# Cubase + VEP mixing workflow that works?



## MoeWalsaad (Mar 29, 2020)

Hello,
I recently introduced VEPro to my workflow on Cubase, and I have struggles regarding rendering my tracks/stems on Cubase to preparing them to the mixing stage, I tried the following.

1 - I tried the "Render in place" function, but it renders all the VEPro midi outputs so I end up with a huge amount of empty tracks for each instrument, and deleting them in a huge project will take forever.
so is there is a way to make Cubase understand that I only want individual parts or soloed part to be rendered?

2 - Rendering multiple tracks from the "audio mixdown" didn't help either, because it's rendering instruments that are sharing the same output into one merged track. and this is not what I want.
I didn't want to overwhelm my PC resources with so many VEP outputs, so combined similar instruments into one output, but sometimes I layer instruments that have a shared output but I will later want to properly mix them.


*In short, I'm looking for a practical way to render all my VEP instruments into separate tracks, so I can deal with them in the Mixing stage with freedom.*

Any suggestion?

Thanks in Advance.


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## Nite Sun (Mar 29, 2020)

The practical solution would be to have each instrument that you want separated routed to its own output in VEPro. If you run out of physical VEPro outs, open up the VEPro settings and add more. In my experience having more VEPro outputs doesn't tax my system too much at all. After that you'll need to activate these extra VEPro outputs Cubase. You're looking for the 'Activate Outputs' button on each VEPro track or instrument plugin if you're not sure how to do this. After that, do whatever routing / stemming you want in Cubase and enjoy the freedom of separation in the export phase


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## J-M (Mar 29, 2020)

There's a certain threshold with VEPro outputs (can't remember the exact number) - once you go over that there will be lag in the GUI. In my VEPro template every instrument has its own output, I don't care about the lag since I don't really have to touch anything inside VEPro anyway. I render everything into audio through audio mixdown and make a separate mixing session. That's the only way that currently works for me.


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## MoeWalsaad (Apr 1, 2020)

Alright, I gave it a leap of faith and created around 200 output coming from one instance of VEP, no significant lags so far, but new problems and difficulties showed up, which is I'm mainly ending up with so many outputs than I need and can handle, and will clutter and occupy space in my mixer. if I render out my stems, I will now need to render 200 track most of them are empty. and will need to be filtered out manually.

Is this how you handle it guys in your everyday projects, or you have better practical methods? I see this is a bit too much work, don't mean I'm lazy, but this is so much clutter for eyes and mind and time-wasting, which makes me wonder if my pipeline with VE Pro has gaps and I'm doing it wrong.

@Nite Sun @MrLinssi


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## J-M (Apr 1, 2020)

I wouldn't be able to handle my template without Lemur and the different mixer configurations. Without those my template would be a cluttered mess and I wouldn't get anything done. As I said, I render just the tracks that have data in them via the audio mixdown panel.


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Apr 1, 2020)

Have been down this road myself and found Render in Place completely useless.
I am using extra output busses and Direct Routing with pre-made audio tracks for rendering.

- I render one library at a time (soloed) to avoid having millions of output busses
- I separate Close microphone positions, but keep Tree and Room mics together per library. Personal preference, I mix MIDI with live recordings so they follow the same structure.
- I need to have plugins on my group tracks regardless of whether I am still working with MIDI or already with audio files - I mix as I go and do not want to start over once I bounce to audio.

I've mentioned this in a couple of my videos, here at 3:07:


And here:


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## chrisr (Apr 1, 2020)

Meap. 









MEAP – Multi Export Audio Pro – Cubase / Nuendo Stem Unattended Batch Export Tool - MEAP


Learn more about MEAP - Multi Export Audio Pro




www.meap.biz







MoeWalsaad said:


> Thanks in Advance.



you're welcome


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## MoeWalsaad (Apr 1, 2020)

@Mihkel Zilmer, Cannot thank you enough for your efforts, your video series helped me a lot figuring out valuable templates ideas.
as for the updated video, regarding printing out audio from VEPro, do you manually rename and re-route all the rendered tracks even if you have hundreds?

That's too much repetitive work, unfortunately, but it seems like it's the best way up to date.


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## MoeWalsaad (Apr 2, 2020)

chrisr said:


> Meap.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Wow, that's sorcery! I didn't expect such a thing is possible, I'm gonna give it a try indeed!

Thanks a lot!


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Apr 2, 2020)

MoeWalsaad said:


> @Mihkel Zilmer, Cannot thank you enough for your efforts, your video series helped me a lot figuring out valuable templates ideas.
> as for the updated video, regarding printing out audio from VEPro, do you manually rename and re-route all the rendered tracks even if you have hundreds?
> 
> That's too much repetitive work, unfortunately, but it seems like it's the best way up to date.



You're welcome! No, I don't do this manually each time, just an initial setup, and then keep those print-ready audio tracks with all the right routing as part of my template. 

To avoid clutter by having to have as many audio tracks as MIDI instruments I instead combine instruments into a reasonable number of audio tracks. For example: Berlin Percussion, instead of having dozens and dozens of audio tracks all ready to go for each instrument, I might just have 5 audio tracks for the entire library and print them one by one. There I do have to rename the audio track just before printing, but the routing is already set up before. For libraries that I use all the time like Cinematic Studio Strings, their audio tracks and routing is always set up and I can print all 5 instruments in a single pass. 


Not the clearest explanation perhaps, if you want me to elaborate on anything I'd be happy to,

Cheers


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## zig (Apr 9, 2020)

Hi Mihkel,@Mihkel Zilmers

Thank you for your very helpful videos.
I have several questions regarding the following points:

- Could you explain in more detail your routing system that allows you to choose your 5.1/Stereo export format.

- How do you manage reverbs when you deliver Stem? do you make a specific reverb bus per Stem (wood, strings, percs, brass...) that mixes into a master stem reverb? or do you mix reverb directly into the instruments stems?

- Last but not least, I use your opensoundcontrol file. It doesn't work anymore with the new 1.0 version. Is this normal (I'm on mac) ? Is this the case for you too, have you made a new compatible version?

Thanks again for your contributions on this forum.

Zig


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Apr 9, 2020)

zig said:


> Hi Mihkel,@Mihkel Zilmers
> 
> Thank you for your very helpful videos.
> I have several questions regarding the following points:
> ...



No worries, happy to help and contribute!

- I will try to make a video about routing at some point.. but meanwhile, it basically works like this:
* Samples and recordings on stereo tracks, with separate mic positions (usually 1. close, 2. tree, 3. surround)
* On most of my recent projects I have been asked for what is basically a 4.0 mix (nothing in Center or LFE), sometimes even front and rear as separate stereo pairs. So I have "front stereo stems" and "rear stereo stems". From here, if I want stereo I just route both front and rear to "final stereo stems" ; surround means routing them to L, R and Ls, Rs of either 4.0 or a 5.1 stems. Direct routing is all set up, so all I need to do select the rear stems and enable/disable routing with a couple of clicks. 
* It does get a little bit more complicated if you want to do stem limiting. So depending on the format the limiting is either added to stereo stems or surround stems, and they have different sidechains for either format - this I will try to explain better in a video.

- Reverbs are per stem. I use 1-2 reverbs and sometimes also 1-2 FX tracks per stem. These reverbs receive sends from audio tracks and output into the group stems. So for example, CSS tree mics might have -8db send, room mics -10db send, both sending to Strings Reverb 1, and the reverb track output is set to the Strings stem.

But be careful about what tracks you use to mix and where reverbs are being sent from. If you have your reverb sends from individual audio channels and then group all those tracks together and adjust that group fader you have essentially just made your reverb sends pre-fader. So the same amount of signal is still being sent from individual tracks even if you pull the group fader down. To avoid this either make use of VCA faders or only mix using those same channel volume faders where you are sending from.

- I am still on 0.48 for OpenSoundControl - been to busy to upgrade, but once I do I will share the new files.

Cheers


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## zig (Apr 9, 2020)

Thankyou@Mihkel Zilmers for the advice,
I'm looking forward to your next video.


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