User manual

152
Audio effects
This is achieved by activating the option “Suspend VST3
plug-in processing when no audio signals are received” in
the Preferences dialog (VST–Plug-ins page).
When this is activated, VST 3 plug-ins will not consume
CPU power on silent passages, i.e. when no audio data
runs through them.
Be aware, however, that this can lead to a situation where
you added more plug-ins on “transport stop” than the sys-
tem can handle on playback. Therefore, you should always
find the passage with the largest number of events playing
simultaneously to make sure that your system offers the re-
quired performance.
Ö Activating this option can increase your system perfor-
mance a lot in certain projects, but it also makes it more
unpredictable whether the project can play back fine on
any timecode position of the project.
About side-chain inputs
Several VST3 effects feature side-chain inputs. This
means that the operation of the effect can be controlled
via external signals routed to the side-chain input. The ef-
fect processing is still applied to the main audio signal.
See “Using the Side-Chain input” on page 161.
About plug-in delay compensation
A plug-in effect may have some inherent delay or latency.
This means that it takes a brief time for the plug-in to pro-
cess the audio fed into it – as a result, the output audio
will be slightly delayed. This especially applies to dynam-
ics processors featuring “look-ahead” functionality.
Cubase provides full plug-in delay compensation through-
out the entire audio path. All plug-in delays are compen-
sated for, maintaining the sync and timing of all audio
channels.
Normally, you do not have to make any settings for this.
However, VST3 dynamics plug-ins with look-ahead func-
tionality have a “Live” button, allowing you to disengage the
look-ahead to minimize latency, if they are to be used during
realtime recording (see the separate manual “Plug-in Ref-
erence”).
You can also constrain the delay compensation, which is
useful to avoid latency when recording audio or playing a
VST Instrument in real time. See “Constrain Delay Com-
pensation” on page 179.
About tempo sync
Plug-ins can receive timing and tempo information from
the host application (in this case, Cubase). Typically, this
is used to synchronize certain plug-in parameters (such as
modulation rates or delay times) to the project tempo.
• This information is automatically provided to any VST
plug-in (2.0 or later) that “requests it”.
You do not have to make any special settings for this.
• You set up tempo sync by specifying a base note value.
You can use straight, triplet or dotted note values (1/1 to 1/32).
Please refer to the separate manual “Plug-in Reference”
for details about the included effects.
Insert effects
Background
As the name implies, insert effects are inserted into the
audio signal path – this means that the audio channel data
will be routed through the effect. You can add up to eight
different insert effects independently for each audio chan-
nel (audio track, group channel track, FX channel track,
VST Instrument channel or ReWire channel) or bus. The
signal passes through the effects in series from the top
downwards, with the signal path shown below:
Input gain
Insert effect 1
Insert effect 2
Insert effect 3
Insert effect 6
EQ
Volume (fader)
Insert effect 7
Insert effect 8
Insert effect 4
Insert effect 5