Do your Cubase projects ever "go bad"???

Cubase
1

I’ve done a couple of sound design projects recently: Cubase 8.5, MBP late 2013, OSX Mavericks, 48kHz audio. I’ve noticed a tendency for Cubase to start behaving like it’s buggy, it feels like towards the end of a project.

For instance, today after I exported audio, the audio engine would stop making any sound. I could see the Stereo Out meters working, it was like Cubase lost its voice. Not strictly driver dependent (it happened with Built-In Mac drivers and through a USB audio interface).

And, related (IE also after an export)… if I left Cubase alone for a while, it stopped responding - it beachballed, and I had to force quit/restart. …Then it would sometimes crash on opening - not 100% of the time, for any given project, only sometimes.

But I can start a fresh project at 48kHz, add a load of tracks and plugins, export, play (sounds fine), export, play (sounds fine)…

The work involved a video track, importing from OMF and existing Cubase projects, creating versions of audio tracks (for different v/o versions)… saving to different versions, etc etc. I feel like the project got pushed around quite a lot, I didn’t just write MIDI notes into a template project.

So I guess I’m asking: has anyone experienced problems where they’ve created a project and pushed it around, importing tracks, exporting audio… and got to a point where the project file’s somehow broken, or inconsistent, in a way that causes things like audio engine failure, instability, or crashing when opening the project?

At the moment, it sort of feels like Cubase gets angry as I get close to delivering my work, which is kind of stressful!

Thanks for any help.

2

Do your Cubase projects ever “go bad”???

Only if you leave them out overnight!

3

Hahaha, I’ve experienced this! It’s the battle against inertia XD Automation goes haywire, things sound different every time you play them - push on! Save frequently and sequentially, reboot, and never give up!!!

4

I’ve had a few Projects that started drinking too much. And one is on parole for stealing riffs.

5

Yeah I’ve experienced stuff like this… my questions to you are:
~ how many VSTi’s are currently running?
~ what are your plugins used in the project? like, ALL of them?
~ WHAT are you importing and exporting exactly? I’ve had projects go belly up after importing certain kinds of stuff.
~ you’re introducing video? well, check the sampling rates between your video and the project settings!

I know I’m going to get crucified for this - but I used to have all kinds of trouble similar to the trouble you are having - and then I switched from 48K to 44.1K, FULL TIME. It’s just better for all elements across the board - plugins, VST’s, editing, even video (which is strange since alot of video has audio at 48K). I never looked back. I will never, EVER, record again in 48K. It just wreaks so much havoc and there’s ABSOLUTELY no reason to do it. Yeah, go ahead call me an idiot and I don’t know what I’m talking about. Tell me there’s more headroom, more sampling, etc… i don’t give a f*ck. All I care about is what projects are working smoothly, and what projects AREN’T. And there’s been one consistent factor: 48K. It’s bad news. And if you’re switching between DAWs, forget it, you almost HAVE to stay at 44.1k.

I’ve been in this business now for 10 years, and this little solution has kept me out of trouble. And lets face it, we’re not rodents, no one can tell any SONIC difference between 44.1k and 48k. if they can, they’re lying for two reasons: humans can’t hear at that range, for one. The other is there’s simply no way to A-B the two since EVERYTHING WE LISTEN TO OUT THERE IS IN 44.1K.