User manual

21
VST Connections: Setting up input and output busses
• As always, audio hardware with low-latency drivers is a
good thing to have.
Cubase will compensate for the input/output latency and ensure that the
audio processed through external effects isn’t shifted in time.
Connecting the external effect/instrument
To set up an external effect or instrument, proceed as fol-
lows:
1. Connect an unused output pair on your audio hard-
ware to the input pair on your external hardware device.
In this example, we assume that the hardware device has stereo inputs
and outputs.
2. Connect an unused input pair on your audio hardware
to the output pair on your hardware device.
Once the external device is connected to the audio hard-
ware of your computer, you have to set up the input/out-
put busses in Cubase.
Setting up external effects
1. Open the VST Connections window from the Devices
menu.
2. Open the External FX tab and click “Add External FX”.
3. In the dialog that appears, enter a name for the exter-
nal effect and specify the Send and Return configurations.
If you want to set up a MIDI device corresponding to the
external effect, click the “Associate MIDI Device” button.
Depending on the type of effect, you can specify mono, stereo or surround
configurations. When clicking “Associate MIDI Device”, you can use the
MIDI Device Manager functions to create a new MIDI device for the effect.
Note that delay compensation will only be applied for the effect when you
use MIDI devices. For information about the MIDI Device Manager and
user device panels see the separate PDF document “MIDI Devices”.
4. Click OK. This adds a new External FX bus.
5. Click in the Device Port column for the Send Bus
“Left” and “Right” ports and select the outputs on your au-
dio hardware that you connected in step 1 above.
6. Click in the Device Port column for the Return Bus
“Left” and “Right” ports and select the inputs on your au-
dio hardware that you connected in step 2 above.
7. If you like, make additional settings for the bus.
These are found in the columns to the right. Note however that you can
adjust these while actually using the external effect – which may be eas-
ier as you can hear the result. You have the following options:
!
Please note that it is possible to select input/output
ports for external effects/instruments that are already
used (i.e. that have been selected as inputs/outputs
in the VST Connections window). If you select a
used port for an external effect/instrument, the exist-
ing port assignment will be broken. Note that you will
not get a warning message!
Setting Description
Delay If your hardware effect device has an inherent delay (la-
tency), you should enter this value here, as it allows Cu-
base to compensate for that delay during playback. You
can also let the delay value be determined by the pro-
gram by right-clicking in the Delay column for the effect
and selecting “Check User Delay”. Note that you don’t
have to take the latency of the audio hardware into ac-
count – this is handled automatically by the program.
Send Gain Allows you to adjust the level of the signal being sent to
the external effect.
Return Gain Allows you to adjust the level of the signal coming in from
the external effect.
Note however that excessive output levels from an external
effect device may cause clipping in the audio hardware.
The Return gain setting cannot be used to compensate for
this – you have to lower the output level on the effect de-
vice instead.
MIDI Device When you click in this column, a pop-up menu opens
where you can either disconnect the effect from the as-
sociated MIDI device, select a MIDI device, create a new
device or open the MIDI Device Manager in Cubase to
edit the MIDI device.
When Studio Manager 2 is installed, you may also select
an OPT editor to access your external effect.
Used Whenever you insert an external effect into an audio
track, this column shows a check mark (“x”) to indicate
that the effect is being used.