Somewhere along the 6X verison of Cubase, whenever inserting instrument track while track is runnig makes a huge volume jump!!! Anybody else experiencing this???
What happens here is track runs fine until it loads the choosen instrument, then a short delay with no output, then 1000 dB volume boost when track picks up.
This has got to be fixed - can damage both gear and ears. Surprised nobody has reported this before???
I think it happens when inserting other track types as well. Solution - stop playback - but this didn’t happen in earlier versions and I often like the track to keep playing when auditioning new sounds. Kinda breaks your flow if you have to stop the track.
I have had that problem, until I found it was due to my RME fireface being used also as sound card in Windows 7.
Oh, I see you have a Fireface too! well, that’s it then. It’s not exactly an increase of “volume”, it’s a huge clip of the sound buffer. It gets filled with thrash or something like that during a short period of time. Even worse, if your Cubase crashes there may be many chances of that noise sounding forever until ASIO buffers are opened again and cleared. This almost destroyed my ears and headphones in several occasions.
You will get rid of the problem if you don’t use the FF for windows audio.
I usually use outputs 9+10 (headphones) for windows audio, but then I discovered that, once Cubase is opened, if I change the windows audio to outputs 1+2 (main) and then back again to 9+10, it seems to get rid of the problem in my specific case.
Why do you need to insert while the track is running? They’ll come in sounding on full midi volume and defeat any limiting for a second and defeat any volume set at the track start.
Safest to always return to point zero before inserting new instrument to take advantage of any start volume you already set for that track.
I usually use outputs 9+10 (headphones) for windows audio, but then I discovered that, once Cubase is opened, if I change the windows audio to outputs 1+2 (main) and then back again to 9+10, it seems to get rid of the problem in my specific case.
I had to do the same with the Windows sample rates this way once when I lost audio. Interesting. Emu in my case, not FF.
If he has the same problem as me, it can happen even when changing presets in some plugins. It happens when there is an ASIO buffer underrun in my case.
Are you guys trusting your computers so much you keep volumes so high? I’ve always kept my speakers down to levels in where any burst of noise from my computer can’t harm them (or my ears). And this even though I’ve never experienced this. But I’ve always known these kinds of things may happen.
I don’t keep the volume high, and I don’t even use the speakers much, only headphones. Feeding the speakers with random clipped noise will make them sound much louder than you can imagine. Try it!
In any case, how are you supposed to work if you don’t have some dynamic range? You can not mix or compose with volume peaking all the time, you need some headroom.
Oh. I’m aware of this. I’ve put a lot of different kinds of noises though my speakes during last 30 years.
Well … let’s see: instant damage to ears happens around 130dB SPL. My Genelecs shouldn’t be able to produce even this, but I’ve turned them down approx 5dB just to be on safe side. So let’s assume they produce 120dB-125dB, if I feed them with 0dBFS square wave (that’s 0dBFS RMS signal) from Cubase. My mixes usually has maximum short-term RMS values around -15dBFS and average levels of -25 to -20dBFS RMS depeding on material. That’s 100 to 105dB SPL max / 90 to 100dB SPL, if my monitor volume is cranked all the way up. That’s enough for me. No … it’s too much … it may introduce permanent hearing damage if exposed to more than … well don’t remember, but is it something like 10 minutes/day?
So. I can very vell set up my monitoring not being able to damage my ears with short term peaks but still be loud enough to create permanent hearing loss if played at full volume for extended period.
TBH I’ve always wondered why there’s any glitches ever when doing these (and most other) things, surely if the audio engine is running smoothly and efficiently then simply inserting an effect into the chain should be programmed not to cause upset. A recalculation of delay compensation could be handled with a nice friendly cross fade between old and new, n’est pas? For my liking there’s way too much glitching and dropout-ing, it’s not musical and my clients often find it quite distressing - and they the ones who pay me not to have time to press the stop button
In my long association with studios as producer and client I have always found clients very rarely get distressed by anything other than running out of tea.
If any are distressed by a loud noise or two then I’ll twig we’re dealing with musical thespians. Everything upsets them (and I don’t mean actors who can play BTW). Just “thespians”.
I don’t have these problems (anymore), but I’d love to have some kind of configurable “fuse” on the output buses. Then it would be possible to say that if the level exceed say +10dB, then audio bus stop outputting sound. Strapping a limiter on a bus introduce latency, so that’s not always desired. This won’t solve driver issues. But it will catch spikes from plugins and Cubase itself.
hahaha Conman, too true, too true (mainly coffee though)
As another thing to try, in the past I’ve found (for no reason I can think of) selecting release drivers in background can sometime affect the behaviour!!!
I’ve disabled windows sounds completely but I’ll recheck that!
Edit: It seems Windows won’t let me not have some input or outout in use on the FF. I might have an onboard soundcard I could enable and let Windows use that in stead and see if that help. Bu then I wouldn’t be able to playback from mediaplayer through the Fireface, which would kinda suck:)
(mainly coffee though)