Cubase SX/SL 2 Power!

Chapter 2. A Guided Tour of Cubase SX/SL

This chapter provides an overview of Cubase SX/SL's many workspaces. Veteran Cubase users will find this chapter useful in providing information about new features, windows, panels, and workspaces. For all you Cubase "newbies," welcome to the Cubase family of users. You will get acquainted with the different windows and tools in this chapter and find out how to access these windows . It's always good to go through a quick overview to get a first impression , then stop reading, look at the software, and find where things are located to get a sense of the working environment. Look at this chapter as your guided tour to a world of possibilities.

Here's a summary of what you will learn in this chapter:

• The name and purpose of each window, dialog box, and panel most commonly used in Cubase SX/SL.

• How to access these windows, dialog boxes, and panels.

• What the different editing environments are and how you can use them in your project.

• How Cubase is organized.

To make sure you understand the terminology, here's how some of these elements are defined:

• A window contains a toolbar at the top and sometimes on one side. It may also have a menu bar at the top of the window. You can edit information inside a window (as with other elements). You don't need to press any buttons to accept or apply changes made to windows. When you make changes to information within a window, they are automatically updated.

• A dialog box appears when you want to apply a process or transformation that requires you to accept or apply this process. It is usually associated with a function, such as the Save function or a setting of some sort , such as the Metronome Setup or the Project Setup dialog box. When a dialog box is open , you most likely have to close this dialog box by accepting or denying the changes in order to do something else in your project.

• A panel is similar in nature to a front panel of a device. Panels have controls or fields in which you can make selections. Panels do not have any menus or toolbars and do not have any confirmation or cancel buttons. An example of this is the Mixer panel, which allows you to mix channels, route signals, assign effect to channels, and modify their parameters, as well as other mix- related tasks .