Thanks! Yes, I have a number of videos planned, will try to make one every couple of weeks or so.

This logic comes from orchestration, where a regular oboe player (2nd or 3rd oboe) usually doubles english horn (alto oboe), and they are grouped together, because that one player will have both instruments to play. Same applies to bass oboe, with an even lower range. And bass flute etc. Clarinets together with bassoons are considered low winds.

Thank you! I also never use anything on the mix bus, and instead think of the stem busses as multiple mix busses, and any final processing will happen there. Nor do I hard limit, quite the opposite - modest levels and ample headroom on all stems, the limiters are more like a failsafe to catch the loudest peaks and bring them down a db or two.

Hi Damien, super busy times so just a quick reply - check out the VI control thread I linked in the description, lots of helpful people there. Another good resource is the official support forum openstagecontrol.discourse.group/

@@mihkelzilmer thanks a lot fir the link. I actually know this very good tutorial. I’ll keep dogging onto it. Congrat by the way for tour others mockup tutorials. There are really helpful ;)

Hi, I have not tested it myself, but according to this forum thread the new export features do not have the same functionality, that is they can not hear the entire mix while bouncing through master bus FX. vi-control.net/community/threads/cubase-11-master-bus-stems.100966/ So yes, the side-chain structure is still needed if you want this function.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention! Will add a note. However, I can see that the developer's website has moved - you can find them at zerodebug.com/ That site and their support forum both seem active. If you don't need MIDI over USB, then using LoopMIDI together with Lemur Daemon should work, but I've moved on from Lemur altogether and have been using Open Stage Control on Android for the past couple of years.

Hi Dirk, thank you! What you saw in the 2019 update video are the default levels and pan values for CSSS. I've refined my approach a little since then - I now set all mics to 0db in Kontakt, keep everything also at 0 in VEPRO too, and only adjust levels in Nuendo. I find it useful for consistency and troubleshooting - once I had some levels in Kontakt reset because of newly updated patches - it's easier for me to keep all levels at unity everywhere else except for Nuendo. In Nuendo I set 2 sets of levels, general template balancing and mixing levels. For example, I might pull all CSSS VEPRO returns down -10db so that it roughly balances with the rest of the template and sits where I want it for gain-staging. And then, depending on material, I might have the group track levels of mic positions set differently or even automated. Hope this helps!

@@mihkelzilmer Hello Mihkel. Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it tremendously. Funny that you would mention that. I’ve been working on this part of my template this weekend and coincidentally I’ve already started doing exactly what you’ve just described. I also thought that it makes more sense to keep mic level adjustments streamlined (only in Cubase for me), instead of having to adjust it at multiple locations (Kontakt, VEPro and various places in Cubase is too much, haha). I feel much better knowing that I’m on the right track if you’re also doing that now. Once again, thank you for all your knowledge. I cannot even put it into words how awesome these tutorials are for building mega orchestral templates. The multi mic output and print approach just opened up another world for me. All the best to you and I look forward to more content.

Hi Thomas, I use 1 (sometimes 2) reverbs per stem, so 10-20 reverbs total, inserted on FX busses. Dry signal is sent from tracks to these FX busses and then routed back into the stem. So the stem is where dry+wet signals combine, limiting happens afterwards. I never want them separated for delivery, but if you are having to deliver reverb separately, then it's a whole other story...

as Mihkel says - reverb per group or stem.

​@@mihkelzilmerThat. Or If you use a "one reverb/tail for everything" setup or simply wanna seperate the reverb from your orchestral stems (which makes sense in trailer music sometimes), you could do it this way: - Create two groups: "Reverb" and "STEM Reverb". Route the Output(!) of all Reverb FX groups you use to the "Reverb" group. On the Reverb Group, send the signal to the Sidechain Mix Limiter aswell and route the output(!) to the "STEM Reverb" group.

Interesting find, thanks for reporting!

Thank you, glad to hear you found it useful!

Thanks Dirk!

Haven't tested since VEPRO6.. so can't say for sure. But back then what I found was that the two main components that started to cause performance issues were 1) having too many stereo outputs per instance and 2) having too many MIDI ports per instance. I noticed worse performance with more than approx 100 stereo outs and more than 8 MIDI ports.

@@mihkelzilmer Very interesting! I'll be investigating this further. Thank you!

Thank you! You're right - negative delay is needed with almost all sample libraries. Only very few actually have consistent delays even for just one articulation - and even fewer tell the exact ms value. My bread and butter strings - CSS and CSSS - luckily are very consistent. 60ms across all shorts, 3 different delays for legato. I have Project Logical Editor macros that apply the exact amount of negative delay per note to make sure the audio lines up perfectly. For legato this includes reading the note CC to determine how much delay is needed. As far as other libraries go, only two decent options come to mind - multiple tracks, like you said - or, my preferred way of working - print to audio and align per articulation / audio clip.

@@mihkelzilmer I like working with Orchestral Tools products almost exclusively. I don't think that those delay times are necessarily the consequence of bad programming or overall design. I talked to a violin player recently and she told me that she tends to play a little bit ahead when playing certain articulations. It is due to the way the sound is produced in the respective instrument. Frensh Horns or lower brass instruments in general in my experience need the the most time compensation because especially in the softer articulations or dynamic layers, they tend to be very sluggish. With instruments that produce a very sharp transient it's quiet the opposite. With JXL Brass I programmed something between 120 and 180 ms negative delay for the different articulations. Orchestral Tools specifically states at their help desk that their libraries are intended to be used with a 'one track per articulation' approach. So I put together a template which contains all the articulations I need and for each respective articulation I did my best to figure out the necessary negative delay by ear which I simply but in the respective inspector dialogue for each track so I can still use the grid to program everything. It's always nice to learn about different approaches. Cheers! :)

More coming in a couple of weeks - have been very busy - thanks for your patience!