Ok. Having really started to make some inroads into my Cubase workflow, I thought I'd finally share some more of the things I do to make life with my DAW liveable.
1.) VOLUME AUTOMATION: Automation SHOULD always be done last, right? That's what everyone preaches. And when I say last, I mean LAST. The problem is that when your working on an electronic piece that requires a LOT of automation to create the sounds you need--or to bring instruments in and out of the mix at different points in the song, you sort of HAVE to do some of that automation while you're creating the track. There's no getting around it. What this also means, though, is that when it comes down to doing a final mix of the track once you've got all the elements in, and you need to raise or lower the OVERALL volume of your heavily volume-automated track, that is a real pain in the butt. The answer for me is to use some kind of plug-in that allows me to control gain independent of the fader volume. So when I need to lower the overall volume of a track that's heavily automated, I end up adding a "Studio EQ" plug in in Cubase to the insert chain and use the gain control on that plug in to lower or raise the overall volume of the track. In Ableton you can do the same thing with the "Utility" plug in. Some people will say to ONLY automate volume at the plug-ins, and NEVER automate the fader volume. That also makes sense, but either way the result is the same. It allows you to make overall changes to level without having to mess with the automation you've painstakingly recorded.
2.) BOUNCING TO AUDIO (Specific to Cubase): Cubase has some oddities about how it handles routing, and this can manifest itself in strange little restrictions you find yourself confined to. It took me a little while to understand how to overcome my old-school way of thinking, but it turns out Cubase is perfectly capable in this area. One thing about Cubase that absolutely drove me bonkers for a while was that it seemed in order to bounce a midi instrument to audio (an incredibly useful technique for a variety of reasons) I needed to set the left and right locators accordingly, go into the "Audio Mixdown" dialogue and select the track I want to bounce, and select to export it back into the project on a new audio track, and then have it go through the entire rendering process, blah blah blah. I HATE having to do it that way, but it turns out bouncing can MUCH EASIER. Here's how:
A.) Create a new audio track, and name it "Bounce" or something similar (I have this in my template files).
B.) Create a new group track and name is "Bounce Buss" or something similar (In template files).
C.) Set the input of the new "Bounce" audio track to come from the new "Bounce Buss" group track (Setup in template files).
D.) Set the output(s) of the midi instrument(s) you want to bounce to the "Bounce Buss" group track E.) (IMPORTANT: You can also use a send for step D instead! HOWEVER, you'll want to make sure you set the OUTPUT of the new "Bounce Buss" group track to "No Buss". This will ensure you're not doubling up on the outputs to the main buss of the instruments you are bouncing.).
F.) Record enable the "Bounce" Audio track.
G.) Set your play cursor anywhere you want to start the bounce.
H.) Set record on the transport, and play to start the bounce. The midi instrument(s) will be recorded directly to the "Bounce" audio track.
I.) Move the newly created audio event to the Audio track of your choosing for further editing.
It sounds like a lot of steps, I know, but most of the setup work can be accomplished in your template file. I MUCH prefer this method to the "Audio Mixdown" route, where you have to worry about the left and right locator locations, what format your exporting to, what the file will be named... where it's saved... blah blah. Drives me batty. The above procedure is much more workflow friendly and elegant for me, and more in line with how other DAWs work.
3.) AUDIO TRACKS--RECORD ENABLE AND MONITORING (Cubase only): I do a fair amount of music with vocals. So I record vocal take after vocal take, etc. I do not use any kind of direct monitoring method for various reasons, so my monitoring is handled through Cubase. This means that in order to hear myself while I'm recording, I need to not only have the track record enabled of course, but I also have to enable the "monitor" switch for that track. The problem is that while that "monitor" switch is engaged, I can't hear that track PLAYING BACK after it's been recorded. I need to then disable the "monitor" switch in order to hear what I just recorded. When you're doing take after take, and you need to hear the results of each take in the mix right after you record it, the constant enabling and disabling of the "monitor" switch is a nightmare. Turns out there's a preference setting that solves this whole problem for me. Here's what I do:
A) Go to Preferences --> VST. You will find an option that says "Auto Monitoring". Set that to "tapemachine style".
What this will do is this: When you record enable an audio track, it will keep the monitor switch DISBALED. When you actually start recording, however, that monitor switch will automatically be ENABLED--allowing you to hear what you are recording on that track. When recording stops, the "monitor" switch will automatically be DISABLED again, thereby alliowing you to hear that track when played in the mix. This effectively eliminates my need to ever have to touch the "monitor" switch for a vocal track I'm trying to record to except under special circumstances.
(By the way, there's also another useful feature in this preference screen. In Preferences --> VST. The top option: "Connect Sends Automatically for Each Newly Created Channel" is SUPER useful, as it will automatically create sends to all existing FX channels when you create a new channel in Cubase. Takes more resources, but it's SUPER useful if you know you're going to be using your FX channels alot.)
OK... I have more, but that's more than enough for now.