Cubase 7.5

Наконец-то получив и наладив уже какое-то время назад новый быстрый компьютер с большим экраном, начал работать со свежей версией - 7.5. Что и говорить - много нового и интересного... Да, и новый аудио интерфейс - ...

Last year I finally upgraded my recording studio setup with a new computer (more on that later), a new audio interface and latest (as of then) version 7.5 of Cubase, the powerful DAW that I'm working with in my home studio. I have been learning its new features, brushing up on the existing ones, solving various problems along the way and making some discoveries. Re: the latter, as one of my friends suggested, I'll perhaps post some of my findings here - hoping they may be useful to other fellow recording musicians...

So, as a starter topic, here's my recent finding:
How do you record a track, on top of your already recorded tracks, without latency issues and with effects enabled (e.g. a reverb)?

It sounds simple and natural as a wish: when you record say a solo guitar track on top of a bunch of rhythm guitar tracks, you may (many people do) like to add a reverb to it (so that it'd sound more tasty). And you'd want to hear it without any latency issues...

The latency issues typically manifest themselves like this: you enable Monitoring on this particular track, so you can hear your playing more accentuated, and with the effects - whatever you have already added to your track (as Inserts or Sends) (in my case it was a Reverb as a Send, and a Compressor as an Insert). However, with enabling Monitoring, you start hearing your sound 'doubled', or delayed, or with an echo (whichever way you choose to describe it). And usually it's quite noticeable so that you can't possibly record a part like this with all this echoing...

Of course you can turn Monitoring off, and with that these latency issues will disappear. But so will your effects: you'll no longer hear your track accentuated or with a reverb etc; it will be dry. Some people just put up with it and record it as dry (though they admit it's far from comfortable). And usually you'd need to turn the volume on that track up as, while recording, all other tracks will their effects on (unless your turn them off) but your recorded track won't.

(A side note: my audio interface, Focusrite Saffire Pro-40, has a special mode in its software: Low latency recording; I had it always selected, but alas it didn't prevent this problem).

To my surprise, I couldn't find a direct answer anywhere - neither in Cubase documentation, nor anywhere online - to such a seemingly basic question (I'd say, most people would want to have this ability when recording). Finally I came across this article that explains something similar - but in terms of Protools. When I finally understood what needs to be done, I had to 'project' it in Cubase terms, and, once done, voila - it worked!
http://therecordingrevolution.com/2012/09/24/how-to-record-zero-latency-vocals-with-reverb/

So here are the details:
The Out of my solo guitar (SG) track was earlier set to SG group - a group channel that I used to change parameters (usually Volume) of all of my SG tracks (I had a few) at once. SG group channel in turn was set up to have its output routed to Bus1, the standard output bus in Cubase, and its Send routed to my FX track, a bus that has a reverb plugin enabled on it (as an Insert). With this setup, once I turned Monitoring on, I had all those latency issues.

I found there are 2 similar solutions to achieve our goal:
Solution 1: switch the Out of the track to the FX track (bus) directly (so simple!). Or:
Solution 2: switch the Out of the track to Bus1, the standard output bus, and then route its Send to the FX track.

Making these changes, I also realized this: you need 2 different setups for 2 different stages of your project:
1) This setup above - for each newly recorded track (on top of the previously recorded ones).
2) My previous setup - with group channels - for mixing (when all recording is done). Using group tracks (in whichever way you'd want them set up, on in whichever way your tracks are structured across the project) makes it more convenient to mix tracks in groups. But neither setup is going to work for both goals at the same time... (this setup is apparently where a signal loop is thereby created hence the played sound is heard twice - once the original signal, and then after it comes through the DAW and with the effect(s) - delayed).

This finding really helped me to progress with my recording. Sorry if it's all obvious to those of you who may have already known this, but to me it wasn't. I hope you'll find it helpful.