course, using the very same instruments).
From my experiments it would be just for track-management issues: multiple audio-returns for Track instruments only seem to show up as “AUTOMATION” tracks (i.e. you have to select “Show Automation” on the VSTi). Whereas when you create Rack instruments (and enable the VSTi’s multiple audio outputs), the Audio Returns default to the sample place down at the bottom of the template, all together.
This for me is preferable just because all my returns are grouped together (rather than being stuck to the VST Track Instr and unmovable / unsortable).
Assuming there’s no performance difference between Track or Rack Instruments, then does it matter?..
Personal preference I would say. There are some subtle differences between the two approaches such as the ones you already discovered with how the return channels, when multiple outputs are enabled, are presented.
Another difference is that Rack Instruments cannot be properly re-used in other project. As an example, a Track Instrument can be imported using the most brilliant function Import Tracks From Project. If the project you are importing the Track Instrument from has the same busses/groups/fx etc. as the project you are importing to, then all the channel settings, including all forms of routing, gets applied with the import.
Track Instruments with multiple outputs unfortunately has an annoying bug pertaining to showing automation data.
Together with your own observations, these are the most important differences imo.
For instruments with only a single stereo output channel, I can’t see anything in favor of using Rack Instruments. It’s when you want multiple stereo output pairs that Rack Instruments can still be favorable (mostly due to a handful of shortcomings with its counterpart).
Very good point! I hadn’t considered the import capabilities of Track vs Rack, and that’s a big deal. It’s annoying that Rack Instrument will not import…
And I agree - instruments with just a single channel are definitely better as Track instr.
My use case with tracks are for individual articulations, and I “breakout” audio outputs for the various mics I want to use. This lends itself to the use of VCAs and Group tracks which can be moved/sorted at will. And yes the ability to import is very useful, almost crucial for my workflow.