So my mate and I have spent the last few weeks re-building my PC from scratch.

Have encountered a problem in Cubase 7.5 to which I upgraded.

No matter what I do I cannot get Cubase to record external audio from hardware or mics.

I can hear the sound through to my monitors but it will not show up as registering inside Cubase.

I've tried the Steinberg forum but it's a cluster fuck of tens of thousands of post, impossible to find an answer to your question. Lost my password and getting a new one has turned out to be another headache (the Germans often over complicate what should be a simple matter).

SO, anyone know what the heck I can do? Yes I have the little yellow speaker symbol checked inside each Cubase track.

In DEVICES / VST connections I can set up the inputs and outputs, but there is no option for a SPDIF input from my hardware synths in the menu apart from under the tab EXTERNAL INSTRUMENTS, but this feels wrong to me, surely there ought to be a SPDIF option shown when setting up a normal input buss?

I have a mono input set up for my MIC, but again although I can hear myself through monitors, nothing registering on the Cubase faders.


RME 400 is my interface. Another Germanic product, very difficult to use IMO. I have pulled my hair out trying to see if this is where the fault lies, but I cannot see the issue being here. Input signals show up in the fader meters for inputs and outputs (not for playback meters which I think are for internal soft synths only).

IS THIS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE CUBASE FADERS, I have a distant memory of something about post / pre faders from years back, but surely Steinberg would not have a default setting that would make such a simple task made so difficult?

I recently upgraded to 7.5 from elements myself and the only bugs I encounter are copy and paste not working after saving from time to time.

Anyway yeah the spdif should show up in device setup, vst audio system, my thunderbolt interface shows up fine. I';m assuming your using toslink optical?

it could be that your setting in Total mix are just configured to monitor the inputs. I don't have totalmix in front of me so can't help directly but you need to make sure the I/O is properly configured.

Secondly, make sure you have the I/O setup right in cubase. This means make sure everything correlates to the total mix within the cubase audio settings and that the track itself has the right I/O. Then make sure nothing dumb is selected like a single solo'd track or master mute.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, very useful.
Looks like I've (you've) cracked it and it does appear to be down to the RME interface software and not Cubase.

Fuck I'm never changing my set up again, this has been a wall of stress and late nights but we've built a lovely PC - even put 3 fans in it and water cooling which more me is a sexy thang, sad eh!!

Windows 8 is taking a bit of getting used to.

I've pretty much lost all my work but I kinda like the clean break.

Could have just bought a Mac. Macs don't have problems.

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Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I've never had a problem with FLs tech support till this day. (I've actually never used it till this day)

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Originally posted by floyd741 i think echosystm is a pretty cool guy. eh pwns robby rox and doesn't afraid of anything.

Lol if only that was true. Good thing about mac most of my problems could be resolved with a reboot where windows can just BSOD continuously. My pc seems to have started doing so after years of serving me well. I am disappoint. I don't really trust it anymore and the failing drivers seem random. Maybe its just the cheap SSD slowly fucking up.

Oh shit I've fallen for a mac vs pc debate bait. Sorry I'm barely awake.

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Last edited by Storyteller on Jul-26-2014 at 09:20

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler Windows 8 is taking a bit of getting used to.

Installing Classic Shell helped for me.

I had to get rid of my Fireface 400 cause it was incompatible with an 2007 iMac, or more accurately Apple decided to use a new Agere Firewire chipset which was not compatible with the FF!

Am now rocking an Octa-Capture which has been rock solid.


From my experience, BSOD on PCs is usually the result of overclocking, if not component or driver failure.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm Could have just bought a Mac. Macs don't have problems.

a) welcome back (again)
b) You know (and not to continue the timeless debate), but I just don't have anywhere near the problems with my macs as I do with my PC's.

I really don't do any maintenance on my two imacs and they just run smooth all the time. Updates are flawless.

For instance. My Asus laptop which I'm writing this from has done to date (and I'm not making this up) 243 fucking windows updates in the 18 months since I formatted it. The vast majority of those I was forced to do, there that fucking annoying box comes up and give me a max of 4 hours to postpone (no cancel option). Sure, I could disable the updates but then my PC isn't up to date and potentially vulnerable.

My imacs? I get a box that says updates ready - now? Try later? Remind me another time. It then does them when I shut my imac down and next I power up it gives me a message saying I'm up to date. No "do not power off or I'll BSOD you like windows does, or stops me from actually powering down while it installs 45 mins of windows patches.

Going to a new OS on a mac? Less hassle than installing a single hardware driver on windows. I'd also NEVER do an OS overstall (i.e. install a new OS version over an existing without a format) on a PC.

My last three updates on my imacs where formatless upgrades which have gone flawlessly.

To this very moment, my PC BSOD's on me at least once or twoce a month. I've researched the error codes to the point I am at one with the matrix and still no joy. It's just a weird windows/bios phenomenon that happens to arise because of many different peices of hardware causing a random system resource conflict. There's no cure unless I start swapping things out.

Windows 8 is such a piece of shit. I hate the fact I'm being raped into dealing with tablet oriented features on a laptop or desktop.

As Mystery points out, classic shell is the only thing that makes windows 8 slightly bearable. I have one touchscreen dell that has been threatening for 6 months now (with constant reminders) to do a .1 update but it always fails. Thanks Bill.

quote:

Originally posted by Mel David I had to get rid of my Fireface 400 cause it was incompatible with an 2007 iMac, or more accurately Apple decided to use a new Agere Firewire chipset which was not compatible with the FF!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the issue is completely fixed by using a $20 FW repeater cable or active FW hub.

quote:

Originally posted by Mel David From my experience, BSOD on PCs is usually the result of overclocking, if not component or driver failure.

Nope. They can come from anything. In most cases it's actually mismatched or faulty RAM. The rest of the time it's hardware conflicts (anything from an SSD to video card or any possible combination therof) and for about three months with this laptop it was windows installing a newer driver on my laptops built-in video chip, then after that it would BSOD every time it woke from sleep until I messed with the power settings.

Windows 7 has been 100% stable for me across 3 machines over 3 years. Pretty much as stable as OSX was on the Mac.

The main difference is that when I wanted to reinstall OSX from scratch (Mavericks) at least I just could do it. It wouldn't let me.

I do think Rich has a monitoring issue though, I suspect the RME mix software is set to direct monitoring and not passing the audio through to Cubase.

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quote:

Originally posted by Mel David I had to get rid of my Fireface 400 cause it was incompatible with an 2007 iMac, or more accurately Apple decided to use a new Agere Firewire chipset which was not compatible with the FF!

This is an issue with RME, not Apple; RME decided to use hardware that is not compatible with the firewire chipsets in Macs.

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quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I've never had a problem with FLs tech support till this day. (I've actually never used it till this day)

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Originally posted by floyd741 i think echosystm is a pretty cool guy. eh pwns robby rox and doesn't afraid of anything.

Nah, the Fireface 400 was released many years before the iMac with Agere Firewire shipset. I previously used it on a Snakebite Powemac G4 Dual-500MHz, and then a Windows PC desktop and a Toshiba laptop. And it worked with iMacs and other Macs manufactured before 2007.

The Agere Firewire chipset supplied a lower voltage, than the previous Firewire 400 standard. This new Firewire chipset was a Firewire 400/800 combo though so some standards had to change.

The thing RME does that is non-standard is they write their own drivers for Windows, so they can have direct communication with their audio interface, which enables them to get that ultra-fast latency. I have never had problems with the RME with Windows. With Macs they rely on Apple's core audio drivers.

Back then I was planning to go completely Mac for audio. I wanted the iMac with my Fireface 400, and then Logic, for a pretty compact and powerful setup.

Because of the issues I encountered, I ended up going PC instead with Sonar 8 (now X1), and purchased a new interface which is just as good.