Impressed with Cubase- am I crazy? What impresses you?

[fandango]

Unfortunately that's true, but Steinberg will be replacing the rack soon anyway in favour of multi-out instrument tracks.

That's not a bad idea, actually. Though I've kinda become used to the synth rack as... well.. just that. A rack of stuff that can be accessed, added, or removed as necessary.

Is this likely to be a 5.5 update kinda feature, or are we looking at 6 for this sort of functionality?

[LawrenceF]

Unfortunately that's true, but Steinberg will be replacing the rack soon anyway in favour of multi-out instrument tracks.
But you can name and colourize the individual outs in the mixer and the MIDI channels, too, so imho that's a non-issue 99% of the time.
Ymmv,
susiwong

Cool, I didn't know they were gonna be dumping the rack.

As to the other thing, naming VSTi's in the rack, no big deal. The only time you need to see the name is when you send a midi channel to it. If it's multi-timbral / multi-output even if you could name it you can only name it one thing right?

Like a multi-output VSTi like Edirol Orchestral with 4 stereo outputs. Violins, Strings, Brass, Perc... midi feeding the same VSTi slot. When you assign a midi channel to it for any of those you will see the same name.

For things that aren't multi-output you use instrument tracks where that name doesn't even come into play.

If Kontackt is a multi-output sampler... you still can only name one instance one thing... right? If it has 16 stereo outs you still have to remember what the other 15 are for.

[fandango]

LawrenceF: FWIW, I find it very helpful to be able to name Kontakt instances in SONAR as I'll often stick numerous instruments of the same class into one instance of Kontakt across several channels, grouping them by section or whatever.

Synth Rack -> Kontakt1: (i.e., renamed "Strings")
Midi Ch 1: Cello I Marc
Midi Ch 2: Cello I Legato
..
Midi Ch 15: Violo II Marc

Synth Rack -> Kontakt2: (i.e., renamed "Brass")
Midi Ch 1: Horns I Solo
Midi Ch 2: Horns II Sustain
..
Midi Ch 15: Trombone Stac

[susiwong]

Cool, I didn't know they were gonna be dumping the rack.

One of the mods mentioned that lately, he didn't state an exact timeframe though.
Pure speculation, but atm N5 probably has priority, and it will have new features over C5, so maybe multi-out instrument tracks will be one of them.
If so we can hope to see them in C5.5 in about a year or so.
Since this is a major rewrite however we might have to wait for C6, who knows ?
Multi-out instrument tracks are one of my biggest wishes, for one reason -
multi-out track presets, so you can finally transplant a completely mixed drumset (Toontrack, Jamstix, BFD etc) from one project to another. Well, almost complete unless they come up with a way of including groups in the track presets. Anybody knows if Logic's "track presets" can include groups ?
Cheers,
susiwong

[LawrenceF]

LawrenceF: FWIW, I find it very helpful to be able to name Kontakt instances in SONAR as I'll often stick numerous instruments of the same class into one instance of Kontakt across several channels, grouping them by section or whatever.

Synth Rack -> Kontakt1: (i.e., renamed "Strings")
Midi Ch 1: Cello I Marc
Midi Ch 2: Cello I Legato
..
Midi Ch 15: Violo II Marc

Synth Rack -> Kontakt2: (i.e., renamed "Brass")
Midi Ch 1: Horns I Solo
Midi Ch 2: Horns II Sustain
..
Midi Ch 15: Trombone Stac

Sure, that makes sense I guess. Thanks.

[LawrenceF]

timeframe though.
Multi-out instrument tracks are one of my biggest wishes, for one reason -
multi-out track presets, so you can finally transplant a completely mixed drumset (Toontrack, Jamstix, BFD etc) from one project to another. Well, almost complete unless they come up with a way of including groups in the track presets.
susiwong

+1. They already include groups in XML files so if they were just to add instrument rack output definitions to those files we'd be set in the interim.

Audio tracks and their group routings remain intact when loading track archives. They curiously left rack outputs out of that format.

+1 Susi.

It always struck me as odd that the rack itself doesn't have "preset" storage where you can just save the state of the entire rack right there on the rack.

[susiwong]

Hi Lawrence I looked at what I was doing during arrangement again last night and it looks like it has happening when I edit events in the arrange window particularly if I edit the start of an event rather than the end.. I will zoom in and it edit with snap off then apply snap to make sure the hits are on the beat etc which is where somehow an offset is being created .. at least now I am aware of what could be causing the problem I can work with it.

glasgene,
good you found the cause.
If it's part of your workflow you'll find a way of dealing with it.
Take a close look at the Logical Editors, they have some cool tricks up their virtual sleeves that might be handy here.
Cheers,
susiwong

[koolkeys]

Ok, so I figured out a way to get around something that I thought was going to be a problem. I was a bit disappointed that you can't save track presets with multiple tracks along with all instruments, effects, etc. You can only save track presets as single tracks to apply to a track already in the project(correct me if I'm wrong).

But then I discovered Track Archives. It's everything that track presets SHOULD be. You can select any tracks you want to save as a preset(say you set up a multi-timbral instrument with all tracks for different channels), then export a track archive. It saves track configurations, MIDI files, audio files, etc. in an XML file, and gives you the option to reference the media files or save them with the archive.

Then just import the track archive into your project and all settings, tracks, and files that you exported will be inserted into your project. YAY!

I know this may not be new to some, but it's just my most recent discovery. This way you don't have to have a track present to load up a preset, and you can save entire sets of tracks with settings in place to import into any project you want.

Anyways, glad I noticed this. This made my day!

Brent

[LawrenceF]

You can save templates of multiple tracks but the archives do work better.

[susiwong]

But then I discovered Track Archives. It's everything that track presets SHOULD be. You can select any tracks you want to save as a preset(say you set up a multi-timbral instrument with all tracks for different channels), then export a track archive. It saves track configurations, MIDI files, audio files, etc. in an XML file, and gives you the option to reference the media files or save them with the archive.

But unfortunately this doesn't work with VSTis loaded in the rack.
So multi-out VSTis where this feature would be needed most aren't supported.
Time to lose the rack, Steinberg !
Ymmv,
susiwong

[koolkeys]

You can save templates of multiple tracks but the archives do work better.

I didn't know you could do that. Not that I've made huge attempts to read the manual yet. I've just been learning as I go.

Brent

[koolkeys]

But then I discovered Track Archives. It's everything that track presets SHOULD be. You can select any tracks you want to save as a preset(say you set up a multi-timbral instrument with all tracks for different channels), then export a track archive. It saves track configurations, MIDI files, audio files, etc. in an XML file, and gives you the option to reference the media files or save them with the archive.

But unfortunately this doesn't work with VSTis loaded in the rack.
So multi-out VSTis where this feature would be needed most aren't supported.
Time to lose the rack, Steinberg !
Ymmv,
susiwong

Yeah, bummer. But hey, it's a start! At the very least it can save you lots of time setting up track settings.

I like the way that Sonar handles templates. You can save any tracks, including busses and all instruments(Sonar also uses a rack and if that plugin isn't in the rack already, it will add it, same with busses). You can even filter which parts of the preset you want to import, such as excluding the busses, instruments, only adding instruments if there is one by that name, whether to import folders, etc. Best implementation I've seen.

But it's not like Cubase hasn't been wonderful overall. I tell ya, it feels great to work in. The workflow is just killer, honestly.

Brent

[LawrenceF]

You can save templates of multiple tracks but the archives do work better.

I didn't know you could do that. Not that I've made huge attempts to read the manual yet. I've just been learning as I go.

Brent

Yep. Multitrack Presets, page 290 in the *.pdf manual. But again, *.xml is better in many ways.

And Susi is dead on about the racked up instruments, pain in the petuity.

Here's one of my *.xml drum presets which includes nested groups.

[koolkeys]

Yeah, I just read it now since you mentioned it. I think I'll use XML for that since with the track presets you have to insert the tracks first. With the XML, it adds the tracks for you. Definitely better.

Brent

[LawrenceF]

Until Steiny fixes the rack or the instrument channels here is a workaround to recalling multi-output VSTi mixes with plugs/eq/sends.

Load your VSTi in the rack and assign the multi outs manually. Create group channels 1-to-1 in the project like in the graphic below...



... and assign your VSTi outs to the corresponding groups.

Now your VSTi outputs are feeding audio channels which can be stored and recalled via *.xml or track presets... so to recall a mix of EZdrummer in this case ...

1. Load the *.xml archive and import the tracks with the plugs, EQ, FX sends you want.

2. Load the VSTi and assign it's multi outputs to the groups loaded by the track archive.

You still have to manually assign those VSTi output channels to the groups but it does allow pulling in a setup saved from another project once you push those stems to the group tracks.

So if this is my default drum mix for EZ, I'm going to save those 8 groups to a *.xml archive, call it up in other projects, and push mu EZDrummer stems into those groups.