User manual

73
Recording
• Tapemachine Style.
This option emulates standard tapemachine behavior: input monitoring in
Stop mode and during recording, but not during playback.
• Cubase only: In the Preferences (VST–Metering page)
you can find the option “Map Input Bus Metering to Audio
Track (in Direct Monitoring)”.
When Direct Monitoring is activated in the Device Setup dialog, this op-
tion allows you to map the input bus metering to monitor-enabled audio
tracks. This gives you the opportunity to watch the input levels of your
audio tracks when working in the Project window.
When Direct Monitoring is activated in the Device Setup
dialog, this function works as follows:
• When “Map Input Bus Metering to Audio Track (in Direct
Monitoring)” is activated, audio tracks show the metering sig-
nal from the input bus they are routed to as soon as the track
is record-enabled.
Note that the tracks are mirroring the input bus signal, i.e. you
will see the same signal in both places. When using mapped
metering, any functions (e.g. trimming) you apply to the audio
track are not reflected in its meters.
• When “Map Input Bus Metering to Audio Track (in Direct
Monitoring)” is not activated, metering works as usual.
• In Cubase Studio, the audio tracks always show the in-
put bus metering, see “Cubase Studio” on page 72.
External monitoring
External monitoring (listening to the input signal before it
goes into Cubase) requires some sort of external mixer for
mixing the audio playback with the input signal. This can
be a stand-alone physical mixer or a mixer application for
your audio hardware, if this has a mode in which the input
audio is sent back out again (usually called “Thru”, “Direct
Thru” or similar).
When using external monitoring, you cannot control the
level of the monitor signal from within Cubase or add VST
effects or EQ to the monitor signal. The latency value of
the audio hardware configuration does not affect the mon-
itor signal in this mode.
Ö If you want to use external monitoring, you need to make
sure that monitoring via Cubase isn’t activated as well.
Select the “Manual” monitoring mode in the Preferences (VST page) and
don’t activate the Monitor buttons.
ASIO Direct Monitoring
If your audio hardware is ASIO 2.0 compatible, it may sup-
port ASIO Direct Monitoring. In this mode, the actual mon-
itoring is done in the audio hardware by sending the input
signal back out again. However, monitoring is controlled
from Cubase. This means that the audio hardware’s direct
monitoring feature can be turned on or off automatically by
Cubase, just as when using internal monitoring.
Ö If you are using RME Audio Hammerfall DSP audio
hardware, make sure that the pan law is set to -3dB in the
card’s preferences.
• To activate ASIO Direct Monitoring, open the Device
Setup dialog on the Devices menu and activate the Direct
Monitoring checkbox on the page for your audio hardware.
If the checkbox is grayed out, your audio hardware (or its driver) doesn’t
support ASIO Direct Monitoring. Consult the audio hardware manufac-
turer for details.
• When ASIO Direct Monitoring is activated, you can se-
lect a monitoring mode in the Preferences (VST page), as
when monitoring via Cubase (see “Monitoring via Cubase”
on page 72).
• Depending on the audio hardware, it may also be possi-
ble to adjust monitoring level and panning from the mixer.
Consult the documentation of the audio hardware if in doubt.
• VST effects and EQ cannot be applied to the monitor
signal in this mode, since the monitor signal doesn’t pass
through Cubase.
• Depending on the audio hardware, there may be special
restrictions as to which audio outputs can be used for di-
rect monitoring.
For details on the routing of the audio hardware, see its documentation.
• The latency value of the audio hardware configuration
does not affect the monitor signal when using ASIO Direct
Monitoring.