Using ARA with Synthesizer plugins (like Synthesizer V) in Cubase

Cubase
1

I am using Synthesizer V by Dreamtonics. This plugin can be used as a VSTi (I typically use it as a Rack instrument). In this mode, it provides its own timeline where clips can be arranged and moved around. That works well enough, but it means that anytime I change my arrangement, I need to make changes on both the Cubase timeline and the Synth V timeline, which is cumbersome.

To relieve that, Synth V also provides an ARA mode. I have two problems with that, and I would love to hear if others have figured out ways to make this work better or easier…

  1. From a workflow perspective, ARA plugins on a track, I think always need an audio track with an actual audio event to operate on. I can’t seem to find a way to simply create an empty audio event that ARA will work on, unless I actually create empty audio, which feels clunky and inelegant, especially when you have many clips (which I usually do). Is there any way to create a suitable audio event in a quick, easy, and robust manner? One thing I tried is creating one big empty audio for the entire track and then cut it into snippets, but that leads to problem number 2:
  2. For me, when I experiment with the ARA mode in Synth V, I get Cubase crashes all the time. It just does not seem to be very stable, especially when I re-arrange, copy or split existing clips. Is that observation shared by others? Is there a better way of doing this?

Would love to hear from others - what workflow are you using with Synth V (or another synthesizing plugin that uses ARA, not sure if there is one), and is it stable for you?

Thanks!

2

I use EmvoiceOne, which has its’ own stability problems, in relation to the network but I am also interested in DreamTonics (choirs) so while the ARA issue is at the very least, annoying, I don’t want to be programming in a plug-in editor if at all avoidable since, even while my songs are complete in terms of their arrangements, like proprietary vs open-source software, I would much rather just be able to edit MIDI data, in the MIDI editor of the DAW, rather than in a plug-in, that uses a proprietary format, internally as well as for exporting/importing of data.

3

Dreamtronics (or any manufacturer) should document how their own ARA extensions work.

4

You use ara and a vst instrument at the same time. When you open the VST track it will show as linked.
I copy a small audio file (I use a 4 bar loop but it doesn’t matter) right click on the audio file and set up the ara Dreamtonics. Close it and mute the audio and hide the track and forget about it. You won’t use it again. I’ve now saved this as a Cubase template, so I don’t have to do this again.

Now open an instrument track and select the Dreamtonics Synthesizer2. The synthesiser 2 interface will open and it will show ara synced or locked (not at my computer now) in the top right hand side.
The interface works well with the Cubase project.. follows the tempo, loop play rewind etc.
Been doing this for a couple of months finished four tracks and not had one crash.
I’m really impressed how well Cubase and synthesiser 2 work as one.
You can also set it up for multiple outputs. So each vocal track in the synth2 interface has its own Cubase mixer channel… Example different effect set ups for main vocal and backing vocal tracks. Or rap and singing vocals. Really powerful stuff.

5

They do. Their manual is very detailed.

6

The usability issue is not an issue with Dreamtonics. The usability issue is on the DAW side - or rather, arguably, in the extensibility limitations the platform has. Dreamtonics is using (as far as I can tell) ARA to allow users to arrange takes on the DAW timeline, as this is the only mechanism the DAW offers for that.
Unfortunately. that mechanism was designed for a different use case (editing of pre-existing audio clips - which is Melodyne’s use case, after all ARA was designed by Melodyne’s creators).

So, in order to use Synth V with ARA, you need to create an audio clip first on the DAW side, which is out of Synth V’s purview. As far as I can tell, there are a few ways to create such a clip in Cubase (for example, by using a generator, or by recording). All of the ones I know are inconvenient for this use case.

My question was merely if anyone knows a way of creating an audio event in Cubase that is as simple and fast as drawing a midi clip (as drawing an audio clip sadly does not create an actual audio event), and that does not require to create an actual audio file which I then need to manage.

7

I just copied an audio file across from the browser on the right hand side of the project window. Took me seconds. And now it’s saved as a template I don’t even have to do that.
You need to manage? Just mute the track.

8

Right click on the empty part and then select Bounce, which will turn the empty part into an audio (file) container.

I need to do this when spot recording for tracks that use the same buss as other tracks, but which are recorded as overdubs.

9

Thanks. Why do you use it as VST and ARA at the same time? I have not tried that, and I am not sure I understand why you would use both modes together?
I typically use Synth V as VST only, and of course I can use the multi-track / multi-output capabilities which are indeed very awesome. And in that mode I have the arrangement section in the UI, which means I need to move groups around in the Synth V interface when I make arrangement changes. But even if you just use the VST (no ARA involved) you get synced tempo, looping etc, so not sure why you need the ARA and the VST together.

I thought of ARA mode as a way around the arrangement problem - so that you have individual clips on the Cubase timeline as opposed to groups in the Synth V timeline, and that you can move these around in the DAW. But I also thought that you need one separate audio clip for each different section of music you want to create in Synth V? Sorry, I think I am missing something here :slight_smile:

10

Thank you. Does this create a new file somewhere? Presumably it must? Do I then end up with a set of empty files that I must be very careful to not accidentally delete? :slight_smile:

11

That is how I have tested the DreamTonics plug-in, and I simply record the output to an audio file.

I am not at all interested in a technology that is as unreliable as ARA, when I can simply record high-quality stems of any VST instrument plug-in to audio and effect them later on in real-time, rather than trying to do something all at once and lose dynamics due to rendering.

12

Yeah, in general I agree with your point of view, but I think there are use cases where raw Midi data as visualized in the standard key editor is just not very user friendly. Midi was, after all, designed for keyed instruments, and providing music and expression for other instruments sometimes requires so much key switch and expression data that a custom editor really can help in keeping things editable and properly visualized.
And then of course there are data types such as lyrics and phoneme data (as for something like Synth V) that Midi simply has no standard provisions for, so you might not even have a choice…

But I do understand the sentiment…

13

Yes, in the media pool, which means one must manage this file when purging all files and re-recording, which I commonly do, due to a tempo change.

I am not sure how Synthesizer V, works when updating tempo, i.e., would it be like a ripple-editing scenario when time is added or subtracted around audio, events but I am not really keen on using dedicated editors, if I can avoid them completely; features being left out of what is standard, in DAW MIDI editors.

14

In VSTi mode, Synth V is very reliable. I have very few issues with it. When playing back directly from a VSTi as opposed to rendering, why would you use dynamics? Any dynamics a VSTi cannot produce during playback will also not be produced during bouncing?

15

It’s very late here in Spain so I will come back with more detail screen shots tomorrow if needed.
Have you read the manual? ARA follows the Cubase project window better than the VST only track does. If you have it ARA linked it follows better. Example if you change the tempo of your song ARA will follow..VST editor will not.
I spent some time testing this. But if you find this not the case for you just use the VST track.
I still not getting the problem of creating an audio track for the ARA.
I literally opened the right hand side browser. Dragged the first audio clip I found into the project window. Right clicked on the audio and used the extension ARA option. Just make sure you mute the audio after. It is less than a minute to set up.
Also you don’t need to render to audio. Keep it as VST output..you have more control. Like I said I’ve completed 4 songs now with multiple vocal outputs on each. Solid as a rock.

16

I use UAD DSP for all of my effects on instruments and synthesised vocals.

It is well known that applying effects in real-time, rather than during an off-line rendering process, preserves dynamics more faithfully, as well as reverberation, which is why I am not interested in ARA particularly and I just record VSTi’s to audio, as has been my practice for many years.

I have been testing UAD native and it’s ok, but it still doesn’t seem to produce the same result for me, as DSP based effects, which I can hear as being pale when compared to what is produced by the DSP versions of the same brand and plug-in (as well as against other native versions) so I don’t know what standards Universal Audio have for determining parlance between native and DSP based versions, but while I tend to prefer UAD native to other emulations, it’s hit and miss, because some native brands sound better or at least different and that is inconsistent in terms of production between songs.

I am currently awaiting an Octo-core DSP unit, since my old USB device is not even recognised by my chipset (Panther Lake).

17

No sorry. There is no work around for this. You do have to do your voice editing etc in the Synth2 interface not in the Cubase project.

18

I think we are talking past each other :slight_smile: Of course the voice parts themselves need to be done in the Synth V interface.
But my topic is about the arrangement of clips (groups in Synth V) - for that we have two options: (1) Use the VSTi and the SynthV arrangement tracks. Or (2) use the ARA version, and create audio clips as placeholders for SynthV vocal lines, and then arrange these clips on the Cubase TL. Of course, this only applies if you use clips, as opposed to creating voice lines in one long part.

You then reminded me of yet another ARA use case, which is to make SynthV more responsive to tempo changes. I usually don’t need that, but it is a good capability to remember! Thanks.

So again, for me the core workflow question is where and how you arrange your material. If you use the VSTi, I usually make use of the arrangement section to create groups (the synthV equivalent of clips) and create clips for my verse, refrain, or whatever parts I need. I can then arrange these clips on the Synth V arrangement timeline as needed, but it means I have to make arrangement changes in two places (the cubase TL for all other instruments and the Synth V tl for my vocals). That is ok, just not ideal. Screenshot below for the VSTi version with the arrangement section with a few clips on two tracks

When using ARA, you in principle can also do the arrangement a different way (in both cases of course you create the actual vocal parts in the Synth V editor, the only difference is how you arrange groups/clips):

  • You can create multiple audio events on the audio track
  • Make Synth V the ARA editor for each clip
  • Create your vocal parts in the ARA editor for that clip

Each vocal part is now a part on an audio tracks associated with the ARA editor, which means that you can now move around these parts on the Cubase timeline, instead of having to use the arrange lanes in the Synth V interface.

Below a screenshot of an audio track with two clips assigned to the ARA editor. These two clips can now be moved around in the Cubase timeline, which makes arranging easier (this is really just like Melodyne in ARA mode, except that Melodyne operates on real audio, whereas I am using dummy clips I create). The drawback is that the audio events needed for that need to be created as real audio. And they are just not as flexible, because their length is determined by the underlying audio length, and each of them needs to be different, because the SynthV data is associated with they identity, as far as I can tell.

I find that so clunky that I never use the ARA mode for arrangement, I rather deal with the two arrangement windows. But in an ideal world, I would prefer a single arrangement UI - again this is about arranging clips, not about creating clip content. I was really fishing for a better workflow for that ARA arrangement use case with the dummy audio clips.

Screenshot 2026-07-31 at 7.56.11 PM
Screenshot 2026-07-31 at 7.56.11 PM2177Ă—1063 193 KB

But again, many thanks - I now understand what you were trying to say, and I discovered a new use case that I had forgotten, to get better tempo sync if I ever need it. Really appreciate it.

19

Are you saying that the placement of these audio clips, affects the placement of audio, inside the editor, i.e., Synthesizer V?

In any case, Bounce Selection works really well. Normally, I would use Minimise File, inside the Audio Pool for actual recorded files but bouncing an audio file inside the Arrange window achieves the same result, that is, to align audio events to where they were originally recorded, without latency.

Also, bouncing a file renames it to be what the track name is, that it was recorded on originally, but it does not rename the part.

20

I use audio track and instrument track at the same time, no real audio in the audio track, just ARA enabled, all midi information is inside the instrument track and have no problems at all.