HELP!problem with cubase sx3

[kawayan_strat]

i'm a newbie on this kaya patulong naman sa mga may cubase.
pag nag le-laydown ako ng track,ok naman pero pag nag overdub nako
at pag pinlayback kna di sya sumasabay o synchronized.
ano kaya sa tingin nyo ang problema?

[KitC]

Latency ang problema, anong soundcard mo? Try to use asio drivers for your soundcard. Look also for asio4all drivers(asio4all.com). If you're using a pre-XFi soundblaster, look for kx drivers (kxproject.com).

If your soundcard has direct monitoring, try to use that. Avoid MME and DirectX/Multimedia drivers when using Cubase.

[starfugger]

i know this question is for an audio track, which KitC has addressed.  those dabbling in MIDI bogged down by latency, here's a practical solution: a friend of mine has recently discovered the power of midi and computers but had a major problem with latency as she was still on cheap blasters.  i lent her my yamaha usb to midi interface which made it possible for her to hook up a keyboard to her computer.  as it goes, we setup the track output back to the keyboard, making real time monitoring possible.  after recording all the tracks, it is possible to use virtual instruments or whatever to improve the sound quality.  setting the drivers did not help as her computer was pretty old and is due for replacement soon.

[KitC]

Hazel,

Cubase/Nuendo has a problem being AHEAD of the beat - a physically improbable event where the midi notes you entered move forward in time. Apparently Steinberg has discovered time travel .

Anyway, part of the fix involved moving a zero length file called ignoreportfilter from one of the Cubase subdirectories into the main directory. This will cause all the emulated midi ports to appear. If you do a search for MidiTime, there is an indepth article that explains the differences between using emulated and non-emulated midi ports in Cubase, and which of them to use. Although with SX3, this problems has been addressed with the 3.02 and later updates, part of the problem still lies on how soundcard manufacturers implement midi in their drivers.

This is one of the reasons why I prefer to do midi in Sonar, and Cubase for audio only.

[starfugger]

Kit, we couldn't even get to THAT problem.  lol.  the major issue was on playing the keyboard.  whenever we hit a key, the delay was so apparent it was distracting.  if it were just one track its bearable.  however layering became impossible with this kind of delay.  im guessing it's because of the computer, which lacked power overall (i think the pc is about 4 years old).  

will point her in the direction of sonar.

[KitC]

Hazel,

Delay in midi is a function of the soundcard's latency; one of the reasons I prefer composing midi to an external module is to mitigate that latency. However, the system can be tweaked to bring midi latency to an absolute minimum, if not eliminate it altogether.

One of them, as I previously stated, is to use external modules. Software will always have latency until we can have processors operating in the hundreds of gigahertz range. While I sometimes do midi with Cubase, I have fallen victim to notes leading and lagging the beat. The ignoreportfilter and miditime utility helped in identifying the tweaks necessary to correct midi timing. This was mostly because Windows Midi and Directsound had different timestamping methods on the midi stream, the Jay Levitt miditime site can fully explain the whys better than I can.

Another thing is to use the soundcard's direct monitoring capabilities. I never monitor thru the software whenever I'm tracking. I leave that for later when I'm already in the mixing process. Some usb midi interfaces also have a problem with midi jitter causing inaccurate midi timing, it is sometimes recommended to use serial or parallel port midi interfaces - the old Opcode interfaces and some Motu interfaces have this. PCI midi interfaces were reported by SoS to have the most accurate midi timings of all.

[starfugger]

yep, routing the MIDI signal back to the keyboard (a cheap casio with built in speakers) works quite well (and basically synonymous to using a sound module).

i guess if one wants functionality, one really has to cough up the dough for a proper sound card.  we're looking at M-Audio with midi capabilities.

thanks for the info. at least now maybe i can advise her to prioritize the purchase of a soundcard. do we have local distributors for emu?

[abyssinianson]

how are you doing the routing? the soundcard may be the heart of the problem. i use Cubase SX 3 and Nuendo 2 with MIDI for a lot of things via VST and the MIDI lag is not apparent averaging at 3.26ms for the Delta 1010 and Creamware Scope Pro rigs. I have also used the NI B4 and Elektrik for gigs to fill in for Rhodes and B4 organ sounds since lugging one around is crazy. For optimal settings, contact your VST instrument vendor for support.

Check your soundcard updates and make sure your computer has ample ram and HD space not going below 7200 RPM. Anything lower than this can work but you may run into latency issues because of the music programs crashing as it approaches the limits of the HD work load limits.

[KitC]

thanks for the info. at least now maybe i can advise her to prioritize the purchase of a soundcard. do we have local distributors for emu?

Unfortunately, no. Have to order abroad.

I'll be honest with you. The Emu is a tweaker's card. You can't just put it into a computer and then start making music. It's very picky about having it's own irq (what soundcard nowadays doesn't?) and it's Patchmix software strikes fear into the hearts of many.

But then again, you're probably talking to one of the local experts, aside from the fact that I'm a mod in the Unofficial Emu Forums.

[kawayan_strat]

i know this question is for an audio track, which KitC has addressed.  those dabbling in MIDI bogged down by latency, here's a practical solution: a friend of mine has recently discovered the power of midi and computers but had a major problem with latency as she was still on cheap blasters.  i lent her my yamaha usb to midi interface which made it possible for her to hook up a keyboard to her computer.  as it goes, we setup the track output back to the keyboard, making real time monitoring possible.  after recording all the tracks, it is possible to use virtual instruments or whatever to improve the sound quality.  setting the drivers did not help as her computer was pretty old and is due for replacement soon.

yup,it is an audio track.isa pang tanong,when i hit the play(space bar)button
may mga 1sec na delay.how's this?does it concern processor,ram etc.?

[KitC]

If I may...

The 1 sec. delay is soundcard latency. That's the computer preparing it's buffers for recording audio, to name a few things. Ram is not much of an issue with regards to latency, but processor speed and audio driver choice has a big impact on latency.

The first thing you should check is your device setup and what kind of drivers you are using. Preferably, you must use asio since Cubase is primarily an asio app. The drivers that state "ASIO DirectX Full Duplex" and "ASIO Multimedia" are not true asio drivers but directsound and MME audio drivers with an asio wrapper. Think of wrappers as 'shell' programs that make other non-asio drivers appear as asio. The problem with this is that it adds processor overhead adding to the inherent latency in the audio driver. Choose the drivers that say "xxxxx ASIO" where xxxxx is usually the name of the soundcard/manufacturer.

Once you choose the proper asio driver, there is usually a Control Panel button that allows you to adjust latency either in milliseconds or as buffer settings. Note that lower latency settings also mean a higher processor load.