User manual

26
VST Connections
About this chapter
This chapter focuses on the settings you can perform in
the VST Connections window. Here you can set up input
and output busses, group and FX channels, external ef-
fects, and external instruments. Furthermore you can use
this window to configure the Control Room (Cubase only)
and access the Control Room itself.
Since input and output busses are vital for working with
Cubase, a large part of this chapter concentrates on bus-
ses and this is also the reason why you find this chapter at
the beginning of the Operation Manual. How to use the
busses is described in detail in the section
“Routing” on
page 164.
The VST Connections window
The VST Connections window is opened from the De-
vices menu. It contains the following tabs:
• The Inputs and Outputs tabs allow you to set up and configure
input and output busses, see
“Setting up busses” on page 26.
• The Group/FX tab allows you to create group and FX chan-
nels/tracks and to make output assignments for these, see
“Setting up group and FX channels” on page 29.
• The External FX tab (Cubase only) allows you to create effect
send/return busses for connecting external effects which can
then be selected via the effect pop-up menus from inside the
program. For further information, see
“External instruments/ef-
fects (Cubase only)” on page 30 and “Using external effects
(Cubase only)” on page 200.
• The External Instruments tab (Cubase only) allows you to cre-
ate input/output busses for connecting external instruments.
For further information, see “External instruments/effects (Cu-
base only)” on page 30 and the chapter “VST instruments and
instrument tracks” on page 206.
• The Studio tab (Cubase only) is where you enable and config-
ure the Control Room, see “VST Connections – Studio tab”
on page 174.
Setting up busses
Cubase uses a system of input and output busses to trans-
fer audio between the program and the audio hardware.
• Input busses let you route audio from the inputs on your audio
hardware into the program. This means that when you record
audio, you will always do this through one or several input
busses.
• Output busses let you route audio from the program to the
outputs on your audio hardware. When you play back audio,
you will always do this through one or several output busses.
Once you understand the bus system and know how to
set up the busses properly, it will be easy to go on with
recording, playing back, mixing, and doing surround work
(Cubase only).
Strategies
The bus configuration is saved with the project – therefore
it is a good idea to add and set up the busses you need
and save these in a template project (see “Save as Tem-
plate” on page 51).
When you start working on new projects, you start from
this template. That way you get your standard bus config
-
uration without having to make new bus settings for each
new project. If you need to work with different bus config-
urations in different projects, you can either create several
different templates or store your configurations as presets
(see “Presets” on page 29). The templates can of course
also contain other settings that you regularly use – sample
rate, record format, a basic track layout, etc.
So, which type of busses do you need? This depends on
your audio hardware, your general audio setup (e. g. sur-
round speaker setup) and what kind of projects you work
with.