MIDI tracks to 'instrument tracks' in Cubase 5

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Case in point with Reaper. People often say it has 2-3 developers which is really not true. It probably has like 9-12 developers when you count all the guys doing extension code and JS plugs on their own and sharing it with others.

Some of that stuff is great. You don't have to love and even use the daw to appreciate that kinda thing and how it can be very helpful at times... and even wish you had some of it in your weapon of choice.

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present wrote:LawrenceF - yep, entirely agree. It's a difficult one!

PS. 'virtual pouting' - lol!
LOL, it was the best term I could come up with. I kind of giggled at it myself. I know what I MEANT, but couldn't think of a good word. Hence, "virtual pouting".

Brent
My host is better than your host

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KBSoundSmith wrote:go to the "Windows" menu and click on VST Instruments (shortcut is F11). That is where you load up a VST that can have multiple MIDI tracks routed to it.
wow. been using cubase all my life, and i never thought there's another way of using vst instrument.

whats the benefit of using 'instrument track' rather than midi track assigned to an instrument from f11 stack?

thanks!
experience is what you get for not having got what you wanted
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Win XP Pro SP3

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creaze wrote:
KBSoundSmith wrote:go to the "Windows" menu and click on VST Instruments (shortcut is F11). That is where you load up a VST that can have multiple MIDI tracks routed to it.
wow. been using cubase all my life, and i never thought there's another way of using vst instrument.
Your Cubase live must be rather short. :hihi:

AFAIK (jumped straight to Cubase 5 from SX 3) that was the only way to use a VSTi until Cubase 4.x.


Cheers,
LiteOn

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LiteOn wrote:
creaze wrote:
KBSoundSmith wrote:go to the "Windows" menu and click on VST Instruments (shortcut is F11). That is where you load up a VST that can have multiple MIDI tracks routed to it.
wow. been using cubase all my life, and i never thought there's another way of using vst instrument.
Your Cubase live must be rather short. :hihi:

AFAIK (jumped straight to Cubase 5 from SX 3) that was the only way to use a VSTi until Cubase 4.x.


Cheers,
LiteOn
strange, i clearly remember having done this in cubase sx 2.2. don't remember exactly which way it worked in VST24 3.7, but i wasnt that much into VSTi back then. altough, that thing about audichannels, that you can assign and re-assign your audiotracks to -- i still sometimes miss it.
experience is what you get for not having got what you wanted
---------------
Core 2 Duo E8600; RAM 3.25G
M-Audio Delta 2496
Win XP Pro SP3

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creaze wrote:whats the benefit of using 'instrument track' rather than midi track assigned to an instrument from f11 stack?

thanks!
There are a few.

- All the settings including the instrument and it's settings can be stored in track presets and track archives. Say you've hooked up a synth bass with 4 insert plugs that's really cool. Save it as a instrument preset and call it into any project. You can't do that with the VSTI rack.

If you look in Media Bay you'll see all of the VSTI's there's as one big combined instrument library. All of those will load instrument tracks. So instead of picking an instrument by name and then a sound, you pick a sound which loads the instrument, any instrument, and a collection of plugs which helps makes that sound, like the reverb along with the Ampsim below.

When you go to call a "patch" preset all of the instruments and all of their sounds are directly available, not just the presets for the currently loaded instrument. It's (imo) a really innovative system in that regard.

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- Midi and audio share the same arrange and mixer channel so it keeps the project track count down.

- General Midi. Halion One will optionally load one instance for each GM sound on standard midi files using instrument tracks.

I think the plan is to eventually bring multiple outputs and multiple midi channels to instrument tracks. The stereo output only thing is a bit of a bummer but loading, say 6 Halion One's into 6 instrument tracks for drum parts, Kick, Snare, hats, toms, whatever... works really well and gives a lot of control as you can pick those parts from different kits.

I see where they were going with instrument tracks and it makes sense. I just don't think it's quite finished yet.

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wow, this is a detailed explanation, thanks!

so it was this instrument thing, that appeared with cubase4 first.
yet, that feature sounds to me as producing more complexity then solving. pre-set channel setup, that's it? what's the problem with vsti's built-in effects and presets? looks like steinburgers kinda try to pull the coat from the plugin's own enviroment to themselves.

now every instrument track is gonna load a new instance of say hypersonic (which i use a lot and multi-channel) or stylus or, beg your pardon, superior drummer?

by the way, after jumping from sx31 to 5 i found that my vst-quick-presets made for favourite plugins just dissapeared. and using fxb's has become harder — the program is offering this unified preset system. you know what, i say this sucks.

the problem of the topic-starter, again. me, i use to have half a dozen backup tracks for every midi-part of mine. cause im a bad performer. after repeating over and over the take i come up with a recording that seems to be ok. and before making a new take i back this up in one of the muted backup tracks. its for my own comfort, i almost never use them. but every track has to play the same instrument and channel, once i unmute it. i see its not makeable with instrument tracks.

in other words, its another reason to consider setting back to sx3, where i was sooooo happy!

.....just some thoughts of mine, sorry the flood =)
experience is what you get for not having got what you wanted
---------------
Core 2 Duo E8600; RAM 3.25G
M-Audio Delta 2496
Win XP Pro SP3

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creaze wrote:now every instrument track is gonna load a new instance of say hypersonic (which i use a lot and multi-channel) or stylus or, beg your pardon, superior drummer?
Erhm... no. For those things you could use the rack. For any instrument that will only play one sound and one midi channel from that instrument, instrument tracks are (imo) a subjectively better choice for some of the reasons listed above.

You get to choose. If you like the older SX3 method better, simply ignore the instrument track option - pretend they don 't exist - and just use midi tracks that point to the rack? Nobody is forced to use the instrument tracks... it's a choice.

It's odd when people complain about things that they don't even have to use. Ignore it.
Last edited by LawrenceF on Sun Nov 15, 2009 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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koolkeys wrote:When in reality, they just prefer Reaper/Ableton/whatever. There are no rights and wrongs. It's just discussion. Don't take it as anything else.
More of this probably comes down to feel than people realize. If you use mostly 3rd party plug-ins, there aren't necessarily huge differences between SX3 and 5 yet the feel of SX3 is somehow clunky and old in comparison.

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To avoid the appearance of fanboyism... I'm updating my OSX installation of Cubase 5.0 to 5.1 as we speak.

It's suddenly crashing all over the place. :lol:

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LawrenceF wrote:It's odd when people complain about things that they don't even have to use.
well, ehm, sorry to have sounded like a jerk, i havent been taken anything away indeed :-/

that's what i'm doing right now actually: using cube5 the sx3-way and trying out what's new outthere. maybe im gonna like it. just a pity, steinberg doesent concentrate on workflow issues. like for instance, the new tempo track and tempo and signature phylosophy. its completely reinvented, and as result my old ways dont work anymore.
experience is what you get for not having got what you wanted
---------------
Core 2 Duo E8600; RAM 3.25G
M-Audio Delta 2496
Win XP Pro SP3

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creaze wrote:like for instance, the new tempo track and tempo and signature phylosophy. its completely reinvented, and as result my old ways dont work anymore.
Ok. I'll take your word for it not personally doing a lot of time sig editing.

What changed? It looks (the tempo editor window) just like SX's to me. The other new stuff to do that on the timeline is optional.

Thanks... but I honestly have no idea what you mean.

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LawrenceF wrote:What changed? It looks (the tempo editor window) just like SX's to me.
that tempo and sig are now separate worlds. i can no longer change signature in the transport panel. and tempo editing has become more complex: i can no longer just drag the line with the pointer, i have to type in the new tempo (or drag upon transport panel) in some unconvenient way. i don't have cube5 at this system here, i cant tell exactly, but there's a number of these minor workflow changes that distract me just every minute, cause my old movements that i'm used to no longer work.

i didn't come to exploring all new features yet — maybe there's something good, too. like the oprion of changing the sig for (i.e. prolonging) a separate bar with automatically pushing the rest of the song with the border of that bar -- something i honestly missed in sx3
experience is what you get for not having got what you wanted
---------------
Core 2 Duo E8600; RAM 3.25G
M-Audio Delta 2496
Win XP Pro SP3

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LawrenceF wrote:To avoid the appearance of fanboyism... I'm updating my OSX installation of Cubase 5.0 to 5.1 as we speak.

It's suddenly crashing all over the place. :lol:
Why would you do that update, it's been panned!

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Bah! 4.52 has the collapsible vst windows!! I knew there was another annoying thing to upgrading to 5. LawrenceF you know these scary well!

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