User manual

228
Audio effects
Overview
Smart plug-in processing
The VST3 standard features smart plug-in processing, i. e., processing by a plug-in
can be disengaged if there is no signal present. This can greatly reduce the CPU load,
thus allowing for more effects to be used.
This is achieved by activating the “Suspend VST3 plug-in processing when no audio
signals are received” option in the Preferences dialog (VST–Plug-ins page).
When this is activated, VST 3 plug-ins will not consume CPU power on silent
passages, i.
e. when no audio data runs through them.
However, be aware that this can lead to a situation where you added more plug-ins on
“transport stop” than the system can handle on playback. Therefore, you should
always find the passage with the largest number of events playing simultaneously to
make sure that your system offers the required performance.
Ö Activating this option can increase your system performance a lot in certain projects,
but it also makes it more unpredictable whether the project can play back fine on any
timecode position of the project.
About side-chain inputs
Several VST3 effects feature side-chain inputs. This means that the operation of the
effect can be controlled via external signals routed to the side-chain input. The effect
processing is still applied to the main audio signal, see
“Using the side-chain input” on
page 240.
About plug-in delay compensation
A plug-in effect may have some inherent delay or latency. This means that it takes a
brief time for the plug-in to process the audio fed into it
– as a result, the output audio
will be slightly delayed. This especially applies to dynamics processors featuring
“look-ahead” functionality.
Cubase provides full plug-in delay compensation throughout the entire audio path. All
plug-in delays are compensated for, maintaining the sync and timing of all audio
channels.
Normally, you do not have to make any settings for this. However, VST3 dynamics
plug-ins with look-ahead functionality have a “Live” button, allowing you to disengage
the look-ahead to minimize latency, if they are to be used during realtime recording
(see the separate PDF document “Plug-in Reference”).
You can also constrain the delay compensation, which is useful to avoid latency when
recording audio or playing a VST instrument in real time, see
“Constrain Delay
Compensation” on page 265.
About tempo sync
Plug-ins can receive timing and tempo information from the host application (in this
case, Cubase). Typically, this is used to synchronize certain plug-in parameters (such
as modulation rates or delay times) to the project tempo.
• This information is automatically provided to any VST plug-in (2.0 or later) that
“requests it”.
You do not have to make any special settings for this.
• You set up tempo sync by specifying a base note value.
You can use straight, triplet or dotted note values (1/1 to 1/32).
Please refer to the separate PDF document “Plug-in Reference” for details about the
included effects.