Horrible Issues with Cubase 13 Making it unusable for mixing

Cubase
,
1

(EDIT) It turns out I was running Cubase 13. Not 12, I feel like an absolute idiot. Still the issues I am having have not (yet) been resolved.

I’m going to post a slightly edited version of the body of the email I sent to them. If anyone has any suggestions how to fix any of these many issues, It would be greatly appreciated, as I feel I’m at my wits end. Thank you in advance.

1st issue: My exports do not sound like my mixes do in the DAW, I’ve tried so many “fixes” that I’ve found on the forums, but to no avail… I have resorted to running my audio out, to a clean channel on a mixing board running into another computer, just to record the direct audio out to by pass the mixdown. I shouldn’t have to to do all this just to turn my mix/masters into an audio file… (Yes I have tried with both real time export on and off, either way the issue persists) I will add that every time I export the same mix, it could potentially sound wildly different, louder bass, quieter vocals, ETC.

2nd Issue: Along similar lines to the mixdown issue, it seems the audio levels will change on their own, not the faders but the actual Db of various tracks, regardless of if I modify the track in anyway. Initially when I first noticed this Issue over a year ago, I thought I was just hearing things, or I was tripping myself up, as it was only something I heard differently, not something I would have any visible indicator of (Faders were still in the same position, etc) but the other day while working on a remix/remaster of a song I mixed previously, out of no where, the Right panned guitar channel was much louder than the left, and was actually reading 4db higher than the Left. Mind you, the faders had been in the same spot since the original mix over a year ago… so I then had to lower the right panned guitar, then a few days later, I was continuing the current mixing and the right guitar re-lowered itself… so I had to raise it back up. Absolutely Ridiculous. (Mind you no changes were made to the track directly, other than to adjust the level due to the abrupt change in volume).

3rd issue: It seems that if I make any changes to ANY track, it could interfere with others, I.e slightly adjust the bass part in the bridge of a song, the vocals are lower through the song, cut 0.5 seconds from a guitar part, the bass is cranked. It’s making it extremely difficult to mix songs, where there is an extremely high chance that if I adjust ANYTHING, other parts of my mix will be wildly off.

I have been debating switching to another DAW, but I would like to give Cubase another chance, as it it what I learned on, and have invested my time into. I am EXTREMELY reluctant to upgrade to a newer version, if that’s what the response to this is going to be, as I purchased this when it was still “New” and it shouldn’t have been having these problems as a new product. Yes I have updated within the last Year (Probably 7 months now), also made sure all of my plug-ins were up to date at the same time.

Thank you all for your time. Hopefully I formatted everything properly, as I don’t post in forums often.

2

Welcome to the forum. Just to get “Control Room” out of the way, do you have inserts (EQ/Bass Management/Room Correction, Etc) in your monitor instances which could change what you’re monitoring/hearing in the mix vs what your mixdown chain includes?

My perception is that a majority of similar issues described here are due to control room inserts which you’ll monitor but won’t be included in your mix.

2 Likes
3

Hi there and welcome to the forums!

I have worked regularly with Cubase 12 Pro since its release (still my preferred version) and have not experienced any of the issues you are describing. I’m only mentioning hoping to instill some trust in the application.
The only issue you bring up I remember having seen reported in the past is the “My mixes sound different after export” one. I believe all those claims were finally dismissed as either user error or misconceptions. Your case sound like it might be more severe however.

I think it might be helpful to both yourself and fellow members of the forum if some of these issues are tackled individually.

My first general suggestion is that you uninstall Cubase, delete your user preferences, and then reinstall Cubase. Preferences can be found here on a Windows machine:
C:\Users<YourName>\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\Cubase 12_64
Either move or delete this entire folder after you uninstalled the application. If you have other versions of Cubase installed, do the same for those folders.

Next, ensure all installed plugins are updated and properly registered and that none of them are running in a trial mode.

Also make sure you don’t have any MIDI Remote (or Remote Legacy devices) including Mackie Control, HUI, etc. configured or active.

After that, please tell us more about your rig. OS, audio interface, output routings and other pieces of equipment involved.

1 Like
4

I actually do not have control room available to me, as I don’t have Pro! Though I sincerely appreciate the quick response! (And the welcome!)

5

Okay, Quick answers…

OS- Windows 10

Specs-
Processor Intel(R) Core™ i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB
Storage 238 GB SSD SAMSUNG MZHPV256HDGL-00000, 932 GB HDD HGST HTS721010A9E630
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M (3 GB)
System Type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

(Maybe It’s silly to some) but the interface I have currently is just a Scarlett 2i2, and for monitors I have 2 “M-Audio BX5s”.

I did recently update all the plugins I had, and none were trial versions, that much I did do, also made sure Cubase was up to date (latest update for 12 anyway). I have not tried uninstalling/reinstalling. I will try that next!

6

Also, now I feel like a complete idiot. I’m actually using Cubase 13. I have no idea how i messed that up.

7

Honestly feel like an idiot, but I realized I’m using Cubase 13…

8

Also, while not using 12, I attempted to do the same for 13 that you suggested to uninstall, but I cannot locate the Preferences folder after going into my users section sadly.

9

Move or delete your Cubase 13 folder. Entirely. I circled 15 as if I wanted to remove 15 , but for you, remove Cubase 13 folder.

I’m not sure why @mlib also suggested remove and reinstall Cubase, but that’s fine.

Once you reinstall Cubase, and start it, Cubase is going to create a new Cubase 13 folder and everything inside that Cubase 13 folder. You are starting out with a fresh slate.

And if you have prior versions of Cubase, do the same as above. Or at the very least, re-name Cubase 12 to Cubase12old. The reason is that if you had for example Cubase 12 and the issues are with Cubase 13, once you re-start Cubase 13 it could import possible corrupted files.

You want to start with a fresh slate. If you have preferences that have taken a long time to configure, I would suggest you hide them instead of delete them.

1 Like
10

Thank you!

11

I normally don’t. In this case however the issues described sounded rare and odd enough to me that a reinstall could be warranted to rule out any corruption of the install for further troubleshooting.

I would also run check disk before reinstalling:

chkdsk C: /f /r

As well as system file checker:

sfc /scannow

Although there isn’t anything in particular in OP’s report that tells me these actions will solve their issues, I believe it is good practice to rule out potential system and install anomalies early on in the troubleshooting process in some cases. Perhaps they are not needed in this case but it won’t hurt.

2 Likes
12

Okay, So I did uninstall and reinstall, but I haven’t had the opportunity to work with the DAW in depth/for long enough (post reinstall) to know if these issues have resolved themselves. I will return after some troubleshooting and testing! In the interim, if anyone has more potentially helpful tips they are still appreciated! And thank you to everyone who has helped me thus far!

13

Can you share some screenshots? Mixer and project would be good.

14

So it has been a couple of weeks now, and It appears I’m still having similar issues since re Installing, I wanted to use The program a bit before jumping back and saying it was definitively one way or the other.

15

Did you try moving or deleting the folder shown in @Greg_Purkey ‘s post above? If you have more than one version of Cubase installed, do the same for all and when Cubase is not running.