nice workflow … great to see you works in cubase 
for this track
Great course, great instructor and a BEAUTIFUL track!
Great Tips
The best
Amazing course, great track and a brilliant tutor! Thanks for more than 6 hours of high quality content packed with detailed instructions, valuable insights and countless tips and tricks. Would love to see a sequel!
nice
Amazing course!
great course
This is a great course!
this is a great tutorial very informative and professional my only complaint is the way the instructor is constantly scrolling through the screen and moving the mouse very fast, it’s hard enough for non cubase users to follow and the screen jerking and random scrolling just makes it worse. hopefully for future courses he can slow down a little, cheers.
Great Protoculture
Hey, my apologies… just a bad habit I guess constantly moving around all the time. These walkthroughs of tracks that I actually release I try to keep as natural and close to my actual process of writing music, rather than slowing things down and diluting it for a tutorial. I’ve just done some more basic Cubase tutorials for Sonic Academy. Those would be a great series to check out before coming back to these which are more intermediate to advanced courses.
Instead of using VPS MIDI Bay and Sidechain, you can also use Xfer Records LFO-Tool, put it on the tracks where you need Side-Chaining. Select “Side-Chaining → 1” in the Presets and instead of using the preset, draw a line like shown in the VPS plugin. It will sound exactly the same, but there will be NO MIDI AUTOMATION. Because of that, you need to automate the volume of the LFOTool to control the amount of “sidechaining” (essentially it’s just an envelope shaping, not a side-chaining anymore!) – this way, the velocity based sidechaining amount can be simulated. Also, that when the kick stops, that there should be no side-chaining can be accomplished with a simple automation curve on LFOTool volume. I found that out when I was in search for an alternative to the USB dongle and super expensive plugin
I’m not sure I’m following you… you pretty much just described exactly how vengeance sidechaining works. Using Midi Bay is one way of doing it but there’s no need to switch to LFO Tool.
Using Midi Bay is one way of doing it but there’s no need to switch to LFO Tool.
Ok, first, thank you for your response. And thank you for this great tutorial. I’m learning a lot here. I also think your speed is good, because I can learn faster that way (and there is always a pause button if I need a break :))
D’accord, there is no need to switch to LFO Tool at all. I also see that the way you’re doing it (using Midi Bay) is much better.
I just don’t have the Vengeance plugins installed here atm, the same goes for Nexus. So I was looking for alternatives that “also” “somehow” work. Sure, I could use the demo versions…, but somehow I feel like “locked-in” that way… and I would rather like to use less complex and pricy tools for now as I’m still a beginner and in the middle of a learning process Nevertheless, it is perfect that you follow your “real life” workflow here in this course.
So, I was just looking for a solution to come to similar results, and that seems to help with learning too. LFO Tool seemed to work, so the idea of my comment was to just share the idea. Maybe someone else here runs into the same “issue”. But it is for sure not a better workflow to use LFO Tool, maybe I wrote it too “enthusiastic” LFO Tool requires hand-written automation curves. Midi Bay in contrast utilizes full automation. In fact, as far as I can judge with my limited knowledge, I find everything Manuel Schleis and Rene Keilwerth are releasing is top notch. Maybe someday in the future I will switch to the VPS suite, but for now it still feels a bit overwhelming for me. It might sound a bit strange, but I like to break complex things down into small pieces to understand them really well. The same goes for my AU/VST plugin development and DSP algos.
Well, maybe one another question… (I’m still in the process of following your great course here and I’m right in the middle, so please forgive me if you already answered it in the videos…)
I recently found “Freshly Squeezed Samples” and a lot of great Trance presets there. Someday I would like to produce in style of Above & Beyond… I love strong melodies and harmonies. Using presets seems to be an easy shortcut for me, but I already see myself becoming lazy and layering/customizing only presets soon :))
May I ask what your opinion is regarding those kind of presets in general? Should beginners better start with something like Syntorial and learn how to come to such results on their own? It seems reasonable. Or are those sound design skills also learned step-by-step while tweaking presets? Is it realistic that a beginner is able to come to such a professional level of sound designs (from scratch) in a “reasonable” timeframe, depending on talent and time invested? Or is sound design worth a lifetime on it’s own? Like, on what should I focus most (as a beginner/intermediate) to boost my learning process and come to motivating results? Production, Music theory, Sound design, Mixing, Mastering, something I forgot? All of them?
Thank you very much for all your advice!
Best,
Aron
Good
Hey Aron
To answer everything… regarding VPS Suite and LFO Tool. It really makes no difference which you use. Speaking of using less expensive tools, before I got the VPS stuff I actually used to just use a preset volume fade in Cubase which worked great too. There’s plenty of other options too like the Cableguys stuff amongst others… they all essentially do the same thing. My main reason for using the Vengeance one is they were the first to offer a multi band version which allowed you to set different side chains for low and high frequencies. The VPS effects suites are nice, decent price too but they’re not absolute essentials so don’t stress. I recently picked up AIR’s effects suite along with all their plugins for something ridiculous on sale (I think its was $30 or something) and was actually really impressed with those too. U-He UhBik is another great option for a multi effects suite. You could also wait from something like Unfiltered Audio’s Byome which is coming soon… everything all bundled into one plugin.
Just to touch on Midi Bay… all midi bay is is a virtual patch cable between an instrument channel and an instance of one of Vengeance’s Midi triggered devices. Multiband Sidechain can operate in Sync mode (Follow your track timing), MIDIBay trigger, or directly triggered via a midi input too. The benefit of MidiBay is you can trigger multiple effects units from one single midi channel. I haven’t seen this sort of capability in many other plugins.
Regarding your question on presets… I really consider sound design and music production two completely seperate entities. There’s times when they intersect one another but I try not to ‘make’ sounds when I’m in the process of arranging. So, no, absolutely nothing wrong with using presets in that sense as they save you time when doing the creative stuff. Thats exactly why something like Nexus is so popular… people,e complain about its lack of edibility but thats kind of its strong point too… you just play it. When you’re writing music you want to get it out of you as quickly as possible. If I don’t finish a large portion of a track within 2 or so days I delete it. You don’t want to be fiddling with the technical stuff during this process so I set aside times for experimenting and creating libraries, and times for using those sounds in music creation. Furthermore, purchasing synth presets is a great way to learn how to create those sounds from scratch too. What should you focus on? Well that really depends what your goals are… are you wanting to create sounds to use in music, or are you just wanting to create a track you can play out in a club. I fall into the full on geek and audio nerd end of the spectrum so I focus a lot on the technical stuff but its not essential to go that route either.
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Excellent course, loved it. Thank you.
Fantastic course!
Can someone tell me how to zoom vertically in cubase with mouse scroll wheel, and how to move between windows