My trusty old studio PC is on its last legs and I’ve decided to bite the bullet and get a replacement (i7 20 Cores running Windows 11). I have two questions:
Which version of Cubase Pro is currently considered the best? I have Version 12 at the moment but if there are good reasons to upgrade I will.
This is the more pressing question. The new PC will have a 500Mb SSD system drive and it will also have a 1Tb SSD internal data drive. I also have an external 1Tb hard-disk and an external 1Tb SSD. I would like to set this all up so that the files are all stored in the optimal places. I’m assuming that the Cubase program (and other programs such as LABS, Spitfire Audio etc.) will live on the system drive. Where should I locate my VST files? And where should I locate my Cubase projects? I’m looking for the best latency and performance. My initial thought is that the external HDD would be best suited as a back-up rather than be used as a “real-time” disk.
Point 1: only you can really decide that I really would advise you to trial the demo version of 15. There are for sure some nice new features, but they also changed the GUI a lot, which was wildly disputed… 12 is not officially supported anymore, but it can of course still work.
Regarding 2:
All software goes to the system drive, as do the VST3 plugins. Don’t change that, not worth the hassle.
I would suggest putting your projects and the samples of the big sample libraries on the second internal SSD. Most plugins with big libraries have an option to install or move the samples to a different location than C.
Using your external HD as a target for backups is a good idea.
I would also suggest, if possible, directly going for a 1TB disk for the system drive. If you only use it as a studio PC and not for other data, 500G might be enough for now, but in general software installations always get bigger over the years. In general with disks, buy always a bit bigger than what you think you need now
I’d suggest that “500” GB is plenty for the system drive (I have a “500” GB drive - actual size is 465 GB, of which 291 GB is currently free. I have 4 Cubase’s, Dorico, Visual Studio Pro, CorelDraw, Painter, maybe 200 VST plugins).
Go for a bigger secondary drive (with at least 2 partitions), for future proofing. Who knows, next month you may suddenly get the urge to use huge sample libraries in your productions.
Don’t forget to think about what you want to keep before you dismantle the old PC: Are there any settings, preferences, ratings etc in Cubase worth saving?
Which 3rd party plugins do you want to keep?
Do you want to copy sample libraries instead of downloading them again?
Checking out Cubase 15’s trial version is a good idea. Have a look at “What’s new in Cubase 13 (14, 15)” videos on YouTube or look at the new feature paragraph in the manuals.
Good point. Best to copy your whole C:\Users\YourUsername folder from your old system to your external disk, to have it available on your new system in case you forgot something.
Also, with some authorization systems it is important to deactivate them from your old machine before moving to the new one, if possible. Sadly, there is no standard among vendors, some allow a number auth machine auths, but no deactivation, other are pretty nasty if you forget to deactivate and throw away your old system, the license is gone (iLok machine auth e.g.).
Thank you everyone. I hadn’t thought of the licence deactivation issue, and I guess copying the sample libraries would be a good idea rather than downloading them again. I definitely need to come up with a solid plan!
Yep, switching computers is a pain in the behind… takes ages, even if you’re well prepare.
I vaguely remember @Reco29 creating a howto topic here about all the configuration folders of Cubase, maybe that could be helpful, too.
It could also be worth looking at the %APPDATA% folder, several companies save some settings there, even authorizations or serials, so if you copy that folder, those plugins run perfectly on the new system, all settings preserved. It’s a try-and-error approach though and not everyone has the nerves for that.
I’m curious why you would recommend partitions here. There’s no performance advantage, and given this is a data drive and not the OS driver, there’s not really any backup/restore advantage.
Two (correction: three) things I recommend in your setup
Keep your projects folder in some standard known location outside of your Documents folder. Ensure OneDrive is not managing that folder (it typically manages the Documents / Pictures / Music folders by default, which is useful to most folks, but less for those of us working on audio/video)
If you have good browsing habits and don’t use any questionable VSTs, go into Windows Security (Defender) and exclude your VST and projects folders from real-time scanning. You can also add your sample libraries/VST data folders if you want. This will help performance by not having Defender scan every read/write.
Finally, in #2, you can also exclude the Cubase process itself in the same setup window. Be sure to use the full path to Cubase.
Isn’t excluding the Cubase process itself sufficient to avoid real-time scanning of VST loading within Cubase (not to mention sample libraries and any other files Cubase might open)? My thinking on not including VST3 directories is I do want those to be scanned when installing and in cases that some other (potentially unknown, for example in the case of some malware) process might be accessing them. (Of course, any othe performance-sensitive DAW-type processes could also be added.)
Also is the full path to Cubase necessary? I’ve always just put just the .exe file name (e.g. currently cubase15.exe) as that is what appears in the Task Manager process list.
If you don’t supply the full path, in theory, someone could have a file named Downloads\Cubase15.exe and then its activity while running would be ignored, assuming it passed the scan on load. If you supply the full path, they’d need to actually overwrite the Cubase exe which is slightly more difficult to do.
Process vs folders: Entirely up to you. I tend to do both for a belt & suspenders approach. Most DAWs have a separate process which does things like VST scanning, which can take quite a while when Defender is checking every VST. You could also find the name of that process and add it. Similarly, when you use a DAW which can do plugin isolation, that involves another process which gets spun up.
You can always do a full scan of your system, or scan just the VST folder using the Custom scan when you’re not in the middle of a session or performance.
Thanks for the clarification. That’s what I was guessing based on your mention of putting in the full path. I just hadn’t been aware that the full path was applicable for a process exclusion.
I guess if Cubase adds plugin isolation at some point, I’ll need to add that as well. For now, I’m not too concerned about the VST scanning in a different process part as, even though I’ve got literally thousands of plugins, Cubase’s VST scanning at Cubase startup only takes a few seconds on my system (other than for the first scan on a new major release version of Cubase). Even on my old Windows 10 system, it wasn’t too bad, at least after I replaced a failing system hard disk with an SSD. Really, my only concern on this front has been performance while the audio engine is running.
You do whatever works for you, of course, but generally I wouldn’t recommend this. You are restricting available space on the drives as a result of partitioning this way. Another approach might be just to have different logical root folders in the same drive.
Where it may be helpful is for folks who do backup and restore of entire partitions as self-contained blobs. I’ve never preferred this approach, but some folks do it this way and it works for them. (I mirror my data to a NAS here instead).
I’m using 6 and 10 terabyte HDDs, I’m not worried about a few megabytes. The thought of mixing my non-music projects with my music projects sends shivers down my spine.
I have a 4 terabyte M2 drive. I use this for sample libraries and games ( ).So it’s split into 2 partitions.
Yup, partitioning is imho a thing of the 90s and 00s, where you explicitly put database redo logs on the inner cylinders because they had faster access times (or was it the outer? Or the tablespaces? Cannot remember…) . Nowadays partitioning is just potentially wasted space…
I really would advise you to trial the demo version of 15. There are for sure some nice new features, but they also changed the GUI a lot, which was wildly disputed… 12 is not officially supported anymore, but it can of course still work.
Really, my only concern on this front has been performance while the audio engine is running.
. Nowadays partitioning is just potentially wasted space…