To Jesse or anyone who might help me out:

GREAT tutorial, man.  Really helped me get the Cubase thing rolling right out of the box!

Two issues though.  In part 2 of the tutorial, step two, we're going to work through fading out the pit.  This never happens following Jesse's steps.  I've read the help files on fading in/out but everything is greyed out under Audio menu.  I'm wondering if this has anything to do with using midi tracks instead of audio?

Also, after following through with the mixdown steps to produce an mp3, nothing happens.  No error messege, no hour glass, nothing.  Just hit OK and that's it.  But no sound file.  I've tried the mixdown using differant formats and always the same thing....nothing.  If anyone has followed Jesse's tutorial to completion, please let me know if I'm missing a step.  I've been at this for a few days now.

And thanks guys.  Great products, great support, great info here on the forum.  I love this stuff!!

Ty

A couple quick shots out of the box...

Cubase 4?  You sure you have an mp3 codec?  They ";support"; mp3, but that doesn't mean they ship with a codec.  See cubase.net about that one...

The fade in and out, that would certainly seem to be the right inclination.  You can only apply a ";fade"; in two ways...  if it's midi, you have to apply the math and change velocities.  If you're doing it on audio, you lower the amplitude of the wave.  My guess is you're indeed trying to apply an audio fade on unrendered midi.  You can't fade data.

Good questions, Ty.  If you need more support, post a little more, like cubase version (mp3 codec if needed), and where your rendering steps are -- take us step by step in your creation process, and we'll nail it.  :)

Drumcat, thanks for the quick reply.

My bad.  I know better than start a thread without posting some spects. 

Cubase SX3
Kontact 2.1
VDL2
Finale 2005
Windows XP
2.4ghz  1gig ram

I found a ";work-around"; for the fade using the line tool and ajusting velocities.  Then I read your answer and it makes sense.  ";You can't fade data.";  Of course.

As far as the mixdown, I finaly got a file (I had the wrong outputs selected in the mixdown dialog box) but the file has no sound??  I can play back fine within Cubase hosting Kontakt.  Any ideas?

Another issue I found here at home (I have two identical set-ups, or so I thought, at home and the office) where Cubase doesn't see VDL as a VST.  I know I loaded everything on initial install.  Also, when loading VDL samples into Kontakt I have to search files every time.  Are the folders just in the wrong place??

OK, that's it.  Sorry to a hassle but I love the potencial here and I think I'm so close!!!

Ty

As far as the mixdown, I finaly got a file

Keep playing; that's a settings issue, and it's either right or wrong.  Check the Cubase docs on that.

Rerun the VDL2 installer, and make sure the VST is being installed into the folder Cubase is looking for VST's. 

Make sure you are mixing down at 44.1k 16 bit.  Are you going to Audio->Bounce Selection?

I'll mess around some more with the settings.  Thanks for the help!!

Tyler, what would Bounce Selection do?  I'm not familer.  It's greyed out though.

Flam421 - ";Bounce"; is the lingo a lot of these sequencing programs use to create an audio mixdown of your selection. So if you want to create a .wav to put on a CD, you'd bounce it. Not sure if this is Cubase term or not. I know ProTools and Logic both use this terminololgy. Sounds like that's what you're trying to do.

Do you have to make a selection before you bounce in Cubase?  (I don't use Cubase much at all, I'm a Pro Tools/Logic guy).

Cubase uses Audio Mixdown for terminology.�� You would select the area you are ";mixing down"; at the top by dragging the arrows to have the area you want included in the area that is highlighted by the blue line that shows when you drag the arrow from the beginning.�� Cubase looks for the VST instruments it can use in the [b]C:\Program Files\Steinberg\CubaseSE\Vstplugins[/b] folder.

With the VirtualDrumline2VST.dll (located in your [b]C:\Program Files\Tapspace\Virtual Drumline 2\Virtual Drumline 2 LIbrary folder[/b]) file in the Cubase VSTPlugins folder, you would be able to see the Virtual Drumline 2 Player as a choice within Cubase - that is if you want to use that player instead of the Full Kontakt.

UPDATE!!

Great info guys.  I got it to mixdown into mp3 formate.  Halaluah...  The problem was selecting the right output to the sound card.  The mix isn't great, I'll have to monkey around some more, but it's working.  Thank you all so much.  It's been a process but the end results blow people away.  This is just great software, all of it,  VDL, Kontakt, Cubase very cool.

I do notice that a lot of options/tools are greyed out though.  All of the Audio stuff in the menu.  Is this because I'm working with midi files?  Right now things like fading would be so much easier to drag handles but that option isn't available.  Is there a way to convert my midi stuff to audio or do all you professionals just work with your Finale/VDL files in midi formate until the ";bounce?";

Another question regarding sound cards.  Does the final mp3 mix have anything to do with the quality of sound card your using?  My mp3 playback is working but the quality isn't what I was imagining.  My sound card is a POS here at the office. 

Thanks again, guys.

Glad you got going!

A lot of options will be grayed out based on whether you are using midi or wave, or whether you have hardware or not.  I'd imagine that it's whether you're doing audio or midi in this case.

";Is there a way to convert my midi stuff to audio or do all you professionals just work with your Finale/VDL files in midi formate until the ";bounce?";";

That's the Holy Grail.  If you wanted to do that, you would need to work with Cubase's notation, and until at least Cubase 4, it's pretty sub-par.  It's not bad, but even Finale does pretty good.  Most of us are on the Sibelius bandwagon, and for good reason I think.  One day, we'll be able to edit and it'll work with the sheet music and sampler, but that day isn't here... yet.  Not practically anyhow.

Your final mix should not have anything to do with the quality of your card.  Here's what happens in that workflow:

You make sheet music > export midi out of sheet > put midi in Cubase, and adjust > put VDL in Cubase as VST > Bounce to wav  (let's stop here for a second)..

A bounce is effectively a faster-than-real-time ";paste-o-rama";.  What Cubase does is it makes a blank audio file, and then goes down the timeline to the exact point in time a midi event happens.  It finds the sample at the exact velocity, etc., and pastes that sample at that exact moment on the timeline.  It then does the same for every subsequent event.  So basically you're pasting thousands of sounds into this wave file, and that's a bounce/export/whatever.  This is why Cubase costs $$.  Other programs make you play, and you record the audio output like you were dubbing a tape, and you can obviously see the advantage to bouncing this stuff.

That said, you should have a pristine (cd-quality) wav file that has never seen the soundcard.  If you're making an mp3, you may be degrading the quality quite a bit.  I'd suggest saving as a wav file once and see if you hear a difference.  If there is, and the wav is nice and clear, it's the mp3-making process.  If the wav sounds the same as the mp3 practically, then let us know.  We'll want to figure that out.  If the wav sounds significantly different than other audio played through the same sound card, that could be something else.  You'll have to fill us in on that one.

My guess is that you're making a gorgeous wav, and your mp3 settings are super-low, and smashing it down into low quality.

You will lose quality bouncing to MP3.  MP3 is a lossey compression scheme.  However, if you use a good converter along with a high bit rate you'll be fine.

Cat- Great info.  The more I work the more I learn.

I mixed down (Cubase term) to mp3 at a much higher bit rate than before and the quality was very satisfactory.  The kiddies will do just fine with it.  However, I'm going to try the wave route and see how that sounds. 

All things concidered I'm good to go.  Thank you Tyler and Cat.  This stuff is really a blast!  I'm in the wrong line of work!!

Ty 

High rate MP3's are generally fine if it is going to be used for student CDs, and so on.  I wouldn't use one for a commerical release or anything, but the difference is getting smaller between high quality audio files (WAV or AIFF) comapred to higher setting lossy compression schemes (MP3, AAC, OGG).  I generally prefer AAC over MP3.

And I prefer VBR 100 MP3 if you're going to go for compressed file size, and universal compatibility.

All of the new codecs are great, but mp3 is still utterly universal.  It may not be pristine, but we live in a ";walkman"; world in a lot of ways.  The second ";best"; might be lossless wma; but that generally requires windows.