SL3/VSTi and Effects Send

[spariam]

I just bought SL3 and EastWest Silver...I can get an insert effect (Reverb A) to work on individual channels, but I can't get an FX Channel to work, and I'm pretty sure that's it's supposed to work with a VSTi. I've followed the tutorial in the manual to a tee, but I don't see any input to the reverb, even after turning up the effect send in the VSTi channel strip. Before I ask if I'm doing anything wrong, can you truely use FX Channel with VSTi instrument (East West in my case)? The manual's example uses an audio channel, not a VSTi.

Thanks...

 

[Halion]

Yes it should work, I do it all the time.

First make an FX channel, load up the reverb and set the wet/dry control(s) to all wet.

Now go into the mixer, while record enabling the midi channel on which you want to record. Scroll to the VSTi channels. Hit some notes and see which channel has sound coming out. Select the Send view of the mixer, select the FX channel in a send box, and draw the little blue line underneath it to the right. Now you should hear reverb.

On a side note: The reverbs that come with Cubase are crap. Especially Reverb A and B. The Roomworks reverb is decent, but there are better ones for free. Like this one: http://www.garritan.com/support/Garritan_Ambience.dll
It's a copy of a freeware verb that's tweaked for use with the Garritan Personal Orchestra VSTi but it works great for anything.

On a second side note: If you're gonna go big on the ochestral thing, using multiple tracks for every instrument, you're gonna end up with a big-ass list of midi channels. Setting the send level for every one is gonna take time. A workaround is by using the reverb plugin as an insert on the master bus. You won't be able to adjust the amount per instrument but since the panning and volume is probably done right by the sampler anyway, it should sound good.

 

[spariam]

Thanks,

I've think I've done pretty much what you've said, though I entered my midi tracks via the Key Edit window, so I'm trying to put reverb on my existing tracks. I've gone through pages 141-144 in Tutorial 3 in the manual: create FX channel, select reverb A (yes, you're correct - horrible reverb - I was surprised at that), go to mixer and click "e" button on FX channel strip, set prest to "Large" and wet to 100%. Then to set up send I went to VSTi channel strip for my instrument (the active one, I watched for levels during playback), selected my reverb from the first empty send slot (on the right of the eq), and drew the blue line underneath to the right. In this case I see no signal going to the reverb, though I see it in the channel that's doing the send.

However, as you mentioned, this is for an orchestral track, so I may be better off using a send on the master channel...but only if I upgrade my reverb. I may just cut it dry and add reverb later in SoundForge. I used Reason before, and the included reverb is much better. I'm also wondering if I might want to upgrade my EWQLSO to Gold, but I've got plenty to figure out with what I've got...

 

[Halion]

Perhaps you are soloing the vst track, meanwhile muting the fx track?

I do like to compose with some reverb on, to glue things together. It sounds much too fake without verb, and I tend to overdo things like crescendos to compensate. I don't get why it doesn't work for you though.

 

[spariam]

Thanks Halion,

I'm probably just missing something simple. I know I can get insert to work...I guess I'll try recording a simple audio track, or using a simple EWQL piano track or one of the VSTi instruments that ship with Cubase.

I'm assuming I could convert all my EWQLSO tracks to audio, and then export and put them in ProTools, though the built in panning is nice with EWQL..