Hi Community,
Has anybody had experience of running Cubase (12 preferably) from a server? I have 2 machines running 12, and am looking to increase to 3. At present I have my data stored on an external SSD that I cart around from machine to machine, but for some reason Cubase doesn’t like this; invariably, I have to go through some extra rituals before getting down to work? Consequently, I feel a server and workstations setup would be a better arrangement, on several fronts.
Any advice gratefully received.
What system are you on, Mac or Windows? And what exactly happens when you switch machines?
I guess you are talking about the Cubase projects, not the software itself, right? In case you want to install Cubase itself on the SSD/Server, that won’t work (at least on Windows, but I guess Max is no different). There are many settings to be made in the Operating System that will not be there if you install on one machine and then expect it simply to run on another.
In case you are just storing the data on the SSD it should simply work, if the drive is connected via the same drive letter (Windows). This is no different to a server, because here you need to connect a network drive and assign a drive letter. As long as the drive letter and the path is identical, Cubase shouldn’t care about it.
Cubase 12 Pro
Groove agent 5
Steinberg UR242
Widows 10 pro Ver 21H1
Sorry for the oversight. And yes, you’re right; as Steinberg allows for Cubase 12 to run on 3 separate machines under the same license, it’s just project data stored on the SSD. The problem I have when loading Cubase, no matter which machine I use, is having to ‘resolve missing files. This is not too bad, if there are only a few files, but on some occasions it’s a whole raft. I also have a similar problem with Groove Agent. The drum parts I create are based on my own recorded beats that have been assigned to the various pads in G. A. Likewise, the beats are stored on the same SSD with the other project data, but nonetheless, switching machines, I invariably have to reassign/reinstall all the beats. That’s 14 pads x 23 beats, and as you can guess, time consuming.
Anyhow, thanks for your interest; I appreciate it.
G.
Personally, I wouldn’t use Cubase with projects stored on a server over a network. Especially not with recording and playing back audio. Although admittedly I don’t have personal experience there, maybe it could work with a 10GBps network.
Another option could be syncing the files to a central server or NAS, e.g. with maybe NextCloud and the NextCloud Synchronization Client on every machine, configured to sync whatever folders you want to. This could mean some setup work though. Maybe there are some NAS products you can buy where Nextcloud is integrated or can be easily installed, dunno, no experience there.
You could do it with a CloudService like Dropbox or Ondrive etc, but that of course can be rather expensive with loads of data, and you need a good internet connectivity.
I’d recommend storing the “authoritative” version of your project files on a NAS, and then sync’ing them to your local machines when you want to work on them. For best performance, they need to be on your local SSD (not a USB attached one) to minimize latency and maximize throughput. Then sync them back to the NAS, and sync them to that other local machine to work on the project elsewhere. Make sure your directory structures are exactly the same on both of your Cubase machines, and you shouldn’t have problems with missing files etc.
This is the setup I’m using personally: The authoritative copies of all my Cubase files are stored on a Synology DS220j NAS connected via (wired) GigEthernet to multiple machines. I use GoodSync to sync these project files to and from my local machines, which have NVMe SSDs built in. This setup has been rock-solid and reliable for years, and you get the added bonus of having your precious Cubase project files stored redundantly on the RAID array in the NAS. For extra protection, I’m also sync’ing those files to the cloud, so even if my house (and all the gear) burns down, I’ll still have my Cubase files 
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Never heard of GoodSync, but that seems to be a nice solution, and probably easier to set up than your own nextCloud ;). Too bad it’s also a subscription, as is sadly common today, but at least the pricing is reasonable.
GoodSync is a great value for the price (despite the subscription). I’ve been using it across all of my machines for many years, it’s flexible and reliable, and always gets the job done without fuss. It’s also under very active development, so you’re actually getting ongoing value for your subscription.
Hi,
Nuendo has tools for this kind of server multi-users cooperation.
Hi, what do you mean by that, can you elaborate?
Hi
I have been now using https://freefilesync.org/
With that I sync whole project folder(s) to network drive from computer A. Then when I start working on those projects with computer B I sync everything from network drive to computer B. In both machines I have same path for projects (C:\users<user>\documents\cubase) but network drive doesn’t have to be the same. And then basically I sync before I start cubase and I sync after done with cubase. So I can work with both machines.
I hope this helps.