Help! First time recording with Yamaha THR10 and Cubase AI6

Cubase
#1

Hi everybody!

I got my Yamaha THR 10 amp a couple of months ago but have only now installed and registered Cubase AI 6 that was bundled with the THR10. I’d really like to record some songs with Cubase AI but my first attempt failed miserably (see, I’m a complete newbie at this). I was following the Quick Guide in the Cubase documentation up to pressing “record”. But all I see is a flat line when the sofware is supposed to be recording. So there is nothing recorded and the playback is silent. I was under the impression I could easily “plug-and-record” with the THR connected to Cubase AI, so I’m really wondering what I’m doing wrong here. Any ideas? Obviously, this is worrying me quite a bit now since I was really looking forward to my first try at recording. So you guys are my only hope.

If possible, could anyone give me a step by step primer especially for recording with the Yamaha THR? The Operation Manual is a bit too much for me at the moment and not of much use for this newbie. I just want to get to the point where I can record an actual audio track. Thanks, guys!

#2

Ok, so I’ve made some progress and have more or less solved the recording issue. I googled and found this video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfG8NernmnU

Although I’m running Cubase AI6 on a Windows 7 machine, not a Mac, and there are some differences, following the instructions did the trick for me.

A couple of questions I still have:

  1. In the video it’s possible to select THR10 under “Devices” -> “Setup Device”, while in my case only “Yamaha Steinberg USB” shows as the other option to select. I’m assuming that this is the equivalent. (Ok, I realize this is not a question, just a discovery I made.)
  2. In the video it was necessary to add THR to the input buses under “Devices” -> “VST connections”. But this seems not to be necessary in my version of Cubase AI 6 (on a Windows 7) because it already shows L/R Buses identified as THR Guitar L/R. Am I doing this right or should I add buses anyway?
  3. In the video there are also buses added that are named “THR DI”. What are those for? It is also mentioned that you can add a “DI track”. Again, what are DI tracks and when do I need them? (sorry for asking what must be newbie questions)
  4. While recording I noticed that the input level is very low on my rhythm guitar setting of the THR (from the Yamaha Presets in the THR Editor). There is almost a flat line without any oscillations at all. Is there a way to increase the input level in a similar way like turning up the “Guitar” volume pod on the THR? I don’t want to touch the Gain or Master volumes because these are set in the THR Editor, which means once I touch the volume pods I lose the preset.
  5. Now, here’s my BIGGEST ISSUE: When playing back what I recorded, the playback is sometimes clipped and garbled for a few seconds at a time, which totally ruins everything. It seems the problem is not in the recording because the clipped playback does not always happen when I do repeated playbacks of the same sequence. But it’s annoying as hell and makes it impossible to make a multi-track recording. Has anyone experience with this and how to resolve this? Could this be a problem in the settings?

I’d really appreciate if someone could help me with the above questions. Thx a lot!!

#3

Here’s an update:

I think I’ve solved the problem under item 5 above. Turning off wifi, anti-virus software (there was a lot of useless McAfee shit running all the time), energy save mode, etc made no difference at all. However, it seems very likely now that the garbled mess when playing back recordings was caused by a faulty USB port. I tried one of the other USB ports on my PC and the problem did not reappear. Yay!

But finally, here’s another big problem I have (in addition to my question about how to adjust input levels): The sound of the recording is nothing like the sound I hear produced by the THR 10 while recording. It seems none of the sound effects produced by the THR 10 has gone into the recording. All I hear is a very bland version sound-wise, no reverb, no distortion, no tube sound, no effects at all. It’s like the THR10 gets bypassed and Cubase records only the “naked” sound of the guitar. What am I doing wrong here? I couldn’t find this mentioned in the manual at all. So I’m really baffled. Would be grateful if anyone could share some insights. Thanks again!