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cubase sx problems pulling my hair out please help???

hi guys i'm just getting into using cubase sx lately. and i keep getting this annoying problem. every time i load up a vst for example atmosphere as soon as i press play i get this static sound going on over the midi pads. its basically crackling static so i press stop. then second time i play it, it tends to be gone. but with some of the patches i choose in the vst the static sound remains no matter how many times i stop and start. anyone know what this is due too?? please explain in detail if its to do with settings or something.

i recently upgraded my RAM from 256 to 768RAM because i was getting this problem with 256 but its still there.

another major problem is i have a number of audio files in a project which i imported from a song in reason. i wanted to master each individual track in cubase so i converted them to audio. there is about 40 tracks in total i've tried to play a few so far but i keep getting delays and skipping and evenually no sound. does this mean my computer cant handle this many audio tracks at once, how much RAM would i need in that case, or is it some other problem i'm missing. has anyone else tried to play this amount of audio files in cubase sx at once??? is it possible??

please help i've been dying to finish my next track for 2weeks now and i cant because of these problems.

my computer is 2.5Ghz, 40G harddrive with as i said 768RAM.

which ASIO driver are u using? (I would recommend the FULL DUPLEX driver) check ur soundcard settings... and, check the CPU meter in Cubase..

yes thats the one i'm using asio full duplex. do i check cpu in cubase by using task manager, what should i look for??

What audio card are You using? It looks like it's an audio card problem, not the ram, casue you have plenty. Have you tried adjusting the latency of your audio card? Stuff that you complain about ussually happens when the audio card can't keep up with the audio in cubase, and that's when the delay, skipping, and noise comes from... Check the asio driver for your card, download latest drivers..

quote:

Originally posted by Subtle which ASIO driver are u using? (I would recommend the FULL DUPLEX driver) check ur soundcard settings... and, check the CPU meter in Cubase..

Depends what soundcard you have. If you have a decent soundcard with dedicated ASIO drivers you should choose those drivers. Typically they'll be shown as ASIO "name or model of the audio device"

Soundcards which don't have dedicated ASIO will use ASIO wrappers, first the DirectX one (DirectX full duplex) and if that fails, the MME one.

There are basically two things : cpu consumption and hard drive speed.
With lots of software synths/effects and low latency, you'll likely to max out your cpu. With lots of audio tracks, it's very much possible that your harddisk can't keep up (any modern harddisk is generally believed to be able to cope with 40+ tracks (this means continuous data), but that's far from the truth.

There is a dedicated meter in Cubase to check this (although it isn't 100% accurate, it'll basically show you the main problems).
One bargraph will show the cpu power you are using, the other the harddisk throughput. For the harddisk one, it's ok to shortly peak in the red when playing from a stop, but it should remain in the green when playing continuously. If it even goes slightly in the red on continuous play, it means your harddrives are maxed out.

Re: cubase sx problems pulling my hair out please help???

quote:

Originally posted by dannyc hi guys i'm just getting into using cubase sx lately. and i keep getting this annoying problem. every time i load up a vst for example atmosphere as soon as i press play i get this static sound going on over the midi pads. its basically crackling static so i press stop. then second time i play it, it tends to be gone. but with some of the patches i choose in the vst the static sound remains no matter how many times i stop and start. anyone know what this is due too?? please explain in detail if its to do with settings or something. i recently upgraded my RAM from 256 to 768RAM because i was getting this problem with 256 but its still there.

This sounds like your sound card latency is too low

Go to device settings, VST setup...make sure your using the asio drivers and click on 'control panel' underneath. Check the latency

Increase the buffersize

ok i've moved number of buffers up to maximum of 12 and increased the buffer size up to max of 256. still getting same problem.
under control panel i dont know what i'm suppose to be changing all i can see is device name: soundmax digital audio and ia list of figures beside it including buffer size (samples) but no drop-down menu what am i suppose to change in here and to what??? for th asio driver menu i choose asio directx full duplex. is this my soundcard??

where do i check my soundcard and soundcard settings outside of cubase, i think this is where the problem is since i've tried everything in cubase????

Yeah, buffer underrun will give you that staticky sound. CPU overload will also make that sound on the VST instrument.

for the VST problem: you might wanna try setting "old host behaviour" for this plugin.

quote:

Originally posted by dannyc ok i've moved number of buffers up to maximum of 12 and increased the buffer size up to max of 256. still getting same problem. under control panel i dont know what i'm suppose to be changing all i can see is device name: soundmax digital audio and ia list of figures beside it including buffer size (samples) but no drop-down menu what am i suppose to change in here and to what??? for th asio driver menu i choose asio directx full duplex. is this my soundcard?? where do i check my soundcard and soundcard settings outside of cubase, i think this is where the problem is since i've tried everything in cubase????

Hmm this sounds to me you are changing the buffers that you find in the VST Multitrack window in SX. Am I right (default was 4 buffers of 128 kb, if it's the settings I refer to). If yes, these are not the soundcard buffers, but disk buffers, and they are indeed not likely to solve the problem much.

Usually the buffers in question have to be set in the control panel of the soundcard itself (which you can bring up with the Control Panel button in that VST Multitrack window). It's possible that the buffers settings are locked as long as a program is using it, so you might try going to that control panel without having SX run in the background. How to access the control panel here depends on your soundcard. Some have a little icon in the system tray. Probably you'll find an instance of it in the start menu or the windows control panel...

But now that I think of it, I see you state a Soundmax soundcard. Again, if I'm not mistaken, these are some of the soundchips used on motherboards. Is it possible your "soundcard" is an integrated one on your motherboard?
Those devices usually don't have dedicated ASIO drivers (and like I said the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex one isn't the best). But no worry, some people have programmed generic ASIO drivers, which a lot of users are pretty happy with. They give low latency and low cpu consumption for most soundcards on the market.

Here are two of them:
http://www.asio4all.com/
http://www.asio2ks.com/

thanx dj thy you the man

i think you nailed it basically. they were the 2 problems indeed. my friend in college said i should up-grade my sound card to a creative labs sound blaster audigy 2 for example, as the one i have is built into motherboard and is not very good. so i'm gonna purchase one of those soon.

i downloaded that asio4all driver, i've only tried it with 1 audio track so far but it worked beautifully, hopefully it be the same for all 40 audio tracks i'm trying to playback at once, then i may not even need new soundcard.

thanks again dj thy

Oh, btw, if the problems of your 40+ tracks persist, and you track it down to harddisks maxing out there are two easy things to consider (and that will solve the problem 9 times out of 10).

First of all, I see a lot of people working � la Protools : 40 complete audio tracks, with constant audio regions. Meaning that even when there is silence, it's still part of the rendered audio files.
Well, it might look cleaner, but it's really not good for performance. An audio file containing silence is still an audio file, so it needs to be accessed on the HD... So, cut out the silence, and keep only parts where there is actually something going on as regions (strip silence is a godsend here). It's pretty rare that there are 40+ audio "events" going on AT ONCE.

Second, if all else fails, keep in mind that a harddrive has a limited transfer rate. If you need more than that, the only solution is to get a second harddrive and run some of the audio files from that one. In other words, your audio files are spread over two harddisks (do not select copy to working directory, but leave them in a space you selected for that purpose only). The audio files will be spread out, the workload also.

But usually, the first method is already enough to solve most probs.

thanks dj thy

you must be a mind reader cause thats the next question i was gonna ask. i've got to about 20 audio tracks but from then my cpu is maxing out, i persume this is when the vst performance bar goes over into the red cause i can see it and thats when the clicking starts again.

when you say delete the silences, can i do this within cubase by just splitting audio events and deleting silences from here or do i have to do it before i import audio track???

i actually have 2 hard-drives going at the moment 1 20G and 1 external 20G. my internal harddrive is practically full and this is were i have my audio files saved, would it make a difference if i moved the audio files to the less fuller external drive, i.e. iv'e got 3G free on internal drive and 13G free on external drive??

also would upgrading my soundcard have any effect on this problem?
and finally my friend said a good idea is to combine as many audio tracks as one, i dont like this idea cause i wanna mix and master the whole song rather than in sections. how would i do this anyway, would it be just export selected audio tracks in cubase as audio and re-import them??

thanks again

do you have win xp? or 2000?

i have heard that people have proeblems with winxp and cubase sx2. their have to change their xp to win2000 to run sx2 proper way.

quote:

Originally posted by dannyc thanks dj thy when you say delete the silences, can i do this within cubase by just splitting audio events and deleting silences from here or do i have to do it before i import audio track??? also would upgrading my soundcard have any effect on this problem? and finally my friend said a good idea is to combine as many audio tracks as one, i dont like this idea cause i wanna mix and master the whole song rather than in sections. how would i do this anyway, would it be just export selected audio tracks in cubase as audio and re-import them?? thanks again

Just in the arrangement is fine. You just need to make sure that the sequencer doesn't have to play the file even when there's silence. If you just cut out the silences in the arrangement, he'll just be accessing the harddisks for the file when there is actually a region in the arrangement.
Make sure your HD's are defragmented too, as that will influence things a bit too.

A decent soundcard will help a bit indeed. You just need one that has solid audio drivers. What card you take is really dependent on what you want to do (how many i/o, possibility to play games next to it). M-Audio make good ones, the new EMU cards are really one of the best deals around nowadays... The audigy can cut it, but it's still a card mainly aimed at consumers that want to game, and make music occasionally.

I don't know if you found out this option already, but there is a process called "disable track" in the audio menu I think. Muting doesn't remove the track from cpu load, disable does. You can re enable the track later. It's a good option to see how many simultaneous tracks your comp can pull. Just disable most tracks, and reenable them one by one, until you find out what will be your maximum.

What your friend suggested is indeed a solution, but only the last resort, because as you said it, you'll already have to make mixing decisions there, including effects. If ever you find out that the balance wasn't right, or this or that effect could be better, you'll need to revert to a former project to solve the problem and re export.
You basically got it right : in cubase, the audio export is basically "what you hear". Muted tracks wont be included in the export. But you see the problem right? You already need to do a mix, and you're not even capable of doing that right now due to your problems. So the only choice is making the bounce in whatever program your audio files came from earlier.

i'll say it again your the man thy.

managed to get 38 audio tracks running by stripping out the silences, your right it is a godsent. all i need to do is but my kick drum in, which will probably push the cpu a bit more. i might have to do some more optimising thou cause in the most intense part of the tune with most instruments going my cpu is maxing out again. any other things i can do?? maybe disabling all background preference would that help??

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