From the course: Cubase Pro 10 Essential Training: Editing and Mixing

Audio and MIDI faders - Cubase Tutorial

From the course: Cubase Pro 10 Essential Training: Editing and Mixing

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Audio and MIDI faders

- [Instructor] In the previous movie I talked about using the audio fader to amplify or attenuate the playback level of a MIDI event. Let me here explain the difference between the MIDI fader channel and the related audio fader channel. With the Ezdrummer instrument track selected. Remember it features MIDI events on its timeline rather than audio events. Well with it selected, come over to the inspector in the left zone and you'll see this series of expandable MIDI panels. One of these is this one labeled MIDI fader. Click on its reveal arrow to see user adaptable parameters such as solo and mute and pan. Mainly though, we see the MIDI channel fader that we can vertically adjust to increase or decrease the playback volume of the MIDI value being used. Raising the fader increases it, and conversely, lowering it reduces it. I'll collapse the panel from view. Now remember me saying a MIDI note that has a value of 127 would mean it would play back at maximum velocity. But the velocity of the event notes are audibly controlled by the audio fader. In other words, despite having no set to full velocity at 127, the audible volume is controlled by the audio fader. So come down to the bottom panel here to open in to view these six panels including the audio fader for this track instrument. I'll open it. It looks virtually the same as the MIDI fader but with the difference, it controls the volume of the resulting audio generated by the chosen VSTI. For example if I pull the fader down to silence, during playback of the MIDI events, irrespective of the MIDI velocity values will be silent because the audio channel that is rooted to the VSTI is indeed set to silent. I'll start playback and increase the audio fader so that we hear the percussion loop driven by Ezdrummer becomes audible. This should make what I'm explaining somewhat clearer. Here it goes. (light music) Okay, so we saw and heard the percussion playback increase as we raised the audio fader. And to reiterate, the MIDI note values have no real bearing on the volume. Low MIDI note values simply sound softer, whilst high MIDI values sound more hard. Think of the difference between very softly playing a single note on a piano and hitting the same note much harder. Not only does the volume change, the tone of the note changes too. Anyway, I settled on the audio fader, set it around -10dB when balanced with the other instrumentation. If you want to manually change the value without using the fader, maybe for quick precision, double-click the field down here and enter the value of your choice. I'll adjust it to -16 decibels. And I'll start playback again. Now during playback I'll mute the piano so I can more clearly hear the volume balance between this percussion loop and the audio loop on a different track. I can then change the audio fader value if desired. Anyway, here it goes. (light music) Okay so that's the difference between the two faders found in the inspector for every MIDI instrument track. Let's leave it now and move forward once more.

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