Routing/Grouping

[StarMan]

Hi,
I'm a little confused and don't understand how to route/group my instruments in my Cubase and why I need to do it. Please pardon my ignorance, but if somebody can explain it to me in simple terms so I understand and can go ahead and do it myself, that'll be great. And yes I have read the manual but find it too filled with jargon and confuses me more!

 

[jjjtttggg]

Can't say as to Cubase, but in Reaper its useful anytime you want to be able to mix a subset of tracks relative to one another and then move them up and down as a group on one slider, or apply an effect to them as a group. Example, suppose I double up a rhythm guitar part, by playing it/recording it twice and then panning one track hard left and another hard right. I played a teeny bit louder on the second take which I've panned left, so have to notch that slider back just a bit so it sounds balanced. Now suppose I want to put a little bit of delay on them and a little bit of reverb. I could keep them as two separate tracks, put delay and reverb on each one and just make all the settings the same on those effects. Then when I mix the song, if the guitars are too loud, I move both sliders, remembering to keep the one notched back a little bit (and probably soloing them both momentarily to find that exact balance again).

OR . . . I can adjust the relative volume of the two tracks by notching one of the back a bit, then buss those two tracks over to a third track, and apply my effects only to that third track. Now, I only have to worry about one set of delay parameters and one set of reverb parameters, and if my R Guitar is too loud, I just move the one slider and I don't have to worry about upsetting the relative balance between the left part and the right part. The other perfect example is to buss the drums down for exactly the same reasons, either to a single track or to a few subsets... If you record a brass section, you can mix them relative to one another and then route them to a single slider so you can "Bring up the Brass, man!" or "Turn that sh*t down!" nice and easy. Multiple background vocals that need to stay the same relative to one another, but get the same effects and find their place in the mix as a group: sub-mix and buss them. Etc., etc., etc.

J

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Control grouping: When group the control of tracks so as you move the fader of one track in the group all the other ones move the same amount. This acts directly on the tracks, before they reach any mix bus. Normally it just controls the main faders of the grouped tracks, which in turn affects post-fader levels.

Submix grouping: When you actually mix a subset of tracks together to control or process them as a single mono or stereo signal. Often used to apply a common process, like eq or compression, to a set of related tracks, like drums, vocals, guitars etc. Processes applied on the submix group do not affect other paths to which the track may be routed.

I can't help with the specifics of Cubase.

 

[starsxandxslits]

Project-->add track-->group track--->choose mono/stereo. Above each ch fader, set the output bus (which is likely set to your stero main output) to the group track you just created. Jusst remember, in cubase, if you want to further bus instruments to another group, you can only go in numerical order i.e. group 1 can be bussed to group 2, or 4...but not vice versa.

 

[StarMan]

Thanks to all the help, I have finally understood the routing/grouping thing and it feels great to get a handle on it. Ok, to further my topic, I've just added a group to send through an FX channel. This is how I did it, hopefully I have done this correctly regarding this.
I will use as an example, I have created a "guitars" group channel.This houses several tracks of guitar. Now when I bring up the channel group settings I have several insert areas. In insert 1 I have insert a chorus effect. Now when I activate the "effect insert" this applies the chorus effect to all the tracks in my "guitar channel". I can control the level of the effect on either the whole channel with the master fader. So have I done this correctly? So is this another way of sending/returning? Also how do I apply various amount of the effect on individual tracks in the group channel?

 

[bouldersoundguy]

StarMan, have you ever used an analog mixing board? It would really help with routing concepts.

In addition to the two types of grouping I described above, there is also something called an auxiliary bus, or aux (probably the same as FX channel in Cubase). This is the normal way to handle reverbs, delays and sometimes chorus effects. With this setup the channels you want to affect continue their normal path to the main mix bus, but also send a variable amount of signal, via a send fader on the channel, to the aux bus (FX channel) which has, for example, a reverb plugin. The output of the aux bus with the reverb plugin is blended back into the mix with the aux bus fader. This is known as a parallel effect, because the signal is split to take another path to the main mix. With parallel effects you always set the effect so that no dry signal passes, using either a dry/wet balance control or separate level controls for dry and wet. (Dry means the original sound with no effect, wet refers to the effect.)

Eq and compression are best inserted directly on the channel or submix group bus you want to affect. They are called series effects because the signal passes entirely through them.

 

[StarMan]

>StarMan, have you ever used an analog mixing board? It would really help with routing concepts. <

No I haven't. Thanks for this tip, can you direct me to how I can follow this through in CubaseLE4?

 

[bouldersoundguy]

>StarMan, have you ever used an analog mixing board? It would really help with routing concepts. <

No I haven't. Thanks for this tip, can you direct me to how I can follow this through in CubaseLE4?

I don't really know Cubase so my info is more generalized, but the concepts should transfer to any DAW. I think you'd create an FX Channel and insert the effect, send various amounts of each channel to it, then use the FX Channel's fader to blend the effect back into the mix. With this arrangement you need to turn the effect to 100% wet (or however they describe it).