I'm trying to migrate from Sonar to Cubase 5, and so far the biggest hiccup in my workflow I've encountered has been the way inserts are handled in Cubase. In Sonar, I can easily move or copy inserts by drag and dropping them between tracks and projects. No saving presets or anything. I'd like to be able to do that in Cubase, but I can't even figure out how to apply this from track to track in the same project, let alone keep two projects open and active simultaneously. I'm assuming the difficulty comes from me still learning the system.

To summarize and clarify my questions:

1) I want to copy individual inserts between tracks so that they retain their settings via drag and drop.

2) I want to work on two projects simultaneously.

3) I want to perform the action specified in #1 between the two active projects.

I'll keep going over the manual and searching online, but for whatever reason, I'm having a hard time with this. I can't imagine the functionality isn't there if Sonar did all these things so easily. I don't feel like I'm asking for much.

This is supported in Cubase 6. You may want to upgrade to current version, 6.5

That simply stuns me. I've been with Cakewalk since Sonar 6 and they've always had these features. I might have to rethink this migration.

You do it via the mixer. Open the extended panel at the top of the mixer to show inserts and then you can simply drag one across to another track. I think if you hold alt (may be ctrl I forget) it makes a copy.

Are you demoing Cubase 5? There is a demo of Cubase 6.5:

http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/cubase/trial_version.ht ml

with Cubase through C5 this is not possible, only one can be active simultaneously.

Your best bet here would be to copy and paste from the mixer to your new project, but you have to activate the target project first.

I agree, this is something that would be cool to be able to do (and I guess you can now in C6), although some projects are just too big to have open at the same time. There are some things I still miss from my Sonar days too...

I'm curious why someone would need to do this so often as to make a crucial host decision (that's non-judgmental, just curious)?

well, I can see it. I use VE Pro to host most things [connected to C5] and inserts are movable by drag and drop and you can alt/option drag and drop copies, it's so much better. I may not want to duplicate any but one plugin.

I wouldn't expect two active projects open would work connected w. soft instruments. I could see it with audio-only projects though.

Do you mean between multiple instances of VE Pro? Because you can drag/copy/drop in the Cubase Mixer, of course.

No, in the one instance. For another project/frame it's about a copy of the channel strip as a whole.

I don't think you can drag/drop them in C5.
Last edited by jancivil on Wed May 09, 2012 12:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

But that's the same as Cubase, no?

per Cubase 5, apparently not. drag and drop in the mixer?

hmmm, I must have imagined 'drag a copy by alt/option'. drag/move.
Last edited by jancivil on Wed May 09, 2012 12:13 pm; edited 1 time in total

Yes, if we're talking about the mixer(s) within the same project. Drag, drop, copy, etc.

AHA! thanks for that, I see how now. yes! click at the top of the thing.

Maybe you missed it, but you can.

All you have to do is put your mouse over the right-hand side of the insert (the cursor will change to a hand), then drag your insert (or ctrl/cmd+drag for copy) to any other Mixer channel.