Cubase Win 7 why the sluggish behaviour?

[Guest]

I’m currently experiencing, sluggish behaviour and audio drop out/crackling/distortion.

Cubase 5 - Win 7 - Intel Core i3 CPU 3.07GHz. - 4.00 GB ram

To resolve do I need more ram, or/and better processor, or better PC.

Also does the length of song matter as prob only starts at about 10 mins?

There’s only 20 tracks, 6 MIDI & 14 audio and only 32 (mainly Waves) plugins used.

There’s also 20 soft synths sitting in the device VST but only 6 are being used. There’s also plugins loaded on tracks but not being used.

I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be the ram or processor, but are the synths and plugins sitting there doing nowt contributing, and does the length have a bearing?

Just cut and pasted 4 bar loop from its 10 min position to the very start, prob’s still there, yet it only starts to occur at 10 mins, without the cut & paste?

[Guest]

Er, perhaps i should've mentioned that the 20 synths, only six used though, are mainly Massive & Spire + couple of Sylenth 1, are there limits as to how many times you can use them, y'know, in wot i suppose is a, er, pseudo multitimbral manner?

[ef37a]

I am sure the Top Men will comment shortly but I would say you are asking a lot of an i3 processor?

Cubase itself is pretty resource grabby and 4G of ram is really only about enough I would think to cover that and the OS and some other stuff. What does Task Manager's Resource Monitor tell you?

The time factor could be something, probably the processor, getting too hot. Run a temperature monitor progg. Clogged fans/heatsinks?

That processor/ram combination could probably run what you want IF it was a very lean, very well optimized, very stripped back system but is it? This HP i3 8G equipped laptop could not! (runs about 20 basic Cubase LE6 tracks and shows about 70% CPU load iirc)

Dave.

[OneWorld]

Cubase itself is pretty resource grabby and 4G of ram is really only about enough I would think to cover that and the OS and some other stuff. What does Task Manager's Resource Monitor tell you?

Dave.

I found the same. I have an i7 and 15gigoram, SSD drive, but Cubase creaks at the knees if I have an arpeggiator running in Halion Sonic, or a drum loop going in NI Drum Studio, to the extent where I am looking to buy a hard drum machine, if I can come across one that unlike Maschine, does the processing and holds the sounds in the hardware as opposed to the PC

[ef37a]

So glad One that I was not talking total bllx.

Re the drums issue. I got my son a program called BFD Eco, a cut down version of the big BFD and I have just run it, stand alone with a looped "groove" and Task manager reported 2-3% of CPU consumption and just over 2G of the 4G installed memory.

That is for an AMD 6core 3G CPU, I bet your i7 would hiss at it?

Or, do what I did for son when we only had very puny computers? He ran recording software on one (Samplitude SE8) and VST instruments on another triggered from a MIDI keyboard. The second PC fed the signals over via S/PDIF since both PC used a 2496 but if you have the spare analogue inputs fine. You could load up an old PC with Reaper as a host with VST instruments and have the thing as a sound module!

Dave.

[Pete Kaine]

I’m currently experiencing, sluggish behaviour and audio drop out/crackling/distortion.

Cubase 5 - Intel Core i3 CPU 3.07GHz. - 4.00 GB ram

All of the above.

CPU is rather low power, RAM is going to be half eaten by Windows itself and then It'll stick everything into the swapfile on the drive when it runs out.

C5 in comparison with later editions is a dog for it's handling too. The improvements to the engine post C6.5 were pretty major.

[ef37a]

I have Cubase 6.0 LE and so I might ask Steinberg what sort of upgrade I can get on that.

I cannot justify a full blown version* the musician son is no longer living here but it would be nice to get a better version when he visits.

*TBH if I was going to spend that kind of cash it would be on Samplitude Pro X ll !

Sorry! Been sloppy. I have Cubase ELEMENTS 6.0! I do have LE6 on another machine, paid 40 quid for a second hand US 144 and the first incumbent had not registered it. Sometimes the hoops the software houses make us jump thru' are handy!

Dave.

[Guest]

Thanks fellas, the kid in PC World reckoned that more ram was just needed if you're running lots of prog's at same time, and adds that it must be the processor, but then Peter says windows will eat most of that ram, upping the ram isn't that expensive, so would say an i5 be enough, plus more ram of course?

And am i right in thinking it would be better/cheaper to buy a machine with the better spec installed rather than upgrading the one I'm using?

As ef37a says time/song length could be a factor, could also the plugins and synths, loaded but not armed also be contributing?

Wot i find weird is that before say 8 mins no probs, but when i'm working on a four bar loop say at 9 mins, prob starts, when i cut and paste that loop (at 9 min mark) and place it at the start/1st bar, prob's still there, but then not there when copy & pasted loop is deleted?

[Pete Kaine]

Thanks fellas, the kid in PC World reckoned that more ram was just needed if you're running lots of prog's at same time, and adds that it must be the processor, but then Peter says windows will eat most of that ram, upping the ram isn't that expensive, so would say an i5 be enough, plus more ram of course?

The CPU dictates the amount of VSTi's / effects you can run together, the more power you have, the more you can run in the time span set by your audio interface buffer.

As far as audio boxes go, you Audio (wav's) and your sound libary samples (Kontakt/East west / VSL etc...) will load to RAM as will other plug'ins but in far smaller blocks (so are not as likely to be chewing through the RAM ).

Windows needs between 1.2GB and 2GB of RAM to run smoothly by itself (depending on OS revision, later is bigger), so if your running a 2GB project file, it'll be swapping stuff back and forth like mad I reckon, this in itself will cripple a system.

You can check all this by doing the Microsoft salute (hitting "Ctrl+Alt+Del") , choosing taskmanager and checking your "free RAM" and looking at the CPU performance level whilst working on a maxed out project. This should show up where your hitting the wall, although I reckon you could be cutting it close in both regards at this point.

And am i right in thinking it would be better/cheaper to buy a machine with the better spec installed rather than upgrading the one I'm using?

Depends on the age of everything else in there, the design of the case, if the other components will be able to work well with the new kit. Hard to call without knowing what your working with.

As ef37a says time/song length could be a factor, could also the plugins and synths, loaded but not armed also be contributing?

If they are inserted and turned on, then yes they are. Arming doesn't change anything in this regard, except letting you record. To stop them affecting the load, you need to turn them off, to this end I assume your already using a lot of freezing?

[Guest]

Many thanks Pete, yeah it shows i'm smashing into my limit.

Just realised I bung stuff forward in time, soon as I've got a decent arrangement, i shove that forward, then again and again so i can always look at the original if need be, plus i load, er, loadsa samples too, and little mini arrangements of new songs when i get bored wiv the one I'm doing, so I looked, i'm up to 1 hour 19 mins, not every section is full of tracks though, sometimes just a few tracks have a few samples or midi parts whatever, i'm just spewing everything I'm not yet using but maybe might use later for club mixes forward in time, that's wot i'm doin now. And of course there's little gaps in between.

So i'm thinking even though all that spewed audio and midi isn't within my 10 min loop, it is posibly a major factor, should finish club mix today, then i'll delete everything, the 1 hour and 9 minutes worth that's forward in time, and see if the prob's still there, just for curiositys sake.

Er, is it a straightforward procedure to just whip out me i3 chip and replace wiv say i5 or better, or are they welded in?

thanks to all

[ef37a]

I don't even know LD if the i3 and i5 share the same socket?

In any case I would think it ill advised to upgrade that PC*. The older MOBO might have limits on how much ram you can fit, does it have USB 3.0 ports and if so how many?

I have built 2 PCs from scratch (although I did buy in a MOBO+CPU to ensure a match) and I am NO PC guru! I would hunt around for a MOBO+i5/i7 combination and download the full specc' and run that by The Men here. You will need a copy of Win 7.

*N very B, keep the old machine handy for internet/ "office" work since in the initial setup of the new one you WILL need some help.

Dave.

[Mixedup]

Obviously a bigger, better, faster, newer computer will help. But we managed perfectly well to make music on 32-bit computers with a couple of gig of RAM 15 years ago! So if funds are tight, just look at your workflow. The single biggest thing you can do here is to render your virtual instrument parts as audio — as if you were tracking them to tape — and make sure you're using send FX instead of piling reverbs and delays on the channel inserts.

I'd usually hesitate to suggest someone moved DAW, but again, if money is tight, you might want to consider Reaper, for two specific reasons. (1) it's doesn't hit your CPU as hard as Cubase; (2) it has a really cool feature (v5.2 on, I think) whereby you can insert an entire project as a clip inside another project. What that does is bounce the subproject every time you close it, and the render appears on your main project's timeline as audio. But you can double click to open the project and make any tweaks before closing it again. Kind of a freeze function on steroids.

So if you can afford a better machine for Cubase, great (it still does lots of lovely things Reaper doesn't and won't require you to learn another piece of software). If not, maybe have a think about the above!

[Pete Kaine]

Er, is it a straightforward procedure to just whip out me i3 chip and replace wiv say i5 or better, or are they welded in?

They can be sometimes, it all depends on the board and chip revision.

If you can grab speccy ( https://www.piriform.com/speccy ) and let us know whats in there, we might be able to work out what may slot in for you.

[Guest]

Hey thanks one and all, above and beyond the call of duty as per usual.

Money's not that tight, but not sure if it's cos I am, or maybe I'm beating myself up cos i 'aven't earnt it, literally, and I'd rather not upset the apple cart, cos it works fine and I'd also rather not piddle about loading it all again.

I'm not connected to the web, i only use it for Cubase and Premiere Pro and the odd bit of animation and 3D software, it's basically my canvas i suppose.

Of course, any ol' DAW will do but don't like the look of Reaper, too much colour and too busy looking screen, I don't colour my Cubase parts, i leave everthing grey, easier on the eye and probably the brain too, I don't even name individual parts properly, unless there's a real need to distinguish them from each other, even then it's only A B C/1 2 3 whatever, no time when you're on a roll. The visual aspect of how an arrangement looks is very important to me, tells me lots and guides me through the maze easily, possibly a relic/habit from my Atari days.

I dont print synths cos i'm always changing or tweaking or doubling up sounds, i really dig and rely on the freedom that gives me.

Gonna finish this club mix then i'll delete an hours worth and see if that 8/10 min mark still causes the prob, will also post spec to see if you can advise on that.

Got 4 slots, so I did try to upgrade/double the RAM but it wouldn't recognise it, maybe i need 4 of the same, or 2 4's instead of 2 er, 2's. I am interested in upping the RAM again cos of wot Pete said, y'know, just to feed Windows, fill its guts so it doesn't steal my nectar.

Muchas gracias Amigos, very much appreciated.

[ef37a]

I understand you can change Reaper so it looks a lot like Cubase?

On the memory front, did you try Crucial? Yes, you need to be on the web for the duration but it takes only a few minutes for the app to scan and tell you which memory will work.

Dave.

[Pete Kaine]

I understand you can change Reaper so it looks a lot like Cubase?

On the memory front, did you try Crucial? Yes, you need to be on the web for the duration but it takes only a few minutes for the app to scan and tell you which memory will work.

If he just puts Speccy on there (via USB stick if you have too... portable edition doesn't need to be installed and the machine doesn't need to go online) it'll tell us exactly what memory is in there and we'll be able to match it.

Also. Reaper Skin.
http://reaperblog.net/2015/07/eyssina-i ... or-reaper/

[ef37a]

I understand you can change Reaper so it looks a lot like Cubase?

On the memory front, did you try Crucial? Yes, you need to be on the web for the duration but it takes only a few minutes for the app to scan and tell you which memory will work.

If he just puts Speccy on there (via USB stick if you have too... portable edition doesn't need to be installed and the machine doesn't need to go online) it'll tell us exactly what memory is in there and we'll be able to match it.

Also. Reaper Skin.
http://reaperblog.net/2015/07/eyssina-i ... or-reaper/

Cool AND smart!
And just wanted to ask. Does the thread HAVE to go back to the top each time? Seem to have to do a lot of scrolling on the new forum?

Dave.

[James Perrett]

Click on the red arrow Dave...

Must admit that I thought Pete was being very pessimistic when suggesting the Windows needs 2GB for itself until I checked on this machine and found it was using over 4GB just browsing and backing up some data.

My mobile 24 track recording rig is based around a laptop with only 512MB of memory running Reaper 5 in XP. I tried Cubase back when they first tried to get it to run on a PC and wasn't impressed with Steinberg's programming skills - it was the flakiest piece of software that I've ever bought.

[OneWorld]

ONe of the issues I have never had a definitive answer to is.....

With today's multi-core processors, there's a setting in Cubase that allows you to switch on the multicore support, but each VST, in my case Halion 5, Kontakt 5, have settings that you have to switch off if the multicore support in the host DAW is switched on, and vice-versa

or is it better to switch off the multi-core support in the host DAW and switch it on in the VSTs that support multi-core support?

[Pete Kaine]

Must admit that I thought Pete was being very pessimistic when suggesting the Windows needs 2GB for itself until I checked on this machine and found it was using over 4GB just browsing and backing up some data.

I thought I was being generous myself!

Windows these days (since W7 I think it was, may have been W8) is optimized to use as much memory as possible, rather than shunt it back and forth with the swap file, which was standard issue back in XP days. Leads to a more overall snappy system, but it does mean that minimal spec requirements have creeped up over the years.

there's a setting in Cubase that allows you to switch on the multicore support, but each VST, in my case Halion 5, Kontakt 5, have settings that you have to switch off if the multicore support in the host DAW is switched on, and vice-versa

On in DAW, off in plugin.

Unless your running the plugin in standalone mode (whilst performing for instance), then turn the multi-core support back on.

Load balancing should always be done at the highest point in the chain, meaning host over plugin where applicable.

[OneWorld]

On in DAW, off in plugin.

Unless your running the plugin in standalone mode (whilst performing for instance), then turn the multi-core support back on.

Load balancing should always be done at the highest point in the chain, meaning host over plugin where applicable.

Thanks for that, that makes sense, doing it at top level

[Guest]

Computer’s a good 5 years old, I Googled, budget, this, that & t’other and decided on Asus P7H55-M Motherboard & NVIDIA Geforce 8400GS, put together by a trusted local shop, sadly no longer there.

Forced to change tack though, C drive is making a very loud continuous noise, always boots though, Sat, 3rd boot was noise free, Sun, 2nd boot was fine, Mon, no prob, Tues/today, 2nd boot again noise free.

So I think I’m gonna clone it, put new cloned drive in, then keep it as it is, cos my main worry is, (wiv a new computer) some or even most of my Cubase progs, ain’t gonna load, cos loadsa plugins will be missing.

However if’n you guys think, once cloned, it’s gonna be ok to update chip and RAM no prob’s, then perhaps that’s the way forward.

Even so, if you also think that a newer bigger spec’d “budget” machine is the best solution I’m more than ‘appy to follow your advice.Because I’ve deleted the hour that’s forward in time but problem still persists, I’ve also since, added half a dozen or so more plugins to same number of already existing tracks, and it’s now on its knees, creaking like mad, as Pete states ‘tis the chip that determines how many plugins can be used.

So now I’m not so bovvered about the working length of the song, (easily overcome anyway) or how much is forward in time, as it would seem it’s the plugins, so it would seem that it’s very much the CPU chip that needs to be improved, and RAM for greedy Windows.

My main and real only concern is Cubase, all I want is a hassle free working environment for that, which I’ve already enjoyed for 5 years, System restore, (cos of bleedin’ plugins) is the only tool I’ve ever needed, my very best friend it is.

And if a better CPU chip would speed up Premiere Pro’s rendering that would also be a real bonus too.

I’m not sure, as Dave points out, wot a lean machine is, but I think mine is cos it’s pretty basic and stripped back, so that’s also wot I think I’m after. A stripped down basic hassle free Cubase monster, that is also capable enough for speedy rendering in Premiere Pro. I’m well over gear lust and updates don’t improve voice leading, so I’ve never even updated my Win 7 home edition, so I’m prob gonna stick wiv Win 7 too, unless you strongly advise against it.

[Guest]

I understand you can change Reaper so it looks a lot like Cubase? Dave.

Hey Dave that would be like swapping me bad ol' U.S of A standard Telecaster for a Squier, some good Squiers about though, and I'm pretty sure that one DAW is pretty much like any other DAW, but the fact that the Reaper guys feel they need to offer a Cubase template is a fitting testament to it in my book.

Cubase is also my toolbox and my workshop, and it's become me mate too, cos it's never let me down or left me in the lurch.

If starting out today I'd be quite happy to use say Reaper, as the price is very tempting, but I think the layout of the early midi Atari Cubase also helped me visually to understand/construct an arrangement, so it's posible that this understanding might not'ave been realised wivout Cubase. & it ain't broke, the comp/CPU's the prob, that's wot needs sortin', innit.

[Guest]

... I’m prob gonna stick wiv Win 7 too, unless you strongly advise against it.

Y'know wot, got 10 on me (missus) web comp, screw 10 i'm sticking wiv 7 regardless.

Def gonna go for a wicked new BUDGET/ish comp, so bearing in mind my needs and i'm def sticking wiv Cube 5 & Win 7 (prob also starting a band called, The Lonely Leaden Luddite Stuckists) any specs/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Guest]

...BUDGET/ish comp, ...

Err, perhaps budget/ISH would be more apt.