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VST instruments and instrument tracks
• Select “Freeze Instrument and Channels” if you want to
freeze all pre-fader insert effects for the VST instrument
channels.
If your VST instrument channels are set up with the desired insert effects
and you do not need to edit these, select this option.
• You can set a Tail Size time to let sounds complete their
normal release cycle.
Otherwise, the sound might be cut off at the very end of the freeze file.
• When you activate “Unload Instrument when Frozen”,
the frozen VST instrument will be removed.
This is useful if you are freezing an instrument that uses a lot of RAM, e. g.
for pre-loading samples. By unloading the instrument, the RAM becomes
available for other plug-ins, etc.
4. Click OK.
A progress dialog is shown while the program renders the VST instru-
ment audio to a file on your hard disk.
The Freeze button lights up. If you check the Project win-
dow at this point, you will find that the relevant MIDI/in-
strument tracks have grayed out controls in the track list
and Inspector. Furthermore, the MIDI parts are locked and
cannot be moved.
5. Play back the project.
You will hear exactly the same sound as before freezing the VST instru-
ment – but the CPU load will be considerably less!
• If you selected “Freeze Instrument and Channels”, any
insert effects used by the VST instrument are also frozen
(except for the post-fader inserts – Cubase Elements
only). However, you can always adjust level, pan, sends,
and EQ for frozen VST instruments.
Unfreezing
If you need to make adjustments (either to the MIDI tracks,
to the VST instrument parameters or to the VST instru
-
ment channels if these were frozen) you need to unfreeze
the VST instrument:
1. Click the Freeze button for the VST instrument again
(either in the VST Instruments window or in the Inspector).
You will be asked to confirm this operation.
2. Click “Unfreeze”.
The tracks and VST instrument are restored and the rendered “freeze
file” is deleted.
VST instruments and processor load
If you are working with VST 3 instruments, another way to
relieve processor load is the “Suspend VST3 plug-in pro-
cessing when no audio signals are received” option in the
Preferences dialog (VST–Plug-ins page). This is described
in the section
“Smart plug-in processing” on page 132.
Using presets for VSTi configuration
About track presets and VST presets
Track presets and VST presets allow you to quickly set up
tracks or instruments with all the settings required for the
sound you want. Cubase provides various types of pre
-
sets for various purposes. Two of these are of relevance
for VST instruments:
• Track presets for instrument tracks store the parameter
settings of a VST instrument together with all track/chan-
nel settings (applied audio insert effects, etc.).
Instrument track presets can only be applied to instrument tracks, not to
instrument channels activated in the VST Instruments window.
• VST presets store all panel settings for a plug-in (VST
instruments and VST effects), but no track/channel set-
tings.
Note that you can create instrument tracks from VST 3 presets, i. e. se-
lecting a VST 3 preset will create an instrument track with all settings
stored in the VST preset plus an “empty” track.
As described in the chapter “Audio effects” on page 131,
there are two types of VST presets that can be used: the
VST 2 standard FXB/FXP files and the VST 3 preset stan
-
dard with the extension “.vstpreset”. Some of the included
VST instruments use the VST 2 preset standard, and oth
-
ers use the VST 3 standard.
All VST 2 instruments can import FXB/FXP files and also
convert them to the VST 3 standard. Once converted, you
can use all VST 3 features, see
“About earlier VST instru-
ment presets” on page 154.
Ö For further information on track presets and VST
presets, see the chapter
“Working with track presets” on
page 221.