Cubase 9, POD farm 2.5 and 32 Lives

Cubase
1

I have been a long time POD farm user and was using it in 8.5 via VST bridge without any issue. As Cubase 9 is not supporting 32 bit plug in anymore, I wasn’t really interest to upgrade until I found the plug in 32 Lives (saw some post in this forum who’ve been using it successfully). Before I upgrade, I did couples of tests under 8.5 environment and it was pretty promising, so then I went to upgrade to Cubase 9. Afterwards, I really regret this decision, the performance was really bad when I was using POD farm via Lives 32 in Cubase 9. Whenever I set buffer around 128, the sound started to cackle and drop out audio, both on monitor and playback. I was using really low buffer (e.g. 32) to track guitars in 8.5 (VST bridge) before without any issue (even with Ezdrummer and multiple POD farm instances in different tracks in the background).

I went to talked to the support in Radix (the company made Lives 32), did some more tests on modified version of the 32 Lives but it doesn’t help. End up I have to return my 32 Lives and asked for refund (since it is the only reason that I purchase the plug in).

Now, I have decided to return my Cubase 9. I knew it is holiday time and Steinberg is not going to reply to my request soon. Normally how long do you guys hear from them? Also, any POD farm cubase 9 user here? What workaround do you use?

I guess 8.5 will be the newest Cubase that I can use unless I give up all 32 bit plug in. :blush:

2

You could try j-bridge or just use the 64 bit version of pod farm… I have pod farm2.5 too and the last release i have is definitely in 32 and 64 bit flavours.

3

I have tested J-bridge. The latency issue is better however having extra windows and not able to copy settings to other tracks are affecting my work flow. Unfortunately, LIne 6 did not make 64 bit VST for Mac :cry:

4

Ah! i was unaware and somewhat surprised that L6 have still not produced a 64 Bit version for Mac as you say…

That’s REALLY slack of them… hopefully someone else might be able to provide a work around for you.

5

Hmm kind of :frowning: now that both line6 and Steinberg are owned by Yamaha.

6

Kelvinlee:

Some system info would be helpful. For instance, what kind of Mac are you using and what OS version?

Did you update all the Line 6 software (including drivers) via the Monkey? Made a difference for me after I upgraded to Sierra…particularly the driver running my old Pod XT via USB.

I have used PodFarm running via 32Lives on Cubase 9.0.1 on a dual 4 core Mac and Sierra 10.12.2. It works quite well (no crackles and such), but I’ve been running at a 256 buffer and I’ve only used it as a post-processor. Personally I’m not a fan of using any guitar-type insert plugins during tracking because no matter what buffer you run on, there is always a delay. Even small delays throw me off…so I use various stomp pedals and a POD XT on the way in, through my mixer on Input and don’t monitor through Cubase until playback. Zero delay that way. But that’s me.

Haven’t tried something lower because everything in C9 starts to suffer as the buffer gets smaller…and more so that C8.5. But I will try and duplicate what you’re doing (lower buffer settings and PodFarm monitored in Cubase) later today and see if I get what you get.

All in all, I haven’t had any real issues with any plug wrapped with 32Lives so far. But I am running Sierra on a fairly powerful Mac tower.

7

But I will try and duplicate what you’re doing (lower buffer settings and PodFarm monitored in Cubase) later today and see if I get what you get.

Well, I did. I dropped the buffer down to 128 and 64 with PodFarm inserted on the Input channel so the effects and such would get recorded. And quite a surprise. The latency wasn’t all that bad at 128 and almost undetectable at 64. I normally keep it set at 256.

PodFarm, which I have wrapped via 32Lives, sounds fine. Once I had a reasonable input level that didn’t send PodFarm’s meters into the red, overload crackling disappeared. I used all kinds of stuff to test and I couldn’t get it to do what you’ve described. It worked quite well.

Tell us about your system: input to output and what Mac/OS.

8

Thanks for testing it. I have similar issue in two system:

  1. iMac 2015, Mac OS 10.12, Motu 4 pre interface (latest driver), Cubase 9 Pro, crackle starts around buffer 128
  2. MacBook Pro, Mac OS 10.11, Motu microbook ii (latest driver), Cubase 9 Pro, crackle starts around buffer 256

If I run the same test in Cubase 8.5 using VST bridge, I can go low to buffer 64 which was ideal for tracking in the past without any issue. I saw some people is using JBridge successfully. Can you share your JBridge settings that work?