ASIO Sample Rate changed box is seriously getting on my nerves

I’m not sure why Cubase uses ASIO in macOS, maybe there’s a good reason for it. But if I’m using Cubase and I need to open an audio file in another program, and that program decides to switch the sample rate to the file’s own, then I get this annoying message, each and every time:

I learned a while ago that I have to select Allow different etc but even then sometimes things get messed up and I have to quit Cubase and reopen it. This never happened when I was using Logic Pro X, and it doesn’t happen in any other audio software I have, which tells me it’s because Cubase uses the ASIO driver.

Is there any way to avoid this?

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Hi,

Why do you open an audio file in an other application? What is your use case, please?

Well, for example, I’m trying to figure out a chord in a song, and I can’t guess it from my still basic knowledge of music theory, so I open DeCoda to see if it can guess it correctly, although half the times it doesn’t.

Or, I want to open the audio file from the song I’m trying to figure out in RX10, just to see the waveform. Thing is, even if I open the file already imported with the same bit depth and sample rate as the project, other apps like those or even Logic Pro X decide to change the sample rate to something else, even if it is for a second, and that causes Cubase to show that message.

It’s not the end of the world, but if there is a setting to avoid that, I would prefer not to have to deal with it at all.

I don’t have a Mac, but it is my understanding that you don’t need to use your device with ASIO on Mac. I think this is the cause of your issue.

Well, you’re half right and half wrong. Yes, you don’t need to use ASIO for your audio interface on Macs, because macOS has its own audio system/driver/whatever called CoreAudio, which works perfectly fine.

However, for the case at hand, meaning that damn prompt annoying the hell out of me, I’m forced to use ASIO because Cubase seems to use ASIO exclusively, and as far as I can tell, there’s no way to use CoreAudio in Cubase. It’s probably because Cubase started off as a Windows software, and rewriting parts of it to make it work with CoreAudio would’ve taken too much time.

And I don’t have a problem for the most part, since it’s very stable, in fact I can say that Cubase is one of the most stable programs I ever used, and at least as of March 2023, gazillion times more stable than Logic Pro X, which you would think it would be rock solid since it’s coded by the same company that makes the machine and writes the code for the OS. And I don’t know if it became more stable since then, because when I saw how stable Cubase Pro 12 was, I switched and never looked back except for certain older projects.

But I do have a problem with this annoying thing every time I’m in Cubase and have to open an audio file in RX10 or any other audio program to work with it:

And from the moment I right click on a file and choose RX10 or some other program like Spectralayers, the Cubase dock icon starts bouncing over and over, over and over and over.

And the thing is, all those programs as well as the sample rate in the audio devices module of the Audio MIDI Setup program in macOS are set to 48,000. You see in the screenshot that the ASIO sample rate is 44,100, but that’s wrong. The file is 24 bits 48 Khz, as it is a file that was converted and copied to the audio folder inside the Cubase project folder.

And when I right click on the file itself in the Finder, and open it with Mediainfo, it still shows 24 bits and 48 Khz:

I’m fine with Cubase using ASIO as opposed to macOS Core Audio. But at least stop pestering me every time I have to open an audio file in another app!! I always select “Allow different sample rates”. Why can’t there be a checkmark that says “Don’t ask again” like there is for so many things in almost every software ever written.

Hi,

This means, the other application, you have just started/set the focus, is set to 44.1kHz.

And this had nothing to do with the ASIO driver. You would get to the very same situation while using Logic with the native CoreAudio. All softwares using the same audio device have to use the same sample rate.

Hey Martin, that’s not correct. Yes, it would mean that the other application that I just started switched to 44.1 Khz, but RX10 doesn’t have a setting for sample rate in the options (might have one for exporting, but not for the audio device). RX10 takes the sample rate from the file you load as the output sample rate. If you have a Mac, and the Audio MIDI Setup app is open, and the device you’re using is selected, you will see that it may change if you had a sample rate until the moment you load that file in RX10, and said file has a different one.

So if you had set the sample rate to 48 Khz, and you load in RX10 a file that is 44.1 Khz, then RX10 will force the system to switch to 44.1 Khz, and Cubase will present the annoying dialog that the ASIO sample rate has changed.

However, in this occasion, the project is set to 48 Khz and the file is also 48 Khz.

I can’t say that it has to do with the ASIO driver, however this doesn’t happen in any other app, including Logic Pro X. I knew that, but I just tested it just to be certain. The only issue I ran into when I had a project loaded in LPX and then tried to open another file in RX10, is that RX10 told me it couldn’t access the device, and that may be because right now I’m not using my usual audio interface, but a Qudelix T71 USB DAC.

However, despite that message, the file loads and plays just fine. And Logic Pro X doesn’t complain at all, it keeps working just fine.

If RX10 was unable to even access the audio interface then you were not able to perform the test.

That’s right. I’m just mentioning what the error says, even if after that it can access the device just fine.