Eliminating Phase Problems

By Sam Inglis

This acoustic guitar was recorded in stereo with the mics at different distances, and consequently suffers from comb filtering when the left and right signals are collapsed into mono — note how the signal recorded with the closer mic (top) is several samples ahead of the other. The Audio Editor's Nudge tool allows us to move parts a single sample at a time to find the best position for phase coherence.

This month, we explain how to eliminate phase problems in Cubase's Audio Editor, and round up some interesting new plug‑ins.

Craig Anderton wrote an illuminating article in SOS July 2001 about the phase problems that can arise when you try to combine miked and DI'd signals from the same source. As he said, this problem is perhaps most common when you're recording bass guitar: the best recorded bass sounds are often those acheived by miking the bass cabinet and blending that signal with the DI'd output from the bass, but because sound takes a finite amount of time to travel through the air, the miked signal is usually delayed with respect to the DI'd one. Signals recorded via a digital processor such as the Johnson J Station or Line 6 Pod will be delayed even more compared with clean DI'd signals. Signals that are not perfectly in phase will exhibit comb‑filtering artifacts, making them sound hollow or thin, and not as loud as they should be.

Phase problems can also result from mic positioning when making stereo recordings, usually where the mics have been placed at different distances from the source. In this case you won't notice that anything is wrong while the stereo signals are panned hard left and right, but when you click the Mono button on Cubase's Master Output, the affected instruments will drop in level compared to the rest of the mix and start to sound comb‑filtered. When your track is based around a stereo recording of something like a piano or acoustic guitar, this can be a big problem: few people listen to CDs in mono, but a lot of people listen to the radio in mono, and the time when your mix is being broadcast to the nation is not really the ideal moment to find out that it isn't mono‑compatible!

As Craig mentioned in his article, when you're working in a MIDI + Audio sequencer, the easiest way to compensate for the delays that cause phasing problems is simply to move one channel's recording forwards or backwards with respect to the other. For this month's Cubase Notes, I thought I'd explain in more detail how to get the best results.

Side Splitting

Ohm Force's OhmBoyZ and PredatOhm, in 'funky' and 'classic' skins respectively.

There's no way to persuade Cubase to treat the left and right halves of interleaved stereo audio files independently, so you'll need to make sure that your signals are recorded either as a 'split' stereo file or two mono files on separate tracks (if you want to treat them as a single stereo channel for the purpose of compression and effects, just route them to a group channel in the VST Mixer and add the effects there). I usually record stereo‑miked instruments like this anyway, by using Cubase's Multirecord function to record from two separate mono inputs onto two separate mono tracks simultaneously. If you're stuck with an interleaved stereo AIFF or WAV, you'll need to split it using an external audio editor: the shareware D‑Sound Pro editor on the Mac, for instance, makes it easy to save out the left and right halves of stereo recordings as separate files. You can then import these into fresh mono tracks in Cubase and mute the original stereo recording.

One of the nice things about Steinberg's Nuendo is that it allows sample‑accurate editing and positioning of Events in the main arrange window. Sadly, Cubase doesn't: you'll notice that even with Snap off and horizontal zoom set to maximum, there's a limit to how accurately you can position an Event in time. To make the sort of fine adjustments required to tackle phase problems, you'll need to use the Audio Editor. Select the Event(s) that make up your recording, and double‑click them or choose Edit from the Edit menu. The Audio Editor should open up, displaying both parts of your recording on separate lanes. Set both horizontal and vertical zoom levels to maximum, and you should see the individual waveforms clearly displayed. If you've recorded your files simultaneously onto an Any track, Cubase will have automatically Grouped them, so you'll need to Ungroup them before you can move the two halves independently. To do this, make sure they are selected in the Audio Editor and choose Ungroup from the Do menu.

The shapes of the two waveforms you've recorded will look very similar, and you should be able to see an obvious correspondence between the peaks and troughs in each part. If there's a phase difference, you'll also see that these peaks and troughs don't line up vertically — one part will be slightly ahead of the other. The difference may be just a few samples, but if the two signals are taken from different sources (as for instance when you have an unprocessed mic signal and a DI that has been sent via a digital processor), it may be much more.

With Snap in the Audio Editor set to Off, you should simply be able to pick up one of the audio parts and move it horizontally until the two waveforms seem aligned. Alternatively, when Snap is Off, the Nudge tool allows you to move audio parts left or right a single sample at a time: choose the Nudge tool from the tool palette and simply click or Option‑click over a part to move it left or right respectively.

Testing By Ear

You can usually get pretty close to the optimum result just by lining the two parts up visually, but obviously what matters most is what it sounds like. When you've got a good visual match, try auditioning every alternative within a few samples either side of that position to find the best spot. In the same way as you might find the right frequency to notch out an annoying ring by using boost EQ to exaggerate a narrow band of frequencies, deliberately putting one signal out of phase with the other can help find the best alignment. Cubase's VST Mixer mimics hardware mixers in most respects, but doesn't offer any facility for reversing the phase of a channel. However, you can use an insert plug‑in such as the freeware Fraser's Phase Switch (check out www.audiomelody.com/Plug‑ins/VSTPlug‑ins/FrasersPlug‑ins2.1.htm) to do the same job — but remember to keep Plug‑in Delay Compensation checked in the Audio Setup window, as inserting a plug‑in can introduce a delay which may mess up your phase adjustments. Reverse the phase of one of the two channels, then adjust the respective position of your audio parts until as much of the signal as possible is cancelled out. When you then put the channels back in the correct phase, you should have found the best position for phase coherence. When you're satisfied with the results, you might want to Group the parts to fix your adjustments.

Current Versions

• PC: Cubase VST/32 v5.0 r6.
• Mac: Cubase VST/32 v5.0 r2.

Cubase Tips

In Cubase's Key Editor, the Quantise parameter not only sets the quantise resolution but also the minimum length of notes that can be drawn in with the pencil tool. With Quantise set to 16, for instance, the shortest note that can be drawn in will be a semiquaver.

When you have a MIDI note selected in the Key Editor, its velocity is displayed above the grid, and clicking on that velocity value with the pointer tool allows you to alter it. If you also have other MIDI notes selected, doing this adjusts the velocity of all selected notes by the same amount. This is a handy way of increasing or decreasing the velocity of lots of the notes in a part without altering their relative dynamics.

If you've never visited Steinberg's Cubase community at www.cubase.net, do give it a try. You'll find plenty of 'official' hints and tips as well as active discussion forums where your posts are moderated and read by Steinberg employees and other Cubase experts.

Plug‑in News

Good‑quality VST plug‑ins continue to arrive at the SOS offices by the virtual truckload. French developer Laurent Rabesahala of Ohm Force has been busy creating two interesting plug‑ins called PredatOhm and OhmBoyZ. The former is a tasty multi‑band dynamics/distortion plug‑in which offers unique possibilities for dirtying up your sounds. You can, for instance, gang the controls together in different ways, so that turning one has a similar or opposite effect on another. In conjunction with the parameter automation available in VST, this has almost limitless potential for weird and wonderful sonic mangling, and manages to eliminate much of the digital‑sounding crunch that often plagues other distortion plug‑ins.

PredatOhm is capable of some pretty extreme treatments — I found it especially effective on drums — but Laurent's second plug‑in makes it sound positively tame. OhmBoyZ combines a VST‑synchronised multi‑tap delay with two independent processing paths, each comprising a vicious resonant filter with distortion and feedback. The sheer range of treatments available is impressive: different presets can turn a vanilla drum loop into anything from a fairly convincing backwards LP to a series of clean pitched tones not unlike a harpsichord.

PredatOhm and OhmBoyZ are available in Mac and PC VST formats as well as PC DirectX and BeOS from Laurent's web site at www.ohmforce.com. In both cases, buyers can choose between 'classic' and 'funky' skins: the latter take up more screen space and are harder to get your head around, but certainly look like labours of love! Laurent has come up with an interesting pricing scheme whereby a mere $9.99 buys you the full working version of the plug‑in, but not the licence to use it in commercial recordings. If you want to use Ohm Force plug‑ins on a commercial release, you'll need to buy the Expert or Pro versions ($59 and $149 respectively for PredatOhm and $79/$199 for OhmBoyZ), which add 'crystal clear' 24‑bit processing modes and full MIDI controllability.

Even better value is MDA's EPiano, which is a completely free VST Instrument mimicking the Fender Rhodes electric piano. The interface is basic, but offers all the parameters you need, and the sound is not bad at all. It won't stop Cubase users cursing Emagic for not porting the full version of EVP88 to VST, but it's eminently usable — and at the price, it's a bargain... EPiano can be downloaded from The Plug‑in Spot (www.pluginspot.com) or from www16.brinkster.com/softcentral/mdavst/. 

Published December 2001

Beat of the Week 137: Volcavember! - Hip Hop

Surround Sound Explained: Part 9

By Matt Bell & Various

In this final part of our series, we look at how the major project studio-oriented MIDI + Audio sequencers (DAWs) currently handle surround.

Over the past few months, we've seen how it's possible to use analogue or digital mixers designed for stereo mixing to mix 5.1-compatible audio instead, and spoken to various producers about how they've achieved it. However, in most cases, it is of course easier to tackle surround mixing in some kind of software-based mixing environment, as this can be customised to suit the number of channels you're working with far more easily than hardware. This month, for the final part of this series, we look at how the major project studio-oriented MIDI + Audio sequencers currently handle surround. Nearly all of these packages have proper, purpose-built surround support — only Cubase VST does not, and even then it's possible to fudge a way of making it work, though with less flexibility than the competition.

Steinberg Cubase VST & Nuendo

It's certainly possible to create a limited surround mix using Cubase, but since Steinberg want to differentiate it from Nuendo, there are no built-in features to help you. It's important not to be misled by the various third-party 3D panning plug-ins for Cubase, such as SpinAudio's 3D Panner, Zeep's LocaliserDSP, and Pixelsonic's Surrounder. These all provide an insert effect that can receive stereo audio, pan it anywhere between left, right, centre, and surround outputs, but they then use various surround-encoding processes such as HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) for use with headphones, or Dolby Pro Logic for speakers, to reduce the output to a stereo signal. While genuinely useful for these applications, they don't let you route sounds to more than two output channels, and are therefore unsuitable for Dolby 5.1 surround mixing.

Steinberg Cubase VST.Nevertheless, we have come up with a scheme that will let you position each channel in any static position in a surround environment (see screenshot). With the default stereo output pair of your soundcard allocated to the Master Channel for front left/right duties, you first need to click the Active buttons for two additional stereo busses in the Master Mixer, and name these 'Rear' and 'Cntr/LFE' in the Master Mixer.

Next, rename an unwanted Group channel as 'unused', pull its faders right down, and then route the output of each and every channel required for surround work to this 'unused' Group. Having dispensed with the normal stereo routing, we can now utilise six of the eight available aux sends as individual level controls to the six surround busses. To do this, click their On buttons, and select Master L, Master R, Rear L, Rear R, Cntr/LFE L, and Cntr/LFE R in their Send Routing pop-up windows.

You can now position any channel anywhere you wish within the surround environment, as well as sending low-frequency special effect material to the Sub channel. Since the aux sends are being used post-fader, the channel faders still provide overall level control for each sound, and channel level automation will still work well, although the channel pan controls are redundant. Of course, you'll have to have access to an external multi-channel recorder capable of receiving at least six inputs simultaneously on which to record your surround mixes.

This approach is perfectly usable (if somewhat fiddly) for setting up static surround mixes, and it's even possible to implement surround panning if you're prepared to record multiple automation passes of the aux send controls. Thankfully, although the full price of Nuendo is £799, Cubase users can upgrade for a much lower £579 if they want to throw in the towel and adopt a more elegant approach!

Steinberg Nuendo.In contrast to Cubase VST, Steinberg's Nuendo incorporated a particularly flexible implementation of surround sound right from version 1.0 (see screenshot below. You can define any number of output channels from two to eight in its VST Master Setup window, and then define their azimuth (angle) and radius (distance) settings. Presets are provided for stereo, quadraphonic, Standard 3/2 (similar to Dolby 5.1, but without the Sub channel), Dolby 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, and LRCS (Left/Right/Centre/Surround), and a graphic window shows how the surround channels are positioned.

Once defined, the appropriate number of output meters appear in the mixer Master channel, along with a single master fader. Each channel in the mixer can then be routed either to any stereo output buss, any of the defined surround channels, or to surround pan. Selecting the latter replaces the normal panpot graphic with a surround pan plug-in whose pointer can either be moved with your mouse, or by any cheap PC analogue games joystick. For more precise control, double-clicking launches a much larger Panner window with further options, such as position or angle mode display.

You can export an audio file in 'Multi-channel Split' and 'Multi-channel Interleaved' formats, as well as mono and stereo modes, but Nuendo also includes Matrix Encoder and Decoder plug-ins for converting to and from LRCS format, and for Pro Logic-compatible encoding. Provisions are built in to let you apply effects plug-ins to various combinations of channels when mixing in any surround mode.

The optional Nuendo Surround Plug-in Pack will let you apply global effects such as compression, loudness maximising, seven-band parametric EQ, and reverb across up to eight channels simultaneously, to provide precise control over the final 3D mix, while its LFE Splitter lets you create a subwoofer channel from an existing mix. The LFE Combiner, on the other hand, integrates a separate subwoofer channel back into the other surround channels. TC Works have also released the impressive Surroundverb for Nuendo which uses technology based on their System 6000 hardware surround processor. Martin Walker

Emagic Logic

Logic handles surround in a very straightforward and intuitive way, the only requirement being a soundcard or audio interface with at least six output channels. From Logic's Audio menu, the Surround page provides the means to select any of the currently standard surround formats from stereo and quad (up to 7.1), with or without centre speaker, though the most common format is 5.1. This window shows which outputs carry which surround channels and also shows the file name extensions that will be given to any bounced or mixer surround files.

Emagic Logic.The next task is to set up a surround mixer in the Environment, which at its simplest means a number of channels with surround panners plus six outputs (I used two stereo and two mono) to carry the six components of the surround mix (the Centre and LFE outputs were fed through the mono outputs). The LFE or Sub channel would normally be low-pass filtered at 120Hz for film work, and in Logic, this is achieved by inserting a suitable low-pass filter plug-in into the LFE Output insert point (an 18dB-per-octave or third-order filter is good for this). Your monitor system is fed from your soundcard's outputs, so if these are also feeding a mastering recorder, some kind of signal-splitting and level control system may be required.

Your individual mixer channels are first set to surround mode as shown in the screenshot above, then, by double-clicking on the surround pan control, a larger pan window opens (visible above the Mid and LFE faders) where a pull-down menu allows the user to pick the required surround format for the channel (I used 5.1 for all channels, but with the no-centre option selected for channel 7 and 8 — I'll tell you why in just a moment). By moving the virtual surround pan control (much like a joystick), the signal is distributed between the five surround channels, while an LFE control at the bottom of the surround panner window sends a proportion of the channel signal to the LFE/Sub output (6). If you need more control over what signals appears (or not) in the centre channel, you can set up the individual channels for no centre speaker, then configure a post-fade Aux to send any desired amount of the channel signal directly to the Centre output (5) via a Buss. This would allow the contribution of the centre speaker to be adjusted manually for each channel, independently of the surround pan control setting. In my screenshot, the last couple of channels have been set up in this way, the centre signal being routed to Output 5 via Buss 1. Note that as Buss outputs are stereo, the pan control is used to steer the signal to Output 5 only.

While controlling and mixing surround within Logic is easy, there's always the question of how to deal with external sources, such as MIDI controlled hardware instruments. The best solution is to record these sources as audio back into Logic. Once recorded into Logic, they may be treated as any other audio tracks and positioned within the surround environment accordingly. Similarly, virtual instruments behave in exactly the same way as audio tracks as far as surround is concerned.

Once a surround mix has been set up (and automated if required), it can be bounced to a new set of mixed files, which in the case of surround means six discrete audio files labelled as in the first Logic screenshot bottom left. These may then be reloaded into Logic for playback or imported into a suitable surround editing/authoring package ready for transfer to surround media such as DVD-A or DTS. It avoids complications if the sample rate of the original recording matches that of the intended delivery medium and that the recording bit-depth is equal to or greater than that of the final format. Paul White

Surround-compatible I/O For The PC

A degree of confusion surrounds the issue (pun not intended) of suitable I/O hardware for PC users keen to try surround work, but suitable products do exist. Although Creative Labs' SB Live! has built-in DSP algorithms with surround capability, and does provide separate front and rear outputs, it doesn't let you access these separately from within a music application, so you can't use it for surround mixing — only for listening to specially encoded surround effects in games, for instance.

However, Creative's new Audigy soundcard does provide individual access to its Front L/R, Rear L/R, and Centre/LFE outputs when using its ASIO drivers, so you can use these to create a Dolby 5.1 audio mix. The card also has a built-in decoder to listen to existing Dolby 5.1 mixes. Terratec's DMX 6Fire soundcard (reviewed elsewhere in this issue) also helps the budding surround-sound musician, since its Control Panel utility provides a handy global fader controlling its Front L/R, Rear L/R, and Centre/LFE outputs. Creamware's Luna II is yet another soundcard that provides special surround features — this time a 16‑channel surround mixer — but you have to mix all your songs within its environment, rather than using your main sequencer application. Martin Walker

MOTU Digital Performer

When MOTU set about adding surround mixing to Digital Performer they weren't messing around. The implementation in DP3 is superb — easy to set up and highly flexible. What's more, DP's Mix Mode facilities make converting stereo mixes to surround (and vice versa) straightforward.

The key to DP3's surround flexibility is the Audio Bundles window, which at first glance doesn't appear to have an awful lot to do with surround. But it's here, under the Output tab, that you can select and configure output 'bundles' ranging from mono and stereo, through LCRS, Quad and 5.1, right up to 10.2 format (!). Once these bundles are set up (and this can be done on a project-specific or global basis) they're available as output assignments in normal mono and stereo tracks.

The type of bundle you select for an individual track determines what panner is assigned to it in the Mixing Board. Select a mono bundle and you get no panner at all; stereo, and you get a conventional pan pot. If you select any bundle greater than stereo, though, a surround panner appears, with a representation of speaker placement, and an indicator running around the outside showing spread between the speakers. This Mixing Board panner is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Click the little button next to it and you open one of four 'specialist' panners that allow much more accurate imaging control. You can switch between these at any time, and every track can have its own type of panner.

Arc Panner is like a magnified version of the Mixing Board panner and additionally provides an image focus control. n-Panner is effectively two pan pots combined — one each for left/right and front/rear — and again it has a focus control. TriPan is similar except that it offers a 'three knob' mode which allows signals to be very easily panned in straight lines around the surround field. It also offers full control over divergence — the extent to which signals panned to one speaker 'bleed' into the others. Amongst other things, this lets you exclude the Centre channel from general imaging duties, freeing it up for use by other tracks. All these panners offer flexible stereo placement modes along with configurable low- and high-pass filters which help to manage the frequency content of the LFE channel.

The remaining panner, Auralizer, is a little different. Basically it combines surround panning with a fine-sounding reverb, and adds doppler effects and psychoacoustic processing for good measure. Used well, it's a jaw-dropper, and can create wonderfully believable cathedral-size simulations as well as unnerving 'fly buzzing around your head' effects!

DP3 has some plug-ins dedicated solely to surround mixing, such as Calibration, which invites you to feed it the output of an omni-directional mic placed at your listening position before proceeding to play a range of tones that are used to automatically balance the output levels of your monitor speakers. Then there's Bass Manager, which is dedicated to keeping the LFE channel under control and can help to prepare mixes for home theatre systems which lack dedicated subwoofers. There are also surround versions of many of the standard MAS plug-ins, including the superb Delay (shown bottom right), which offers separate delay and feedback parameters for each channel, and eVerb, which can handle any number of input and output channels that you want to throw at it.

Finally, DP3 makes provision for surround tracks, so you could, for example, bounce down your 5.1 mix to a single six-channel track on which you've placed the surround edition of the MasterWorks Limiter plug-in. Additionally, multi-channel tracks really facilitate editing, archiving and distribution of final surround mixes. Robin Bigwood

Digidesign Pro Tools

Purpose-built surround mixing came to Pro Tools Mix systems with the release of software version 5.1 — a happy concidence in the numbering scheme! Prior to this, many Pro Tools mix engineers involved in film and DVD production used the standard kludges for using a stereo mixer as detailed earlier in this series, and owners of systems that pre-date Pro Tools Mix still have to employ these (more on this in a moment). Two significant things set Pro Tools Mix and the new HD systems apart and make them fully-fledged surround mixing environments: the ability to set up multi-channel busses, and surround panners.

Digidesign Pro Tools I/O Setup for stereo pairs.As on the other MIDI + Audio sequencers mentioned in this article, the variety of playback formats now available (from mono to 7.1) demands that the fundamental architecture of the mixer be flexible. In order to achieve this, Digidesign created the I/O Setup page. While most hardware mixers are hard-wired to provide mono and stereo input channels, and stereo mix busses (such as control room, group, and aux mix busses), I/O Setup allows you to configure your routing options from scratch. This can include a variety of inputs, inserts, output busses, and internal busses, which are anything up to eight channels 'wide'. It's easier to understand how this works by looking at something more familiar, so the screenshot shows the template for a normal stereo output structure in a Pro Tools system with eight audio interface channels. A graphical grid system maps the stereo mix busses on the left (which Pro Tools calls 'Paths') to the available physical outputs along the top. The paths declared in I/O Setup appear as destinations in the mixer, available to any track's output or aux send sections. In addition to these four stereo paths, we could also set up mono paths, linked to single outputs. With a routing template like this (probably the most common in use), if you wanted to route a mono track to, say, output 1, you could either set its output directly to 'A1', or set the output to 'A1-2' and set the stereo panner fully to the left.

The Pro Tools' new Surround routing capabilities in the I/O Setup.are just an extension of these ideas. The screenshot top right shows a well-specified output set up for use in the 5.1 format. There are two main paths: a six-channel path (5.1) mapped to outputs 1-6, and a stereo path using up the two remaining outputs. There are also a number of sub-paths, mapped to various relevant output groupings, such as Left/Right only. If you wanted to place a track in the Centre speaker, you could just set its output to Centre, but what if you need to place it in between the Left and Centre, or have it spread out across the whole front wall? This is where surround panners come in, and the track would be given one automatically if you set its output to Full 5.1. On a 5.1 panner, the green dot represents the position of the sound in the mix, while the blue square indicates its 'width' or 'spread'. Additional controls serve to feed the Sub, and attenuate the Centre channel.

As mentioned earlier, people with Pro Tools 24 and host-based systems built on Pro Tools LE as don't have access to these nice new surround facilities, but there are plenty of workarounds, such as that described by Martin Walker earlier in this article for Cubase. Space precludes me going into too much detail here, but my Pro Tools Notes column in SOS November 2001 tackles the subject in full. In summary, as in Cubase as described earlier, a combination of a track's main output and aux sends must be used for surround placement. For example, a vocal track might have its main output going to the centre, with a send feeding the Left and Right speakers to widen it. This works fine, although it's not as convenient as a surround panner, and it's difficult to achieve moving pan effects. Pro Tools 24 systems have a considerable advantage over host-based systems running Pro Tools LE, in that the former can run two third-party plug-ins which solve the problem. Smart Pan Pro, from Kind Of Loud, and the Dolby Surround plug-ins use clever behind-the-scenes trickery to provide surround panners. They both take a signal and distribute it to more than one of the existing stereo busses, achieving the same effect as the built-in panners in Mix or HD systems. Simon Price

Final Words

And that brings us to the end of SOS's series on surround sound, although we'll be returning to the topic at some point in the future for some practical advice articles.

At the time of writing, although it seems clear that some form of surround is here to stay, the most important format for audio production remains stereo, and most recording gear is still designed with that in mind. Whether this balance will shift over the coming couple of years, or whether surround sound will merely continue to exist alongside stereo production as a specialist format is far from certain, even now. Arguments continue to rage over the best format for presenting surround, from the optimum number of speakers to the best playback medium, which makes choosing 'future-proof' surround gear a risky business at present. Nevertheless, one of the aims of this series was to show that if you are interested in working in surround, it's possible to attempt it without throwing away your entire studio and re-equipping from scratch — and hopefully, we've achieved that.

Surround Sound Explained: Part 1 Foundations

Surround Sound Explained: Part 2 Dolby Pro Logic

Surround Sound Explained: Part 3 Ambisonics

Surround Sound Explained: Part 4 5.1 Surround

Surround Sound Explained: Part 5 Metadata, Upmixing, Downmixing & The Centre Speaker

Surround Sound Explained: Part 6 Setting Up A Surround Recording System

Surround Sound Explained: Part 7 Mixing In Surround

Surround Sound Explained: Part 8 Surround Production

Surround Sound Explained: Part 9 Surround In Your DAW 

Published April 2002

Beat of the Week 136: Volcavember! - Indie Pop

Cubase: Keyboard Shortcuts & Key Commands

By Mark Wherry

The Key Commands window showing a user assignment of the 'Add Track' Audio Command.

While using keyboard shortcuts in a sequencer is nothing new, this month we explain how Cubase SX/SL takes the idea further, and look at Hans Zimmer's unique solution for accessing Key Commands in Cubase.

Although the mouse has arguably made computers easier to use, it isn't always the most efficient device for carrying out certain tasks, especially when you might have to navigate a large display that spans multiple monitors. For this reason, keyboard shortcuts have been popular since even the very early graphical user interfaces, allowing you to instantly access commands from a single key combination and develop efficient patterns of working for different tasks.

In Cubase, the handling of keyboard shortcuts (or Key Commands, in Cubase-speak) is very flexible, and almost any action in the application can be assigned to a Key Command. Unlike previous versions of Cubase, SX/SL doesn't allow you to assign Key Commands to MIDI events, but the extra functionality now provided in this area of the application more than makes up for it, and it isn't something I've personally missed since I began using SX.

Key Commands

The management of Key Commands is handled, unsurprisingly, by the Key Commands window, which is opened by selecting File/Key Commands. To make life easier, the Key Commands have been grouped into a list of Categories, and the Commands list always shows the Key Commands available in the currently selected Category. However, if you're not sure which category a Key Command might be listed under, you can use the search facility to help you.

To search for a Key Command, click 'Search' to open the Search Key Command window. Click the black text field at the top of the Search window, type in a keyword and press Return — don't click 'OK' just yet, as this closes the window without performing the search. If your search was successful, you should see a list of matches describing the Key Command, the Category it's listed in and the keyboard shortcut that triggers the Command, if a shortcut has been assigned. Unfortunately, the Search Key Commands window is just a reference tool and you can't use it to automatically jump to a Key Command.

Once you've selected a Command in the Key Commands window, any assigned keyboard shortcuts for it will be detailed in the Keys list, so if the list remains empty, you can deduce that the Key Command is currently unassigned. To assign a Key Command, make sure the one you want to assign is selected, click the text field underneath the 'Type New Key Command' label and press a key (or combination of keys) on your keyboard. If the key (or keys) you pressed is already assigned, the Key Command it's assigned to will be displayed underneath the text field. Should this happen, try another combination.

When you have a unique keyboard shortcut entered, click the Assign button to assign the Key Command, and you'll notice that it appears in the Keys list. You can remove an assignment from the Keys list by selecting it and clicking 'Remove'. You'll then have to confirm, in the Alert that appears, that you really do want to remove the assignment, by clicking 'Remove' once more.

Many of the available Key Commands are unassigned by default. Perhaps the most commonly used Commands just crying out to be assigned are the Add Track Commands. However, it's interesting to note that some of the unassigned Key Commands can't be accessed in any other way than by assigning them. These include useful features such as the nudge Commands, which allow you to nudge the current selection by the current quantize setting.

Key Command assignments are Project-independent and stored within Cubase SX itself, meaning that any Key Commands you assign will be available to any Project you open or create. If you want to use your assignments on another system, you can save them by clicking the Export button in the Key Commands window, and reload them via the Import button. Steinberg supply many Key Command sets with Cubase, to emulate the way keyboard shortcuts are assigned in other applications, such as Logic, Sonar, and earlier versions of Cubase. Windows users can find these in the 'Program Files/Steinberg/Cubase S?/Key Commands' folder, while Mac users will find them in the 'Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Cubase S?/key commands' folder.

Macro Madness

While Key Commands are useful, Cubase SX/SL takes the idea one step further by implementing Macros, making it possible to define a sequence of Key Commands that can be triggered via a single command from the Edit/Macros sub-menu. And, naturally, you can also trigger a Macro with a Key Command, since any Macros you define automatically appear in the Macros category of the Key Commands window.

The Key Commands window again, showing the Macro options with a recreation of the 'Loop Selection' Command.A good example of what's possible with Macros is the Loop Selection Command in the Transport menu (while this is not strictly a Macro, it does demonstrate the kind of command that can be defined with one). If you're not familiar with Loop Selection, it sets the Left and Right Locators based on the current selection, positions the Project Cursor at the Left Locator, activates Cycle Mode and starts the Project playing — all in a single Command that can also be triggered by pressing [Shift]-[G]. But let's pretend that the Loop Selection Command doesn't exist for a moment and investigate how we could create it using a Macro.

As mentioned above, Macros are handled in the Key Commands window, and although the Macro options are hidden by default, you can access them by clicking the Show Macros button. To create a Macro, click the Create Macro button, type a suitable name into the highlighted space in the Macro list, and press Return. The next step is to add the Commands you want the Macro to trigger, which you can do by selecting the Macro you want to add the Command to in the Macros list, selecting the required Command in the upper part of the window and clicking 'Add Command'. It's important to note that the Command is always added below the currently selected item in the lower Commands list, and that there's no way to change the order in which the Commands are triggered after they've been added, unless you manually remove them and start again. You can remove a Command from the Macro by selecting it in the lower Commands list and clicking 'Remove Command'.

To recreate Loop Selection, you'd need to add the following Commands from the Transport category to a Macro, in this order: Locators to Selection, To Left Locator, Cycle, and Start. Once a Macro has been defined, you can assign a Key Command to it in the upper part of the window, or simply close the Key Commands window by clicking OK. Macros can be triggered by either pressing the assigned Key Command, or selecting them from the Edit/Macros sub-menu.

Conclusions

It will be interesting to see if Macro functionality is enhanced in future versions of Cubase, but, even as it stands right now, there are plenty of interesting uses for Macros. For example, you could define a Macro that created Hitpoints and audio slices in a single keystroke, or a series of quantize buttons, such as 'quantize quarter notes' or 'quantize eighth notes' that select a quantize resolution and quantize the current selection — and this is just scratching the surface. If you come up with any interesting Macros, email them to us, at sos.feedback@sospubs.co.uk, so that they can be featured in future Cubase Notes columns.

Key Commands & Control Surfaces

If you use a hardware control surface with Cubase that supports user-assignable function keys, you should be able to assign Key Commands to them in the Device Setup window. This works really well with control surfaces such as the Mackie Control, for example. This unit has eight function keys that, with the aid of a shift key, can provide access to 16 Key Commands. However, Mackie Control also supports two footswitches that can also be assigned Key Commands, and I've found it really useful to assign these to Start/Stop and Return To Zero, in the Transport, for example.

Burger, Fries & Transpose The Selection

This month, I've been fortunate enough to spend some time at Media Ventures in California looking at Cubase SX with Hans Zimmer, who's probably the world's most experienced Cubase user, in addition to being one of its greatest film composers. Over the years, he's developed an incredibly efficient working method with Cubase, and one aspect of this is based around the concept that it should be possible to trigger every action with a Key Command. Inspired by the keypads used on cash registers in fast-food restaurants, where keys are assigned to different foods and beverages, Hans and his team came up with a really neat way of accessing Key Commands in Cubase, using the same type of keypad.

The model in question is the Electrone KM128A, which provides a 16x8 matrix of 128 user-definable keys that can be assigned to any combination of standard keyboard actions. Devices like the KM128A behave just like regular keyboards and have no problem co-existing with such keyboards, interfacing with your computer via a PS2, USB (with the aid of a PS2-to-USB adaptor) or serial connection. Unfortunately, a Windows PC with a serial or PS2 interface is required to program the keypad, since the supplied software is only compatible with Windows and doesn't support USB, although, once programmed, you can also use the keypad with a Mac.

During keypad programming, each key is assigned a unique combination of keys that you would never hit by accident on a normal QWERTY keyboard, and that wouldn't already be assigned to a Key Command, such as 'Control/Apple+Shift+{'. So when you're assigning Key Commands, you simply press the required key on the keypad, which Cubase interprets as a regular combination of keys on a standard keyboard. Afterwards, as you'd expect, you can press the same key on the keypad to trigger the Key Command in Cubase — pretty neat.

So which Cubase Key Commands does Hans assign to his keypad? This is where things get interesting. Since most of the commands Hans wanted to assign to his keypad couldn't be assigned as Key Commands in Cubase VST, the team turned to CE Software's QuickKeys, which allowed them to create both relatively simple menu-based shortcuts, to trigger Logical Editor presets, and more complicated macro-based solutions.

Although you can now create Macros in Cubase itself, you still can't assign Key Commands for Logical Editor presets. Another feature you'd still have to use QuickKeys for in SX/SL is Hans' row of keys for switching the data displayed by the Controller Lane in the Key Editor. Being able to switch between volume, pan and modulation data, amongst others, with a single keypress is particularly useful — so useful, in fact, that Steinberg are considering adding this ability directly via built-in Key Commands in future versions.

If you're interested in getting one of these keypads, at £265.55 in the UK (from www.intolect.com) their cost is fairly high, although you might be able to apply the same ideas to cheaper alternatives. QuickKeys is available as an online download, at www.cesoft.com. It costs $79.95 and comes in three different versions, for Mac OS 9.x, Mac OSX and Windows. 

Published January 2003

Beat of the Week 135: Volcavember! - Industrial

Steinberg & Pinnacle: The Buyout

By Dave Shapton & Mark Wherry

The shape of the music-technology market changed dramatically in 2002, with the two largest German music software companies gaining new ownership from American corporations. Have Steinberg reached the summit with Pinnacle?

Apple's buyout of Emagic in July of 2002 shocked many people in the music-technology industry — it was a move that made it clear that the role and importance of music software in the larger multimedia arena was changing. And this fact was confirmed again in the last days of 2002; on 18th December, the news broke that Emagic's main competitor, Steinberg, hitherto a privately owned company, had been bought out by desktop-video specialists Pinnacle. So again, as in last September's issue of Sound On Sound, we find ourselves asking similar questions: why would Pinnacle want Steinberg? Why would Steinberg want Pinnacle? And what does it now mean for musicians and users of Steinberg's software?

Facts & Figures

Rumours concerning a possible buyout of Steinberg by Pinnacle were in circulation following the Apple/Emagic deal, but it seemed reasonable to assume that these were pure speculation — after all, previous rumours that Pinnacle were going to buy Avid had come to nothing. But there was, of course, an obvious precedent for a video company buying an audio company — Avid's purchase of Digidesign in 1996.

Pinnacle Systems itself was founded in 1986 in Mountain View, California, and over the last 16 years has grown to be a corporation worth $270 million, listed on the NASDAQ (America's stock exchange for the best-performing technology companies) and with revenues for the third quarter of 2002 totalling $68.6 million. If you've ever been involved with video production, either on an amateur or professional level, you'll probably be familiar with many of Pinnacle's products, since they've managed the difficult task of having a successful presence in just about every sector of the video-production industry.

Pinnacle's product range includes sub-£100 products for hobbyists, such as Studio (a home video-editing package), or the PCTV series of hardware for watching TV on your computer, but also mid-range products for consumers and professionals alike (along with smaller production companies), like Edition or Liquid for desktop video-editing. And, at the pinnacle of the company's range (so to speak) for want of a better word, there are studio systems used by some of the biggest broadcasters in the world, such as the Mediastream and Edge series of broadcast servers.

Steinberg Media Technologies AG, to use the company's full title, was founded in 1984 by Karl Steinberg and Manfred Rürup, and planned to go public on the Frankfurt stock exchange in 2001, after two successful years of sales that had indicated tremendous growth. In 1999, Steinberg quoted 13 million Euros of sales, and in 2000, the figure nearly doubled, reaching 22 million Euros. However, after the technology market ran into serious economic problems in 2001, Steinberg decided to postpone their plans.

From a financial perspective, the price Pinnacle paid for Steinberg, $24 million ($8.2 million in cash and $15.8 million of Pinnacle System common stock), indicates how small the music-software industry really is, especially considering that Steinberg is one of the biggest players. It's also interesting to compare this figure with the alleged $30 million in cash that Apple paid for Emagic.

Pick & Mix

One of the most interesting aspects about Pinnacle is the fact that their products address all levels of the video market, and that the company has arrived at this position primarily through the acquisition of other companies. Indeed, according to Pinnacle, they've integrated more than 15 companies in the last decade alone, and this would appear to be a long-term strategy; a 1999 report of theirs stated: "The company intends to expand its core software and hardware technological base through both internal development and acquisitions." As with the Apple/Emagic takeover, it's interesting to look at the background to Pinnacle's most recent acquisition, and the results of some of Pinnacle's older purchases, to speculate about Pinnacle's long-term strategy, and thus get an idea of what might be in store for Steinberg.

Miro was bought by Pinnacle in 1997, and, at the time, was one of the very few producers of PCI-based video-capture cards for PCs. The product that was current at the time of the takeover, the DC20, led to a whole family of PC cards, including the popular DC30, whose only rival at the time was produced by Fast Multimedia (ironically, Fast too were later purchased by Pinnacle, in September 2001). But the buyout of Miro and their marketing channel gave Pinnacle an instant presence in the desktop-video market, and Miro's product range has not only survived the takeover, but formed the basis of a new range of products that remains largely consistent with what Miro might have developed themselves, had they been better equipped financially.

In addition to the technology that they gained in the Miro acquisition, Pinnacle's strategy to provide solutions for all areas of video production needed a high-end capture and processing card, so in 1998 they bought Truevision, developers of the Targa range of video cards. It's likely that one factor that made Truevision such an attractive purchase was a new video-oriented DSP architecture they were developing, which now forms the basis of Pinnacle's Targa 3000 and Cinewave products.

Puffin's former video paint package Commotion was rebadged as a Pinnacle product when the company was bought out by Steinberg's new owners — could this be the fate of Cubase? Both Steinberg and Pinnacle claim not — at least not for the foreseeable future.In March 2000 Pinnacle bought Puffin Designs, whose product, Commotion, was a video paint package — the video equivalent of Photoshop, if you will. And since the purchase, Pinnacle have kept the product going (it's now sold as Pinnacle Commotion), and have bundled it with their products where they've felt it adds value relative to the competition. However, while Commotion has been maintained, its price has been lowered to an extent that you have to wonder how viable a long-term future it has.

Software Manoeuvres

However, recognising that having good software products would be essential to the long-term future of the company, Pinnacle, in 2001, bought Fast Multimedia. The strategy behind this acquisition was unclear at the time, because Fast was primarily a creator of video hardware. But for a number of years, Fast had been developing a video-editing software product called Blue, and crucial to the appeal of Blue and its offspring (601, Silver, Sony's ES3 and Purple) was its user interface for editing. Looking like a 'next-generation' version of the Avid interface, it had the potential to become the software of choice for professional video editors: a market niche that Pinnacle had firmly in its sights.

High-end video editor Liquid and consumer package Edition were developed from technology Pinnacle acquired in their buyout of Fast Multimedia.

However, unlike in the Steinberg acquisition, Pinnacle didn't buy the rights to use the name Fast — they only bought the products and intellectual property. This forced Pinnacle to rename the products acquired from Fast; the name Liquid was adopted for the professional market, while a low-end consumer version of the software became known as Edition. Edition is priced around the £500 mark and is receiving good reviews as a competitor to both Adobe's Premiere and Avid's Xpress DV. With Apple's recent announcement of a cut-down $299 version of Final Cut Pro (Final Cut Express — see this month's Apple Notes), it's clear that the stakes are becoming high in this market sector.

It's widely acknowledged that audio is a weakness in the current versions of Liquid and Edition. Although it's effective for some tasks (such as letting you create a voice-over while watching video playback on a computer monitor), its audio-manipulation capabilities are underspecified when compared with those of almost any dedicated audio-editing package (or indeed Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video). Avid's Xpress DV, for example, has the benefit of having access to Pro Tools' native-based plug-in technology. Knowing this, it's no longer hard to see how the acquisition of Steinberg could be of help to Pinnacle.

While the majority of Pinnacle's acquisitions have been video-related, Steinberg users should be interested to note that at the beginning of the year, VOB Computersysteme GmbH were also acquired by Pinnacle. Although this company's name might not sound immediately familiar, VOB license their technology for other developers to incorporate in their own products, as well as producing their own range of CD- and DVD-authoring products. And, as you might have already guessed, Steinberg licensed VOB's technology to provide the CD-authoring facilities in products like Wavelab.

Although it's pure speculation at this point, the fact that all of these technologies and developers are now owned by the same parent company could have some interesting ramifications for Steinberg's product range. It's long been rumoured that Cubase and Nuendo may gain CD-writing facilities at some stage for backup or mastering, and the combined forces could allow the creation of other integrated products.

The Inside Story

Steinberg CEO Manfred Rürup.To get the inside story behind Pinnacle's buyout of Steinberg, we were fortunate to speak with Steinberg CEO and co-founder Manfred Rürup, who assured us that "no changes are planned for the short term" to Steinberg's brand or product line. This extends to forthcoming products like Nuendo v2.0 and the continuation of cross-platform Mac and PC support, a factor that had caused concern amongst some users. "Nuendo v2.0 is scheduled for February, and will be cross-platform — in fact, we're trying to release the Mac and PC versions at the same time, and hopefully within one package. Our commitment to the Mac will continue, along with Cubase SX/SL and Nuendo — and all of our major VST plug-ins will be available for OS X."

Another point that caused much speculation among users on-line was whether the international distribution channels (and therefore customer support) for Steinberg products would stay the same. Will Arbiter remain the contact point for customers in the UK to receive technical support, for example? Manfred Rürup: "Currently, there are no plans to change our distribution channels in the Musical Instrument and Professional Audio fields. Arbiter will continue to be our distributor in the UK."

Pinnacle's Bill Loesch.

We also spoke with two executives at Pinnacle, Bill Loesch (Vice-President of Engineering and Product Management) and Bob Wilson (Senior Vice-President of Corporate Development), who both confirmed this situation: "Cubase, Wavelab and Nuendo will continue to be sold through Steinberg's channels under the Steinberg brand name. In fact, with the closing of this deal in January 2003, Pinnacle Systems has acquired all assets and liabilities of Steinberg Media Technologies AG."

Pinnacle's Bob Wilson.

However, as with all buyouts of this nature, the most interesting aspect isn't what remains the same, but what the plans and directions of the two companies are for the future. Steinberg's Nuendo, for example, will be a particularly important product for both companies, especially as Steinberg have consistently aimed this product at the post-production market since its inception. Pinnacle's executives confirmed that they wanted Nuendo to be a real competitor to Digidesign's Pro Tools, and we asked Manfred Rürup if he thought that with Pinnacle able to provide more video-related experience, Steinberg would be able to make bigger inroads into this market. "Steinberg will concentrate on anything that has to do with audio within the post-production market; that's where we have the expertise. However, when it comes to offering complete solutions, we can offer a video/audio solution together with Pinnacle that will offer a high level of integration."

Technological Reasoning

The release of Nuendo v2.0 will be unaffected by Pinnacle's acquisition.For those speculating on why Pinnacle would be interested in Steinberg, it perhaps goes without saying that part of Pinnacle's reason for buying Steinberg will be to incorporate some of their audio technology into Pinnacle's video products. And this move could at last result in a situation where audio and video can be edited seamlessly, with the type of speed and precision users have yearned for after so many years of separate audio and video non-linear editing. Pinnacle's executives were quick to offer confirmation: "Avid bought Digidesign, and Apple bought Emagic precisely because audio is an important aspect of every video production. Steinberg's world-class solutions and their talented team will significantly enhance Pinnacle's editing solutions; Pinnacle are combining their video technology with Steinberg's audio technology, making a much stronger set of offerings for our united customer base."

To get the Steinberg perspective, we asked Manfred Rürup if technologies such as ASIO, VST, and, most interestingly, VST System Link (which could facilitate the possibility of seamlessly networking audio and video workstations) would be incorporated into Pinnacle's products. "Multimedia has really only just started, even though everyone thought it began about 10 years ago! With Pinnacle, we can work on products that cover many aspects of multimedia and, of course, they might integrate VST technology into their products. VST is our key technology, and we want to expand that into video as well."

So will Steinberg continue to focus on products for musicians, such as Cubase, The Grand, and so on, as opposed to just providing audio-related technology for Pinnacle's video products? Manfred was quick to reassure us: "It's important to point out that Steinberg is a separate company where the owners have changed. We will put all our efforts into Cubase, Nuendo and various plug-ins for musicians of all kinds, and share some of the underlying technology with Pinnacle, and vice versa — but our main focus will remain in the music and audio markets."

While Steinberg are primarily a software company, they have collaborated with companies such as RME to produce Steinberg-branded audio hardware, most notably for Nuendo systems. As a manufacturer of PCI video cards, Pinnacle obviously have a great deal of experience in this area, and we wondered if Steinberg would take advantage of this or continue their partnership with companies like RME. "Pinnacle certainly have a great deal of experience in manufacturing hardware; however, the expertise to develop audio hardware and drivers is certainly with RME. I have a lot of respect for RME and their products, so I imagine that we will continue to work with them — but maybe under different conditions."

Another consideration we were interested to find out about was whether the deal would have any impact on recent announcements, such as the strategic alliance Steinberg announced with Euphonix, which will hopefully bring Euphonix's expertise in mixer design to control surfaces, and Manfred was again quick to clarify the situation. "We will follow up all our plans, including the strategic alliance with Euphonix."

Conclusions

So, at the end of the day, what does Pinnacle's buyout of Steinberg mean to the average user? We believe that the clearest indication can be found in looking at what's happened to Digidesign over the last six years, which shows that they've continued to prosper under Avid's ownership, and this is likely to be the case for Steinberg under Pinnacle. For the most part, it seems that it will be business as usual, although it's likely Steinberg will have greater resources for research and development, and the sharing of mutually beneficial audio and video technologies should hopefully mean better and more integrated solutions, for those working with both of these media.

In closing, and on a more general note, we wondered if Manfred felt it had been necessary for companies in the music-technology industry, such as Steinberg, Emagic, and Digidesign, to become part of larger media-related companies to stay competitive and survive in an increasingly difficult marketplace. "Whether it's necessary or not is hard to say, but it is a strategy that allows smaller companies to significantly increase their resources in order to compete with larger companies. The alternative would be to stay small in a niche market, and be a happy camper. I don't like camping that much." 

Published March 2003