Learning Cubase - Cubase Tutorial

- [Instructor] Hello and welcome to this course on Cubase Pro 10. You'll probably know this is the follow up course to the Cubase Pro 10 Getting Started course, also available here. In this course, I want to take our newly acquired knowledge and build on it with this more advanced course. Now don't let the word advanced scare you if you are still new to using Cubase. I will still be walking you through the functionality shown here at a steady pace, so that you don't get lost along the way. What we will be doing in this course is rebuilding a Cubase project that I first created around 20 years ago. Yes I really have been a Cubase user for decades. We'll be rebuilding this Cubase project that I first created for an audiobook competition. I didn't win the competition by the way, and in truth, I've never really been all that satisfied with the final mix that I created at that time. So during this course, you can see me rebuild the project, and hopefully improve on its original shortcomings. Here is the guide mix I created all those years ago. I've soloed it here, and that's why we see the red S button activated. You'll no doubt remember from our previous Cubase course offered here, that all the other tracks that constitute the project are automatically muted once we solo a specific track. I've renamed the project already to Gatsby 2019. And the reason it's called that is because it was for the audiobook competition I mentioned a moment ago and features short sections from one of my favorite books ever written, the classic American novel, the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, written about the dissolution of the American dream back in the jazz age. As you'll hear here, as we build the project, I intentionally use a 3/4 time signature and instrumentation resonance of the 1920's jazz age. And with some simple voiceover narration quotations taken from the novel. We'll have a listen. Now it does last a few minutes, so if you're not too concerned with listening to it in this old guide mix state, skip forward a few minutes. Anyway, this is the original mix created a couple of decades ago, and one which I've never been too happy with. And it's the reason, therefore, why I feel it would benefit from a better mix and production. So, have a listen, here it goes. ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ believed the orgiastic future ♪ ♪ Believed the orgiastic future ♪ ♪ Stretch out arms further ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ Stretch out our arms further ♪ ♪ We will run faster ♪ ♪ We will run further faster ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ The orgiastic future, that year by year recedes before us ♪ ♪ It eluded us then, but that's no matter ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ (slow jazz music) ♪ Believed the orgiastic future ♪ (slow jazz music) ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ The orgiastic future, that year by year recedes before us ♪ ♪ It eluded us then, but that's no matter ♪ ♪ Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms further ♪ ♪ Run faster, stretch out our arms further ♪ ♪ Run faster, run faster ♪ ♪ And one fine morning ♪ (slow jazz music) ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ The orgiastic future, that year by year recedes before us ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ Believed the orgiastic future ♪ ♪ We will run faster ♪ ♪ Stretch out arms further ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ We will run further faster ♪ ♪ The orgiastic future, that year by year recedes before us ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ We will run faster ♪ ♪ We will run further faster ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ ♪ Gatsby believed in the green light ♪ - [Instructor] Okay, so that's what we have to build on. We won't need to hear that version again, or indeed see the track itself there. You'll no doubt remember it's easy to hide any track from view, so we don't actually delete it, by right clicking the track, and running down to disable track first of all. What this does, is not only mute the track from being heard, it actually stops that specific track playing back. This saves a little of your PC's CPU. Once disabled, the track turns gray to indicate Cubase will now ignore this specific track and not use any processing power to play it back to us. This is different to muting the track with the M button. Muting does exactly that, it turns down the track's volume to silence, but still plays the track. I could use the visibility tab to hide it from view, but for the moment, instead I'll left click the track, and drag it down and place it in the folder I've created labeled Unused. You'll see that green arrow indicating where you are placing the track. So, now it is inside the Unused folder. If I was to open the folder, you'll see a few other tracks I have disabled too inside. Or, if you don't wish to open up the folder, simply selecting it, reveals its contents in the related inspector to the left. We see the contents of the folder listed there, and our newly placed guide mix is in there as expected. Now if I flick over to the visibility tab, we'll see a list of all our project's tracks. If I wish to hide the Unused folder from view, but not delete it, I just need to uncheck it there, and we immediately see it has now been removed from view in our main track list. I don't want to delete this folder because I will need to come back to its contents as we progress. I will use some of those existing elements from the folder, and indeed, from the remaining track list as we progress. But as I said earlier, I will improve on what we have just heard. So, let's get started.