Mac/cubase issues

[Uk Ant]

My little mac does seem to have problems dealing with Cubase AI4 and Peavey revalver.
It's ok with just a couple of guitar tracks but once it gets to more than three it starts to have serious issues.

I suspect this is just down to processing power available (1.8Ghz, 2Gb memory) but I'm wondering if there is a way of making the whole less resource heavy without losing too much in the sound quality?

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

What exactly happens? I always bounce down my virtual instrument tracks to a aiff/.wav file and load that onto the arrange page (Logic). Trying to run a lot of instances of a resource heavy plugin will kill even big systems.

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

What exactly happens? I always bounce down my virtual instrument tracks to a aiff/.wav file and load that onto the arrange page (Logic). Trying to run a lot of instances of a resource heavy plugin will kill even big systems.

It stops being to process Audio in real time, so the sound stops, jerks forwards and eventually gives up.
And I'm hardly running a great many tracks, today's track is drums and keys (both sequenced) one live bass and five guitars. Ok, a tad over the top on the guitars and that is what's causing the problem.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

How many instances of Revalver and VST instruments at once? Logic has a system resources meter and you can tell what the hang is, either hard drive performance or memory - RAM. Does Cubase have one of those?

You won't loose sound quality bouncing tracks down, at least none that you'll miss. This is digital audio and it's pretty forgiving.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

I'd think you'd be able to run that many tracks w/o a problem... just by example... my dedicated PC has 2gigs of RAM & a similar processor and I can run 40+ tracks at 96kHz with assorted plugins and haven't hit the wall once.

Likely its a buffering issue of sorts. And really, need a lot more information to get to the root of it.

Could be the hard drive choking on data... running slowly because of the following;

Not enough free space
Hasn't been defragmented in a long long time.
Drive speed to slow (5400 rpm isn't enough, go to 7200)
Drive cache not big enough... 32meg is ideal
Storing tracks on the system drive, not a dedicated drive


Poor file management can cause all sorts of issues too & will lock the processor... this usually becomes an issue if you have lots (dozens) of projects with little bits & pieces that weren't cleaned up... or all stored in the same folder.

Audio buffer not set at the right size... audio priority not set correctly...

Could also be any number of other things like video drivers & network settings that are fukking with Cubase. All networking/internet should be disabled on a DAW!!!

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

How many instances of Revalver and VST instruments at once? Logic has a system resources meter and you can tell what the hang is, either hard drive performance or memory - RAM. Does Cubase have one of those?

You won't loose sound quality bouncing tracks down, at least none that you'll miss. This is digital audio and it's pretty forgiving.

I know I won't lose much in quality in the digital domain, but I also won't be able to tweak the sound as much, which sort of kills one of the benefits of using on board amp modelling.

What I really need is enough space to set an amp up in it's own little room permanently miked up, that would make my life much easier

Oh, and there are five instances of revalver plus two other VST instruments (drums and keys).

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

Oh, and there are five instances of revalver plus two other VST instruments (drums and keys).

That's the problem. Just commit to a sound and move on. I always save a copy of the song as e.g. guitar mix, drum mix etc. so I can always revisit the sounds if I really want to change them. I'm a firm believer in making a commitment to a sound and moving on. Every decision you make in tracking affects the next decision so if you continue to change things it gets muddy, imo.

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

I'd think you'd be able to run that many tracks w/o a problem... just by example... my dedicated PC has 2gigs of RAM & a similar processor and I can run 40+ tracks at 96kHz with assorted plugins and haven't hit the wall once.

Likely its a buffering issue of sorts. And really, need a lot more information to get to the root of it.

Could be the hard drive choking on data... running slowly because of the following;

Not enough free space
Hasn't been defragmented in a long long time.
Drive speed to slow (5400 rpm isn't enough, go to 7200)
Drive cache not big enough... 32meg is ideal
Storing tracks on the system drive, not a dedicated drive


Poor file management can cause all sorts of issues too & will lock the processor... this usually becomes an issue if you have lots (dozens) of projects with little bits & pieces that weren't cleaned up... or all stored in the same folder.

Audio buffer not set at the right size... audio priority not set correctly...

Could also be any number of other things like video drivers & network settings that are fukking with Cubase. All networking/internet should be disabled on a DAW!!!

Hope that helps a bit.

All useful, I've spend this afternoon cleaning up drive space and trying to find ways of making the old thing more efficient.
I wonder if one of my problems is my Yamaha MW10 USB mixer thing that acts as my main I/O device.

Obviously, like everyone else, my hard drive is not big enough, although if I moved my itunes library to my external that would free up shed loads of space.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

I wonder if one of my problems is my Yamaha MW10 USB mixer thing that acts as my main I/O device.

You don't have enough RAM to run that many plugins at once.

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

You don't have enough RAM to run that many plugins at once.

Well I've had problems with tracking and sound quality before, so it's not just Revalver, that's just made it worse

And just how much RAM do you need to do this sort of thing?

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

8 GB's would be good, 4GB's might get there.

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

8 GB's would be good, 4GB's might get there.

Eep, I see saving for new computer in my future.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

Even if I had a machine that could run that many plugins at once I would still bounce down. I have found that plugins are not very stable over the long haul and you can loose settings, that is one of the reasons I always bounce down along with making a commitment.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

8 GB's would be good, 4GB's might get there.

That's a bunch of BS right there.

Ideally, if you're doing fairly intensive audio production you'll have as much RAM as you can put in the machine... but to run a handful of tracks, like a dozen or so 1, or even 2 gigs of RAM is more then enough.

Case in point... i have an ancient PC 'legacy' system that basically only gets used for archiving & CD burning. Its a P4 with 512 RAM and that'll still run 24 tracks of audio at 44.1/24 bit with a few plug ins.

If you're hitting a wall its because the system & software isn't configured properly.

Ant ~ You need to be recording all the audio to a dedicated drive. Either internal or external Firewire/USB 2 with a sizeable cache & ideally, 7200 rpm.

That alone should clear a bunch of problems.

Partitions & such are bad. Recording to the system drive is bad.

Not defragmenting the drive is bad...

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

That's a bunch of BS right there.

Ideally, if you're doing fairly intensive audio production you'll have as much RAM as you can put in the machine... but to run a handful of tracks, like a dozen or so 1, or even 2 gigs of RAM is more then enough.

Apparently Mr. BS right there you haven't been reading the thread. He has 5 instances of Revalver running in real time plus two other VST's that are ram hogs.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

Apparently Mr. BS right there you haven't been reading the thread. He has 5 instances of Revalver running in real time plus two other VST's that are ram hogs.

No... I did read it all. And you don't need 8 gigs of RAM to run a dozen tracks and 5 plug ins.

My main audio PC is a P4 with 2 gigs of RAM and I can run at least 50 tracks at 88.2 with a couple dozen assorted plug ins... all processing in real time and its never once choked or come close to it.

The old legacy system with 512 RAM will run about 20-30 tracks with at least a half-dozen plug ins... also in real time.

If you can't get that sort of performance then something is misconfigured or plain ill-kept. End of story.

Some people try to solve their DAW problems by throwing a new machine or more RAM at it... and 90% of the time its like having major surgery when all you needed a back alignment.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

Do you have Revalver? Try and run 5 instances of that plus a drum plugin on a 2 gig Ram machine and get back to me.

 

[Rich_T]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

I would tend to agree with J here, my Mac has 512mb of RAM, and recording onto a good firewire external drive, it will run 24 tracks, a number of plugins and virtual instruments pretty happily. Once you are at 2gigs, 4 or 8 isn't going to make massive differences until you are going nuts with plugins.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

There's one way to find out, start taking off Revalver one track at a time and see what happens.

On my 512 MB RAM PC 1 instance of Guitar Rig 3 takes over 50% of the resources and on my 2 MB Ram Mac 1 instance of Addictive drums takes 25% of the resources.

 

[Gamera]

Re: Mac/cubase issues

That's the problem. Just commit to a sound and move on.

I'm only marginally following the info in this thread as I don't use any of this particular software but I find this comment interesting. A similar analogy in my line of work is people who use too many adjustment layers in Photoshop. Everything they do is stored to a new layer in case they want to change their mind. I tell them just to make a decision, stick with it, and move on.

This is the first time I can see that logic applying to recording and I thank you for the insight. I think it's just convinced me NOT to get the plug-in version of the Gearbox (or POD farm or whatever it's called now.) I thought the added flexibility of being able to record dry and tweak effects might be good. And while I'm sure there are benefits I can see it would just prevent me from making a decision and committing to getting something done.