User manual

168
Audio effects
When should I use dithering?
• Consider dithering when you mix down to a lower reso-
lution, either in real-time (playback) or with the Export Au-
dio Mixdown function.
A typical example is when you mix down a project to a 16-bit stereo au-
dio file for audio CD burning.
What is a “lower resolution” then? Well, Cubase uses 32-
bit float resolution internally, which means that all integer
resolutions (16 bit, 24 bit, etc.) are lower. The negative ef-
fects of truncation (no dithering) are most noticeable when
mixing down to 8 bit, 16 bit and 20 bit format; whether to
dither when mixing down to 24 bits is a matter of taste.
Applying dithering
1. Open the VST Output Channel Settings window by
clicking the “e” button for the Output channel in the mixer.
You can also display the Inserts section in the extended mixer pane.
2. Open the Inserts pop-up menu for slot 7 or 8.
The two last Insert effect slots (for all channels) are post-fader, which is
crucial for a dithering plug-in. The reason is that any master gain change
applied after dithering would bring the signal back to the internal 32 bit
float domain, rendering the dithering settings useless.
3. Select the included UV22HR dithering plug-in from
the pop-up menu.
The included dithering plug-ins and their parameters are
described in the separate manual “Plug-in Reference”. If
you have installed another dithering plug-in that you pre-
fer, you can of course select this instead.
4. Make sure the dithering plug-in is set to dither to the
correct resolution.
This would be the resolution of your audio hardware (on playback) or the
desired resolution for the mixdown file you want to create (as set in the
Export Audio Mixdown dialog, see the chapter “Export Audio Mixdown”
on page 413).
5. Use the other parameters in the control panel to set up
the dithering to your liking.
Using group channels for insert effects
Like all other channels, group channels can have up to
eight insert effects. This is useful if you have several audio
tracks that you want to process through the same effect
(e.g. different vocal tracks that all should be processed by
the same compressor).
Another special use for group channels and effects is the
following:
If you have a mono audio track and want to process this
through a stereo insert effect (e.g. a stereo chorus or an
auto panner device), you cannot just insert the effect as
usual. This is because the audio track is in mono – the
output of the insert effect will be in mono as well, and the
stereo information from the effect will be lost.
One solution would be to route a send from the mono
track to a stereo FX channel track, set the send to pre-
fader mode and lower the fader completely for the mono
audio track. However, this makes mixing the track cumber-
some, since you cannot use the fader.
Here’s another solution:
1. Create a group channel track in stereo and route it to
the desired output bus.
2. Add the desired effect to the group channel as an in-
sert effect.
3. Route the mono audio track to the group channel.
Now the signal from the mono audio track is sent directly
to the group, where it passes through the insert effect, in
stereo.
Freezing (rendering) insert effects for a track
Effect plug-ins can sometimes require a lot of processor
power. If you are using a large number of insert effects for
a track, you may eventually reach a point where the com-
puter cannot play back the track properly (the CPU over-
load indicator in the VST Performance window lights up,
you get crackling sounds, etc.).
To remedy this, you can freeze the track, by clicking the
Freeze button in the Inspector.