VCA FADERS IN CUBASE 8 !!!

[Coachz]

Damn it Reaper, get with it already !

http://www.steinberg.net/en/products...whats_new.html

[ValeryOrloff]

a bit of patience and we also will obtain this holiday from Cockos
or SWS?

[airon]

Cubase 8 Reaper 4
Protools HD
Sequoia


More on this here

[Banned]

It seems like this VCA grouping functionality ONLY works for 'faders' (and some other stuff, like mute buttons associated to the same track). So, it would seem to be easy enough for REAPER 5 to shit all over that by adding a *generic* VCA grouping feature that can affect *all* types of control elements (= including those of virtual instruments and effects).

[ahs]

i saw the vid but what is the difference between reaper and cubase 8 with vca faders ??
if i select all my tracks i can move them proportionaly to each other (or single) as seen in the cubase vid

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by Banned

to shit all over that by adding a *generic* VCA grouping feature that can affect *all* types of control elements (= including those of virtual instruments and effects).

absolutely agree +1

[Nip]

Originally Posted by Coachz

Damn it Reaper, get with it already !

http://www.steinberg.net/en/products...whats_new.html

VCA what?


Is Samplitude still your favorite on implementation, or?
One thing what you call stuff - and one thing what that means, kind of.

[Coachz]

If you have say all drums in a folder track and you want to automate the drum volume on the folder track, you would have to automate all of the child tracks, with VCAs you could automate one track and all the slaves and their sends will follow.

Originally Posted by ahs

i saw the vid but what is the difference between reaper and cubase 8 with vca faders ??
if i select all my tracks i can move them proportionaly to each other (or single) as seen in the cubase vid

[Coachz]

Holiday? you are implying that VCAs are coming soon. Do you know that ?

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

a bit of patience and we also will obtain this holiday from Cockos
or SWS?

[EvilDragon]

He's just throwing a conjencture. Nobody knows anything apart from Cockos, as has always been the case.

[hopi]

some beautiful features in Cubase 8 for sure... and very clearly implemented as well...
Let's be honest and give cudos where they are deserved.

And... let's hope that Cockos will eventually find the way to do this kind of thing and implement it beautifully....

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by Coachz

If you have say all drums in a folder track and you want to automate the drum volume on the folder track, you would have to automate all of the child tracks, with VCAs you could automate one track and all the slaves and their sends will follow.

why not automate the volume of the folder track again?

[heda]

I know why you are all liking Cubase Pro 8
It is because it is starting to look more and more like Reaper. Look at the docked MCP with track icons and all. And the transport bar between arrange and MCP. Was it like that before?
And render in place? Wow! And Plugins organization! Multiple monitor support! Amazing

[kindafishy]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

why not automate the volume of the folder track again?

Was also wondering...

[jpanderson80]

Originally Posted by kindafishy

Was also wondering...

I can't EVER remember the difference. Is it something to do with the sends?

[heda]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

why not automate the volume of the folder track again?

a folder is just like a bus. You automate the output in that bus but it is after all the effects or anything the sending tracks have. So it is in a different position in the routing. VCA is different than grouping or folders. Reaper has some solutions for VCA workflow with some plugins but it is not an integrated native solution which would be better.

[Giano]

Originally Posted by heda

I know why you are all liking Cubase Pro 8
It is because it is starting to look more and more like Reaper. Look at the docked MCP with track icons and all. And the transport bar between arrange and MCP. Was it like that before?
And render in place? Wow! And Plugins organization! Multiple monitor support! Amazing

That was my initial thought, too.
???

[jpanderson80]

Originally Posted by heda

a folder is just like a bus. You automate the output in that bus but it is after all the effects or anything the sending tracks have. So it is in a different position in the routing. VCA is different than grouping or folders. Reaper has some solutions for VCA workflow with some plugins but it is not an integrated native solution which would be better.

Heda,

Thank you for explaining, but I'm still not clear. Can you give an example of what the differences would be? Folder volume automation vs. VCA

[Stu]

Originally Posted by jpanderson80

Heda,

Thank you for explaining, but I'm still not clear. Can you give an example of what the differences would be? Folder volume automation vs. VCA

Say you have all your drums in a folder. You are sending to a reverb but want different amounts for each drum, so sends go from the tracks within the folder. Now if you automate the volume of the drums folder, the amount being sent to the reverb does not change, meaning your balance between wet and dry changes. Adding VCAs would solve this problem.

[jpanderson80]

Thank you!

[planetnine]

In an analogue desk, pulling a VCA master down 10dB is the same as pulling all the slave channel faders down 10dB -all post-fade sends respond -10dB also, maintaining the FX balance and leaving any panning intact. As well as several slaves for each master, any slave channel can also have many masters, the fader gain is a dB sum of the applied masters' faders. Totally non-hierachial and very flexible.

We almost have VCA functionality with track groups, except the slaves are not subjected to the masters' automation envelopes. It's a big pity, so close, but not there.



>

[lachrimae]

Originally Posted by planetnine

We almost have VCA functionality with track groups, except the slaves are not subjected to the masters' automation envelopes. It's a big pity, so close, but not there.
>

Bingo. We're one small feature away from having full VCA capabilities.
If they could allow master automation to control slave faders we'd have it.
A work-around is to use the master group fader to apply automation to the slaves (master should be in Trim while the slaves should be in write/latch). In some ways this method is better because you can adjust the automation envelope of an individual slave after you've written to all of them (since the slave also owns its individual envelope that the master wrote).

Not sure if that made any sense

[Jae.Thomas]

ahhh so it's mostly for sends, etc... makes sense.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by airon

Cubase 8 Reaper 4
Protools HD
Sequoia

And Pyramix, the Rodney Dangerfield of daws.

[Wolffman]

Originally Posted by Stu

Say you have all your drums in a folder. You are sending to a reverb but want different amounts for each drum, so sends go from the tracks within the folder. Now if you automate the volume of the drums folder, the amount being sent to the reverb does not change, meaning your balance between wet and dry changes. Adding VCAs would solve this problem.

I get around this problem by adding a track i call "drum verb", which sits beside the drum bus and is a vol/slave to the drum bus.

Any individual drum verb sends go the "drum verb" track first and are then sent on to the main Reverb aux track.
Catch is you'll need one for each reverb aux your sending to, room , plate etc.

It can be a pain sometimes but it works well enough for me, keeping the vol/verb relationship constant that is.

I have never use real vca's so i don't know the full extent of the benefits
they have but as it is i'm not missing them as i don't know what i'm missing


Cheers

[nightscope]

I predict Samplitude Pro X2 will have VCA's purloined from Sequoia by the end of December.

ns

[midiot]

render in place = cool

[rvman]

Originally Posted by planetnine

In an analogue desk, pulling a VCA master down 10dB is the same as pulling all the slave channel faders down 10dB -all post-fade sends respond -10dB also, maintaining the FX balance and leaving any panning intact. As well as several slaves for each master, any slave channel can also have many masters, the fader gain is a dB sum of the applied masters' faders. Totally non-hierachial and very flexible.

We almost have VCA functionality with track groups, except the slaves are not subjected to the masters' automation envelopes. It's a big pity, so close, but not there.



>

Yes, that's good stuff.

[Nip]

Originally Posted by heda

a folder is just like a bus. You automate the output in that bus but it is after all the effects or anything the sending tracks have. So it is in a different position in the routing. VCA is different than grouping or folders. Reaper has some solutions for VCA workflow with some plugins but it is not an integrated native solution which would be better.

But still - staying away from sends on top level folders - then you have stems to mix only.

So put effect busses inside each top level folder. Once that sound right - you can just change volume. Yes, it cost some extra cpu - but mixing to stems usually stay at maybe 8-10 stems anyway. And you can render stems/topfolders as needed to reduce cpu.

And VCA cannot work correctly if effect chain has anything non-linear anyway - the adjusted level on a send may make it sound different anyhow. So any compressor or limiters there will not work - like doing NY style parallell compression etc.

Since Reaper allow placing busses anywhere - VCA's are not that much of a boost.

But we've been on this many times so, some still want it - buy C8 then and see if you are helped by it. There will be a trial in january as I read.

[Coachz]

VCAs are a huge boost and to say otherwise indicates the type of mixes that are being made. Pros use VCAs for a reason. They provide a vital component to mixing and mastering and should be a part of any DAW.

[willowhaus]

Being rude & insulting is a great way to get what you want...

[planetnine]

It's frustration. When folders could be VCAs with a post-fade send follow-on, when track groups could be VCAs with a "use automation" option, and when some of us use VCA/DCAs kn a daily basis and know how powerful and flexible they can be with mixes -and when some of us have been asking for that little extra step in functionality for years (2007/2008?), it's just tedious being told by people who don't understand them that they're not that much of a deal, that we don't need them, that we already can do that...

If you've ever used them in a DAW or console, you don't want to work without them, you too will feel that every DAW and desk should have them. They're expensive to implement in hardware, but easy to implement in software (next to what's already been done). Let's not start another infight between those who want them and those who don't understand them.

I own VCA consoles and I don't understand why REAPER has never implemented the functionality completely.


>

[Seventh]

This is James HE's idea for replicating the VCA workflow using Reaper's own routing capabilities. More of this here. I simplified it a bit by removing the "send tracks" from the folder, and sending straight to folder track's channels. Here's an example:

--------------------------

Say we have that drum folder track, and want it's volume to control also the send levels of the children tracks.

Create post-fader sends from the folder track's channels to the desired effect tracks:
[3/4 -> effect 1]
[5/6 -> effect 2]
...etc.

Now send to those channels from the children tracks, like you would send to the send tracks themselves.

Now the children tracks' sends will pass through the folder's fader, and scale appropriately with volume changes.

--------------------------

A couple things worth noting when using this:

1. If you insert for example a compressor on the folder track, and change the tracks output using the plugin, this doesn't reflect in the send levels and effectively throws them off balance. Use equal loudness gain structure in the folder track's effects.

2. If you have stuff sending to children tracks' aux channels, for side chaining purposes for example, these might pass through to the folder track's send channels and be send forward to the effects. Remember to use channel pins in the plugin IO to prevent this from happening.

[heda]

Who wants VCA when you can have James HE DCA?
here http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=141073
Where are you James?

@planetnine, the frustration is understandable. So many years and no news and specially since it is so close in the grouping feature. Maybe it is something about patents? I don't know.

[airon]

Folks who knows how VCAs are used on consoles and DAWs(Protools mainly) will look at these clever other solutions and go :

"Let's make this harder to use. I guess faders started out this way too in Reaper. I bet you had to hack the Reaper.ini, write some JS or even write an extension to get those too, right ?"

Cut it out guys. When it's here you'll appreciate that folks like Planetnine and myself, and there are plenty, didn't back down and went with the hack solution. Those aren't good enough and folks have tried.

You know where the request is. Read up on the whys in its discussion thread if you're actually interested.

[Coachz]

Show me exactly what method will get what we want. We've tried feature requests, waiting years, writing long posts about the subject. Just hop on in with your sure fire solution.

Originally Posted by willowhaus

Being rude & insulting is a great way to get what you want...

[willowhaus]

I've used console VCAs, I get their usefulness and I'd love to see the functionality. However, the idea that your mixes are somehow not pro level because you don't have them to use is silly. A pro uses the tools at hand to deliver the goods.

You want a method? Make your case. Expound specifically on ALL the ways that VCA grouping would improve the DAW. Being a dick never convinced ANYONE to accept your point of view.

[Coachz]

It's not that the mixes are not pro level, it's that the workflow for those of us who need vcas are impaired and require a lot of extra work.

[Coachz]

In fact I just finished a 175 track mix (Song for the Philippines) of audio tracks that include a 60 piece choir, 5 drumsets, 7 lead singers, a latin percussion section, 5 guitar players and more......

It would have been easier to mix with VCAs without question though.


And by the way, Reaper rocked the mix !

[Jae.Thomas]

yeah, I've always just set up an extra send for that... I guess my workflow doesn't require it - it's one of those things that maybe the old-school folks are more used to. Sounds cool.