Tips Tricks And Workflow Goodness

Macro
I’ve created a macro to see the entire project at once.

Whole Project:
Zoom - Zoom Full
Zoom - Zoom Track Full

It’s my most used macro. Better yet if you assign two KC for Undo Zoom and Redo Zoom. (this way you can use the macro to see your entire project at once and one KC to go back to the previous position.

regards

For me, some of the best tips are keyboard shortcut or modifier keys and are not really hidden but I’ll post them anyways:

-Hold shift + Ctrl, left click and drag up or down on midi event(s) to change their velocities
-Hold Ctrl while resising an event (when snap to grid is enabled) to bypass the snap to grid and resise freely (same thing for moving an event)
-This is simple but a lot of people don’t know about this, use Grid Relative in the snap to grid panel if you want to move events but keep their starting position.
-when using the Range selection tool, hold Ctrl + Shift to select all tracks
-there’s a command called select cursor to end, so if you assign this to a keyboard shortcut and also assign one to split at cursor, you can easily split all files and the select all on the right side of the split to move them
-if you want to delete a section but you want all event after to move where the deleted section is while keeping everything on the grid use the range selection tool while snap to grid is enabled, use the ctrl + shift modifier I talked about to select the part you want to delete (let’s say you delete 2 bars), then go to the snap type in the snap to grid panel and change it to shuffle, then press delete. the 2 bars are gone and all event after moved to the left automatically. Don’t forget to change the snap type again after tho :wink:
-Variaudio shortcuts: press tab to switch between segment and pitch modes, hold ctrl while moving a note to put it perfectly on the pitch, hold shift while moving a note to move it freely
-In mixconsole, alt double click on sends to make the send plugin show up
-Add a Key command to Find track/Channel (in my case it’s F) so when I press F I can start typing the name of a track and it will select it … this is really usefull to find tracks easily in big sessions

I could go on like this but I don’t want to clutter the forum :wink: I hope this will help some of you

i will add to these all these are re-configurable via preferences>editing>tool modifiers, so if any of these don’t work at a studio, they may have been configured differently. also, there are some modifier-controlled functions that are not by default assigned to any keyboard keys, so it’s worth getting to know what can be done.

Tip for Drum Templates

We all create one track for each mic on a drum set. I put all these tracks in a folder. Fine. But what happens when you want to punch in a drums set? Well the drums themselves are simple but the overheads, hi hat, and any other cymbal tracks sustain much more than a drum hit does. And you don’t want to cut off the staining sounds when you overdub.

To solve this I do the following:

  1. Create a folder called “drums”
  2. Create a two sub folders under drums called “main” and “aux” respectively
  3. Create tracks for your drum mics under the “drums” folder
  4. Create a set of tracks for your cymbal mics under the “main” subfolder
  5. Create a second set of tracks for your cymbal mics under the “aux” sub folder
  6. Route all drum tracks to group tracks. (snare top and bottom to snares, 4 overheads(remember, there are two sets of overhead tracks in this scenario) to an overhead group etc)
  7. Add FX to group tracks instead of the main tracks. Mix primarily with the groups.

Main advantage:
When I need to punch in I hit the record enable on the “drums” folder and then disarm record on one of the cymbal sub folders (main or aux) that was recorded just prior to the punch in point. This way, the cymbal sustain from the performance just before the punch in point decays naturally and is mixed in with the new punched in drums and cymbals. Sounds seamless as if it were played in one take.

note: I use two bass drum mics, top and bottom snare mics, 5 tom mics, two hats each with their own mic, a ride mic, two overheads and two room mics. As a result, my groups are bass drums, snares, overheads, hats, rides, all routed to another group called drum sub. Finally there is another group for parallel compression and one for the room mics. I do most of my mixing in the groups rather than the individual tracks.

This has worked well for me. Hope it helps someone else.

Locators and markers

1- My goto next/previous marker is {Alt}+{+} and {Alt}+{-} very handy as {+} and {-} are already used for scroll

2- to set LR locator to the next 2 markers locate to marker 1 then apply the following macro ({Alt}+{/}
transport- set Left locator
transport- next marker
transport- set Right locator

SeeWhat

some people have been wanting a ‘lock locators’ feature. it would be handy, but you can sort of overcome that by creating a set of proprietary macros+PLE scripts. you need a marker track, and have a script create a cycle marker around the current locators position. then have a PLE script rename that cycle marker a dummy string. then you are free to move your locators wherever you wanted. when you want to revert your locators to the saved position, you have a PLE macro select the marker object in your arrange whose name is precisely that dummy string you had created in the first step, set locators around it, and delete the dummy marker. don’t have time to write out the scripts+macros atm but this is the principle.

Great topic! Thx!!

To avoid getting duplicates of a sample that is dragged from Mediabay into your Cubase project appearing in Mediabay (clogging up your Mediabay with many multiples of the same sample), uncheck your Cubase projects folder in the “Define Locations” section of Mediabay.

Need more overview in your PlugIns? Here is what I found out about:

Cubase PlugIn sorting

I don’t know why Steinberg makes such a magic about PlugIn-sorting (Maybe they want to create reasons to sell it in Cubase 8?). It is easy to manage yet in Cubase 7 /7.5! So this one goes for VST2 Plugins…

  1. Create in your VstPlugins Directory Subdirectories like:
    \Reverb
    \Distortion
    \Filter

  2. Any VST2 PlugIn you install directly in those subdirectories will be sorted correctly!

That means:

Install for example “Audio Damage Kombinat” into the directory C:\Program Files\Vstplugins\Distortion
and it will be correctly sortet near by the Steinberg Distortion Plugins!

If you create a further subdirectory like …\Vstplugins\Distortion\AudioDamage you have all Distortion Plugins from Audio Damage in one folder, right under the Distortion Group

Nice? :wink:

Not nice enough, this needs to be enabled for vst3 as well (withou the need to hex-edit the file itself). Also most welcome would be creating custom arbitrary groups of favourite plugins etc.

Here’s my take on bouncing as a lazy guy.

Macro for bouncing without any processing from the main-outs (and also auto muting what’s bounced)

usage: select the track and part you want to bounce. fire the macro.

The cool thing here is, you set the export window once, and bounce whatever you can, no need to select output when exporting, no need to assign your vsti or audio output to a specific group etc. Your bounce will be unaffected by your main output eq / insert chain.

“floating” inspector bar, PT style :wink:

make it allways on top and will automaticaly scroll during selecting track

http://www.gifti.me/i/b9qAm.jpg

simple mixer configuration

Select midi event(s) in the project/arrange page then Shift + up or down arrow key to change octave

Ahoy All,

Another shameless bump, more joy sifted and collated into the first post, sorry for the delay, December gig-fest an all…

Merry merry and have a happy n safe crazy season.

Cheers,

PC

Booked

Here’s a little one…

The return and Enter keys no longer default to the Export button In Audio Export, and now you have to mouse or tab to the button.

But, you can assign Enter or Return (or whatever) to the Key Command “Perform Audio Export” and get that functionality back. On my system it did not interfere with any other use of those keys. (text fields were confirmed, focused buttons still got pressed.)

here is a little one, not sure if post here but anyway its helpful for me in midi programing and recording “live”
using mod wheel controller to control midi cc7(volume) with input transformer. use it with strings,brass etc… when the VSTI is not program to do so with modwheel.
very simple code look at the Pic below.(can be assigned of course to control other midi CC of course if need so)

Would love to see more tips and tricks regarding the Logical Editor. This is one aspect of Cubase I have trouble wrapping my head around…

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Video Scrubbing

Very nice for film-scoring if you play back a movie on a computer screen: Click directly in the Video Player window and drag the mouse left or right…
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