How to enable multiple output channels for VST instruments in Cubase 4

08 Aug Posted in cubase, music production, software, usability, vst instruments Delicious icon Digg icon Facebook icon

I recently bought Cubase 4 Essential. As I’ve been running both Cubase LE and Cubase SX 3 before I got quite confused when I only got one single stereo output from ezDrummer when loaded as a VST instrument. A single stereo output is very limiting when working with drums and the internal mixer in ezDrummer is also quite limited. So I started to scratch my head, thinking that it maybe was a limitation in Essential. That would had been strange though, as even the smallest guy in the Cubase family, LE, has support for multiple outputs for VST’s.

Well, after spending some time searching on Google and cubase.net I found a solution: Open the VST Instruments panel by pressing F11 and load your VST instrument. Press the icon I’ve marked with a red border in the image below and choose “Activate All Outputs” and you’re done.

Pretty simple, but the new GUI in Cubase 4 has a bit too low contrast I think, and makes such small icons easy to miss. Overall I think Steinberg could work a bit more on the usability. The GUI is slick and looks nice, but I want more tooltips! Cubase is of course a quite complex application with a wide user base so Steinberg’s GUI designers must have a hard time adding features while not breaking conventions.

Note that the new “Instrument track” is limited to one stereo output, so if you want multiple outputs, you’ll have to do it the old way (i.e. create a midi track and choose your VST instrument as output).

  1. Nov 8, 05:25 PM by Graeme:

    Thankyou, thankyou. Just what I was looking for.

  2. Nov 24, 12:26 PM by mark:

    Hallelujah. After spending four hours trying to figure this out (using the awesome freebie VirtuaDrum), the right combo of google terms brought me here. Thanks for sharing the solution!

  3. May 26, 07:27 PM by Blaze:

    holy shit is it that simple haha. i was going mad as none of my plugs had multiple outputs. this seems to work well though. thanks for taking the time to post this in order to save the rest of us time!

  4. Oct 4, 06:26 PM by Jesse:

    Thanks a million. I was trying to figure this out all day, and could’nt find any help in the operation manual and was hard to find on the net.
    Thanks.

  5. Nov 15, 02:38 AM by Mike:

    Thanks a lot. Searching the manual didn’t get me the answer, but Googling brought me to your site. You have eased a serious frustration!

  6. Jan 10, 04:56 AM by shpeta:

    Un am from Kosovo, with this demonstration I have chosen Your biggest problem I had in cubase 5, thank you very very very thank you bye bye.

  7. Jan 22, 02:22 PM by Nabhan Irfani:

    thank you… finnaly my problem solved..

  8. Mar 2, 05:43 AM by Pedro Martins:

    I was getting frustrated about this, almost giving up till I found this page! 4h searching for a solution, reading manuals, forums, etc. Thank u thank u thank u!!!!!

  9. Mar 8, 05:29 PM by Andi Baxter:

    Thanks alot Jonathan I was starting to go mad and even started to wonder if I’d made a mistake upgrading…

  10. Apr 5, 06:19 PM by ed:

    Ta, that had been driving me mad !

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