A Music App Blog step- by- step tutorial

Transcription

1 A Music App Blog step- by- step tutorial By John Walden DIY send effects in Cubasis using Audiobus This step- by- step guide is to accompany the article on the Music App Bog website that describes this general process. You can find that article at:- send- effects- cubasis/ The example used here is based upon processing a dry lead vocal track through AudioReverb and AUFX:Dub and then blending the wet (processed) tracks recorded through those effects to create the required level of the effects. All the screenshots here used the demo Lucky 7 project supplied with Cubasis. Step 1 Place Cubasis into both the Input and Output slots of Audiobus and put the effect app that you want to use in the Effects slot.

2 Step 2 Open the Cubasis project. Solo the track you wish to process (in this case it is the track named Voice) and make sure that any of the Cubasis Insert or Send effects that you might have experimented with previously (e.g. the Cubasis reverb or delay effects) have been disabled. Then, add a new track onto which you wish to record the processed version of the vocal. Note that as AudioReverb produces a stereo output, this new track is a stereo track. The audio input of that track has been set to Audiobus.

3 Step 3 Without recording the output at this stage, set playback going in Cubasis and flip to your effect app (in this case AudioReverb) so that you can tweak the effects settings as required. While you can only hear the vocal part, and not other elements of the mix, you can at least get some impression of the processed sound. You might have to move between the effect app and Cubasis to adjust the Cubasis fader settings and effect input level settings so that you get a suitable signal level going into the effect app (not too low and not so high that the effect gets overloaded).

4 Step 4 Once you have the effects settings configured, flip back to Cubasis and, this time, engage recording on what is going to be your wet track and then activate recording as you play through either the whole project or just the section you wish to process. Again, at this stage, you can only hear the original dry vocal and the processed version. Don t worry about the blend between them at this point; we will adjust that later.

5 Step 5 Once you have recorded the wet track within Cubasis, flip back to Audiobus and remove both the effect from the Effects slot and the instance of Cubasis from the Input slot.

6 Step 6 Now we have both the dry vocal track and the wet processed track within our project. You can remove the solo settings from these two tracks and now playback the entire project including your two versions of the vocal. By adjusting the relative levels of the dry and wet vocals you can both (a) set the overall level of the vocal within the mix and (b) set how wet (how much reverb in this case) is blended in with the lead vocal. If you just want this one effect applied, then you are now done. but there is nothing to stop you repeating the process so feel free to move on to Step 7 if you want to.

7 Step 7 Let s imagine we also want a little delay added to our vocal using AUFX:Dub. We go back to Audiobus and add AUFX:Dub to the Effects slot and return Cubasis to the Input slot.

8 Step 8 Back in Cubasis, we solo our dry lead vocal track again (make sure the vocal reverb track is muted along with all the other tracks in the project). We can then create a new audio track to record our second wet vocal; this time for the delay from AUFX:Dub.

9 Step 9 As before, we can then flip to AUFX:Dub and, while out dry vocal track is playing back in Cubasis, we can adjust the settings in AUFX:Dub to produce the delay effect we are after. This will generally include using the Tap button to ensure the tempo of the delay repeats matches that of the Cubasis project. You might also have to flip between Cubasis and AUFX:Dub to ensure that the Cubasis fader levels and AUFX:Dub Output Gain settings produce a suitable input level to the effect and a suitable output level of the processed signal back into Cubasis. Once this is done, we are good to go and can set Cubasis to record the AUFX:Dub output.

10 Step 10 We are then good to go and can set Cubasis to record the AUFX:Dub output. We now have three vocal track; one dry (the original vocal) and two wet (reverb from AudioReverb and delay from AUFX:Dub).

11 Step 11 As earlier in Step 5, Once you have recorded the wet track within Cubasis, flip back to Audiobus and remove both the effect from the Effects slot and the instance of Cubasis from the Input slot.

12 Step 12 And we are done. all that remains is to playback through the project with all the tracks playing and blend our three vocal tracks, adding just the right amount of reverb and delay required to support our lead vocal in the context of the full mix.

13 Conclusion The examples I ve used here to illustrate this process are perhaps the most obvious ones; adding reverb and delay to a lead vocal. However, there is nothing to stop you applying the same principle to any track within your Cubasis project, be it vocal or an instrument, not to stop you using other types of ios effects apps. Good examples might be processing synth sounds through a guitar amp synth or, if you are more experimental in nature, processing almost anything through Sugar Bytes rather excellent Turnado app. Hope this helps and feel free to provide feedback or ask any question by getting in touch via the blog or by at:- john@musicapblog.com Good luck and happy recording J Best wishes, John Walden