Cubase 8 Elements with Samson CO1U Pro microphone

WaveLab
1

I’ve bought a Samson CO1U Pro Microphone to work with Cubase 8 Elements on a Windows 10 computer, together with a Yamaha MOX6 synthesizer. I’m experiencing a few problems I’m still not able to solve, so please, can you help me?

  • I can’t hear feedback of my own voice through my headphoneconnection of the CO1U Pro when recording;
  • I can’t hear the MIDI-channels through my headphoneconnection on the CO1U Pro. As output on those channels the CO1U can’t be chosen, only on the audio-channel the CO1U can be selected;
  • I do hear my own recorded voice on my headphone in playback, but then again I don’t hear any MIDI-channels;

As input- and outputchannels of audio the CO1U is chosen and levels seem te be correct. When I use the CO1U Pro without Cubase I can hear feedback of my own voice through the headphoneconnection, but it fades in and out.

Can you give my any clues how to fix these problems?

Thanks,

Rob

2

Problem 1: solution is easy :wink:. Click the small speaker icon on the vocal track you want to record to enable ‘monitoring’. This will output the incoming signal on that track directly back to your outputs, so you can hear yourself singing while recording. Disable it again afterwards to hear the recording during playback.

Problem 2: Nope, midi doesn’t work like that. Midi isn’t audio, it’s just instructions of which notes to play when. You need to send midi to an instrument that can interpret that data and generate audio from it. That instrument can be hardware or software. Cubase comes with Halion Sonic SE (and maybe some other instruments, I’m not sure what’s included in elements) which has a big selection of sounds you can use already.
The easiest way to use software instruments, is by creating an instrument track instead of a midi track. Instrument tracks work just like midi tracks, except they already have an instrument assigned to play the midi data on the track. You can edit the instrument to play whichever sound you want.

problem 3: should be solved by solving problem 2 :wink:

3

Thanks for your fast reply, Strophoid. I just bought Cubase two months ago and I’m learning how to find my way in making music with this program. Thanks for helping me with this.

I already tried fixing problem 1 with the monitoring icon, but the feedback given in my headphone is nearly half a second slower than my voice, so it echoes when singing. I bought the CO1U Pro to avoid this, but for so far is hasn’t helped me yet.

Regarding problem 2 you gave me a hint I might be doing something wrong with Cubase. Until now I’m only using MIDI-tracks to make a composition and as you explained, those tracks can only be played back through a MIDI-instrument. I wasn’t fully aware of this. After your reply I tried making Instrumenttracks copying the recorded MIDI-tracks, but I can’t make any sound out of those channels, though I can see the music playing in Halion Sonic. For now it’s a bit of Abracadabra to me and there’re many more things for me to find out.

Thanks for helping me now. I guess I just need to learn a bit more of what I’m really doing…

4

It sounds like going through the quick start guide might help you indeed :wink:

Anyway, let’s see if we can get that latency down to a workable level. Just to be sure, you’re listening to headphones connected to the headphone output on the samson mic right?
I don’t know if the microphone came with its own ASIO driver? If not, download ASIO4All and use it instead of whichever driver Cubase decided to use for your microphone. ASIO4all is a great universal driver that works for nearly every device and performs much better than the inbuilt generic drivers. (Note that audio interfaces that come with their own ASIO driver are always preferred, but ASIO4all is usually a decent 2nd option)

In cubase go to devices–>device setup–>VST audio system and select ASIO4all there (or your Samson driver if it did come with a driver). Then go to it’s control panel (there should be a button to it if you go to the sub-menu of VST audio system with the name of the driver). In the control panel, find the buffer-size setting, and set the buffer-size as low as it allows.
Now try recording again. Your latency should be insignificantly low now, but you’ll probably hear pops and clicks (unless you have a very stable system). Go back to the control panel and increase the buffer size until you can safely record without pops/clicks.

You’ll probably be able to record vocals quite well at a buffersize of say 128bits, maybe lower if you’re lucky :slight_smile:

As for the instrument tracks, it’s a bit hard to see what you’re doing wrong as it could be many things. If you see audio meters moving in halion sonic that’s a good start.
I’m guessing that your problem is with your output bus assignments. (do this part after you completed the first part of my post about drivers btw).
Press F4 to open the VST connections window. Here you can assign to which physical outputs the virtual outputs of Cubase are routed. You’ll want to select the stereo output on your microphone as main output, which means all audio from Cubase will come out of the headphone jack on the microphone.
If that wasn’t it let me know and we’ll dig a little deeper :slight_smile:

Good luck!