Recently subscribed after finding your vid on Cubase colors. Your ability to unearth and understand this incredible level of detail AND THEN explain it with such clarity is truly astounding! Thanks for all you for us mere mortals...
This tutorial will go straight to my reference section in the Excel spreadsheet, something I can go back to when needed. All very useful information, forgot how easily you can get lost in this rabbit hole
Wow, this was a great tutorial! I'm still new to Cubase, though I'm an experienced DAW user coming from Logic and before that Ableton. Both of those have file browsing systems but much simpler - very limited support for rating, tagging, and sorting. Mediabay is vastly more powerful than I'm used to, but admittedly quite intimidating and overwhelming at first when you open it up- especially when you're used to a rather simple text-based search. But this tutorial put me at ease and clarified many of my questions. Also I can relate so much to what you said at around 1:35 about losing entire months of your life at sorting and rating - when I first started in production I considered it my responsibility to listen to, tag, and organize every synth preset and sample library I owned. I would go through drum loops and meticiulously add their tempo manually, and find the key to tonal loops. I believed it was something I had to do in order to create music. After a few months of this and realizing it truly is a Sisyphean task, with tens of thousands of presets and samples ahead of me - I decided it was best to just do it on a case-by-case basis. But I understand that urge as an incurable sorter 🤣 Anyway, thanks again and cheers!
Thank fudge that you actually put the time in to find out what all those little icons mean so that I don't have to! Respect is due. I have been avoiding MediaBay as it is so utterly cumbersome, but currently it is the only way I have found of being able to recall presets for insert effects which I can append to my existing insert chain (FXChains and / or track presets overwrite any existing inserts). If you know another way of doing that than using MediaBay I'd love to see a video on that! I ended up making my own "tags" too using 2 of the categories (I used Artist and Actor from "Staff" as I will never use those otherwise) as I don't generally find the ones in Cubase helpful enough. The fact that you can't save your MediaBay views either is very frustrating.
Long time Cubase user but never really used the MediaBay much, other than cursory looks, until very recently but wasn't grasping it well at first. I started to get some clue on my own but also started looking at a couple other videos, but they didn't get to what I needed to know. Fortunately found yours and...EXCELLENT. Every bit so useful. More info than the manual. Really appreciate the insight about not getting to carried away with some of the cataloging etc, much of which is very time consuming, and more importantly, some of which gets undone by change of setting. One thing I don't get still, that you did touch on, is the folder colors. You mention 'yellow' being a folder that contains some MediaBay information. In my case, I have some yellow folders, even within the "Factory Content' even though within them either all sub folders are white, or there are no sub folders. I don't understand this. Anyhow, thanks for this great (best) Cubase 13 MediaBay video!
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you found the episode useful :) As for the yellow folders, something might be filtered (i.e. hidden) from your view (like the yellow folders in my explanation, when I was talking about hiding non-scanned locations). In order for something to be yellow, there's something, somewhere, underneath it that MediaBay isn't scanning - sorry that's as specific as I can be!
Thanks again for an extremely useful tutorial. I have one minor 'suggestion', not a criticism at all. I have been using Cubase for over 20 years. I have -never-, and I mean -never- used MediaBay. And the reason I have not is because when it was rolled out way back when it seemed like something that 'producers' would use--ie. loops and 'construction sets'. No one has explained -why- someone such as myself, a person used to traditional pen/paper writing and recording might find this useful. Your videos are exquisite at explaining the -what-, but it might be great if someone made a video saying -why- I should take the time to spend the time it would take to make this a part of my workflow. My -guess- is that there are benefits, but mostly what I see is how much work it takes to set up, not what it can do for me. Again, just a suggestion; not a criticism. Yours is the first 'MediaBay' video I've even gotten this far with. :D Cheers.
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you found the video useful to some extent. I do make videos covering the why more than the how fairly regularly, but I haven't made one with a dedicated focus on the MediaBay as a creative tool, so I'll have a think about that.
Thanks for this video as not used MediaBay and had Cubase since Atari ST days. Much appreciated 🙂 Theres a few ways to record audio from your DAW whilst doing a stream or recording a video and I'm playing around with that too... plenty of videos here on UA-cam though, gonna try find what works for me. Thanks again
Glad you found the content useful. I should make an updated video about my OBS/Cubase setup really - it's been a while since I made one and it is a minefield of a subject.
@@OneManAndHisSongs Yes I ended up using Voxengo Recorder but it uses jBridge (32bit) but recorded everything in Cubase in OBS when I set it up on my Stereo Mix Output and in OBS too... There's a few different options
Really good video. Lots of stuff I didn't despite using Cubase since 1873 or so :). But I miss one thing: a quick way to just find stuff that I've saved. Any ideas for that?
@@OneManAndHisSongs Yeah, you would think so. Alas, some vendors put their factory presets there with Plugin Alliance being a significant sinner. I have reached out to them. Until they fix it: do you have any other ideas?
@@OneManAndHisSongs Yep. You would think so. But some vendors (like Plugin Alliance) put their factory presets there and buries my stuff. Well, well. I will remove those from the database and send a support issue to PA and others. Thanks for a quick response!
Sounds like a fun mission to find the config file in the PluginAlliance installation that points at your Docs folder... and redirect that bad boy outta there!
Also one very strange behavior of Media Bay - it doesn't show ANY files if I select the last folder in a folder tree while the "deep scan" button is switched on and those folder is not 'added to the library'. Sometimes (well 99% of the time actually) I need just a convenient file browser with the ability to play audio samples. I don't want 2 TB of files being added somewhere. I don't know why it is a big deal to make a recursive list of files in a folder with subfolder and let me see and hear them. More often I use 3rd party library managers like ADSR sample manager. Also it can play one-shots like an audio sampler.
..im new to cubase (coming from logic) but it has a very BIG problem when importing loops......if I import a kick loop from media bay it cuts the first transient from the first kick of the loop and it sound so bad....why is this happening?tried many times but its the same....pls help
Nice video Anthony! I want your help in something. I've spend several hours to tag my samples in Mediabay Cubase 12 Pro, but when I upgrade to Cubase 13 Pro my Mediabay isn't showing my user defined tags under Various. It just shows ###ERROR### instead. How can I fix this? Thank you in advance...
Are you sure the presets you're looking for are stored in VST3 format? For example, if I install an Arturia plugin, I won't be able to see those presets from MediaBay unless I painstakingly save each one as a vst3 file. Most vendors don't supply Steinberg-compatible presets as standard.
Hi! Question: Using download manager I downloaded & installed some sound packs that I decided NOT to purchase. I tried deleting the packs but now I have references to the deleted packs in the media bay i.e. my searches include preset/audio file names next to a RED dot with a dash in the middle...maybe indicating missing? How can I get rid of these references to the deleted sounds?
If you've deleted the content off your hard drive and refreshed the Media Bay (right click on the top 'All Media' node) they should disappear. It's not something I've encountered so I'm not sure why that wouldn't work, and I don't want to just say "delete your preferences folder" because I think that's a ridiculous thing to ask a user to do (but I've had that reply from Support in the past). You could try locating the root folder in MediaBay and unticking it, but if it's a VST sound folder I've seen Cubase re-add them back in the next time you launch the program :( Download Manager is a bit of a catastrophe. It really needs a complete overhaul. Oh, one final thing I just thought of: have a look to see if there's anything in your Steinberg Library Manager that you can delete.
It should happen seamlessly when you upgrade, as part of the installation. Basically all of your MediaBay settings are stored in a database file called mediabay3.db . As part of the upgrade/installation a new folder is created called Cubase 13_64, and the file is copied across to it.
I’m not sure why you’d want absolutely none shown but just underneath media bay in the menu is ‘loop browser’ and ‘sound browser’. You could choose one of those, untick the the steinberg stuff you can, (but I wouldn’t) then tick your library or favourites folder and now everyone you open it, it’ll appear like that.
Agreed. As I demonstrated in the video, it's possible to deselect any Steinberg folder by just dipping one layer down (only the top layer is disabled), so if that's your wish, go for it. I'm just glad they disabled the top level, because that was too easy to inadvertently click.
Hi, thank you for your great and helpful videos. I'm seeking assistance in creating an AutoHotkey script that would streamline filtering in Cubase's MediaBay. I have no prior experience with scripting. Here's what I aim to achieve: - To be able to filter MIDI loops by instrument, key, and genre. - To filter audio loops by category, subcategory, tempo, key, and character. - To filter VST presets by category, subcategory, genre, tempo, and key. Additionally, I want the customization of the filters I make to be saved for each selection, so that the filtered parameters remain individually saved for MIDI loops, audio loops, VST presets, etc. Moreover, I would like to have a shortcut to switch directly between different selections: MIDI loops, audio loops, VST presets, etc. Also, I hope that the filters remain saved in MediaBay so I don't have to reset them each time.
This type of tutorial explains why you are the only person for I subscribed to a Patreon subscription.
Me too.
That's awesome to hear, thank you very much for your support
Recently subscribed after finding your vid on Cubase colors. Your ability to unearth and understand this incredible level of detail AND THEN explain it with such clarity is truly astounding! Thanks for all you for us mere mortals...
That's very kind of you to say, I really appreciate it!
This tutorial will go straight to my reference section in the Excel spreadsheet, something I can go back to when needed. All very useful information, forgot how easily you can get lost in this rabbit hole
Sorry mate, can't hear you, I'm down this hole, you see...
Wow, this was a great tutorial! I'm still new to Cubase, though I'm an experienced DAW user coming from Logic and before that Ableton. Both of those have file browsing systems but much simpler - very limited support for rating, tagging, and sorting. Mediabay is vastly more powerful than I'm used to, but admittedly quite intimidating and overwhelming at first when you open it up- especially when you're used to a rather simple text-based search. But this tutorial put me at ease and clarified many of my questions. Also I can relate so much to what you said at around 1:35 about losing entire months of your life at sorting and rating - when I first started in production I considered it my responsibility to listen to, tag, and organize every synth preset and sample library I owned. I would go through drum loops and meticiulously add their tempo manually, and find the key to tonal loops. I believed it was something I had to do in order to create music. After a few months of this and realizing it truly is a Sisyphean task, with tens of thousands of presets and samples ahead of me - I decided it was best to just do it on a case-by-case basis.
But I understand that urge as an incurable sorter 🤣 Anyway, thanks again and cheers!
Well, now I want to re-start my sorting from scratch! Doh! Thanks for the kind feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the video :)
Thank fudge that you actually put the time in to find out what all those little icons mean so that I don't have to! Respect is due. I have been avoiding MediaBay as it is so utterly cumbersome, but currently it is the only way I have found of being able to recall presets for insert effects which I can append to my existing insert chain (FXChains and / or track presets overwrite any existing inserts). If you know another way of doing that than using MediaBay I'd love to see a video on that! I ended up making my own "tags" too using 2 of the categories (I used Artist and Actor from "Staff" as I will never use those otherwise) as I don't generally find the ones in Cubase helpful enough. The fact that you can't save your MediaBay views either is very frustrating.
Sadly I don't know of a part-recall process for inserts either :( I'm glad you found this video useful though, thanks for the kind feedback!
Long time Cubase user but never really used the MediaBay much, other than cursory looks, until very recently but wasn't grasping it well at first. I started to get some clue on my own but also started looking at a couple other videos, but they didn't get to what I needed to know. Fortunately found yours and...EXCELLENT. Every bit so useful. More info than the manual. Really appreciate the insight about not getting to carried away with some of the cataloging etc, much of which is very time consuming, and more importantly, some of which gets undone by change of setting.
One thing I don't get still, that you did touch on, is the folder colors. You mention 'yellow' being a folder that contains some MediaBay information. In my case, I have some yellow folders, even within the "Factory Content' even though within them either all sub folders are white, or there are no sub folders. I don't understand this.
Anyhow, thanks for this great (best) Cubase 13 MediaBay video!
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you found the episode useful :) As for the yellow folders, something might be filtered (i.e. hidden) from your view (like the yellow folders in my explanation, when I was talking about hiding non-scanned locations). In order for something to be yellow, there's something, somewhere, underneath it that MediaBay isn't scanning - sorry that's as specific as I can be!
SO useful. Thank you! 🙂
You're welcome!
Great video! I also love to use the project media type setting. Can see all my projects.
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated :)
Thanks again for an extremely useful tutorial. I have one minor 'suggestion', not a criticism at all. I have been using Cubase for over 20 years. I have -never-, and I mean -never- used MediaBay. And the reason I have not is because when it was rolled out way back when it seemed like something that 'producers' would use--ie. loops and 'construction sets'. No one has explained -why- someone such as myself, a person used to traditional pen/paper writing and recording might find this useful.
Your videos are exquisite at explaining the -what-, but it might be great if someone made a video saying -why- I should take the time to spend the time it would take to make this a part of my workflow. My -guess- is that there are benefits, but mostly what I see is how much work it takes to set up, not what it can do for me.
Again, just a suggestion; not a criticism. Yours is the first 'MediaBay' video I've even gotten this far with. :D Cheers.
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you found the video useful to some extent. I do make videos covering the why more than the how fairly regularly, but I haven't made one with a dedicated focus on the MediaBay as a creative tool, so I'll have a think about that.
Great work mate, as usual :) Haven't got this far in my installation yet, catching up slowly
Slow & steady wins the race :)
Thanks for this video as not used MediaBay and had Cubase since Atari ST days. Much appreciated 🙂
Theres a few ways to record audio from your DAW whilst doing a stream or recording a video and I'm playing around with that too... plenty of videos here on UA-cam though, gonna try find what works for me. Thanks again
Glad you found the content useful. I should make an updated video about my OBS/Cubase setup really - it's been a while since I made one and it is a minefield of a subject.
@@OneManAndHisSongs Yes I ended up using Voxengo Recorder but it uses jBridge (32bit) but recorded everything in Cubase in OBS when I set it up on my Stereo Mix Output and in OBS too... There's a few different options
Bro, i absolutely love your channel!!!❤🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🔥✅
Awesome, thanks for your support :)
Very useful video, thanks. Time to get sorting.
I must admit that after making this one I'm getting the sorting buzz on too :)
Thanks!
And thank you for your kind support, it's much appreciated :)
This was very helpful. Thank you.
You're welcome!
top vid as ever! Media Bay is a weapon...
Glad you thought so, thanks for the feedback :)
Cubase should include Sononyms AI-technology in the Media Bay-engine. Huge deal.
Mediabay = The vertebral colon
We want more video on this app please
Once again a great video
Thanks :)
Great video, thanks indeed, really useful
Glad it was helpful, thanks for the feedback!
Great video, very usefull, as usual !
Glad you think so, thanks for the feedback!
THX
No problem :)
fantastic thank you
Really good video. Lots of stuff I didn't despite using Cubase since 1873 or so :).
But I miss one thing: a quick way to just find stuff that I've saved. Any ideas for that?
All you user defined presets are stored in your Documents\VST3 Presets folder. You could 'Add Favourite' that folder - that would do the trick
@@OneManAndHisSongs Yeah, you would think so. Alas, some vendors put their factory presets there with Plugin Alliance being a significant sinner. I have reached out to them. Until they fix it: do you have any other ideas?
@@OneManAndHisSongs Yep. You would think so. But some vendors (like Plugin Alliance) put their factory presets there and buries my stuff. Well, well. I will remove those from the database and send a support issue to PA and others.
Thanks for a quick response!
Sounds like a fun mission to find the config file in the PluginAlliance installation that points at your Docs folder... and redirect that bad boy outta there!
Also one very strange behavior of Media Bay - it doesn't show ANY files if I select the last folder in a folder tree while the "deep scan" button is switched on and those folder is not 'added to the library'. Sometimes (well 99% of the time actually) I need just a convenient file browser with the ability to play audio samples. I don't want 2 TB of files being added somewhere.
I don't know why it is a big deal to make a recursive list of files in a folder with subfolder and let me see and hear them. More often I use 3rd party library managers like ADSR sample manager. Also it can play one-shots like an audio sampler.
Anthony, we need to fix your black ticks ✅ in Media Bay, it’s very hard to see what’s selected
..im new to cubase (coming from logic) but it has a very BIG problem when importing loops......if I import a kick loop from media bay it cuts the first transient from the first kick of the loop and it sound so bad....why is this happening?tried many times but its the same....pls help
Sorry, I got nothing. Post your question on the Cubase forum - hopefully someone there can help: forums.steinberg.net/c/cubase/6
Nice video Anthony!
I want your help in something. I've spend several hours to tag my samples in Mediabay Cubase 12 Pro, but when I upgrade to Cubase 13 Pro my Mediabay isn't showing my user defined tags under Various. It just shows ###ERROR### instead.
How can I fix this?
Thank you in advance...
I'm sorry, I've not encountered that error personally, so don't know. If I had that issue I'd ask the Cubase forum: forums.steinberg.net/c/cubase/6
Hi, my "other than steinberg" presets do not show in MB. Thinking I missed something.. thx in adv
Are you sure the presets you're looking for are stored in VST3 format? For example, if I install an Arturia plugin, I won't be able to see those presets from MediaBay unless I painstakingly save each one as a vst3 file. Most vendors don't supply Steinberg-compatible presets as standard.
@@OneManAndHisSongs thanks for your reply.
Hi! Question: Using download manager I downloaded & installed some sound packs that I decided NOT to purchase. I tried deleting the packs but now I have references to the deleted packs in the media bay i.e. my searches include preset/audio file names next to a RED dot with a dash in the middle...maybe indicating missing? How can I get rid of these references to the deleted sounds?
If you've deleted the content off your hard drive and refreshed the Media Bay (right click on the top 'All Media' node) they should disappear. It's not something I've encountered so I'm not sure why that wouldn't work, and I don't want to just say "delete your preferences folder" because I think that's a ridiculous thing to ask a user to do (but I've had that reply from Support in the past). You could try locating the root folder in MediaBay and unticking it, but if it's a VST sound folder I've seen Cubase re-add them back in the next time you launch the program :(
Download Manager is a bit of a catastrophe. It really needs a complete overhaul.
Oh, one final thing I just thought of: have a look to see if there's anything in your Steinberg Library Manager that you can delete.
@@OneManAndHisSongs Library Manager fixed it. I completely forgot to check it. THANKS!!
How to route the preview mediabay to a separate output using the control room
Or not ;)
Maybe a cue mix solution I’d say
How do I transfer my media bay settings and ratings from cubase 12 to cubase 13?
It should happen seamlessly when you upgrade, as part of the installation. Basically all of your MediaBay settings are stored in a database file called mediabay3.db . As part of the upgrade/installation a new folder is created called Cubase 13_64, and the file is copied across to it.
But what if we don't want any of the internal sounds provided?
I’m not sure why you’d want absolutely none shown but just underneath media bay in the menu is ‘loop browser’ and ‘sound browser’. You could choose one of those, untick the the steinberg stuff you can, (but I wouldn’t) then tick your library or favourites folder and now everyone you open it, it’ll appear like that.
Agreed. As I demonstrated in the video, it's possible to deselect any Steinberg folder by just dipping one layer down (only the top layer is disabled), so if that's your wish, go for it. I'm just glad they disabled the top level, because that was too easy to inadvertently click.
Hi, thank you for your great and helpful videos. I'm seeking assistance in creating an AutoHotkey script that would streamline filtering in Cubase's MediaBay. I have no prior experience with scripting.
Here's what I aim to achieve:
- To be able to filter MIDI loops by instrument, key, and genre.
- To filter audio loops by category, subcategory, tempo, key, and character.
- To filter VST presets by category, subcategory, genre, tempo, and key.
Additionally, I want the customization of the filters I make to be saved for each selection, so that the filtered parameters remain individually saved for MIDI loops, audio loops, VST presets, etc.
Moreover, I would like to have a shortcut to switch directly between different selections: MIDI loops, audio loops, VST presets, etc.
Also, I hope that the filters remain saved in MediaBay so I don't have to reset them each time.
Interesting suggestion. I'll make a note of it and maybe do something on the subject of advanced MediaBay filters.
Fl studio is the answer