Cubase 101 - Understanding Track Types 1

Steinberg Cubase has 13 different types of tracks in the project window. And they are designed to be used for their own purposes. In this post, we are going to discuss purposes and uses of each  track type.
The track types are as below.

• Audio Tracks
• Instrument Tracks
• MIDI Tracks
• Arranger Tracks
• FX Channel Tracks
• Folder Tracks
• Group Channel Tracks
• Marker Tracks
• Ruler Tracks
• Signature Tracks
• Tempo Tracks
• Transpose Tracks
• Video Tracks

We can add tracks by Add Track option in the Project menu (Figure 1) or simply right clicking in the left side of the project window.

Figure 1 - Adding tracks using Project menu

Audio Tracks

These are one of the most used track types in Cubase or any other DAW. We use audio tracks to keep audio data in the project. We can either record audio into an audio track or import an existing audio file into an audio track. When recording, Cubase stores all the recorded audio files in a sub folder called Audio in the project data folder in .wav format. When importing, Cubase automatically converts the audio file to .wav format and stores it in the same Audio sub folder. Figure 2 shows how an audio track looks like in the project window. It shows audio recorded audio data as a waveform.

Figure 2 - Audio Track

Instrument Tracks

Instrument tracks are used when we record MIDI data using virtual instruments, in other words VSTi plugins. We record MIDI data into an instrument track and the virtual instrument processes MIDI data and gives us the desired sound. We can assign a virtual instrument using the Inspector Area in the left side of the project window. Here's a view of an instrument track and it's Inspector Area. The track is assigned to Native Instruments Massive, a powerful synthesizer VSTi.

Figure 3 - An instrument track and it's inspector area

MIDI Tracks

MIDI tracks are almost similar to instrument tracks, but we can't add regular VSTi plugins to MIDI tracks. They are designed to use with external MIDI devices such as Drum Machines and Keyboards, which we will discuss in a later post.

Figure 4 - A MIDI track and it's inspector area

Arranger Tracks

Arranger Tracks are used to deal with different sections of a song/project and arrange more than one orders to play those sections without moving or copy/pasting events. Here you can see an arranger track in the figure 5.

Figure 5 - Arranger track

As shown in the figure, the project is divided to 5 sections using the arranger track. Now we can arrange various playing orders of these 5 sections using arranger chains without moving any event in the project.

FX Channel Tracks

In most analog mixing consoles there's an Aux Send feature available. We can send a copy of one or more channels to a separate processor (such as reverbs and delays) as one line out and route the signal back to a different mixer channel. In Cubase FX channel tracks are designed to imitate this feature. We can add effects to the FX Channel and route any other track to the latter FX channel. Cubase usually keep all the FX Channel Tracks in one place in the project window (figure 6)

Figure 6 - FX Channel Tracks

Folder Tracks

When we are making a large project with a large number of tracks it's really hard to navigate trough channels or find a certain track. Folder tracks are used to overcome this problem. With folder tracks we can categorize collapse tracks as we like. See figure 7 & 8. There are 16 tracks divided into 3 categories: Drums, Percussion and Guitars so we can easily find and navigate between tracks.

Figure 7 - Folder Tracks expanded

Figure 8 - Folder Tracks collapsed

Now we have discussed 6 types of tracks available in Cubase. I'm going to explain the rest in my next post. Thanks for reading.