Hello everyone,
Is there anyone out there who might be able to give me a bit of assistance?
Been using Cubase LE 5 now for a couple of months since switching to an Alesis IO express usb interface, was using an old version of SX before, but thought I’d try out the version bundled with the interface as its quite a lot more modern.
So far so good, have learnt my way around the subtle differences to the older versions, like the whole business with instrument tracks as opposed to the old VST rack. However, I’ve hit a bit of a snag with regard to routing instrument tracks.
If I set up a VSTi on an instrument track, I can record using my midi keyboard and playback without a hitch. Previously, I used to quite like routing the output of VSTi’s to group tracks, I liked this method to help me layer textures of pads, etc, whilst having a volume and eq for all of the synths together. Back further, when I first started out using Cubase before I had a PC with over a gb of ram and no dual core, this was obviously a big no-no as having more than a couple of even moderately demanding VSTi’s playing at once used to cause my system to seize up - I knew I’d have to mix down midi tracks to audio. However, since using the more powerful system I’d gotten used to having more flexibility, its great being able to tweak a synth sound easily, even late in a mixing process.
True enough, LE5 does let me load up to the max with my VSTi’s, but it seems to have problems when I start routing them to groups. Outputing to the main output bus they’re fine, but send one to a group channel and the playback becomes completely glitchy. I’ve done some testing - it doesn’t seem to make a difference if I’m pushing my system hard or not, I tried it with just one VSTi on a single instrument track, and not a demanding VSTi either. Plays fine on its own, glitches when sent to a group. I then tried send the output from just audio channels to a group, no problems there at all - even when mixing over 10 channels of audio together on a stereo group with VST effects and all sorts going on, so the issue seems to be limited to routing instrument tracks to groups.
Just to clarify, the routing I’m trying is really simple - Instrument track to Group channel. Group channel outputs to main output bus. No complicated sidechaining or returning, etc.
At the moment I’m having to bite the bullet and either not send instrument tracks to groups or convert the instrument track to audio. The former is alright, but its a bit of a pain, and the latter is good for my way of mixing but its a nightmare if I suddenly decide I want to dramatically alter one of the sounds I’m blending on the group.
For info, I’m running XP with SP3, I’m using the ASIO4all driver, as recommended by seemingly everyone, In all other aspects of use my system seems to be fine, so it seems bizarre to me that I’m having this problem. Is this a known issue with Cubase, I’m sure I cannot be the only person who layers sounds in this way - in fact I know I’m not because I learnt the technique from a tutorial, so at least one other person does!!!
Can anyone shed any light on this issue?
Jim
. I did use submasters alot in the Anolog days, and I do use Folder Tracks today.
