Demystifying the Control Room In Cubase - Tutorial Series

Thanks again to you both.

I am currently in post-production on a sort of “making-of” series that is not so much a tutorial as a … record and sharing of my process of creating a short choral piece from arrangement through to final recording. It will include all the ups and downs of it, particularly when everything fell apart and I had to solve several problems I wasn’t sure how to solve. The idea is to share my process in a way that will hopefully inspire others (especially those who are new to it) to get past their own bumps in the road by helping them realize that EVERYONE encounters bumps–it’s how you react to them that makes the difference.

That said, I am also in pre-production (creating outlines and plans) on another full blown tutorial series for another part of Cubase that I think would benefit a lot of people.

Anyway, thanks again to all those who have watched.

Hi SLD -

Just spent some significant time on these - they are completely wonderful!

I was wondering about something relating to external inputs, I hope it’s OK to ask here:

Is it a reasonable use of the external input function of the Control Room to route a hardware processor’s stereo aux return to there? Or are those best handled as regular inputs into the regular Cubase mixer? I’m having a hard time thinking through the pros and cons of possibly using the Control room like that …

Thanks again SLD for the FANTASTIC Control Room vids!

(PS - I think I read you are considering doing a similar series on the PLE … I bet I’m not the only one who would love to see that).

Thanks alexis–much appreciated.

As far as your question… You COULD route a hardware processor’s returns to an external input, but I have hard time trying to figure out why you’d want to do it, or what advantage would be gained. The primary purpose of external inputs is to give you a way to route things to your control room (i.e. to your monitoring environment) so that they aren’t a part of the main mix environment–allowing you to listen to them without affecting anything about your mix. There are several applications for external inputs in this regard. Although external inputs can ALSO be routed through the Cubase mixer by setting them up as an input to an audio track, you’d probably need to have a really special reason to route the returns of an external processor unit to an external input. Never say never, but I honestly can’t think of a reason why you’d want to do that.

If you are indeed using your piece of hardware as an external processing device, I would set it up under “external FX” in VST connections, and then just use it as a traditional insert effect in the mixer (you can even use it in the control room inserts if you want).

Thanks, SLD, much appreciated!


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BTW - one more quick question if I could please?

Would you recommend the “brick wall limiter” in the last insert slot of:

a) The Control Room (as recommended in the Cubase 6 Ops manual, page 181), or
b) The Monitor channel (“Monitor 1” of the illustration on page 177, e.g.)?

I thought the safest would be option B, the Monitor Channel, to take into account any gain increases that inserts there might cause … but why is option A better?

Thanks again!


alexis,

Either one works. The only advantage to doing it at the control room channel as opposed to the monitor channel is that you only have to have one limiter, no matter what monitor your are listening on. If however, you are adding gain on the individual monitor channels (whether through the input gain, or inserts on the monitor channels), especially if its in any way unpredictable gain, AND/OR if there’s a chance you’ll be swapping around different monitors on your monitor channels, it might make sense to put the limiter there instead.

As for me, I just put the limiter on the control room channel–but if I have no inserts or input gain happening on my monitor channels. If I did, I might be tempted to put a limiter on the last insert slot of my monitor(s) as well. An even better, and more foolproof solution is to put a physical limiting device before the monitors AFTER you leave the interface itself. Some people do this. I’m not quite paranoid enough to go through the expense and trouble of going to that extreme though.

Thanks, SLD. A complete, calm, knowledgeable and reassuring answer … just like your youtube vids! (Are you a teacher in “real life”?).

:slight_smile:

Excellent work SLD!

Extremely informative and helpful.

I use an N12 with Cubase 6.5 and realized in the end I don’t need to use the control room feature in Cubase. Most of the stuff is built into the N12 but it isn’t because of lack of understanding the Control Room feature. Thanks to your videos.

Cheers,
Frank

I’ll say that after many years, I still occasionally somehow mess up trying to solo a track, and wind up undoing all the mutes/solos of my project.

But not since I started using the Control Room :slight_smile: … I sort of cheat and use the “Listen” button, but have it programmed so that all the other tracks are attenuated to negative infinity. I know that’s not the intended use of the Listen button, but I have to say I have never messed up all my Mutes/Solos in the rest of the project since I started using the Listen button this way!

(Of course it’s also awesome to use it the intended way, to drop the rest of the tracks by 20dB or so :slight_smile: ).

THANKS SO MUCH ! !:slight_smile:

Sorry I haven’t been around, I’ve been fairly occupied with life outside the confines of my computer lately. I appreciate the feedback, and I’m glad people are getting something out of the series!

thanks very much for these useful videos …

I myself get a bit confused as well with the control room, like when i go to acivate the control room-my buss on the output section all turn off and there on diffrent outputs on the audio card, then when i deactivate the controlroom the output buss turn back on. Its like you can use only one or the other. remember these are total different outs being used on the out put interface.

myself get a bit confused as well with the control room,

Scott, thanks for the tutorials. I have not needed the control room until now so have ignored it. It’s proving to be a great tool for my current productions. You’re a great teacher!

Rick

well done for making this tutorial, i now understand :stuck_out_tongue: . great use of the xylophone and car horns , lol . cheers.

@SLD Music,

Thanks for this tutorial series. I’ve watched them all and they were very thorough. I’ve only messed with the control room a little but I will definitely be setting up some templates with various control room setups. Thanks Again.

Please Help! I don’t have the control room tab…it seams to be MIA!?

Everyone,

Thanks again for watching.

showmeeagle,

It’s possible you’re not using the full / pro version of Cubase. The control room is only available on the full version of Cubase.

Nice update to this thread here: Control Room - video tutorial - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

Tons of useful info here! I have an old version and wish I knew of this forum when I originally got it.