mattayou
Guys I urgently need your help on something weird on my Cubase LE4.
While trying to record for this weeks comp I noticed that when I record a rhythm/ lead track after having done a drum track that the playback of the guitar is out of time with the drum track. I know I am playing 100% in time when recording, but the playback is way out!
It is only recently this has started doing this so I hope someone knows of a setting that may have changed??
I hope I have made myself clear, this is a difficult one to describe!
Shot, Matt
guitarboy2828
Sounds like some latency issues.
What interface are you using? What computer you got? It could be that your machine is to slow and not capturing the audio in real time, got a bit of a lag.
mattayou
Cubase 4 LE.... PC Pentium 4 3Ghz...
It has been working fine, only since this week has this started happening... N-track records fine!
TomCat
Shot in the dark.........but have you had any windows updates downloaded and installed lately.......maybe something changed there........
mattayou
Not really, but maybe being online something updated! I'm frikkin stuck! My entry for this weeks comp is in Jeopardy ?
Hayden
Hi there. I am a complete newbee attempting to get cubase sl and a steinberg mi4 card to work. any assistance would be amazing! firstly i have installed the mi4 card and then installed cubase sl (Which came with the card) as per the cases instructions. however when i want to start up cubase it claims that it will not start unless the card is plugged in. i then plug in the card and attemp to start cubase but then when i am in cubase the pc no longer recognises the mi4 card. if i try using a different usb port it recognises both the card and allows cubase to run but when i record it proceeds to make the most awful squeeks and farts on the return signal. i have a potent computer so lag should not really be an issue.. any help! please!
FenderBender
Hey Matt,
My suggestion is to do the easiest stuff first.
1. Re-install Cubase.
2. If your recordings are still out of time, try using system restore and pick a restore date just before the trouble started. If it clears up, you can be more careful as to what you install afterwards that may affect your audio stream. It makes good sense to create a restore point just before installing anything major. Saves lots of time should something get corrupted ?
3. You didn't mention what sound card you're using, but as long as it is an ASIO capable device, try downloading ASIO 4 ALL
http://www.asio4all.com/
It is a great, free, very low latency driver that works with ASIO capable sound cards. I get far less latency using it instead of the vendor's drivers for my sound card!! This is not likely your problem, but you should see performance gains nonetheless.
4. Check back here regularly, as it is likely that someone has had similar trouble and may reply to this thread.
FenderBender
Hi Hayden and welcome to GFSA!
I know you will dig this forum. I have learned more about guitars here in 11 months than I could have had I googled the entire web over the same period! Enjoy ?
It sounds like Cubase has selected your PC's regular sound card by default. If you are using a laptop or stand-alone mic and speakers on a regular PC, the squeaks are more than likely caused by audio feedback. The other sounds are more than likely due to the limitations of the data transfer rate of the card. In short, more chaotic than good old Steve Tyler before 1986 ?
Cubase runs a test to detect the correct settings for your external USB card, BUT I have found that it regularly gives priority to the...er regular card. I'm running an oldish (2005) version of Cubase LE and hopefully yours is similar. Try this:
Run Cubase and click the "Devices" tab and then "Device Setup".
Select the "VST Multitrack" banner under "Devices" in the left hand side of the panel.
Look to the right under the "Setup" tab and check that you are using the correct ASIO driver that was supplied with the card and neither DirectX nor Multimedia type ASIO drivers.
Once you have selected the correct ASIO driver, you are able click the "Control Panel" button and the ASIO user control panel for the driver will appear. Click on the "Spanner" (bottom right) to enter "Expert Mode".
Your next objective is to ensure that ONLY the correct sound card (mi4 in your case) is switched on under the "WDM Device List".
Expand the view of the sound card/s by clicking the "+" symbols next to them.
If your PC's regular sound card is listed and any of the corresponding "power" buttons for the card or its associated "Ins" and "Outs" are turned on (Cyan blue highlight), click them to turn them off.
Now ensure that the "power" buttons for the mi4 card are on by clicking on them if required.
Close the control panel and you should be set ?
It should be possible to set card priority at Windows boot or Cubase startup and save the setup hassles. Being a classic control freak, I prefer to check the settings before recording ?
Hayden
Thanks Graeme!
i seem to have run into different type of problem tho. last night i tried doing a complete re-install of the steinberg mi4 device and cubase. i installed the driver for the mi4 card and then installed cubase. when i try to start cubase it brings up the error message "the steinberg mi4 card is not present. please reconnect the steinberg mi4 device and restart cubase" and then it closes cubase. bizzare as it does this while the card is connected! it has never done this to me before. I am using vista as an operating system. Has anyone else ever run into this problem? the version of cubase that i am using seems to have been designed to be exclusively used by the steinberg mi4 card.
FenderBender
Hey Hayden,
So you are worse off than last night ☹
Everything is pointing towards your sound card driver. I recommend uninstalling it and downloading and installing ASIO4ALL v2 from www.asio4all.com
Restart your machine, plug in the sound card, start Cubase and see if your card is identified.
Then go through the setup I explained earlier and lets see what goes.
TomCat
Your problem might be Vista itself.
I had a similar problem with a program called Smaart, which is a audio measurement program. The moment I installed the drivers for the USB audio device the program gave error messages and closed. No amount of tweaking or fixing solved the problem.
Eventually I found somewhere in a forum that the program will not run on Vista.
My understanding is that in your case you have had it running on Vista before but now it wont. I know that Vista has issues with USB devices (BSOD when coming out of hibernation after unplugging a USB device being a case in point)
You might also have a registry conflict causing your (new) problem. The old registry info still being there and conflicting with the new info......
EDIT: Sorry.....Getting two different issues on this thread mixed up. Cubase has never recognised your audio card. Still think it is a Vista Issue. You might need to "Upgrade" to XP......
FenderBender
Good point Tom. I personally gave Vista a total miss and jumped from XP x64 to Windows 7 x64 eval. Either way its a soundcard<>driver<>Vista related issue. That is why I recommended trying the ASIO 4 ALL driver. It REALLY is far better than I ever expected and works great on XP x64 and 7 x64, so it would have a good chance at coping with Vista ?
Manfred-Klose
Mattayou
Sounds like a delay problem, go under Device>Device setup>VST audiobay and check the "Release asio driver in background".
I had the same problem but with midi, it pre delayed everything i played, i checked the "Constrain Delay Compensation" in the top left corner, see if it does anything?
Also go check your sync setup.
Hayden
What does the sound ?sound like? Is it a Hum, crackle, random noise coming and going?
TomCat
Graeme Parfett wrote:
Good point Tom. I personally gave Vista a total miss and jumped from XP x64 to Windows 7 x64 eval. Either way its a soundcard<>driver<>Vista related issue. That is why I recommended trying the ASIO 4 ALL driver. It REALLY is far better than I ever expected and works great on XP x64 and 7 x64, so it would have a good chance at coping with Vista ?
I've been told that XP and Windows 7 uses similar drivers...different to those for Vista....which might explain why Windows 7 works and giving Vista a miss is wise.......I have learned from personal experience that Vista and USB audio devices are not great friends.......
Hayden
Aaah. that is a thought that is definitely worth pursueing! thanks graeme and tomcat! i will attempt to correct the issue now. ?
Hayden
Hah! it works! thanks all who had a hand in this! really appreciate it!
now cubase can see the steinberg card and it actually accepts inputs from it. this has been a big step forwards in the correct direction. my only issue that i have right now is there is a strong buzzing crackling clicking sound when i play back what i have recorded. is there any way of cleaning this up?
AlanRatcliffe
There are tools for removing noise, but it's always best to figure out where the noises come from and stop it.
You don't hear it while you are recording? Could be interference inside the computer that's getting to the soundcard. Try installing the card in a different slot, further away from the graphics card and the processor. It would be useful if you can post a clip of the noise.
Hayden
the sound card i am using uses a usb interface and the only usb 2 port on my pc are at the rear of the machine all tightly clustered together. i do not hear any noise when recording it is only during playback that i have these issues. the way i have it configered is that the audio interface monitors both the incoming signal as the recorded signal being played back. the clicking only occurs on playback
AlanRatcliffe
OK. Is the clicking recorded on the file or is it being introduced on playback? Should be easy to tell if you zoom in on the wave display - you'll see clicks as spikes in the waveform. Alternatively you can import a known wve file into a track and see if it clicks on playback.
Usually a clicking noise is dropouts - something struggling to keep up and keep the flow of data fast enough to feed the next thing in the chain. Usually it's a driver thing, often an IRQ sharing issue that means your USB bus is sharing bandwidth with other devices - sometimes complete resource hogs like the graphics bus. Vista is also known to be terrible for this and there is no way around it (that I know of). With XP, it's not as bad from the get go and if all else fails, you can always disable IRQ steering (possibly losing a port or something), but it usually works to get the USB ports a dedicated bus. I did this on my laptop and lost the use of one USB port (the front one), but gained a rock-solid audio machine.
Also a high end graphics card is likely to cause problems in an audio machine - as mentioned, they can be complete resource hogs.
Where did you buy the soundcard? If you continue having issues, you might find the store is willing to take a look at your setup.
Hayden
Thanks alan! i can see some pretty emphatic spikes on the recorded signal so i guess something weird is happening on the input side of things. are these issues pretty standard for new audio interface users? had i known that i needed to be a jedi in order to get it to run i would not have baught it! oh well. will just have to learn and perservere. i bought the card from music mate and they have not been particulaly helpful at all. i have succeeded in tracking down mark williams who is supposedly the local steinberg expert. i will phone him tomorrow and attempt to correct the issue. in the mean time i will attempt to change the resource utelisation in the system. thank you for all the advice!
