Mixed Signed Routing Made Easy

Mixed signed routing

hey what's going on guys a Chris here from McDonough online and today I want to share with you five a Cubase routing tips if you're new here on the channel please subscribe and click that notification bells so you don't miss anything and don't forget to share and to like this video alright let's jump in cubase first let's start with tip number one determine the signal routing of the track okay now on my mix session I have solo one in solo two both are the same electric guitar solo but with two different voicings now both of those tracks are routed into that group track that mono group track and from that point this mono track is then routed into the mix guitar group track which is routed to my stereo out and then the master buss then if we go back to the solo guitar group okay this one I'm sending a signal into an effects channel track to add a delay effect so let's check what we have here if we click on the channel settings option you can find that by clicking on the letter E from the mix console if you're into the project window you can also click on e directly on the the track list or on the Left Zone on top there's an e which means edit channel settings and you're gonna see that window I'm just gonna go back to the mix console though and let's open that one again and there you go now from that window you see a lot of settings you see all the inserts the channel strip you have the EQ in the middle and the channel strip as well and on the right side we have the sense and a cue sense okay we're gonna stick to the sense tab for now but on top this is where we can see and manage the routing of the track we can see what is feeding that selected track and where that track is going right now I have selected the solo group mono track now both of the electric guitar tracks are routed into that group track so if I click on that left arrow I can see that those two tracks are routed into my actual group track so I see what is coming into this track by clicking on the Left arrow I click on the right arrow I see the opposite I see where my track is going now I see that this track is going into the mixed guitars group track and I see that I am sending as a target I'm sending a signal to the effects channel track solo delay which is right here now if I click on that arrow it's called the show output chain very cool you can see the entire chain of that track so you see my group track you see where the group is routed into so the output goes to the mixed guitars group track which the tracks output goes into the stereo out and so on until you get to the master Channel so very cool feature here so this is the way you can you can look at the routing of your track where it comes from and where it's going by just clicking on top and the cool thing about this option here is you can access all the tracks in your project without closing that window so if you want to stick to the channel settings window I just click right here where you see the name of the track you click and you select any other track to start working on and there you go it's very easy access to all of your tracks in your session directly from the channel settings window and also if I just want to edit the effects channel track I'm working on for this track like let's check here we have the right arrow so now I know that the target is solo delay if I want to work on my solo delay channel settings I just click on solo delay and there you go I'm now on the channel settings of that effects channel track that's simple I can go back by clicking on the the go last edit channel arrow which is in the middle and you go back to the previous channel you were working on very simple now the sources right here that is the inputs and the targets right here is the output of your channel so now we see by clicking on this targets we say that the solo group is going into the mix guitar group so if I don't want that I can change that directly from the target window by clicking on target and if I click on the right arrow again it just shows me where the this truck is routed into and where I send I'm sending the signal so I can go back to what's feeding that track I'm gonna click on the Left arrow go just gonna go back to solo 1 now I am to my guitar solo track one of them anyways and I'm into that channel settings window from that point I can select an input if I need to record some new some new takes by clicking on that input on top which is called no source for now so if I select mono one that is gonna be my input and it's gonna be called mono mono one so this is basically the name of the input feeding that track so there you go this is how you determine the signal routing of your track now for tip number two working with post and pre fader sends ok now I'm gonna go back to my solo group track where I have my guitar solo and let's listen to what we have right now [Music] so we have our guitar solo and we're sending a signal to the effects channel track which holds a delay okay this track right here so I have a soundToys delay on that track and this is the delay I'm using for this solo I'm gonna go back on my solo group at channel settings window and I have my cents here so I am sending that signal post fader meaning that the signal is sent to that effects channel track after my fader so if I bring my fader down it is gonna bring the signal sent to that effects channel track down as well like this very straightforward but there's another way I can send that signal to that same effects channel track it's by using the pre fader sends this way it's gonna send the same the same signal but before it hits the fader okay so if I bring my fader down this signal is still gonna go through the effects Channel track so to activate the pre fader just click on that pre and post fader button right here or right click and select move to pre fader and there you go now my signal is sent pre fader so let's try the same test again again very cool so this can be very useful for different types of creative techniques okay so this is how you do it so if you want to keep your effects channel signal and dependent from the dry signal so you can be a bit more creative on that side that's the way you do it now just a quick note I'm working in Cubase 9.5 Cubase Pro actually 9.5 if you look at the color right here it is kind of a darker blue when it's in pre fader mode if I put it back to post fader it is a greenish greenish blue so in older versions of Cubase it's the other way around so if you're not working 9.5 and you're working on a previous version of Cubase you'll probably have those colors reversed so this is how to work with post and pre fader sense now for tip number three pan your sans okay so first thing on the same window at the bottom right of the center column we have deep panning tab okay which is gonna bring us to the panning mode of ascend meaning that we can actually send the signal to the effects channel track by panning that signal very practical so let's say I want to send that signal more to the left side of my effects channel track I'm just gonna select my pan er and bring it to the left you know not too complicated so let's have a quick listen of that effect [Music] so it gives you full control on the on the panning of that send signal so something that can be useful using a pan or a panning in sand would be light for example let's write with this with this guitar if I want to pan my direct signal a bit to the right and my effect a bit to the left I would say on an acoustic guitar that works well when I'm using an acoustic guitar and a room a type of reverb I do that exact same technique and it just enlarged the sound a bit you know just add a bit more width to my solo guitar sound so let's try it out with this sound and we'll see how that goes [Music] so it gives you an idea it just adds a bit more flexibility when mixing something to note here if you click on the function menu right here on top you can link the panners and this is practical on my main channel I have my main panner so now that Penner if I move it it is linked to the sand patter as well just by clicking on that option so if I want my sent panner to follow my channel spanner that's the way to do it you just click on the function menu you make sure the link panners R is selected and there you go now note that this feature is I mean I'm pretty sure it's only available on Cubase Pro ok so if you're using another version of Cubase the pan effect option I don't think it's gonna be available for you so there you go this is how you pan your sense in Cubase now for tip number 4 how to record your effects on a separate track I got that question not too long ago someone asked me how can i record my effects directly on a track very very simple their routing for this is even more simple than you think I have here an audio stereo track I call this one print effects and I'm gonna record my my solo delay right here directly on that track to do so as an input I am gonna go on top in the routing tab if you don't see that running tab click on racks and make sure the routing is selected and then I'm gonna select an input to feed that audio track and I'm gonna go down to FX and look for my effects channel track that's simple and there you go now I'm gonna go on my project window activate the record and let's start recording [Music] so there you go let's listen to that recorded track [Music] so if you need to record your effects on a track this is how you do it now for tip number five working with several outputs okay let's go directly on the audio connections window now right here I have my master buss I have my test buss this is a second master buss that I assigned to output 5 & 6 now this will work if you have more than two outputs on your audio interface and on my side I have more than two so I'm good to use several outputs out of that interface in my mix session so I have it right here on the right side of the mix console I have my master buss and I have a second master buss I would say that is called test right here so I can send from my stereo out bus on top of sending that signal to the master buss I can also send it in parallel to a second output that can be used to to send that signal to an external device or an external recorder whatever you know that can be useful in some cases so to do so very simple if I click on the racks on my mix console I go directly to the direct routing and just make sure that is activated and I see my direct routing right here okay so it's going to show the actual output of each tracks where the track is going in my case on the stereo out if we look at that track you see that the the signal is going to the master output if I want to send it also to the test output I'm just going to go to the second row and select test the second output and there you go now you can only by default I just select one of them make one of them active if you need to have both active very simple you click on top here you can click on the direct routing summing mode on and you can also just click on shift and click on one of the tabs and they're both going to be activated that's simple if you select this now this one is on right now let's put it off and put it back on and now all the channels are activated as a direct routing option so very simple now if I listen to what I have here you'll see that the signal is going into my master output and the test output as well [Music] okay that simple that can also be used for parallel processing let me show you let's say I want to add some parallel compressor to my mix a channel here my mix drum channel so I have here a group channel where I inserted a compressor in 1176 let's bring up the input for now alright so now my goal is to send the signal of my mix drum bus into that compressor so i can use that compressor as a parallel effect on that channel very simple i can just send that signal directly by using the sense i can send it directly to that group track which is called NY comp and make sure i send a signal pre fader or i can just use my output just use a second output and select that group track as well activate it and there you go that's simple now my signal is going into my stereo out if I click on solo you see it's going into these stereo outputs and also on the NY comp which is the compressor so let's try it out so it's that's a very simple way in a fast way to do parallel compression or parallel processing on a channel by using a second output and I think that this one is also on Cubase Pro only if I'm mistaken let me know in the comments section and this is gonna be it for today I hope those tips are gonna be helpful for you so those are my five routing pits for Cubase 9.5 if you have any comments or questions please leave everything down below and don't forget to share to like and to subscribe to the channel if you're new here until next time see [Music] you