Cubase7 on way. 1st complex DAW. eeeek ?

[1poorplayer]

I just purchased Cubase 7 , and I'm eagerly awaiting it's arrival.
Around 13/14 years ago , I bought a Mackie D8b and a 24/96 HDR recorder , which in and of itself had it's own complete set of editing tools for manipulating audio tracks and automation.
This setup allowed me to never have to consider latency issues , or CPU usage , etc , etc. It was fairly simple with essential editing tools and most importantly , ...... it worked. ( until it died that is

Sooooooo , here I am. I'm going to use my old Mackie D8b as a controller , and I was told that Cubase uses MCU protocol , which makes it the best DAW to work with. I'm going to use an Allen and Heath ZedR16 as my interface thru firewire to an HP elitebook with an i7 2.30 Ghz and 32 Gb memory.

I'm not great with computers , and dread the initial setup , and the growing pains to come. I tried Logic around 3 or 4 years ago , and quickly gave up , finding it to be anything BUT "logical". I don't see where I have that option this time around , and I'm going to HAVE to make Cubase7 work.

Wish me luck. I'm sure everyone here will learn my name , while I frequently show up after pulling my hair out.
Internal routing , creating and monitoring tracks , etc...... I'm starting from scratch , and I'm feeling a bit of anxiety from it all. I'll be watching the tutorial videos. If anyone has any quick tips or words of encouragement , I'm all ears !

[Split]

Hi and good luck

One thing, don't try and hook it all up and expect it to all work at once. Do one thing at a time, If you've never worked with a major DAW before, the initial learning curve is almost vertical, keep with it until things start to make sense, and don't be afraid to ask silly questions.

[curteye]

and don't be afraid to ask silly questions.

+1000000000000000000000000000
{'-'}

[1poorplayer]

Thanks guys. I appreciate it !

[Reiknir]

I'm not great with computers , and dread the initial setup , and the growing pains to come. I tried Logic around 3 or 4 years ago , and quickly gave up , finding it to be anything BUT "logical". I don't see where I have that option this time around , and I'm going to HAVE to make Cubase7 work.

Nothing to worry about, your old mackie recorder was after all just a PC in a box with some Soundscape cards bolted in and sold as a HDR. You will find it conceptually hard going at first since Cubase is practically a studio in a box with full automation of most features to a degree but do not let that worry you, the problem is that most people do not consult the supplied manuals like they should, have the "quick start guide" PDF file open at all times during the first week and consult the full manual when things seem difficult

after a couple of weeks you will be fully acclimatised, it makes sense to consult the manual from time to time for a full insight into the features you end up using the most, i.e. for the features you use the most you should at some point in time read the whole section dealing with that feature from start to finish.

and don't panic, nothing in the program is really all that difficult, just may be slightly different to what you are used to

[Strophoid]

Have fun with Cubase, it's certainly worth getting to grips with it!

[janamdo]

These days we do have youtube video and dvd tuturioals , so there is always a way to get the right setup for you
Practice and study that is all

[1poorplayer]

Cool. You're all making me feel less apprehensive about the big move. It's nice to see there are some good guys on this forum , willing to take the time to post the kind words and encouragement. Thank you. I got my Cubase7 software now , and I'm about to start the install in a few moments.

[1poorplayer]

well, I've only got a few hours of Cubase 7 under my belt , and so far I LOVE IT.

I spent most of my time trying to get set up. Running my audio into my computer via my Allen and Heath ZedR16 , and then setting up my old Mackie D8b as a midi controller. Being able to successfully get audio into Cubase , and then be able to monitor it was indeed a challenge.

I played around with Cubase 7 until 4:30 in the morning last night. Finally started to learn my way around a little bit.
I still need to do additional midi mapping on my board , and learn alot of keyboard controls.

I'd like to use the control room section of the software , and be able to create monitor mixes , but I hate to sacrifice the channels on my ZedR16 that I need for INPUTS , to use for outputs for headphone mixes instead. !!????

Is this really the case ? This ZedR16 mixer I'm using for preamps and AD/DA converters , has XLR , input , and insert for each channel. I'm figuring in order to provide additional headphone mixes from the Studio Monitor section of Cubase 7 , I'd need to "sacrifice" additional "pairs" of channels for headphone mixes , in addition to the Main LR , that I normally monitor with ? OR , ......... can the channels be shared because of the inserts maybe ?

[Strophoid]

If I remember correctly, the ZED series (and many other USB mixers) do indeed take up input channels if you want to use additional outputs over USB.
I'm not sure what you had in mind with the inserts, but it sounds like a bad idea .

[1poorplayer]

It's a FireWire mixer with Adat capability for an additional 8 channels. - which I will be adding this week !!!!!! Whoa.
If I can spare a few channels after , I will get some headphone mixes too.