Cubase help needed please (AI.5)

[leschirons]

Our guitarist is using Cubase AI.5 (so he tells me) on a Windows 7 laptop with 6g of RAM.

He says that when he records a couple of tracks and plays back, no problem at all. Sounds great. However, when there are 4 or more tracks, he gets loads of crackles, pops and a seriously degraded sound on playback.

Any ideas? It's the same when he mutes tracks and just plays back one or two but then of course, they are still actually running but with no sound. Could it be a sound-card problem?

Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks

K

[topo morto]

If he's using a whole bunch of processing and effects, it might be that the computer is not just plain running out of juice -

But if not, it's more likely the buffer setting is too short so the computer is not getting the chance to fill each 'bit' of sound before it plays. Try increasing the buffer size (probably in your ASIO driver settings or something).

[danthevan]

I'd go for soundcard if it's onboard

[topo morto]

What soundcard is he using, too?

[leschirons]

I'll ask about the soundcard shortly and let you know in the meantime get him to look at increasing the buffer size.

Thank so much,

K

[Bilbo]

He probably needs an ASIO driver and hasn't installed one. It's a common problem in 'new' IT audio recording users. In short, his soundcard is not configured for complex recording processes so he needs to upgrade the drivers. ot a big deal but, if you don't know what you are doing, can take hours of what I call 'knobbing about'

May be worth finding a local music tech geek to help you out.

[leschirons]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1361876864' post='1992177']
He probably needs an ASIO driver and hasn't installed one. It's a common problem in 'new' IT audio recording users. In short, his soundcard is not configured for complex recording processes so he needs to upgrade the drivers. ot a big deal but, if you don't know what you are doing, can take hours of what I call 'knobbing about'

May be worth finding a local music tech geek to help you out.
[/quote]

Thanks for the tip. I'll pop over shortly (he's living next door) and see how he's getting on increasing the buffer size although as he's a guitarist, I might just find 15 plates of egg & cress sandwiches

[topo morto]

Make sure to check they're not horse eggs.

[danthevan]

If it's onboard sound, don't even bother buggering around with buffering. Unless you have a decent dedicated soundcard or an external card / module then it's going to struggle.

[leschirons]

I just got this from him.

"Audio driver is a Realtek HD Audio Manager. Is that any use???"

[danthevan]

Thats the problem.
Get a decent soundcard and all will be fine.
I had the same problems on my super quick recording pc to the point it won't even play back.
Bought one of these http://www.alesis.com/multimix8usb20fx and all is perfect. There are much cheaper options around, but this one lets you record all 8 tracks as separate tracks via usb rather than just putting out a stereo mix of them

[topo morto]

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1361880417' post='1992258']
I just got this from him.
"Audio driver is a Realtek HD Audio Manager. Is that any use???"
[/quote]

That sounds like the basic windows sound driver for the onboard card. It's often possible to get perfectly good sound on playback with these, but you're at the mercy of how windows chooses to deal with the sound (ASIO is more 'direct')
He could try downoading ASIO4All (universal asio driver) and see if that helps.
It is odd to not be using a proper soundcard though.

[danthevan]

Can try the asio driver, but think you'll still struggle.
Other thing to do is make sure all windows notification sounds are off, aswell as disconnecting from the internet and shutting down any antivirus. These usually cause latency issues more than cracking and popping, but if he's after a 'free give it a try' fix then it wont hurt

[6v6]

+1 to other responses, the onboard Realtek hardware and drivers are really bad, even with big buffer sizes it will probably still experience dropouts

He will need some sort of external dedicated interface with ASIO drivers, even something like one of the cheap Beringher UCA devices are likely to work better (although personally I'd suggest spending a bit more to get something fairly decent from a manufacturer with good drivers/support)

Also be aware there are almost no wifi chipsets which play nicely with realtime audio, so he will probably want to disable (ie physically switch off via the laptops switch/function key) any on-board WiFi when wanting buffers small enough for amp-sims/vsti's

Also get him to check the latency with DPC : http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml - generally with laptops you at least have to disable WiFi (and often other troublesome bits of hardware) to avoid big latency spikes, which is what causes the cracks/pops and glitches.

[topo morto]

[quote name='danthevan' timestamp='1361881380' post='1992289']
Other thing to do is make sure all windows notification sounds are off, aswell as disconnecting from the internet and shutting down any antivirus. These usually cause latency issues more than cracking and popping, but if he's after a 'free give it a try' fix then it wont hurt [/quote]

Shutting off unneeded programs and devices (bluetooth is another one) is good advice as it results in less demand on the computer while it's trying to fill the buffer for playback. But if it improves anything, it [i]will [/i]be in reducing cracking and popping and dropouts - these things can't 'cause latency issues' as such, as the latency is just the size of your buffers.

[RockfordStone]

again sounds like drivers.
unless you get a dedicated onboard card, an external interface will be better option

also, asio for all i find often doesn't help at all, the best bet is to get the latest drivers relevant to the interface/card

if he is only looking to improve playback, then increase the buffer sizes, this will help a bit, but it will put a delay on if you are trying to monitor back

Edited February 26, 2013 by RockfordStone

[leschirons]

Last couple of replies really helpful guys. Thanks. Didn't realise that stuff like WIFI could cause problems.

Help was much appreciated,

[leschirons]

Update on the Cubase problem.

Thanks all, much appreciated. Problem sorted due to buffer size and turning off all the WIFI and other stuff.

Playback is perfect. Again, thanks to all who replied.