Cubase 101 - Setting up VST connections

In Cubase, it's a must to assign audio inputs and outputs in your audio interface with Cubase inputs and outputs. This task is done through the VST connections setup. Here I'm going to describe hoe to set up VST connections step by step.

Go to Devices > VST Connections. It will show the VST connections setup window. There are six tabs. Inputs, Outputs, Group/FX, External FX, External Instruments and Studio. In this post, I'm going to explain only Inputs and Outputs.

Setting up Inputs

Go to the Inputs tab in the VST connection window and click Add Bus. It will show a dialog box like this.

In this dialog box. we can the number and type of input buses we are going to add. Now you have to check how many audio inputs does your audio interface have. In my case, I have two input channels in my Steinberg CI2. So I can add two mono inputs and one stereo input. First we should add the stereo input, then the mono inputs. Here's what it looks like after adding inputs.

The number of inputs added, depends on the number of inputs you have in your audio interface. For example, if your interface has 4 inputs, you can add 4 mono inputs and 2 stereo inputs. If you have 6 inputs, you can add 6 mono inputs and 3 stereo inputs.

Setting up Outputs

Setting up outputs is similar to inputs but this time we add only stereo outputs. Here I have 2 output channels in my interface: one for the left channel and the other one for the right channel. So we can add it as one stereo output.

Go to the Outputs tab and click Add Bus. Then add one stereo bus same as before. Here's what it looks like after adding outputs.

Now Cubase can recognize channels in our audio interface as Cubase input and output channels.


In the next post, I'm going to explain main features and tools available in the Cubase project window. Feel free to give me your comments and suggestions.