How to create a 2 mix in the same project (cubase 5)

Question

I will explain my question with an example: Let's say I have 10 tracks. I want the 10 tracks to be my main mix (the one I listen with my headphones). But I would also want to take 4 of the 10 tracks, mix them together and output them to a stereo output on line 3 and line 4 of my soundcard. This "sub-mix" will go to other hardware that doesn't need the whole mix.

I want the 10 tracks to stay in the "global" mix that we hear when we listen, and I want 4 tracks to mix and output to a studio output.

Answer 1

I don't know how to do this with Cubase specifically, but generically you can do this by using pre-fader track sends. What these do is send a percentage of the track's signal out to another track, usually called a return track. So you can have your main mix coming out your main outputs (just like you do already), but you can ALSO have a different mix going into this return, by varying the send levels on each track. You can probably assign the output of this return to go to outputs 3 and 4 on your soundcard, and bypass the master output.

There are pre-fader sends, which is a percentage of the signal unaffected by the track's output fader, and post-fader, where it's a percentage of the signal after the fader has affected it. For making a separate mix, you don't care what's going out to the master output, so you want to use a pre-fader send if possible.