Cubase hijacks Windows sound

Whenever Cubase Elements 6 is running sound from all other Windows applications seems to be disabled. I also noticed that if I assign a midi channel to Microsoft Wavetable GS Synth there is no sound, but if I route the channel to Halion then I can hear it.

Have I unintentionally set something up wrongly in Cubase? Can anyone advise what the problem might be?

Grateful for advice.

Set, release drivers in background.

Many thanks. That has solved the problem.

I still don’t hear anything if I assign a track to the Microsoft Wavetable GS Synth, though. Is there something extra in the setup required?

My OS is Windows 7 Pro 64bit.

This is because ASIO audio drivers are single-client ones (only one program can access them at any given moment). And there’s good reason for this: keeping it simple lowers the latency.

If you want to hear both Cubase and Windows (MS GS Synth) sounds at the same time you need:

  1. One sound interface for ASIO (Cubase)
  2. One sound interface for Windows sounds
  3. External mixer into which you connect these two.

Not entirely true. Some audio device manufacturers have added true multi-client ASIO support to their drivers, by assigning unused ASIO i/o’s or by sharing all ASIO i/o’s.
I can easily run several ASIO applications side by side over the same driver, simultaneously.

Thanks for these replies. I am using the Steinberg provided Generic Low Latency ASIO driver, and at the moment I only have the computer’s internal soundcard which is Realtek High Definition Audio. So I assume for now I can’t use the Wavetable GS synth.

You could always try the ASIO4ALL driver

both is playing with RME drivers here…