Cubase SX/SL 2 Power!

Chapter 5. Working with Tracks

In a project, you work with different types of musical or sonic events. These events take place on tracks and occur at the appropriate time in these tracks. Different tracks hold different events or event types. For example, audio tracks hold audio events, marker tracks hold Marker information, and MIDI tracks hold MIDI events. These types of tracks are called track classes , and Cubase uses these different track classes to store the different types of events supported within a Cubase project. If you compare this with a multitrack recorder, which records only one type of informationaudioyou can quickly realize how versatile and powerful Cubase really is because all this information is handled by a single software.

Before you can add anything in a Project window, you need to create tracks corresponding to the type of content you want to record and then configure the tracks properly to achieve the result you want. Because Cubase is more versatile than a multitrack tape recorder, it's also a bit more demanding. But as you will quickly realize, it's also quite easy to get up and running, creating the music you wanted to do but couldn't with a simple tape recorder.

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

• How to recognize and work with the different areas in the Project window.

• Discover the different tools available in the Inspector and Track List areas.

• Find out what a VST instrument is and how you can use it in a project.

• Install and manage external MIDI sound modules through the MIDI Device Manager.

• How to use the Tempo track to add tempo changes and time signature changes to a project.