Cubase 13: Capturing Audio From Virtual Instruments

As shown here for Retrologue, Cubase Pro 13 users can now route the output of a VSTi to the input of an audio track.

New routing options in Cubase Pro 13 make it easy to archive virtual instrument parts in Cubase.

There are a number of pragmatic reasons why you might want to capture the output from the virtual instruments used in your Cubase projects to their own audio tracks. Here are two typical scenarios. First, you might need to move the project to a different computer (for example, to a collaborator or mix engineer) that doesn’t have the same VST instruments available. Second, virtual instruments can fall victim to the upgrade cycles of your DAW or OS, and preserving your virtual instrument parts as audio ensures you can revisit projects (for example, for remixes or edits) in the future.

Depending on which version of Cubase you’re using, there are various ways you can approach this audio capture, including the Render In Place function that’s available to both Pro and Artist users. For Pro users, Cubase 13 has a further option that’s both conceptually and practically very straightforward: you can select the audio output of any virtual instrument as the audio input of a separate audio track.

Alongside your audio interface’s audio input sources, you’ll see the output from any virtual instruments in the project.

Find The Source

Let’s start with a simple example: capturing the stereo output of a Retrologue synth to a stereo audio track. Having added an instance of Retrologue and an empty audio track to your project (as shown in the first screenshot), click the input selection option in the Routing section of the audio track’s Inspector panel. This displays a list of the available input sources. Alongside your audio interface’s audio input sources (that you configure in the Routing window), you’ll see the output from any virtual instruments in the project. By the way, you can do this in the MixConsole if you prefer.

As a brief aside, if you record‑enable both the instrument and audio tracks, you can capture both MIDI and audio at the same time. Enabling the Monitor (rather than Record) button on the instrument track, on the other hand, lets you record just the audio as you play the virtual instrument. This might or might not be useful in a real‑life context, but the option is there if you need it!

A couple of additional points are worth noting. First, if your audio track is mono, only mono virtual instrument outputs will be visible in the selection panel; if the audio track is...