Not sure if this is the right place to be posting cubase questions. Apologies in advance if not, but there seems to be some pretty tech savvy people around here, so I thought it was worth a shot.

I'm having some performance issues in Cubase VST5. Right now I'm using a Soundblaster Live which I know its crapola and I intend to upgrade soon, but right now, its all I've got. I'm using the KTX drivers which uctually reduce the latency to quite an acceptable level so I dont have much problem when playing midi. The problem is when I have 6 or more VST instruments going at once. The CPU monitor starts to chug and actually gets to redline which results in stop-starting duing the playback.

My question is: Is this due to soundcard performance or is it cpu/hard drive related? If its soundcard, is this considered latency? My original understanding was that latency only came into play when you were actually recording from your midi controller.

BTW: My system is a 2.8 Ghz P4 & 1 GB ram, so I wouldn't have thought this would be the problem.

Thanks for any help =)

it is most likely your CPU. hence why it is the CPU load. your soundcard doesnt crunch any VSTis. your CPU does. your soundcard latency determines how much of the sound that is playing back is buffered before it plays back. this is only an issue up until a point and setting it at maximum ensures you wont go over before your CPU dies. although setting it at maximum also means there is a lag time between pressing keys and the actual sound playing back. basically the correct term for a soundcard is an 'audio interface' - it basically lets you connect external sound sources to your PC, from hardware synths, mixers, samplers, guitars (via premaps) etc etc. VSTis are like hardware synths except they are designed to run off CPU cycles not dedicated DSP chips.

what VSTis are you using? some consume more CPU cycles than others. zeta+ is a big offender. great sounding synth but owing to the number of oscillators and filters and effects you can have per voice, it tends to kill your computer pretty quickly. i have a 1.6ghz P4 and i cant really get away with more than 2 zetas with effects on them depending on what im playing i might be able to get a third. if im playing a pad though the poly will go through the roof and also my cpu load.

5 or 6 really big CPU hogging VSTis sounds about right really. your soundcard wont make a difference in alleviating the pops and crackles as a result of CPU load.

Last edited by Derivative on Feb-03-2005 at 06:02

Hey Derivative, thanks for your help.

I'm using Vanguard (x2), FM7, JP8000, Albino2 (x2) and a SR 202 (free drum sampler from CM magazine)

The albino and JP8000 are playing pads. Maybe thats whats causing such a big hit on the processor.

Shit so its my CPU? That kinda sucks. How do you get around these sorts of limitations without resorting to hardware? I'm still composing the track so I'm not really ready to start mixing down to audio just yet.

On the plus side, I guess I dont need to upgrade my soundcard just yet =)

vanguard depending on the poly is a big CPU killer. albino is a CPU killer the JP8000 is the hardware right? cuz if it is then theres no hit to the CPU from that. its all done on the DSP in the synth. FM7 is a CPU killer though.

basically if you are playing a number of chords (multiple simultaneous voices) from any of those VSTis with effects on them then its going to grind.

a complex vanguard patch with my usual compression, filter, reverb, delay routine + an 11 chord is usually enough to tear up nearly my entire CPU. 1.6ghz thrown away right there and then. thats why i do my drums, my kicks and bassline, my leads and my rhythym section in different project files. render them all and reassemble them in a master project. this is the best way of doing things because everytime you render, the resulting wav has pretty much 0 hit to your CPU. so starting a new project but importing all your wavs gives you effectively all the song parts you had before only 0 CPU load again. so you can fill it up with more VSTis and effects. eheheh.

just mix down what parts you are satisfied with... import them as wav's... we all have to do this, no computer(ok ok... i'm sure there is like ONE computer) can handle a lot of running VST's...

Actually the JP8000 is a VST version of the hardware one. Pretty good conversion too. I dont think it has as big a hit as the other ones though. I've never really noticed much slowdown when using it.

Any suggestion on VSTs thare a "lighter" than the ones I'm using ie: Vanguard, Albino and FM7. Also does using multiple instances of the same synth reduce the load or is it all the same regardless?

Looks like I'm going to have to start mixing stuff down then. Might aswell start get ridding of those big pads first I imagine.

Thanks aain for your advice guys, its really helping me out =)

np mate. and good luck with the tunes.

i bought rb2k's jp8000 ensemble (only cost 3 quid!) cuz it sounded ace. but i dont have reaktor. one of my friends has reaktor session and i put it on his pc and we make supersaws on that. reaktor destroys my CPU. it takes 25% right off with no effects. yikes. this is the major reason why i didnt buy it.

synth1 is free, has a very low cpu load and has some crazy FM capabilities ala nord lead.

other synths where CPU load wasnt so bad were:

g-media impOSCar. it sounds fat too.


i use albino and vanguard and sometimes imposcar for practically everything. i just render everything into loops and rebuild. i just love those instruments.

hehe... right back at ya. Vanguard for leads and Albino for pads and bass. Cant go wrong with those two.

I had a look at synth1 and wasnt too blown away by it. Will have a deeper look though now that you've recommended it though.

Reaktor just plain scares the shit out of me. I'm so not going to go there just yet. I have enough on my plate with trying to lay down my first track.

ImpOSCar eh? I've heard its pretty good from other people too, will look around for a demo of it.

Cheers =)

yea i use albino for basses mostly and double it up with vanguard sometimes to add a bit of crunch to some leads. vanguard i use for all leads, alot of pads, most sound FX and squelchy 303 type acid lines as well as rhythym/gated bits and bobs.

in most of my projects though i rarely have more than 1 or 2 vanguards and an albino. the cpu load just starts to get mad with all the fruity compressors and fruity FX i use to soup em up.

quote:

Originally posted by Axolotyl Not sure if this is the right place to be posting cubase questions. Apologies in advance if not, but there seems to be some pretty tech savvy people around here, so I thought it was worth a shot. I'm having some performance issues in Cubase VST5. Right now I'm using a Soundblaster Live which I know its crapola and I intend to upgrade soon, but right now, its all I've got. I'm using the KTX drivers which uctually reduce the latency to quite an acceptable level so I dont have much problem when playing midi. The problem is when I have 6 or more VST instruments going at once. The CPU monitor starts to chug and actually gets to redline which results in stop-starting duing the playback. My question is: Is this due to soundcard performance or is it cpu/hard drive related? If its soundcard, is this considered latency? My original understanding was that latency only came into play when you were actually recording from your midi controller. BTW: My system is a 2.8 Ghz P4 & 1 GB ram, so I wouldn't have thought this would be the problem. Thanks for any help =)

try visiting www.blackviper.com and look for some tips to optimize your windows for performance, specifically disabling unneeded services. if you have software firewalls and antivirus software, try disabling it. ESPECIALLY if you own norton antivirus.
your cpu and ram should be more than adequate, quite often i use as much as 12-13 vst instruments with quite a bunch of vst plugs (some of them pretty cpu intensive), and i do not hit the roof with cpu performance (athlon64 2800+, at 1818 mhz). a friend of mine made an arrangement with 19 (!!) vst instruments on an athlon xp 2200+ with just a little bit of stutter. of course, he had to increase the latency to about 70-80 msec for it on his esi waveterminal soundcard, so you should try that too.

Cool thanks h.vox. Looks like a good site, if a little techie. Willhave a trawl through there soon. Didnt think to disable anti-virus software though, will give that a try. I'm wondering if virtual memory might be an issue also. I have it at the defualy system managed size which you'd think would be adequate but you never know. I'll try screwing around with that. 19?? Shit, thats a lot, If I could just get 8 VstS with fx, I'd be happy.

My comp is in serious need of a reformat anyway and I'm sure thats affecting vst performance. I just want to finish this track before I un-install everything though.

Thanks for your help mate =)