Getting Started

Tutorials by Steve Kostrey

Revision and Quality Control: Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Marion Bröer, Sabine Pfeifer, Heike Schilling
The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part
of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement
and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publica-
tion may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission
by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. Windows XP is a trademark of
Microsoft Corporation. Windows Vista is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the
United States and/or other countries. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. Macintosh and Power Macintosh
are registered trademarks.
Release Date: June 30, 2009
© Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 2009.
All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
5 Introduction 47 Tutorial 4: Working with loops
6 Welcome 48 Loop Browser
6 About the manuals and the help 48 Adding loops
7 About the program versions 49 Making copies
7 Key command conventions 49 Insert into Project
7 How you can reach us
50 Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
8 System requirements and installation 51 Introduction
9 About this chapter 51 Setting levels
9 Minimum requirements 51 Setting panorama
10 Hardware installation 52 Mute and solo
12 Installing Cubase Essential 53 Adding EQ
12 Defragmenting the hard disk (Windows only) 54 Audio effects
12 Register your software 56 About automation
57 Exporting
13 Setting up your system
14 Setting up audio 59 Tutorial 6: Media management
18 Setting up MIDI 60 Background
20 Connecting a synchronizer 60 MediaBay, Loop Browser and Sound Browser
20 Setting up video 61 Scanning with the browser
20 Optimizing audio performance 63 Searching for media
63 Auditioning media with the Scope
23 Tutorial 1: Recording audio 64 Tagging
24 Creating a new project
25 Setting up the VST connections 65 Index
26 Level settings and recording
28 Playback
29 Recording modes with cycle off
30 Cycle recording

32 Tutorial 2: Editing audio

33 Event operations
37 Processing audio
39 Offline Process History

40 Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI

41 Introduction
41 Creating an instrument track
42 Browsing sounds
42 MIDI recording
43 MIDI playback
43 Recording modes with cycle off
44 Cycle recording
45 The Key Editor
46 The Controller lane

4
Table of Contents
 1
Introduction
Welcome Don’t forget to register at MySteinberg and get access to
online support offers and additional exclusive services.
Congratulations and thank you for your purchase of Stein- We also welcome you to the Cubase community at our
berg Cubase Essential. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary online forum cubase.net.
of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH and our key
See you around! Your Steinberg Cubase Essential Team
message “Creativity First” has never had more meaning
than today. Over many years and many product genera-
tions Cubase has grown from a classic MIDI sequencer to About the manuals and the help
possibly the most powerful music production software
money can buy. And as a Cubase Essential user, you have The Cubase Essential documentation is divided into sev-
now become a member of the largest community of music eral sections, as listed below. Some of the documents are
software users on the planet! in Adobe Acrobat format (extension “.pdf”) – these can be
accessed in the following ways:
With Cubase Essential you have chosen a music produc-
tion system which will take you from the very first idea to • You can open the pdf documents from the Documentation
the final mix. Whether you’re a keyboard player, a song- submenu on the Help menu in the program.
writer, an instrumentalist or a mixing engineer – Cubase • Under Windows you can also open these documents from the
Essential has it all covered and gives you the tools you Cubase Essential Documentation subfolder on the Start menu.
need to record, edit, mix and master your music. The intro- • Under Mac OS X the pdf documents are located in the folder
duction of industry standards like VST and ASIO are good “/Library/Documentation/Steinberg/Cubase Essential 5”.
examples for how Steinberg technology has always driven Ö To read the pdf documents, you need to have a suit-
music technology and paved ways for others to follow. able pdf reader application installed on your computer.
Designed by the software engineers at Steinberg and the An installer for Adobe Reader is provided on the program DVD.
hardware experts at Yamaha, Steinberg Advanced Inte-
gration hardware is the ideal choice for you as a valued The Getting Started manual
Cubase Essential customer. Full plug&play connectivity This is the manual you are reading now. It covers the fol-
and True Integrated Monitoring™ are only two of the many lowing areas:
advantages that come with hardware and software that
have been made for each other. • Computer requirements.
• Installation issues.
Cubase Essential 5 puts new creative tools into your hands, • Setting up your system for audio, MIDI and/or video work.
which allow you to realize your musical ideas more easily • Tutorials describing the most common procedures for record-
and intuitively than ever before. The new Pitch Correct ing, playing back, mixing and editing in Cubase Essential.
plug-in in Cubase Essential 5 introduces easy and auto-
matic intonation control and scale correction of vocal and In other words, this manual does not go into detail on any
monophonic instrument recordings. And the Beat Designer Cubase Essential windows, functions or procedures.
plug-in allows you to get hands-on with beats for step pro-
gramming and designing drum patterns in an easy yet pow- The Operation Manual
erful way. The exceptional new synthesizer Prologue The Operation Manual is the main Cubase Essential refer-
combines multi-mode variable resonance filters, powerful ence documentation, with detailed descriptions of Cubase
modulation capabilities and excellent onboard effects and Essential operations, parameters, functions and techniques.
includes a library with 230 designed sounds with unique You should be familiar with the concepts and methods de-
character – from cutting leads to earthshaking basses and scribed in the Getting Started manual before moving on to
ultra-expressive pads. These are just a few examples of the Operation Manual.
how Cubase Essential 5 supports and expands your cre-
ative vision.

6
Introduction
Plug-in Reference For example, [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Z] means “press [Ctrl] un-
der Windows or [Command] under Mac OS X, then press
This manual describes the features and parameters of the
[Z]”. Similarly, [Alt]/[Option]-[X] means “press [Alt] under
included VST plug-ins, realtime audio effects, VST Instru-
Windows or [Option] under Mac OS X, then press [X]”.
ments and the MIDI effects.
Ö Please note that this manual often refers to “right-
Remote Control Devices clicking”, e.g. to open context menus. If you are using a
This pdf document lists the supported MIDI remote control Macintosh computer with a single-button mouse, hold
devices. down [Ctrl] and click.

Menu Reference How you can reach us

This pdf document provides a list of all menus and their
On the Help menu in Cubase Essential you will find items
options with a brief description, for quick reference.
for getting additional information and help:
The dialog help • On the “Steinberg on the Web” submenu, you can find
links to various Steinberg web sites. Selecting one will au-
To get information about the active dialog, click its Help
tomatically launch your browser application and open the
button.
page.
You can find support and compatibility information, answers to frequently
About the program versions asked questions, links for downloading new drivers, etc. This requires
that you have a web browser application installed on your computer, and
The documentation covers two different operating systems a working Internet connection.
or “platforms”; Windows and Mac OS X.
Some features and settings are specific to one of the plat-
forms, Windows or Mac OS X. This is clearly stated in the
applicable cases. In other words:

Ö If nothing else is said, all descriptions and procedures

in the documentation are valid for both Windows and Mac
OS X.
The screenshots are taken from the Windows version.

Key command conventions

Many of the default key commands in Cubase Essential
use modifier keys, some of which are different depending
on the operating system. For example, the default key
command for Undo is [Ctrl]-[Z] under Windows and
[Command]-[Z] under Mac OS X.
When key commands with modifier keys are described in
this manual, they are shown with the Windows modifier
key first, in the following way:
[Win modifier key]/[Mac modifier key]-[key]

7
Introduction
 2
System requirements and installation
About this chapter • Hard disk size – The size of the hard disk determines
how many minutes of audio you will be able to record.
This chapter describes the requirements and installation Recording one minute of stereo CD quality audio requires 10 MB of hard
procedures for the Windows version and the Mac version disk space. That is, eight stereo tracks in Cubase Essential use up at least
of Cubase Essential. 80 MB of disk space per recording minute.
• Hard disk speed – The speed of the hard drive also
Minimum requirements determines the number of audio tracks you can run.
That is the quantity of information that the disk can read, usually expressed
To use Cubase Essential, your computer must meet the as “sustained transfer rate”. Again, “the more the better” applies.
following minimum requirements: • Wheel mouse – Although a mouse without a wheel will
work fine with Cubase Essential, we recommend that you
Windows use a wheel mouse.
• Windows XP (Home or Professional, Service Pack 2), This will speed up value editing and scrolling considerably.
or Windows Vista (32-bit – see below)
• 2 GHz processor (Dual Core processor recommended) MIDI requirements
• 1024MB RAM If you intend to use the MIDI features of Cubase Essential,
• Windows DirectX compatible audio hardware; ASIO compati- you need the following:
ble audio hardware recommended for low latency performance.
• A MIDI interface to connect external MIDI equipment to your
• Display resolution of 1280x800 pixels recommended
computer.
• 4GB of free hard disk space
• A MIDI instrument.
• USB-eLicenser and USB component connector
• Any audio equipment required to listen to the sound from your
• DVD ROM drive with dual layer support required for installation
MIDI devices.
• Internet connection required for license activation

Macintosh Audio hardware

Cubase Essential will run with audio hardware that meets
• Mac OS X 10.5.5
the following specifications:
• PowerPC G5 (Intel Core Duo processor recommended)
• 1024MB RAM • Stereo.
• CoreAudio compatible audio hardware • 16 bit.
• Display resolution of 1280x800 pixels • Support of at least the 44.1kHz sampling rate.
• 4GB of free hard disk space • Windows – The audio hardware must be supplied with a spe-
• USB-eLicenser and USB component connector cial ASIO driver, or a DirectX compatible driver, see below.
• DVD ROM drive with dual layer support required for installation • Windows Vista only – If there is no dedicated ASIO driver avail-
• Internet connection required for license activation able, you can also use the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver.
• Mac – The audio hardware must be supplied with Mac OS X-
General notes on how to set up your system compatible drivers (CoreAudio or ASIO).

! On the Steinberg web site, under “Support–DAW

Components”, you can find detailed information on
what to consider when setting up a computer system
dedicated to audio work.
• RAM – There is a direct relation between the amount of
available RAM and the number of audio channels that you
can have running.
The amount of RAM specified above is the minimum requirement, but as
a general rule “the more the better” applies.

9
System requirements and installation
Using the built-in audio hardware of the Macintosh Ö Though the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver provides
(Mac only) low latency for all audio cards, you might get better results
with on-board audio cards than with external USB audio
As of this writing, all current Macintosh models provide at
devices.
least built-in 16 bit stereo audio hardware. For detailed
information, refer to the documentation describing your If the audio card communicates via DirectX
computer. (Windows only)
Depending on your preferences and requirements, using DirectX is a Microsoft “package” for handling various types
the built-in audio hardware may be sufficient for use with of multimedia data under Windows. Cubase Essential sup-
Cubase Essential. It is always available for selection in ports DirectX, or to be more precise, DirectSound, which is
Cubase Essential – you don’t need to install any additional a part of DirectX used for playing back and recording audio.
drivers. This requires two types of drivers:

About drivers • A DirectX driver for the audio card, allowing it to communicate
with DirectX. If the audio card supports DirectX, this driver
A driver is a piece of software that allows a program to should be supplied by the audio card manufacturer. If it isn’t
communicate with a certain piece of hardware. In this installed with the audio card, please check the manufacturer’s
case, the driver allows Cubase Essential to use the audio web site for more information.
hardware. For audio hardware, there are two different • The ASIO DirectX Full Duplex driver, allowing Cubase Essential
cases, requiring different driver configurations: to communicate with DirectX. This driver is included with Cu-
base Essential, and does not require any special installation.
If the audio hardware has a specific ASIO driver
Professional audio cards often come with an ASIO driver
written especially for the card. This allows for communica- Hardware installation
tion directly between Cubase Essential and the audio card.
As a result, audio cards with specific ASIO drivers can pro-
Copy protection
vide lower latency (input-output delay), which is crucial ! Please read the following section before installing
when monitoring audio via Cubase Essential or using VST the Cubase Essential software.
instruments. The ASIO driver may also provide special sup-
port for routing, synchronization, etc. Many Steinberg products use the USB-eLicenser (also re-
ferred to as a “dongle”), a hardware copy protection device.
Audio card-specific ASIO drivers are provided by the card Cubase Essential will not run if there is no USB-eLicenser
manufacturers. Make sure to check the manufacturer’s containing an activated license.
web site for the latest driver versions.
! If your audio hardware comes with a specific ASIO
driver we strongly recommend that you use this.

If the audio card communicates via the Generic Low

Latency ASIO driver (Windows Vista only)
If you are working with Windows Vista, you can use the The USB-eLicenser
Generic Low Latency ASIO driver. This is a generic ASIO
driver that provides ASIO support for all audio cards sup- The USB-eLicenser is a USB device on which your Stein-
ported by Windows Vista, thus allowing for low latency. berg software licenses are stored. All hardware-protected
The Generic Low Latency ASIO driver provides the Win- Steinberg products use the same type of device, and you
dows Vista Core Audio technology in Cubase Essential. can store more than one license on one device. Also, li-
No additional driver is needed. censes can (within certain limits) be transferred between
USB-Licensers – which is helpful, e.g. if you want to sell a
piece of software.

10
System requirements and installation
The License Control Center (which can be found on the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver (Windows Vista only)
Start menu on Windows systems or the Applications
On Windows Vista systems, you can also use the Generic
folder on a Mac) is the place where you can check the li-
Low Latency ASIO Driver if there is no specific ASIO driver
censes installed on your USB-eLicenser.
available. This driver is included with Cubase Essential and
• If you are using other copy-protected Steinberg prod- does not require any special installation.
ucts, you may want to transfer all licenses for your applica-
tions to only one USB-eLicenser, thus using up only one DirectX drivers (Windows only)
USB port of your computer. If your audio card is DirectX compatible, its DirectX drivers
To transfer licenses between USB-Licensers, launch the License Trans- will most likely be installed when you install the card. If you
fer wizard of the License Control Center and follow the instructions. have downloaded special DirectX drivers for the audio
• Cubase Essential is sold with an USB-eLicenser and an card, you should follow the manufacturer’s installation in-
Activation Code, which is found on the Essential Product structions.
License Information card within the product package. The
USB-eLicenser already contains a time-limited license Mac OS X drivers (Mac only)
that allows you to use Cubase Essential out-of-the-box for If you are using a Macintosh computer, make sure you are
a total of 25 non-consecutive hours. However, to be able using the latest Mac OS X drivers for your audio hardware.
to make unlimited use of your version of Cubase Essential, Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to install the driver.
you must activate your permanent license manually, using
the activation code. Testing the card
To do so, launch the License Download wizard of the License Control To make sure the audio card will work as expected, perform
Center and follow the instructions.
the following two tests:
• Steinberg software products always come with a license
• Use any software included with the audio card to make
activation code, but not always with an USB-eLicenser.
sure you can record and play back audio without problems.
If you want to activate a license for such a Steinberg software (e.g. an up-
date/upgrade, or a VSTi) on the USB-eLicenser you received with your • If the card is accessed via a standard operating system
original version of Cubase Essential, launch the License Download wizard driver, try playing back audio using the computer’s stan-
of the License Control Center and follow the instructions. dard audio application (e.g. Windows Media Player or
More information on the transfer or activation of licenses Apple iTunes).
can be found in the help for the License Control Center.
Installing a MIDI interface/synthesizer card
Installing the audio hardware and its driver Installation instructions for a MIDI interface should be in-
1. Install the audio card and related equipment in the cluded with the product. However, here’s an outline of the
computer, as described in the card’s documentation. necessary steps:
2. Install the driver for the card. 1. Install the interface (or MIDI synthesizer card) inside
Depending on the operating system of your computer, there are different your computer or connect it to a “port” (connector) on the
types of drivers that could apply: card-specific ASIO drivers, the Generic computer.
Low Latency ASIO Driver (Windows Vista only), DirectX drivers (Win- Which is right for you depends on which type of interface you have.
dows) or Mac OS X (Mac) drivers.
2. If the interface has a power supply and/or a power
Specific ASIO drivers switch, turn it on.

If your audio card has a specific ASIO driver, it may be in- 3. Install the driver for the interface, as described in the
cluded with the audio card, but you should always make documentation that comes with the interface.
sure to check the audio card manufacturer’s web site for You should also make sure to check the manufacturer’s web site for the
the most recent drivers. For details on how to install the latest driver updates.
driver, refer to the manufacturer’s instructions.

11
System requirements and installation
Installing Cubase Essential Register your software
The installation procedure puts all files in the right places, We encourage you to register your software! By doing so
automatically. you are entitled to technical support and kept aware of up-
dates and other news regarding Cubase Essential.
Depending on your system, the Cubase Essential 5 Start
Center program on the DVD may start automatically. If no You can register in the following ways:
interactive start screen appears, open the DVD and double-
• In Cubase Essential, open the Help menu and select
click the file “Cubase Essential 5 Start Center” to launch
the Registration option.
the interactive start screen. From there you can start the in- This option is an Internet link that will open the Registration page of the
stallation of Cubase Essential and browse through the ad- Steinberg web site. To register, simply follow the instructions on screen.
ditional options and information presented there.
• When you launch Cubase Essential, you will also be
In case you don’t want to install Cubase Essential via the prompted to launch the registration process.
interactive start screen, follow the procedure below:

Windows
1. Double-click the file called Setup.exe.
2. Follow the instructions on screen.

Macintosh
1. Double-click the file called “Cubase Essential 5.mpkg”.
2. Follow the instructions on screen.

About the tutorials

The program DVD also contains several tutorial project files
and videos. These are not installed during the installation,
but can be added manually from the DVD.
The tutorial chapters in this manual all refer to these tutorial
projects. So, to be able to follow the instructions in this
manual, you have to drag the files to your computer.
You will find the tutorial projects in the folder “Additional
Content”.

Defragmenting the hard disk

(Windows only)
If you plan to record audio on a hard disk where you have
already stored other files, now is the time to defragment it.
Defragmentation reorganizes the physical allocation of
space on the hard disk in order to optimize its performance.
It is done with a special defragmentation program.

! It is crucial to the audio recording performance that

your hard disk is optimized (defragmented). You
should make sure to defragment regularly.

12
System requirements and installation
 3
Setting up your system
Setting up audio • External mixing means having a hardware mixing device
with a group or bus system that can be used for feeding
! Make sure that all equipment is turned off before inputs on your audio hardware.
In the example below, four busses are used for feeding signals to the audio
making any connections!
hardware’s inputs. The four outputs are connected back to the mixer for
monitoring and playback. Remaining mixer inputs can be used for connect-
Connecting audio ing audio sources like microphones, instruments, etc.
Exactly how to set up your system depends on many dif-
ferent factors, e.g. the kind of project you wish to create,
the external equipment you want to use, or the computer
hardware available to you. Therefore, the following sec-
tions can only serve as examples.
How you connect your equipment, i.e. whether you use dig-
ital or analog connections, also depends on your individual
setup.

Stereo input and output – the simplest connection

If you only use a stereo input and output from Cubase Es-
sential, you can connect your audio hardware, e.g. the in-
A multi-channel audio setup using an external mixer
puts of your audio card or your audio interface, directly to
the input source and the outputs to a power amplifier and Ö When connecting an input source (like a mixer) to the
speaker. audio hardware, you should use output busses, sends or
similar that are separate from the mixer’s master output to
avoid recording what you are playing back. You may also
have mixing hardware that can be connected via FireWire.
• When using the Mixer inside Cubase Essential, you can
use the inputs on your audio hardware to connect micro-
phones and/or external devices. Use the outputs to con-
nect your monitoring equipment.

A simple stereo audio setup

This is probably the simplest of all setups – once you have

set up the internal input and output busses, you can con-
nect your audio source, e.g. a microphone, to your audio
interface and start recording.

Multi-channel input and output

Mixing inside Cubase Essential
Most likely however, you will have other audio equipment
that you want to integrate with Cubase Essential, using
several input and output channels. Depending on the
equipment available to you, there are two ways to go: ei-
ther mixing using an external mixing desk, or mixing using
the mixer inside Cubase Essential.

14
Setting up your system
Recording from a CD player Making settings for the audio hardware
Most computers come with a CD-ROM drive that can also Most audio cards come with one or more small applica-
be used as a regular CD player. In some cases the CD tions that allow you to configure the inputs of the hard-
player is internally connected to the audio hardware so ware to your liking. This includes:
that you can record the output of the CD player directly
• Selecting which inputs/outputs are active.
into Cubase Essential (consult the audio hardware docu-
• Setting up word clock synchronization (if available).
mentation if you are uncertain).
• Turning monitoring via the hardware on/off (see “About moni-
• All routing and level adjustments for recording from a CD toring” on page 18).
(if available) are done in the audio hardware setup application • Setting levels for each input. This is very important!
(see below). • Setting levels for the outputs, so that they match the equip-
• You can also grab audio tracks directly from a CD in Cubase ment you use for monitoring.
Essential (see the chapter “File Handling” in the Operation • Selecting digital input and output formats.
Manual). • Making settings for the audio buffers.

Word Clock connections In many cases all available settings for the audio hardware
are gathered in a control panel, which can be opened from
If you are using a digital audio connection, you may also within Cubase Essential as described below (or opened
need a word clock connection between the audio hard- separately, when Cubase Essential isn’t running). In some
ware and external devices. Please refer to the documenta- cases, there may be several different applications and
tion that came with the audio hardware for details. panels – please refer to the audio hardware documenta-
tion for details.
! It is very important that word clock synchronization is
done correctly or there might be clicks and crackles Plug and Play support for ASIO devices
in recordings that you make!
The Steinberg MR816 hardware series supports Plug and
About recording levels and inputs Play in Cubase Essential. These devices can be plugged in
and switched on while the application is running. Cubase
When you connect your equipment, you should make sure
Essential will automatically use the driver of the MR816 se-
that the impedance and levels of the audio sources and in-
ries and will re-map the VST connections accordingly.
puts are matched. Typically, different inputs may be de-
signed for use with microphones, consumer line level • Please note that Steinberg cannot guarantee that this
(-10dBV) or professional line level (+4dBV), or you may will work with other hardware. If you are unsure of whether
be able to adjust input characteristics on the audio inter- your device supports plug and play, please consult its
face or in its control panel. Please check the audio hard- documentation.
ware documentation for details.
! If a device that does not support Plug and Play is
Using the correct types of input is important to avoid dis- connected/disconnected while the computer is run-
tortion or noisy recordings. ning, it may get damaged.
! Cubase Essential does not provide any input level
adjustments for the signals coming in to your audio
hardware, since these are handled differently for
each card. Adjusting input levels is either done in a
special application included with the hardware or
from its control panel (see below).

15
Setting up your system
Selecting a driver and making audio settings • Under Windows, you open the control panel by clicking
in Cubase Essential the Control Panel button.
The control panel that appears when you click this button is provided
The first thing you need to do is select the correct driver in by the audio hardware manufacturer – not Cubase Essential (unless you
Cubase Essential to make sure that the program can com- use DirectX, see below). Hence it will be different for each audio card
municate with the audio hardware: brand and model.
1. Launch Cubase Essential, select Device Setup from The control panels for the ASIO DirectX driver and the Generic Low La-
tency ASIO Driver (Windows Vista only) are exceptions, in that they are
the Devices menu and click on VST Audio System in the
provided by Steinberg and described in the dialog help, opened by click-
Devices list to the left. ing the Help button in the dialog. See also the notes on DirectX below.
• Under Mac OS X, the control panel for your audio hard-
ware is opened by clicking the “Open Config App” button
on the settings page for your audio device in the Device
Setup dialog.
Note that this button is available only for some hardware products. If
“Open Config App” is not available in your setup, refer to the documen-
tation that came with your audio hardware for information on where to
make hardware settings.
5. If you plan to use several audio applications simulta-
neously, you may want to activate the option “Release
Driver when Application is in Background” on the VST
Audio System page. This will allow another application to
play back via your audio hardware even though Cubase
Essential is running.
The application that is currently active (i.e. the “top window” on the desk-
The VST Audio System page in the Device Setup dialog top) will get access to the audio hardware. Make sure that any other au-
2. Select your audio hardware driver from the ASIO dio application accessing the audio hardware is also set to release the
ASIO (or Mac OS X) driver so Cubase Essential can use it when it be-
Driver menu.
comes the active application again.
There may be several options here that all refer to the same audio hard-
ware. When you have selected a driver, it is added to the Devices list. 6. If your audio hardware and its driver support ASIO
Direct Monitoring, you may want to activate the Direct
! Under Windows, we strongly recommend that you ac-
Monitoring checkbox on the page for the driver.
cess your hardware via an ASIO driver written specifi- Read more about monitoring later in this chapter and in the chapter
cally for the hardware, if available. If no ASIO driver is “Recording” in the Operation Manual.
installed, we recommend that you check with your au-
dio hardware manufacturer if they have an ASIO driver 7. Click Apply and then OK to close the dialog.
available, for example for download via the Internet.

! On Windows Vista systems, you can also use the

Generic Low Latency ASIO driver if no specific
ASIO driver is available.
3. Select the driver in the Devices list to open the driver
settings for your audio hardware.
4. Bring up the control panel for the audio hardware and
adjust the settings as recommended by the audio hardware
manufacturer.

16
Setting up your system
If you are using audio hardware with a DirectX driver Setting up the input and output ports
(Windows only)
Once you have selected the driver and made the settings
! If your audio hardware does not have a specific ASIO as described above, you need to specify which inputs and
driver and your Windows version does not support the outputs should be used and name these:
Generic Low Latency ASIO driver, a DirectX driver is 1. In the Device Setup dialog, select your driver in the De-
the next best option. vices list on the left to display the driver settings for your
Cubase Essential comes with a driver called ASIO DirectX audio hardware.
Full Duplex, available for selection on the ASIO Driver pop-
up menu (VST Audio System page).

Ö To be able to take full advantage of DirectX Full Duplex,

the audio hardware must support WDM (Windows Driver
Model) in combination with DirectX version 8.1 or higher.
In all other cases, the audio inputs will be emulated by DirectX (see the
dialog help for the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Setup dialog for details
about how this is reported).

Ö During the installation of Cubase Essential, the latest

DirectX version will be installed on your computer.
When the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex driver is selected in
the Device Setup dialog, you can open the ASIO Control
Panel and adjust the following settings (for more details,
click the Help button in the control panel):
All input and output ports on the audio hardware are listed.
• Direct Sound Output and Input Ports
In the list on the left in the window, all available Direct Sound output and 2. To hide a port, click in the “Visible” column for the port
input ports are listed. In many cases, there will be only one port in each (deselecting the checkbox).
list. To activate or deactivate a port in the list, click the checkbox in the Ports that aren’t visible cannot be selected in the VST Connections win-
left column. If the checkbox is ticked, the port is activated. dow where you set up your input and output busses – see “Setting up
the VST connections” on page 25 and the chapter “VST Connections:
• You can edit the Buffer Size and Offset settings in this Setting up input and output busses” in the Operation Manual.
list if necessary, by double-clicking on the value and typ-
ing in a new value. ! If you attempt to hide a port that is already used by a
In most cases, the default settings will work fine. Audio buffers are used bus you will be asked whether this is really what you
when audio data is transferred between Cubase Essential and the audio want – note that this will disable the port!
card. While larger buffers ensure that playback will occur without glitches,
the latency (the time between the moment Cubase Essential sends out 3. To rename a port, click on its name in the “Show as”
the data and when it actually reaches the output) will be higher. column and type in a new name.
• Offset Ö It is a good idea to give your ports names that are re-
If a constant offset is audible during playback of Audio and MIDI record- lated to the channel configuration (rather than to the actual
ings, you can adjust the output or input latency time using this value. hardware model)!
4. Click OK to close the Device Setup dialog and apply
your changes.

17
Setting up your system
About monitoring Setting up MIDI
In Cubase Essential, monitoring means listening to the
input signal while preparing to record or while recording. ! Make sure that all equipment is turned off before
There are three ways to monitor: making any connections!

External monitoring This section describes how to connect and set up MIDI
equipment. If you have no MIDI equipment, you can skip
External monitoring (listening to the input signal before it this section. Note that this is only an example – you might
goes into Cubase Essential) requires an external mixer for need or want to hook things up differently!
mixing the audio playback with the input signal. This can
be a classic mixing desk or a mixer application for your au- Connecting the MIDI equipment
dio hardware, if this has a mode in which the input audio is
sent back out again (usually called “Thru”, “Direct Thru” or In this example we assume that you have a MIDI keyboard
similar). and an external MIDI sound module. The keyboard is used
both for feeding the computer with MIDI messages for re-
Via Cubase Essential cording and for playing back MIDI tracks. The sound mod-
ule is used for playback only. Using Cubase Essential’s
In this case, the audio passes from the input into Cubase
MIDI Thru feature (described later) you will be able to hear
Essential, possibly through Cubase Essential effects and
the correct sound from the sound module while playing
EQ and then back to the output. You control monitoring
the keyboard or recording.
via settings in Cubase Essential.
This allows you to control the monitoring level from Cubase
Essential and add effects to the monitored signal only.

ASIO Direct Monitoring

If your audio hardware is ASIO 2.0 compatible, it may sup-
port ASIO Direct Monitoring (this feature may also be avail-
able for audio hardware with Mac OS X drivers). In this
mode, the actual monitoring is done in the audio hardware,
by sending the input signal back out again. However, moni-
toring is controlled from Cubase Essential. This means that
the audio hardware’s direct monitoring feature can be
turned on or off automatically by Cubase Essential.
Monitoring is described in detail in the chapter “Record-
ing” in the Operation Manual. However, when setting up,
there’s one thing to note:
• If you want to use the external monitoring via your audio A typical MIDI Setup
hardware, make sure the corresponding functions are ac-
tivated in the card’s mixer application. If you want to use even more instruments for playback, sim-
ply connect MIDI Thru on the sound module to MIDI In on
Ö If you are using RME Audio Hammerfall DSP audio the next instrument, and so on. In this hook-up, you will al-
hardware, make sure that the pan law is set to -3dB in the ways play the first keyboard when recording. But you can
card’s preferences. still use all your devices for providing sounds on playback.

! If you plan to use more than three sound sources, we

recommend that you either use an interface with more
than one output, or a separate MIDI Thru box instead
of the Thru jacks on each unit.

18
Setting up your system
Setting MIDI Thru and Local On/Off Setting up MIDI ports in Cubase Essential
On the MIDI page in the Preferences dialog (located on the The Device Setup dialog lets you set up your MIDI system
File menu under Windows and on the Cubase Essential in the following ways:
menu under Mac OS X), you will find a setting called “MIDI
Thru Active”. This is related to a setting in your instrument Ö When you change MIDI port settings in the Device
called “Local On/Off” or “Local Control On/Off”. Setup dialog, these are automatically applied.

• If you use a MIDI keyboard instrument, as described earlier in Showing or hiding MIDI Ports
this chapter, MIDI Thru should be activated and that instrument The MIDI ports are listed in the Device Setup dialog on the
should be set to Local Off (sometimes called Local Control Off MIDI Port Setup page. By clicking in the “Visible” column
– see the instrument’s operation manual for details). The MIDI for a MIDI input or output, you can specify whether or not it
signal from the keyboard will be recorded in Cubase Essential should be listed on the MIDI pop-up menus in the program.
and at the same time be re-routed back to the instrument so
that you hear what you are playing, without the keyboard “trig- If you are trying to hide a MIDI port which is already se-
gering” its own sounds. lected for a track or a MIDI device, a warning message will
appear, allowing you to hide – and disconnect – the port
When “MIDI Thru” is active in or to cancel the operation and keep the MIDI port visible.
Cubase Essential, MIDI data re-
ceived is immediately “echoed” Setting up the “All MIDI Inputs” option
back out.
When you record MIDI in Cubase Essential, you can spec-
ify which MIDI input each recording MIDI track should use.
MIDI data coming in to However, you can also select the “In ‘All MIDI Inputs’” op-
the instrument is played
by the “Synth” inside it. tion for an input port, which causes any MIDI data from any
MIDI input to be recorded.
The “In ‘All MIDI Inputs’” option on the MIDI Port Setup
page allows you to specify which inputs should be included
when you select All MIDI Inputs for a MIDI track. This can be
“Synth” especially useful if your system provides several instances
of the same physical MIDI input – by deactivating the dupli-
cates you make sure only the desired MIDI data is recorded.

Ö If you have a MIDI remote control unit connected, you

When you press a key, it is sent out via MIDI to Cubase Essential.
should also make sure to deactivate the “In ‘All MIDI In-
puts’” option for that MIDI input.
This will avoid accidentally recording the data from the remote control
When Local Control is turned on in the instrument, the keys you press
will be played by the “Synth” inside the instrument. When Local Control when the “All MIDI Inputs” option is selected as input for a MIDI track.
is turned off, this connection is cut off.

• If you use a separate MIDI keyboard – one that does not pro-
duce any sounds itself – MIDI Thru in Cubase Essential should
also be activated, but you don’t need to look for any Local On/
Off setting in your instruments.
• The only case where MIDI Thru should be deactivated is if you
use Cubase Essential with only one keyboard instrument and
that instrument cannot be set to Local Off mode.
• MIDI Thru will be active only for MIDI tracks that are record en-
abled and/or have the Monitor button activated. See the chap-
ter “Recording” in the Operation Manual for more information.

19
Setting up your system
Connecting a synchronizer Before you use the video hardware with Cubase Essential,
you should test the hardware installation with the utility
! Make sure that all equipment is turned off before applications that came with the hardware and/or the
making any connections! Windows Media Player or QuickTime Player (Mac OS X)
applications.
When using Cubase Essential with external tape trans-
ports, you will most likely need to add a synchronizer to
your system. All connections and setup procedures for Optimizing audio performance
synchronization are described in the chapter “Synchroni- This section gives you some hints and tips on how to get
zation” in the Operation Manual. the most out of your Cubase Essential system, perfor-
mance-wise. Some of this text refers to hardware proper-
Setting up video ties and can be used as a guide when upgrading your
system. This text is very brief. Look for details and current
! Always make all connections with all equipment information on the Cubase Essential web site (see “How
turned off! you can reach us” on page 7)!

Cubase Essential plays back video files in a number of for- Two aspects of performance
mats, including AVI, QuickTime or MPEG. Under Windows,
video can be played back using one of the following play- There are two distinct aspects of performance with re-
back engines: Video for Windows, DirectShow or Quick- spect to Cubase Essential.
Time. This ensures compatibility with as wide a range of Tracks and effects
video files as possible. Under Mac OS X, QuickTime is al-
ways used as playback engine. Which formats can be Simply put: the faster your computer, the more tracks, ef-
played back depends on the video player and the installed fects and EQ you will be able to play. Exactly what consti-
codecs. tutes a “fast computer” is almost a science in itself, but
some hints are given below.
Generally there are two ways to play back video:
• Without any special hardware at all, using the computer Short response times (latency)
CPU. Another aspect of performance is response time. The term
In this case, the “codec” is in software. While this will be fine in many sit- “latency” refers to the “buffering”, i.e. the temporary stor-
uations it does put a limit on the size of the video window as well as the ing, of small chunks of audio data during various steps of
quality of the image. the recording and playback process on a computer. The
• Using video hardware that for example connects to an more and larger those chunks, the higher the latency.
external monitor. High latency is most irritating when playing VST Instru-
Mac OS X: Using a FireWire port, you can play back video on an external
ments and when monitoring through the computer, i.e.
monitor using a DV-to-analog converter or a DV camera (see also the
chapter “Video” in the Operation Manual). This is valid for DV video and
when listening to a live audio source via the Cubase Es-
QuickTime is used for playback. sential mixer and effects. However, very long latency times
Windows: Multi-head graphics cards which support overlay functionality (several hundred milliseconds) can also affect other pro-
can be used to display the video picture on an external monitor. The fol- cesses like mixing, e.g. when the effect of a fader move-
lowing manufacturers have working (and tested) solutions available: ment is heard only after a noticeable delay.
nVIDIA and Matrox.
While Direct Monitoring and other techniques reduce the
If you plan to use special video hardware, install it and set problems associated with very long latency times, a sys-
it up as recommended by the manufacturer. tem that responds fast will always be more convenient to
work with.

20
Setting up your system
• Depending on your audio hardware, it may be possible Audio hardware and driver
to “trim” your latency times, usually by lowering the size
The hardware and its driver can have some effect on re-
and the number of buffers.
gular performance. A badly written driver can reduce the
For details, refer to the audio hardware documentation, or, if you are using
a DirectX driver under Windows, the dialog help.
performance of your computer. But where the hardware
driver design makes the most difference is with latency.
System factors that affect performance ! Again, we strongly recommend that you use audio
CPU and processor cache hardware for which there is a specific ASIO driver!

It goes without saying that the faster the computer proces- This is especially true when using Cubase Essential for
sor, the better. But there are a number of factors that affect Windows:
the apparent speed of a computer: the bus speed and type • Under Windows, ASIO drivers written specifically for the
(PCI is strongly recommended), the processor cache size hardware are more efficient than the Generic Low Latency
and of course, the processor type and brand. Cubase Es- ASIO Driver or a DirectX driver and produce shorter latency
sential relies heavily on floating point calculations. When times.
shopping for a processor, please make sure you get one
• Under Mac OS X, audio hardware with properly written
that is powerful in calculating floating point arithmetics.
Mac OS X (Core Audio) drivers can be very efficient and
Note also that Cubase Essential features full support for produce very low latency times.
multi-processor systems. So, if you own a computer sys- However, there are additional features currently only available with ASIO
tem with more than one processor, Cubase Essential can drivers, such as the ASIO Positioning Protocol.
take advantage of the total capacity and evenly distribute
the processing load to all available processors. See “The Optimizing processor scheduling (Windows only)
advanced options” on page 22. To get the lowest possible latencies when using ASIO un-
der Windows XP (on a single-CPU system), the “system
Hard disk and controller performance” has to be optimized for background tasks:
The number of hard disk tracks you can record and play 1. Open the Windows Control Panel from the Start menu
back at the same time also depends on the speed of your and select System.
hard disk and hard disk controller. If you use E-IDE disks
and controllers, make sure that the transfer mode is DMA 2. Select the Advanced tab and click the Settings button
Busmaster. Under Windows, you can check the current in the Performance section.
mode by launching the Windows Device Manager and The Performance Options dialog appears.
looking for properties of the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller’s 3. Select the Advanced tab.
primary and secondary channel. DMA transfer mode is en-
abled by default, but may be turned off by the system 4. In the Processor Scheduling section, select “Adjust
should hardware problems occur. for best performance of: Background services”.
5. Click OK to close the dialogs.

21
Setting up your system
Making settings that affect performance
Audio buffer settings
Audio buffers affect how audio is sent to and from the audio
hardware. The size of the audio buffers affects both the la-
tency and the audio performance. Generally, the smaller the
buffer size, the lower the latency. On the other hand, work-
ing with small buffers can be demanding for the computer.
If the audio buffers are too small, you may get clicks, pops
or other audio playback problems.
• Under Mac OS X, you can adjust the size of the buffers
on the VST Audio System page in the Device Setup dialog.
You may also find buffer settings in the control panel for the audio hard-
ware.
• Under Windows, you adjust the buffer size settings in
the control panel for the audio hardware (opened by click-
ing the Control Panel button on the driver page in the De-
vice Setup dialog).

The advanced options

On the VST Audio System page you will find the “Advanced
options” section. Here you find advanced settings for the
VST Engine, including a Multi Processing option. When this
is activated and there is more than one CPU in your system,
the processing load is distributed evenly to all available
CPUs, allowing Cubase Essential to make full use of the
combined power of the multiple processors. See the dialog
help for details.

22
Setting up your system
 4
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
Creating a new project 8. Follow the usual procedure for your operating system
(Windows or Mac) to give your new folder a name.
In this section we are going to explain how to create a new If your are going to name your project “My First Project” then you could
project, save a project and open a saved project. call this folder “My First Project” or “First Project”. What’s important here
is that you are creating a folder on the hard drive to store your project
When you first open Cubase Essential, an empty screen into it. This folder should have a unique name.
appears before you. You need to either create a new
project or open an existing one. 9. Click “OK” on the PC or “Open” on the Mac.
10. You should be looking at your very first project in
Cubase Essential now. Congratulations!
If you look at the top of the window in Cubase Essential (called the Project
window) you’ll see the name of this project is “Untitled1”.

The name of the project

To create a new project

1. Let’s create a new project by selecting “New Project”
from the “File” menu.
2. The Templates dialog opens. ! You’re not done yet!
Templates are described in the “File Handling” chapter in the Operation So far we’ve created a blank Cubase Essential
Manual. project. We have a folder sitting on the hard drive
3. Select “Empty”. but we haven’t saved the actual Cubase Essential
This will create a new project with nothing in it. project yet.

4. Click “OK”.
To save a project
5. Cubase Essential now wants to create a folder on the 1. Select “Save” from the File menu.
hard drive so that your Cubase Essential project file and If you select the Save command for a project that has not been saved be-
all of its related files are stored in one safe place. fore, this opens the Save As dialog, where you can change the project
It is important that every project gets stored in its own folder. Having many path and name, if needed. The difference between Save and Save As is
different projects stored in the same folder only leads to confusion later on. discussed in the chapter “File Handling” in the Operation Manual.
6. Navigate to where you would like this project to be 2. You will notice that Cubase Essential is in the “My
created. First Project” folder that you created earlier. This is where
you want to save your project. Type in a name for your
Ö You are not saving the project at this point! You are
project – you can use “My First Cubase Essential Project”
creating a folder on the hard drive that your project will get
for example.
saved into later. This will be explained very shortly.
3. Click “Save” – and that’s it!
7. Click “Make New Folder” on the PC or “New Folder”
on the Mac to create a new folder for your project.

24
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
To close a project Adding outputs
1. Make sure the Project window is selected. 1. Open the Devices menu and select “VST Connections”.
The Project window is the main window that you work in. See the chapter The default key command for this is [F4].
“The Project window” in the Operation Manual.
• You’ll see several tabs at the top of the window. We’re
2. Select Close from the File menu. only going to cover Input and Output right now. See the
If you have made any changes to the project since you last saved it, you chapter “VST Connections” in the Operation Manual for
will be prompted to “Save”, “Don’t Save” or “Cancel”. Click Save if you more details.
want your changes saved.
2. Let’s choose “Output” first. We want to start from
To open a project scratch and remove anything that is currently there, just in
case it’s set up incorrectly. If you see anything in the “Bus
Now that we have saved and closed your project, let’s
Name” column, right-click with the mouse and select “Re-
show you how to open it.
move Bus”.
Open a project using the “Open” command
1. Select “Open…” from the File menu.
Here you can navigate to the folder that has the project you wish to open.
2. Once you have found the project click “Open” and the
project will load.
Open a project using the “Recent Projects” submenu
Cubase Essential remembers recently opened projects
and lists them in the “Recent Projects” submenu of the
File menu.
3. Now click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Stereo” for
1. Select “Recent Projects” from the File menu. configuration and “1” for count and click OK.
2. Select the project you wish to open by clicking on it. This has now added a new stereo bus (Left and Right) allowing us to
have audio in Cubase Essential routed to our audio hardware.

Setting up the VST connections 4. Since we mainly listen to our music as a stereo mix, all
we need is a stereo output.
The VST Connections window allows you to set up the in-
5. Depending on your audio hardware, your outputs
put and output signals of Cubase Essential to your audio
should be set up now. You can however select the outputs
card. Cubase Essential calls these “busses”. This section
of your choice from the “Device Port” pull down menu.
will show you how to set the busses up so that you can Normally you’ll want to choose the main stereo outputs of your audio card.
get playback and recording working. More sophisticated setups may require you to choose different outputs
Make sure you read the chapters “System requirements and even add more busses.
and installation” on page 8 and “Setting up your system”
on page 13, so that your audio hardware is properly set up
before proceeding.
! Load the project called “VST Connections” found in
the “Tutorial 1” folder.

Ö By default, the tutorial projects are not installed during

the installation of Cubase Essential. You will find these
projects on the program DVD, in the folder “Additional
Content”.

25
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
Adding Inputs Level settings and recording
Now let’s open the “Input” tab and set up the inputs we
For this section, we are going to record a bass guitar in
are going to use for recording into Cubase Essential.
mono from the input “Mono In”. Make sure you have your
1. Do the same as mentioned above for the outputs. audio card set up and you have read through the section
Right-click and select “Remove Bus”. “Setting up the VST connections” on page 25.
2. Click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Stereo” for con- ! Load the project called “Recording” found in the
figuration and “1” for count and click “OK”. “Tutorial 1” folder.
This has now added a new stereo bus (Left and Right) allowing us to have
audio from our audio card’s input routed to Cubase Essential for recording.
Adding a mono track
• Having a stereo input is useful for recording audio with
1. Now let’s add an audio track to record to. Open the
two channels. An example of this is recording a keyboard
Project menu and choose “Audio” from the “Add Track”
with a left and right audio channel. If we wanted to record
submenu.
in mono or with one channel we can make separate bus-
ses. Let’s do this now. 2. Choose “Mono” for Configuration and “1” for Count.
Click “OK”.
1. Click the “Add Bus” button. Choose “Mono” for con-
This adds a mono audio track to our Project window.
figuration and “2” for count and click “OK”.
This has now added two new mono busses allowing us to have audio
from our audio card’s input routed to Cubase Essential for recording.
2. Next, click in the “Device Port” column to select the
audio inputs of your audio card for the stereo and mono
inputs.

3. Click on the new track you’ve created and make sure

the Inspector is shown.
The Inspector allows us to see and manipulate a lot of information for the
selected track.

Click here…

That’s it! You should now be ready to record audio in Cu-

base Essential and then play it back.

…to open the Inspector.

26
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
4. Make sure that “Mono In” is selected for the audio 3. We now need to set the speed or the tempo of our
track’s input and that “Stereo Out” is selected for the project. This will directly affect how fast the click plays.
audio tracks output. You can set the tempo just below the click.
You may have different inputs and outputs depending on your audio hard-
ware. See the chapter “VST Connections” in the Operation Manual for
more detailed information. By setting “Mono In”, we will be able to record
the audio from the left input of our audio card into a track in Cubase Essen-
tial. Setting the output to “Stereo Out” allows us to hear what we are re- In this picture, we have a setting of 125, which means 125bpm (beats
cording. per minute).

Setting levels
We have a bass guitar playing through an amplifier with a
microphone in front of the amplifier’s speaker. This micro-
phone is plugged directly into the audio card’s input. We
have set the level so that we have enough volume without
clipping.
1. Clicking the Monitor button will allow us to hear the
bass guitar.
You should see and hear the audio coming in to the right of the track.

Audio coming into

this track.

2. Now click the “Record Enable” button on the track.

Setting the track to Record Enable lets Cubase Essential know that you
want to record on this track and no other one. You can have many tracks
Turning on the metronome click Record Enabled at a time.
We’ll want to have a click or metronome play in the back-
ground as we record the bass guitar so that what we record
aligns with the bars and beats in Cubase Essential.
1. Activate the “Metronome/Click” button on the Transport
panel.

2. If you would like a two bar count in before you record,

also activate the “Precount/Click” button.

27
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
3. In the Inspector, open the “Channel” tab. Recording bass guitar
This will display the channel fader for the selected track.
1. Position the cursor at the beginning of the project.
This will make sure we start recording on bar 1.
2. Click the Record button to record the bass guitar.
Since the “Precount/Click” button is activated, we’ll hear two bars of
click before recording begins.
3. Click “Stop” when you are finished.
4. Turn off the Monitor and Record Enable buttons on the
track so that we don’t hear the input or record on the track
Click here to display the any more.
channel fader.
Congratulations! You have just recorded your first piece of
audio in Cubase Essential. Move ahead to the next section
to learn how to play back audio.

• Do the best you can to send the maximum amount of

volume to the audio inputs of your audio card before you
hear any distortion. Most audio cards show some kind of
level or volume indication. If yours doesn’t, don’t worry, we
can change the amount here.
4. Move the fader up or down so that the volume is loud
enough without going into the red on the channel meter. If Playback
you go into the red you may cause clipping or distortion.
You will see a line near the top of the channel meter – make We are going to learn how to play back audio in Cubase
sure the level does not go over this line! Essential. You might think this is very simple – just hit “Play”.
It is actually this simple but there are a few tricks to learn so
that you’ll be playing back what you want with precision.
Do not allow the audio level to go ! Load the project called “Playback” found in the
past this line!
“Tutorial 1” folder.

This is the safe area for recording. To start playback

There are a few ways you can play back in Cubase Essen-
tial:
• Click the “Play” button on the Transport panel.

• Once the level is set, you are ready to record!

• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard.

This toggles between start and stop.
• Press the [Enter] key of the numerical computer keypad.

28
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
• Double-click in the lower half of the ruler. 3. Click the Play button on the Transport panel and
Cubase Essential will play looping over and over until you
click “Stop”.
! Don’t forget – you can set the locators to encom-
pass the selected event, turn on “Cycle” and begin
playback all by the key command [Shift]-[G].

Recording modes with cycle off

There are three different modes for recording when the
• Select the event and choose “Loop Selection” from the
cycle is turned off. This is called linear recording. The
Transport menu.
three modes are:
! The default key command for this is [Shift]-[G]. This • Normal
is the quickest way to loop an audio event and start
playback! • Merge
• Replace
To stop playback When recording audio, “Normal” and “Merge” are the
• Click the “Stop” button on the Transport panel. same. Selecting either of these will allow you to record over
• Clicking the “Stop” button twice moves the cursor to the top of another audio event and it will appear as an over-
the position in the project where you started playback. lap. You can then select between the overlapping events
and determine which one will play. This is discussed in the
• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard. following section.
This toggles between stop and start.
• Press the “0” key of the numerical computer keypad.

Cycle playback
Cubase Essential has the ability to loop or cycle a section
When recording in “Replace” mode, audio that was previ-
of your project. To set the cycle location you need to use
ously recorded on the same track is cut or split to make
the left and right locator.
room for the new audio data. However, the “old” recording
1. On the Transport panel, set the left locator to “1” and that is being replaced is not permanently deleted. It is only
the right locator to “5”. cut or trimmed away allowing you to recover it later.
This tells Cubase Essential that we want to loop or cycle between bars 1
and 5. Meaning we will have a 4 bar loop since the end of bar 4 is the be-
ginning of bar 5.

The left locator set to “1”.

Cycle activated.

The right locator set to “5”.

2. Make sure that the “Cycle” button is activated.

29
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
Cycle recording
You can record audio while “cycle” is on.

! Load the project called “Cycle Recording” found in

the “Tutorial 1” folder.
So far we’ve shown you how to add tracks, record and
playback. Now we are going to add an electric guitar to
our bass guitar using cycle recording. Recording with cy- 5. Make sure “Cycle” is activated, set the left locator to 2
cle on allows us to make multiple passes of our recording and the right locator to 18.
and then pick the best take. This will loop or cycle between bars 2 and 18.

If you haven’t reviewed the previous sections in this tuto-

rial, please do as we are going to move a little faster now.

Recording electric guitar

1. Let’s add another “Mono” audio track. 6. On the Transport panel, make sure “Mix (MIDI)” is se-
This is described in the section “Adding a mono track” on page 26. lected for the “Cycle Record Mode”.
2. You can see now that we have a track called “Audio This will allow us to record the electric guitar, and as each cycle repeats
01” and “Audio 02”. Up to now we haven’t been con- a new take will be created. We will then choose the best take to keep as
our guitar line.
cerned about naming the tracks but let’s do this now.
Cycle Record Mode

7. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on

the “Elec Guitar” track.
8. Click the “L” button on the Transport panel once.
3. Double-click on “Audio 01” and rename it “Bass”. This will make sure we start recording at the left locator.
4. Double-click on “Audio 02” and rename it “Elec Guitar”.
That looks a lot better now.
• It’s always good to name your tracks before you start to
record. This way the audio event too will take this name.
Since “Audio 01” was the name of our first track the audio 9. Click the “Record” button on the Transport panel.
event is named “Audio 01_01”. The suffix “_01” being the As you record the guitar, let the cycle repeat three times so we have
first event recorded on the “Audio 01” track. We’ll show three different guitar takes.
you how to rename your audio files in the chapter “Tutorial 10. Click “Stop” when you’re finished. We’ve just recorded
2: Editing audio” on page 32. three different guitar takes. Now let’s figure out how to se-
lect the best sounding one.

! Load the tutorial called “Cycle Recording 2” found in

the “Tutorial 1” folder.

30
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
Selecting different takes
1. Holding [Alt]/[Option], right-click on the new guitar au-
dio event that we just recorded and choose a take from the
“To Front” submenu.
If you right-click without holding a modifier key, you will see the toolbox
instead of the context menu. This behavior is determined by the “Popup
Toolbox on Right Click” option in the Preferences dialog (Editing–Tools
page).
Cubase Essential has recorded all of the passes we made
when we were recording in loop mode (Cycle Recording).
These passes are called “Takes”. In our example we have
three different guitar takes. We can pick between them and
choose which one sounds best.

Current take Available takes

2. Listen to the different takes and when you are done,

choose “Take 1”.

31
Tutorial 1: Recording audio
 5
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
Event operations 5. Notice that our audio event now says “Bass”.

In this section we’ll learn how to edit events or parts. This

includes rename, resize, split, glue, move, copy, repeat, The name has changed from
mute, erase and adding a fade. “Audio 01_01” to “Bass”.

! Load the project called “Event Operations” found in

the “Tutorial 2” folder.

Renaming
If we look at the audio events that we recorded earlier, we Resizing
notice that the bass track has an audio event on it called
You resize an event by adjusting the start and/or end of
“Audio 01_01”. This is because the name of the track was
the event. Used in combination with the split tool this is
originally “Audio 01” and the suffix “_01” means that it is
usually all the editing you’ll need.
the 1st audio file to be recorded on the track. The second
audio file would be called “Audio 01_02”. 1. Choose the Object Selection tool.
Naming your audio files keeps your project clean and easy 2. Click on the event you wish to resize.
to understand. Let’s rename “Audio 01_01” to “Bass”: In our case let’s change the “Bass” event.

1. Choose the Object Selection tool. There is extra space on either side of the Bass audio event that we
don’t want.

2. Click on the event “Audio 01_01”.

White squares appear on the bottom left and bottom right of the event.
3. Make sure “Show Event Info Line” is activated on the Resize the event with these.
toolbar.
3. Position the mouse pointer over one of the squares at
the bottom right or bottom left of the event. Click and adjust
the “Bass” event so that it lines up with “Elec Guitar_01”.

• The “Event Info Line” gives us detailed information

about an object or objects that are currently selected in
the event display.
4. Change “Audio 01_01” to “Bass” underneath the
word “File”.
This changes the audio file’s name directly on the hard drive – easy!

33
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
Splitting 3. If you are having trouble seeing anything beyond the
“Tool Buttons”, right-click in the toolbar (the top bar that
Splitting is used to cut events. You can split or cut an event
the “Tool Buttons” are on).
wherever you want or split them evenly to bars and beats.
This allows you to change what you see at the top of the Project window.
Splitting with “Snap” off Customization is in the heart of Cubase Essential.

Splitting with “Snap” off allows you to cut anywhere with- Right-click in the toolbar.
out locking to any kind of reference like bars and beats.
1. Choose the Split tool.
There is more to
see but your
screen resolu-
tion may prevent
you from seeing
everything.
2. Make sure “Snap” is off (not highlighted).

3. You can now split or cut the audio anywhere by click-

ing on the event. 4. Choose “Default” so that if you changed anything it
will return to the default settings.
The vertical lines 5. Choose “Grid” from the Snap mode pop-up menu to
indicate where the right of the Snap button.
the Bass event
was split.

4. Undo your actions by choosing “Undo Split” from the

Edit menu as many times as you used the Split tool.
Make sure there are no splits in the “Bass” event any more.

Splitting with “Snap” on

Having “Snap” on allows you to split or cut to a time refer- This means we’ll be snapping to a grid.
ence. For example, if you want to cut the “Elec Guitar” track 6. Next choose “Bar” as the “Grid Type”.
to bars or beats.
1. Choose the Split tool.
2. Make sure “Snap” is on.
Snap allows you to edit to various time frames. The most common one is
bars and beats. Meaning you can cut exactly to the bar with “Snap” turned This means you will split to bars.
on. With it turned off you can cut anywhere. See more about “Snap” in the
chapter “The Project window” in the Operation Manual.

34
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
7. You can now split the “Elec Guitar_01” event precisely Moving events
to the bar. Cut on bars 6, 10 and 14.
Let’s now move all the events in the Project window from
bar 2 to bar 1.
1. Choose the Object Selection tool.
2. Click and hold the mouse on an empty area of the
Project window. Drag to create a selection of all the events.
When you release the mouse button, all the events will be
selected.

Splitting with [Alt]/[Option]

1. Choose the Split tool.
2. Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click on the bass event
at bar 3 and the length of the split will be repeated until
the end of the event.
You can try this with “Snap” on or off.

3. With all the events selected, click and drag them to

bar 1.
3. Select “Undo Split” from the Edit menu and return the
bass to the way it was.

Gluing or joining events

Using the Glue tool allows you to join events together that
have been cut using the Split tool.
1. Choose the Glue tool.
4. Click on an empty area of the Project window so that
no event is selected.

2. Glue together the split events in the “Elec Guitar”

track by clicking just before each split.
Let’s make sure we glue all of them.

35
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
Copying events
Copying can be used to copy an event to another area in
the Project window. If you want to make several copies in
one go, see “Repeating” on page 36.

Using Copy and Paste

1. To copy an audio event, click on the desired event and
choose “Copy” from the Edit menu. Repeating
In our case let’s choose the “Elec Guitar_01” event.
Repeats are great for repeating something over and over
2. Position the cursor at the point in the project that you directly after the event you want to repeat.
wish the copy to be made.
We’ll put our cursor at bar 17. 1. Click the bass event with the Object Selection tool.

3. Make sure you click on the track that you want the 2. Choose “Repeat…” from the Edit menu.
copied event to be copied to. Choose “Paste” from the 3. In the dialog that opens, choose how many copies you
Edit menu. wish to make by increasing the value in the “Count” field.
It is possible that you may have another track selected. If so the “Paste”
command would paste it to a different track. Always note the track you
have selected before choosing “Paste”.

• You can choose to select “Shared Copies” if you want.

Shared copies allow you to make aliases to the original
4. Now we have two guitar events. event. This means that if you make changes to the original
event (such as processing or editing), the copies will reflect
Using the [Alt]/[Option] key those changes. This is a big time saver!
1. Choose the Object Selection tool and hold down [Alt]/ 4. Click “OK” and the repeat will be placed directly after
[Option]. the Bass event.
2. We are going to copy the “Guitar 2” events. Remem-
ber that there are three events. Select all of the “Guitar 2”
events by clicking and dragging as described above.
3. Click and hold the selected events and drag to the
position you wish the copy to be made. Then release the
mouse button.
Don’t worry about the “Scissor” icon that appears. As soon as you click
and hold on the event you are copying it switches to an arrow with a “+”
sign indicating that you are copying.

36
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
Muting 3. Click on one of the blue triangles and move it so that a
fade appears.
Muting an event stops you from hearing just that event.
You may want to mute events on a track so that the track
continues to play except for the events you mute. Note
that this is different from muting a track.
1. Choose the Mute tool.

4. For more advanced fades you can double-click on the

fade area to open up the fade dialog. See the chapter
“Fades and Crossfades” in the Operation Manual for more
information.
2. Click on the event you wish to mute.
Double-click in this area to open the fade dialog.

3. To unmute an event, click on the muted event with the

Mute tool again and it returns to normal.
• If you drag with the Mute tool you can mute a number of
events at a time. Equally this will unmute events that are
muted.
! Load the project called “Event Operations 2” found
Erasing in the “Tutorial 2” folder. This project has all the event
1. Choose the Erase tool. operation changes you’ve learned so far.

Processing audio
Cubase Essential has the ability to make changes to the
2. Click on the events you wish to erase. audio in more ways than splitting and resizing. You can nor-
malize, reverse and time stretch, to name a few. For a full
explanation on processing audio, see the chapter “Audio
Adding a fade processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.
You can add a fade to an event to give the effect that the
event is fading in or fading out. ! Load the project called “Processing Audio” found in
the “Tutorial 2” folder.
1. Choose the Object Selection tool.
You can process the whole audio event or use the Range
2. Click on the event you wish to add a fade to.
Selection tool and select just the section of audio you want.
Notice the blue triangles that appear at the top left
and top right of the event.

Let’s show you how to Normalize and Reverse an audio

event.

37
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
Normalize 3. Adjust the slider to the amount you desire. A setting of
“0” db or “-1” db is common.
Normalize raises the volume of the audio to the desired
amount. Usually you adjust the slider to “0” dB or “-1” dB
so that you get the maximum volume without clipping your
audio. A common use for Normalizing is to raise the level
of audio that was recorded at too low an input level.

Ö Please note that in some situations, this function may

lead to distortion. Therefore, you should use it carefully
and listen to the audio material afterwards, to make sure it
sounds as intended. 4. Click the Process button and your audio is now nor-
malized.
1. With the Object Selection tool, click on the audio For a description of the “More” and “Preview” buttons, see the chapter
event you wish to change. Let’s pick the Bass audio event. “Audio Processing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.
You can also use the Range Selection tool and select the section of audio
you want.
Reverse
The “Reverse” command reverses the audio selection.
This will sound as if you were playing a tape backwards.
1. With the Object Selection tool, click on the audio event
you wish to change. In our case, let’s pick the bass audio
event.
You can also use the “Range Selection” tool and select the section of
audio you want.
2. On the Audio menu–Process submenu, select “Nor-
malize”. 2. On the Audio menu–Process submenu, select “Re-
verse”.
3. If you have copied events in the Project window, this di-
alog box will open. It asks if you want all the copied events
changed (Continue) or if a new version is to be created so
that only your selection is affected (New Version).

4. Clicking either “Continue” or “New Version” will reverse

your audio.

38
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
Offline Process History
When you process audio, the audio is not permanently
changed. Instead, Cubase Essential remembers the
changes and stores backups of your files. You can then
come back to the processing, make changes, swap the
processing with other effects or remove all the processing
entirely. This is done behind the scenes and can be ac-
cessed through the “Offline Process History” dialog.
! Load the project called “Offline Process History”
found in the “Tutorial 2” folder.
We have processed the bass audio event with “Normalize”
and “Reverse”. Click on the bass event to select it and
choose “Offline Process History…” from the Audio menu.
The Offline Process History dialog shows you the process-
ing that has been applied to this audio event.

• You can click “Modify” to change the settings of “Nor-

malize”.
• You can replace “Normalize” with another process by
selecting the function from the pop-up menu and clicking
“Replace By”.
• “Remove” is used to delete a process from the list.

Ö For more information, see the chapter “Audio Process-

ing and Functions” in the Operation Manual.

39
Tutorial 2: Editing audio
 6
Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI
Introduction 3. Make sure the Inspector is shown.

In this chapter, we are going to add some more instru-

ments to our song. In the previous tutorials, we have re-
corded audio. Now we are going to record using MIDI.
There are two ways in which we can have MIDI sounds
appear in Cubase Essential: via virtual instruments, that is
a synthesizer inside your computer or through the use of a
traditional hardware keyboard.
This tutorial will focus on virtual instruments.

Creating an instrument track 4. Click in the name field of the instrument track. It should
be the only instrument track you created, so the name
! Load the project called “Recording MIDI 1” found in should be “HALionOne 01”. We can double-click on this
the “Tutorial 3” folder. and change it to “Strings”.
1. Let’s start by adding a string part to our song. From the
Project menu on the Add Track submenu, select “Instru-
ment”.

5. Click on the “Edit Instrument” button to open the con-

trol panel for “HALionOne”.

2. From the “Instrument” pop-up menu, choose “HALion-

One”, then click “OK”.
An instrument track is created below the selected track in the Project
window.

41
Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI
6. If you want “HALionOne” to stay always on top while MIDI recording
you are working you can right-click on the bar near the top
of the instrument and select “Always on Top”. Now that we have our sound, let’s record something. Re-
cording MIDI is very similar to recording audio, see the
Right-click here to select “Always on Top”.
chapter “Tutorial 1: Recording audio” on page 23.
1. Make sure you have a MIDI keyboard connected to your
computer either directly through USB or a MIDI interface.
See the chapter “Setting up your system” on page 13 for information on
setting up MIDI in your computer.
2. We want to have our MIDI keyboard routed to this
track and play “HALionOne”. Make sure the Inspector is
shown so we can see our MIDI input and output routing.
3. Next, on the Input Routing pop-up menu, choose the
MIDI input you wish to use.
Browsing sounds Most people leave this on “All MIDI Inputs” since you don’t have to worry
about which input is which. “All MIDI Inputs” takes the MIDI signal from all
We are now going to load sounds into our virtual instrument your inputs and routes it to this track. There are some cases where you
“HALionOne”. wouldn’t want this but for 99% of the time you’ll be safe with this option
selected.
! Load the project called “Recording MIDI 2” found in
the “Tutorial 3” folder.
1. Click the “Preset” button in “HALionOne” and choose
“Load Preset” from the pop-up menu.

The MIDI Input Routing

pop-up menu

2. In the window that appears, click the Categories but- 4. Below the MIDI Input Routing pop-up menu, you can
ton to display the Filter section. set the MIDI output. This is set to our virtual instrument
“HALionOne”. If for any reason you need to change this to
3. In the “Category” column, make sure only “Strings” is
another instrument you can do this here.
selected by deselecting anything else and clicking on
“Strings”. You have filtered the list to only show strings. 5. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on
Choose a string sound from the list on the right. the track and play some notes on your MIDI keyboard.
You should see and hear the MIDI signals coming in to the right of the
track.

Record Enable Monitor

Record enabling the track lets Cubase Essential know that you want to
record on this track. You can have many tracks record enabled at a time.
Category Sub Category Filtered List

42
Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI
6. Set the left locator to bar “1” and the right locator to • Double-click in the lower half of the ruler.
bar “57”.
• Select the MIDI event and choose “Loop Selection”
7. Make sure Cycle is turned off. from the Transport menu.
We are going to record without looping. We’ll cover MIDI cycle recording
in the section “Cycle recording” on page 44. ! The default key command for this is [Shift]-[G]. This
is the quickest way to loop the selected MIDI event
8. Press [1] on the numeric keypad of your computer
and start playback!
keyboard.
This will move the cursor to the left locator.
To stop playback
9. Click the Record button and record a few bars of
• Click the Stop button on the Transport panel.
music.
• Clicking the Stop button twice moves the cursor to the
10. Click the Stop button when you are finished.
position in the project, where you started playback.
11. Turn off the Monitor and Record Enable buttons on the
• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard.
track so that we don’t hear the input or record on the track
This toggles between stop and start.
any more.
• Press the “0” key of the numerical computer keypad.

Cycle playback
Cubase Essential has the ability to loop or cycle a section
Congratulations! You have just created your first MIDI of your project. To set the cycle location you need to use
recording in Cubase Essential. Move ahead to the next the left and right locator.
section to learn how to play back MIDI.
1. On the Transport panel, set the left locator to “1” and
the right locator to “5”.
MIDI playback This tells Cubase Essential that we want to loop or cycle between bars 1
and 5. Meaning we will have a 4 bar loop since the end of bar 4 is the be-
We are now going to learn how to play back MIDI in Cu- ginning of bar 5.
base Essential. You might think this is very simple – just hit
“Play”. It is actually this simple, but there are a few tricks to The left locator set to “1”.

learn so that you’ll be playing back what you want with pre-
cision. Cycle activated
! For this section, make sure you load the project
“MIDI Playback” found in the “Tutorial 3” folder. The right locator set to “5”.

2. Make sure that the Cycle button is activated.

To start playback
• Click the Play button on the Transport panel. 3. Click the Play button on the Transport panel and Cu-
base Essential will play looping over and over until you click
Stop.

Recording modes with cycle off

There are three different modes for recording when the
• Press [Space] on your computer keyboard. cycle is turned off. This is called linear recording.
This toggles between start and stop.
• Normal
• Press the [Enter] key of the numerical computer keypad. “Normal” allows you to record on top of previously recorded MIDI. You
will be able to see both MIDI parts on the screen overlapping each other.

43
Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI
• Merge 5. On the Transport panel, make sure “Mix (MIDI)” is se-
“Merge” joins or merges any MIDI data previously recorded on the track. lected for the “Cycle Record Mode”.
An example of this is when recording drums – adding the kick drum on This will allow us to record the drums, and as each cycle repeats, the
one pass and then the snare drum on another pass. The MIDI data is MIDI will mix together into one part. This makes it easy to create complex
then joined together as one MIDI part. drum rhythms.
• Replace
“Replace” mode will replace or overwrite any previous MIDI recording
that was on the track.

6. Activate the “AUTO Q” button. This is the automatic

quantize function which will lock our MIDI to the beat as
we record it. Great if we play off time a bit.
Cycle recording
You can record MIDI while the Cycle is activated.

! Load the project called “Cycle Recording MIDI”

found in the “Tutorial 3” folder.
7. Next we have to set the value of our quantize. This is so
Recording MIDI drums Cubase Essential knows what to lock our MIDI notes to.
Choose “1/8” notes from the “Quantize Type” pop-up
1. Let’s add another “Instrument” track and choose menu.
“HALionOne” as our instrument.
This is described in the section “Creating an instrument track” on page 41.
2. Click in the program field in the Inspector and load a
drum sound of your choice found under the category
“Drums&Perc”, sub-category “Drumset”.
3. Rename this new track to “Drums”.
8. Activate the Record Enable and Monitor buttons on
4. Make sure the Cycle button is activated and set the the “Drums” track.
left locator to “9” and the right locator to “13”.
9. Click the “L” button on the Transport panel once.
This will make sure we start recording at the left locator.
10. Activate the Record button on the Transport panel and
let’s record hi-hat on the first pass, kick on the second
pass and then finally snare on the third.
This will loop or cycle between bars 9 and 13.
11. Hit “Stop” when you’re finished.

44
Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI
12. Now move and copy this drum part so that the rest of 2. We want the song to start off with hi-hat and kick drum.
the song has a drum beat. Erase the snare by clicking once and holding the mouse
This is described in the chapter “Tutorial 2: Editing audio” on page 32. while dragging a selection over the snare drum. Make your
selection from bars 1 through 8.
A common term for this is to “lasso” the notes.

3. Press the [Delete] key to delete the snare notes.

4. Zoom in on the bar 1 and delete all the hit-hat notes
13. Glue all the parts together as one. with the Erase tool of the Key Editor so that you only hear
This is described in the chapter “Tutorial 2: Editing audio” on page 32. 1/4 notes.
5. Now erase all the other hi-hat notes from bar 2 through
The Key Editor 8 using any method you like.
In the Key Editor we can make changes to our MIDI data.

! Load the project called “Key Editor” found in the

“Tutorial 3” folder.

Erasing MIDI notes

1. Double-click on the “Drums” to open the Key Editor.
Here we can see our drum notes lined up with a keyboard on the left. At
the bottom we have the velocity of each of the MIDI notes and at the top Copying MIDI notes
we can see the time ruler. Let’s copy the MIDI notes in bar 1 to bars 2 through 8.
Keyboard display Time ruler 1. Lasso the hi-hat notes in bar 1. Hold down [Alt]/[Option]
and drag the notes in bar 1 to bar 2. This copies them.

2. Continue copying until bar 9.

The Drum MIDI velocities The Drum MIDI notes

45
Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI
Creating or drawing in MIDI notes 1. Make sure you can see the Controller Lane by clicking
on the “Controller Lane Presets” button at the bottom left
Now we need to draw in a cymbal crash in bar 25.
of the Key Editor.
1. Scroll over to bar 25 and click on the piano roll on the
left hand side of the Key Editor. Click on the notes until you
hear a crash cymbal that you like. There is a good one at
C#2.

2. Choose “Velocity Only” to view the velocity.

3. You can choose the MIDI information you wish view or
change from the pop-up menu.
4. You can also select “Setup…” to view more control-
lers.
2. Select the Pencil tool of the Key Editor and draw in the
crash cymbal note at bar 25 by clicking and dragging for a
full bar.
Click and drag with the Pencil tool.

Pick one from the list or

choose “Setup…” for
more controllers.

5. Click and drag in the Controller lane to draw in new

velocities for the notes.
You can even draw in curves and ramps using the Line tool in its various
modes.

The Controller lane

The “Controller Lane” allows us to add in or modify MIDI
data such as velocity and controller information. The most
common use for this is to edit velocity, pitchbend and con-
troller numbers for things like filter etc.
If you find that the MIDI velocity is too loud or quiet on cer-
tain notes, you can view and edit them at the bottom of the
Key Editor.

46
Tutorial 3: Recording and editing MIDI
 7
Tutorial 4: Working with loops
Loop Browser 4. Click the Play button to listen to the loop. The “Play in
Project context” option allows you to audition the loop in
The Loop Browser allows you to have a single window the project’s tempo. This is handy if the loop you are audi-
that gives you quick and easy access to all your loops. In tioning has a tempo that is different from the one you are
the Loop Browser you can search for audio files, use tags using in your project.
to categorize, audition the audio in the open project’s
Auto Play – this automatically starts playback for the selected file.
tempo and a whole lot more.
Audition controls (Play, Stop, Pause, Cycle and level slider)
! Load the project called “Loops” found in the
“Tutorial 4” folder.

Adding loops Play in Project context button

Sync to Main Transport button
1. Select “Open Loop Browser” from the Media menu.
5. If you have many loops, you can search for them using
Search for sounds here. the Text Search field at the top of the Viewer section.

6. Once you have found the loop you like, drag and drop it
Audition controls Your Loops into your project. If you haven’t created an extra audio track
for the loop, one will be created automatically for you.
2. Once the Loop Browser has finished scanning your
hard disk(s) for loop files, they will be displayed in the Drag from the Loop
Viewer section. Browser into your
project.
3. Selecting a loop file in the Viewer section will display it
graphically below in the Scope section.

7. Rename the new track “Loop 1”.

48
Tutorial 4: Working with loops
Making copies 5. Use the “Repeat” command to repeat the loop until the
end of the project.
Now that we have our loop let’s copy it using the “Repeat”
Make sure you read up on the Loop Browser in the chapter
function.
“The MediaBay” in the Operation Manual.
1. In the Project window, click on the loop event to select it.
2. Choose “Repeat” from the Edit menu.
3. In the dialog that opens, set the “Count” field to “13”.
4. Click “OK”. The loop will be copied 13 times and all
repeats will be placed one after the other.

Insert into Project

We are now going to add one more loop. This time we’ll
use the “Insert into Project” command.
1. Create a new stereo audio track.
2. Rename the track to “Loop 2” and make sure it is se-
lected, as “Insert into Project” works using a selected track.
3. Position the Project cursor where you would like the
loop to be inserted. In our case, let’s choose bar 9.
4. In the Loop Browser right-click on the loop you would
like to use and choose “Insert into Project at cursor”. This
will drop the loop into the Project window at bar 9 on the
“Loop 2” track.

49
Tutorial 4: Working with loops
 8
Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
Introduction 5. You can also change the fader setting by double-
clicking in the “Channel Level” area and entering the level
In this section we’ll draw from the last tutorials and finally manually.
get a mix ready with proper levels, EQs and effects. Auto-
6. Be careful when it comes to how loud you raise the
mation will be added and then we’ll export the audio.
faders. Make sure you keep levels at a good volume so
! Load the project called “Mixing 1” found in the “Tuto- that they are as loud as possible without clipping. You will
rial 5” folder. always know when you are clipping: when the “CLIP” indi-
cator lights up on the output channel. If it does, lower your
levels and click on “CLIP”. This will reset the warning light.
Setting levels
The first thing we want to do is to set the levels for our
project. This helps us get a preliminary balance of the mix
so we can add EQ and effects later.
1. Select the Mixer from the Devices menu.
The default key command for this is [F3].
2. Click the Play button on the Transport panel and listen
to your mix.
3. Move the faders for each track so that you can hear all
of the mix the way you like it.

• That’s it for setting the levels. Let’s look at the panorama

next.

Setting panorama
! Load the project called “Mixing 2” found in the “Tuto-
rial 5” folder.
1. Setting the panorama (pan) for each track moves its po-
4. If for any reason you need to get the fader back to 0dB sition in the stereo mix. It will either keep the signal balanced
(default setting), you can [Ctrl]/[Command]-click directly in the middle of the left and right speaker, lean to the left or
in the fader area. lean to the right or be completely in the left or right speaker.

Panner

Pan amount
Channel fader

• To get the panner back to the center (the default posi-

Channel meters tion), [Ctrl]/[Command]-click anywhere in the panner area.

Peak Meter Value

Channel Level

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Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
2. Let’s pan our two guitars slightly left and slightly right. Mute and solo
This will spread them out a bit.
! Load the project called “Mixing 3” found in the “Tuto-
rial 5” folder.
• For each track there is an “M” for mute and “S” for solo
button. Mute will prevent you from hearing the track and
solo will only play that track or tracks which have “S” high-
lighted.

Mute

Solo

3. Keep the “Drums” track in the middle but let’s move • You can have several tracks muted or soloed at a time.
“Loop 1” a bit to the left and “Loop 2” a bit to the right. • When you solo a track, the other tracks become muted.
This will give our rhythm section a larger, more spacious sound.
• If you want to clear or deactivate all the mutes or solos,
click on the “Deactivate all Mute” or “Deactivate all Solo”
buttons in the common panel to the left of the Mixer.

Deactivate all Mute

Deactivate all Solo

• There may be times when you want certain tracks to al-

ways play even if another track has solo active. If you [Alt]/
[Option]-click on the “S” button, this will place the track in
“Solo Defeat” mode. This allows the track to always play
That’s it for pan, let’s move on to Mute and Solo. even if you solo another track.

• To take a track out of “Solo Defeat” mode simply [Alt]/

[Option]-click it again.
That’s it for mute and solo, let’s move on to adding EQ.

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Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
Adding EQ Click in the EQ curve area to turn on an EQ.

! Load the project called “Mixing 4” found in the “Tuto-

rial 5” folder.
EQ or equalization amplifies or attenuates frequencies so
that we can place each instrument correctly in the mix. EQ
is subjective and can be influenced greatly by the style of
music that you are mixing.
We’re going to run through the EQ features that Cubase
Essential has to offer, but feel free to experiment and try
out the different presets on your mix.
1. Solo the Drums track and click the “Edit Instrument
Channel Settings” button.

Click the “EQ Band Active” button to turn on an EQ.

4. Click and move the EQ point up, down, right or left.

Moving the EQ point up or down raises or lowers the gain
of the EQ. The gain makes that particular EQ louder or
softer. The “EQ Band Gain” at the bottom of the EQ win-
2. This will open the Channel Settings window, where dow gives you the value of gain.
If you hold down [Ctrl]/[Command], you can restrict the movement of the
you can e.g. make EQ settings. Make sure you have a
EQ to just up and down.
section of music looping so that you can hear the EQ
changes you are making.
• There are four bands of EQ on each track.
Move the EQ up or down to
3. In the Equalizers section, click the “EQ Band Active” raise or lower the gain.

button for each of the EQs to turn them on. You can also
click in the EQ curve area to turn on an EQ.

“EQ Band Gain” amount

53
Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
5. Moving the EQ point right or left changes the frequency
of the EQ. The “EQ Band Freq” setting at the bottom of the
EQ window gives you the value of the frequency.
If you hold down [Alt]/[Option], you can restrict the movement of the EQ
to just right or left.

Move the EQ left or right to

change the frequency.

8. You can bypass the EQs by clicking on the “Bypass

Equalizers” button. If you [Alt]/[Option]-click, you can reset
the EQ. A dialog window will open to confirm if you are sure
you want to reset the EQs. If you are sure, click “Yes”.

Experiment with the EQs on all your tracks in this tutorial.

A good tip when using EQ is that it’s usually better to take
“EQ Band Freq” amount
away EQ (lower the gain) than to add it.
! We’ve made a whole bunch of EQ changes to this
6. Holding down [Shift] while moving the EQ point up or tutorial. Listen and see the changes by loading the
down changes the quality (Q) of the EQ. Many people refer project “Mixing 5” found in the “Tutorial 5” folder.
to this as the width of the EQ. The “EQ Band Q” setting at
the bottom of the EQ window gives you the value of the Now let’s move on to effects.
quality.
Audio effects
Moving the EQ up or down while
holding down [Shift] changes the Q. ! Load the project called “Mixing 6” found in the “Tuto-
rial 5” folder.
Now let’s start using some effects. We can add effects by
inserting the effect directly on a track or we can create an
FX channel and use the auxiliary sends of each track to
send to that FX channel.

Insert effects
1. Make sure the Mixer is open.
“EQ Band Q” amount
You can open the Mixer from the Devices menu or by pressing [F3].

7. The “Preset Management” button allows you to recall 2. Begin playback and loop or cycle a section of music
and store presets. Choose from the list to get a sound so that you can hear everything.
that’s close to what you want and then adjust it slightly. The tutorial project has its locators and cycle already set for this. Feel
free to change this if you like.
You can then store it as a new preset.

54
Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
3. Click on the “Edit Audio Channels Settings” button on FX channels
the Bass track to open the VST Audio Channel Settings
Now let’s show you how to create and use FX channels.
window.
1. Close the Mixer and choose “FX Channel” from the
Add Track submenu of the Project menu.

4. Let’s add compression to the Bass track to smooth it

out. Click on the “Select Insert Type 1” slot and choose
“VSTDynamics” from the Dynamics submenu.

2. Choose “Stereo” for “Configuration”, select the “Ping-

PongDelay” effect and click OK.
3. We are going to put delay on the “Elec Guitar” track.
Experiment until you find the best effect settings.
The included effects are described in detail in the separate pdf document
Plug-In Reference.

5. Make changes to the settings in the Compressor sec-

tion. At the end of this section, you can load the next tuto-
rial that will contain all of the changes we have made.

4. With the delay set, click the “Edit Channels Settings”

button of the “Elec Guitar” track.

5. Select “FX 1-PingPongDelay” from the “Select Send

Destination” pop-up menu.

55
Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
6. Click the “Activate Send 1” button to turn on the send. About automation
This will allow you to send the guitar to the “PingPong-
Delay”. Automation allows us to make objects such as faders and
knobs move by themselves. This is very handy in that we
can tell Cubase Essential to make changes over a period
of time and those changes will be remembered and will
occur again without our attention.
! Load the project called “Mixing 7” found in the “Tuto-
7. Move the slider to the right to raise the level of the send rial 5” folder.
to the “PingPongDelay” effect. You will begin to hear the
guitar being delayed. Clicking the “S” (solo) button on the 1. We created a fade-in on the “Elec Guitar” track earlier.
track will allow you to hear this more clearly. Let’s remove the fade on this audio event and create some
automation instead. Zoom in so that you can see the first
audio event more clearly.

8. The great thing about FX Channels is that the channel

looks and feels just like a regular audio channel. When you 2. Select the event and choose “Remove Fades” from
set an EQ for an FX Channel, only this effect will be the Audio menu.
changed by the EQ. In our case changing the EQ on the 3. Click the “Show/Hide Automation” button at the far
“FX 1–PingPongDelay” FX channel will only change the left of the track.
EQ of the delay. You may need to hover your mouse over the far left bottom area until you
see the button appear as this is only shown when you need it.

4. Select the Pencil tool.

5. In the subtrack that appears below the audio event use
the Pencil tool to draw in automation so that it resembles a
fade in.

56
Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
6. You can also use the “Line” tool to draw in automation Exporting
in a straight line. Perfect for fade in automation.
Now that we have our project mixed we will want to export
it so that we can import it into another program such as a
CD burning application.

! Load the project “Mixing 8” found in the “Tutorial 5”

folder.
• Before we can export our mix we need to tell Cubase
7. Listen to the fade in automation we created. Essential how many bars to export. We accomplish this by
• You may have noticed that when we used the Pencil setting the locators.
tool to place in automation, the “R” button (Read Enable) 1. On the Transport panel, make sure that the left and
for the track became highlighted. This means that the au- right locators are set to bar 1 and 57, respectively. This will
tomation on this track is being read or played back. You ensure we have all the music for export.
can turn this off and the automation will not be read. In our
case we drew in volume automation, and so in turning it off Left Locator Right Locator
the volume will not fade in but stay at one level.

There are so many examples to show when it comes to au- 2. Open the File menu, and on the Export submenu select
tomation. For example we could have automated our effects “Audio Mixdown…”.
or our send levels. We could have even automated objects 3. The “Export Audio Mixdown” dialog opens.
while Cubase Essential was playing back. The automation This dialog is described in detail in the chapter “Export Audio Mixdown” in
can be placed into write mode and moving almost any thing the Operation Manual.
will create automation that we can edit for fine tuning later!
Make sure you read the chapter “Automation” in the Opera-
tion Manual to fully realize how exciting automation can be.

4. “Name” is for naming the file for export. Let’s name

our’s “Mixing Mixdown”.
5. The “Path” is where you wish to save the exported file
on your computer. Open the “Path Options” pop-up menu
to the right of the Path field and select “Choose…” to nav-
igate to the folder you wish to save to. For convenience
there is the option “Use Project Audio Folder” which will
store the exported file in your project’s audio folder. This is

57
Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
one of the best places to keep it so it won’t accidentally
become erased or lost. Make sure “Use Project Audio
Folder” is activated for this export.
6. Normally you’ll want to save your exported file as a
“Wave File” under “File Format”. This of course chiefly de-
pends on what file format the other application such as a
CD burning program requires.
7. In the Channel Selection section choose the main out-
put channel “Stereo Out” for export.
The exported file will be generated through the main stereo output that
you can see in the Mixer.
8. In the Audio Engine Output section, choose the “Sam-
ple Rate” and “Bit Depth” that will be required for your ex-
port. 44.100 kHz and 16 bit are common for CD burning.
9. Activate the “Pool” and “Audio Track” options at the
bottom of the dialog, as these will import the audio back
into Cubase Essential after you export it and automatically
create an audio track. If you activate the “Close dialog af-
ter Export” option, the “Export Audio Mixdown” window
will also close after export.
10. When you are done making all the settings, click the
Export button.

11. You will now see the exported stereo mix on a new
stereo track.

12. You can check to see if the audio mixdown sounds the
way you want it by soloing the mixdown track.
! Load the project called “Mixing 9” found in the “Tuto-
rial 5” folder to see the results of this export.

58
Tutorial 5: Mixing and effects
 9
Tutorial 6: Media management
Background It really doesn’t matter which one you pick as they all pro-
vide the same functionality. The reason you would pick
The MediaBay is an area in Cubase Essential that helps to one from the other is that they have various buttons and
find, identify, tag and organize your sounds (VST 3 presets features turned on or off so that you can easily find what
and track presets), audio loops, video and project files. you are looking for.
You’ll hear and read about two different terms associated For example, if you are looking for loops you would select
with managing media files: VST Sound and MediaBay. the Loop Browser as this has been pre-configured for
searching specifically for loops. Or if you were looking for
VST Sound is the overall concept of managing the ever-
track presets or VST plug-in presets, the Sound Browser
growing number of plug-ins, instruments, presets, etc. The
would suit you best.
tool that links all of the plug-ins, instruments and presets
together is the MediaBay. ! Load the project “Media Management” found in the
“Tutorial 6” folder.
Why is the MediaBay important to me?
The MediaBay: To open the MediaBay
• Provides different views allowing you to find and tag media files, We are going to use the MediaBay view as this view has
quickly import media files into projects. Media files include: au- been pre-configured to allow all of the controls by default
dio, MIDI and video files. to be visible. Everything we learn in the MediaBay can be
• Allows you to find sounds easily so that you can begin working applied to the Loop or Sound Browser.
on your music quickly without endlessly searching for the ‘right’
• On the Media menu, select “Open MediaBay” (or press
instrument.
[F5] on your computer keyboard).
• Allows you to find and apply audio, MIDI and instrument presets
quickly to your tracks.
• Shows you all of the Cubase Essential project files that are on Making visible the different sections of the
your computer to quickly load them. MediaBay
• Frees you from thinking in a folder structure or by instrument. At the bottom left hand side of the MediaBay window
Just think about the sound you are looking for and find it there are 2 buttons allowing you to show/hide the different
across your entire library. MediaBay sections, these are:
• Browser
MediaBay, Loop Browser and Sound • Scope
Browser Browser and Scope

There are three menu options on the Media menu that allow
you to call up the various MediaBay views.

60
Tutorial 6: Media management
1. Hide the Browser and Scope sections. 3. Show the Scope section.
We are left with the Viewer display and Filter section. These two sections The Scope section allows you to view and play back files selected in the
allow us to view and find files. Viewer section.

Filter section Scope section

Click here to show/hide the Scope section.

Scanning with the browser

When you open the MediaBay, the Loop Browser or the
Sound Browser, a scan for the media files is performed.
Specify which folders or directories should be included in
the scan by activating their checkboxes to the left of the
name. The result of the scan is saved in the MediaBay
Viewer display database.
2. Show the Browser section.
This is where you can specify locations on your computer so that the Physical and virtual scanning locations
MediaBay can find all of your media files. There are 2 different locations that you can scan for media
files on your computer. The File system location and the
Browser section
VST Sound location.

File System
The File system locations are the physical or actual loca-
tions on your computer. These locations include local and
removable disks such as hard drives, external drives, CD
or DVD-ROM drives, etc.
Click here to show/hide the Browser section.
By default “File system” is checked, however, it contains
many locations you would not want scanned. Be sure to
check which areas/folders you want MediaBay to manage.
The areas/folders that you pick will automatically be
scanned and the result of that scan can be seen in the
Viewer section.

61
Tutorial 6: Media management
VST Sound Selecting a location (folder) automatically initiates a scan
and updates the database.
The VST Sound locations are the virtual locations on your
computer to any factory content or user presets created
for plug-ins, instruments or MIDI loops. Make sure that this Deep Results
is not turned off. Before we begin the scan of all our media on the com-
puter, make sure the “Deep Results” button is activated.
Choosing scanning locations Deep Results
Generally you’ll want to make sure that VST Sound is al-
ways checked since this is the factory content or content
that either came with Cubase Essential or other compati-
Activating “Deep Results” will show any files inside the cur-
ble product such as Steinberg’s Sequel. This is also the
rently selected folder, as well as any sub folder in a “flat”
location of any user presets that were created.
view – as if they were inside the same folder. This allows
1. Click the plus symbol for “File system” to reveal its you to look at your media files sorted by attributes, even if
scanning locations. they reside in a complex folder structure.
These are the physical locations on your computer that you can specify so
• Right-click on Media and select “Rescan” from the con-
that MediaBay will search for media content. Be sure to check the areas/
folders that you want the MediaBay to scan. text menu to begin scanning.
This starts the scanning process and now the MediaBay is looking for
media on your computer within the locations you have specified.

2. Click the plus symbol for “VST Sound” to reveal the

scanning locations found there.

There are many locations that do not need to be checked.

Spend the time un-checking the locations you feel do not
need to be searched. By doing this the MediaBay is kept
clean of any useless information which speeds up searches
and general handling.
If you are in doubt about any of the locations, don’t worry
– just leave them checked.

62
Tutorial 6: Media management
Searching for media 2. Choose a sub category if appropriate (like “Beats”).
This allows us to narrow down our search even more. Alternatively we
Now that we have selected the folders on our computer could use the Text Search field and search for a media file by name.
and scanned for media, we can search for an audio file
Text Search field
and drop it into our project.

! You should still have the project called “Media

Management” loaded for this tutorial.
We are now going to shift our attention to the Viewer sec-
tion. The Viewer section consists of two panes: the filter
section at the top and below it, the Viewer display.
Filter section

There is a list of drum loops that are now available to us in

the Viewer display with our filter criteria. We can simply
drag and drop any of these audio files into our project.

Auditioning media with the Scope

We have narrowed down our search to just drum beats
and now we want to audition our results before we drop a
file into our project.
1. Show the Scope section and select an audio file from
Viewer display the Viewer display.
You will see the Scope display the audio file as a waveform.
1. Choose a main category from the filter section (e.g.
Drum/Perc).
This will show us any files that have been tagged with the category Drum
& Perc, see “Tagging” on page 64.

The Scope section displaying an audio file

You can start, stop, pause and cycle the audio file to hear
what it sounds like. You can also set the preview level.
Play, Stop, Pause and Cycle

Preview Level (Volume)

63
Tutorial 6: Media management
It’s a good idea to hear our project playing while we audi-
tion our audio loop.
2. Activate Play in Project context.
The loop will now play along with our project in the project tempo.

Play in Project context

3. Activate Auto Play.

With Auto Play activated we can click on many different audio files in the
Viewer display and audition them quickly.

Auto Play

4. Click Play on the Transport panel.

The project will begin to play and the audio files you have selected in the
Viewer display will play along in time with the project.
5. Click on different audio files to find the one that works
best with the project.
You can use the up and down arrow keys on your computer keyboard to
quickly audition many files.
6. When you have selected the file you wish to use, drag
and drop it right into the project.
You don’t have to click Stop, the project will continue to play and the
MediaBay will stop auditioning the file automatically.

Tagging
You can also add musical tags to your media files so that
you are able to quickly organize and find your media files for
later use. Tagging also helps you to group large amounts of
media into a more usable and searchable format.
For further details refer to the MediaBay chapter in the
Operation Manual.

64
Tutorial 6: Media management
Index
A D F
Adding Defragmenting FX channels 55
EQ 53 Windows 12
Fades 37 G
Loops 48 E Generic Low Latency driver 10
Mono Track 26 Editing Gluing 35
Advanced settings 22 Adding a fade 37
All MIDI Inputs 19 Audio 32 H
ASIO 2.0 18 Copying 36 Hard disk
ASIO Direct Monitoring 18 Erasing 37 Considerations 21
ASIO driver Gluing 35 Hardware setup
About 10 MIDI 40 Control panel (Mac) 16
DirectX 10 Moving 35 Control panel (Win) 16
DirectX Setup 10, 17 Muting 37
Renaming 33
I
Generic Low Latency driver 10
Installing 11 Repeating 36 Input
Audio Resizing 33 Adding 26
Editing 32 Splitting 34 Input level 15
Processing 37 Effects 54 Input ports 17
Recording 23 About 50 Insert effects 54
Audio buffer size 22 FX channels 55 Instrument Track
Audio hardware Insert 54 Creating 41
Connections 14 eLicenser
J
Setup application 15 About 10
Automation License Activation 11 Joining 35
About 56 License Transfer 11 K
EQ 53
B Equalization 53 Key command conventions 7
Browser Erasing 37 Key Editor
Scanning 61 Event operations About 45
About 33 L
C Adding a fade 37
Click Latency 20
Copying 36
Activating 27 Levels
Erasing 37
Close Setting 26, 27, 51
Gluing 35
Project 25 License Control Center (LCC) 11
Moving 35
Connecting Loading Sounds 42
Muting 37
Audio 14 Local On/Off 19
Renaming 33
MIDI 18 Loop Browser 60
Repeating 36
Controller lane 46 About 48
Resizing 33
Copying 36 Insert into Project 49
Splitting 34
Events 49 Loops
Export
MIDI notes 45 Adding 48
Mixdown 57
Cycle Working with 47
Playback 29
Recording (Audio) 30
Recording (MIDI) 44

66
Index
M N R
Media Management New Project Recent Projects 25
Background 60 Create 24 Recording
MediaBay 60 Save 24 Audio 23
Auditioning media 63 Normalize 38 Cycle 30
Open 60 Level Settings 26
Physical and virtual scanning O MIDI 40, 42
locations 61 Open Modes 29
Scanning 61 Project 25 Recording levels 15
Searching for media 63 Recent Projects 25 Release Driver when Application is in
Tagging 64 Open Config App 16 Background 16
Metronome click Optimizing the Hard Disk Rename 33
Activating 27 Windows 12 Repeating 36
MIDI Output Resizing 33
Copying notes 45 Adding 25 Reverse 38
Cycle playback 43 Output ports 17
Cycle recording 44 S
Editing 40
P Save
Erasing notes 45 Pan New Project 24
Playback 43 Setting 51 Setting levels 27, 51
Quantizing 44 Playback Setting Pan 51
Recording 40, 42 About 28 Solo (Button) 52
Recording modes (Cycle off) 43 Cycle 29 Sound Browser 60
MIDI input MIDI 43 Splitting 34
Setting 42 Play 28
MIDI interface Plug and Play T
Connecting 18 ASIO devices 15 Toolbox
Installing 11 Popup Toolbox on Right Click 31 Popup on right click 31
MIDI notes Processing Track
Creating 46 Audio 37 Adding 26
Drawing 46 Normalize 38
Reverse 38 U
MIDI ports
Setting up 19 Project USB-eLicenser
MIDI Thru Active 19 Close 25 About 10
Mixing Open 25
V
About 50
Q VST
Modifier keys 7
Monitoring Quantizing 44 Input ports 17
About 18 Output ports 17
Moving 35 VST Audio System 16
Mute (Button) 52 VST Connections 25
Muting 37

67
Index