Hidden Cubase 8 features!

No midi sends.

Touché!

I really was asking for my own benefit if there were any remaining differences…not trying to make any point so a “Touche” not really applicable by my understanding of it’s use.

Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it, Grim… I meant in a light-hearted, playful way. I had stated:

I had made a point, so the “Touché” applies to me. I should’ve included my quote.

Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it, Grim… I meant in a light-hearted, playful way. I had stated

I didn’t think for a moment it was intended in any derogatory sense…Only pointing out because of the way it might have made my comment look to the OP…not to tell you off for making it!

It’s not a new hidden feature for Cubase 8 but I found it by mistake in Cubase 7.5.

Anyways; You can rename in the instrument rack (works for both rack and track instruments) if you ALT+click the name. This makes having multiple instances of the same plugin so much easier to overview and the new name is also the one showing in the midi track output routing.

No more projects with five instances in the rack named Kontakt 5 8out for me… :smiley:

Cool. Thanks!

I gather by ‘certain demographic’ you mean someone who is not as sophisticated at using their DAW as you undoubtedly are. As someone who’s first sequencer (not DAW) was text based on an Apple II+, I guess I’m too dumb to understand how horrible Instrument Tracks are. I guess I’m also so dumb that I don’t accidentally create tracks I don’t want.

You are absolutely right about the wasted display space of the ‘HUGE VST instruments rack.’ I’m not sure how long it will take me to get over the trauma of the 10 seconds it took to disable it.

Cubase has lots of stuff in it that I don’t personally need. I find it healthier to just ignore and not use those parts rather than get bent out of shape over their existence. Especially when other folks do find them useful.

Man…that’s convenient. So much better than having all those kontakt auto names

It certainly seems your gripe is actually mainly with mistakes you are making, such as forgetfulness. Also, there is nothing stopping you from hiding the “huge” docked VST instruments rack. (It’s a perfectly reasonable size on my screen, so not “huge” for me.) Also, you do know you can make the VST instrument window smaller yeah, so it’s the same size as it used to be?

Can you really not understand that it’s more convenient for many people to use instrument tracks, so they only need to use 1 channel (an instrument track), rather than 2 (a MIDI and audio channel)?

It’s fair enough to be frustrated at new functionality and workflow changes you don’t want to use, but to say you can’t see the point in it is strange if you consider anyone other than yourself. Clearly many people like and use instrument tracks, and see the ‘traditional’ way as less convenient in many cases, so it would be silly to have to do it that way. It’s obviously better to have the option. ‘Certain demographics’ don’t like change, but thankfully Steinberg doesn’t just cater to them.

BTW, I’m not sure because everyone keeps saying how great instrument tracks are and I’m wondering if I still don’t get it: is it possible to make several instrument tracks use the same instance of a multitimbral plugin, sending different MIDI channels and receiving on separate audio outputs (I’m thinking of VEP here).

e.g.

Track 1 - Kontakt Instance - MIDI Ch 1 - Kontakt Audio Output 1-2
Track 2 - Kontakt Instance (same one) - MIDI Ch 2 - Kontakt Audio Output 3-4

To me this only seems possible with Rack Instruments but I may be wrong…

You can do this, no problem, but you wouldn’t load two separate ITs.

e.g.,

  1. Load Kontakt IT
  2. Activate a second output from that IT
  3. In Kontakt, load your second .nki, set it to MIDI Channel 2, and output 3-4
  4. Create a new MIDI Track in Cubase, set to Kontakt, MIDI Channel 2

Repeat as necessary.

Thank you enjneer, you confirm what I was thinking. I was hoping the new ITs could be a way to unify MIDI & multitimbral VST output (having an audio output & fader for a MIDI track automatically set without it having to be selected in the “output” section of the inspector). The way you describe it, it is essentially the same as what’s currently possible with the instrument rack — which of course might be a good thing for a lot of folks — but it isn’t a reason (for me) to migrate from the rack (yet).

Yeah, the flow of using a multi-out IT is almost exactly the same as using a Rack. Except you get the outputs united under the one track in Project view.
IT vs Rack is contentious and will always be a matter of taste/workflow.

Although, I gotta say, when I want to do what you’re talking about, I simply make a new IT for the new part with Kontakt. There’s no measurable difference in overhead; no channels and outputs to assign… Each instrument gets its own IT. If I’m doing a String section, say, I just plop all those into a Folder Track and I’m organised and happy![emoji5]

Would that not work for you?

Thanks again enjneer, I have a large template set up which has been working just fine for the last couple of years… I was, as always, on the lookout for new features that might inspire a better way of working. Not yet, I’m afraid :slight_smile: Although C8 is running beautifully here.

Right. I’m sure future tweaks will get ITs to where you want them.

I’m jealous. C8 has been very problematic for me. Had to revert to 7.5 until 8 is patched.

The mouse scroll wheel can be used to browse through plug-in presets (and probably other presets too). Nice one! :slight_smile:


Cheers
Fred

What this tells me is that you never use instrument tracks with the “save as” feature in the mix console. :slight_smile:
The bug still exists. In the mix console “save as” will NOT save your instrument tracks. Actually the feature won’t even show up if you highlight any instrument track.

I’m not too surprised about this because that feature is a tiny bit convoluted IMO. I only use it as a huge work-around for not having a “undo mixer volume settings” that has been asked for many times.

My god. Yeah, undo in the MixConsole would be heaven. Especially since they made it so easy to delete inserts and sends with keyboard. One wrong move and it’s gone!

Unstickied? Boo. I check this thing once a day or so. 10000 views in a month and its being dropped? Wow. I hate that.