Media bay too slow to use properly

Ok, I have a situation here: I upgraded from Cubase 5 to Cubase 6, so I still have both app on my system.

I rescan the same folder in both app. In Cubase 5 the content appears very fast, but in Cubase 6 it is unbelivably slow in case of 6-7 wav files!

Seems like the folder is not scanned properly by Cubase 6 and it is so slow that it appears with the speed of re-reading the content of the folder every time click the folder name. (I am talking here about a desktop computer with internal SATA HDDs, no external HDD).

I do not think it is supposed to work like this in Cubase 6.

Can anyone else confirm this?
Any solution? Preference trashing, or rebuilding the database in C6 directly?
I have lots of MediaBay markups already…I would not loose them.

B.

Hi Bacizone,

This is the sort of thing i’m talking about & it drives you mad! (makes it virtually unusable!)

I don’t know the solution.

Any ideas Steinberg or is this being looked at??

Please let me/us know.

Kind regards,

Codsworth

Agreed. Latency/lagging kills the workflow when using Mediabay with a huge sample library.

One thing I really really hate about MediaBay, is that you can’t scroll down while MediaBay is indexing files - it keeps jumping/rolling back to the last played sample you clicked. Extremely annoying when you are trying browse your files… That is one of the reasons I try to avoid Mediabay right now. Also, the “play in project context” doesn’t work very well, sometimes it just skips the whole sample and sometimes it just play the end of it, no matter what you do. Also, very high latency between click and play. Single shot samples are also played incorrectly (kind of makes it an unsync’ed double shot instead) when you have this option on.

Also, everytime I re-open Cubase and Mediabay, it keeps re-indexing the files…which makes it slow.

Yes, MediaBay worked much better in Cubase 5 at me.

Ok, JHP can you comment these or offering a quick workaround before fixing this issue in an official update?

JHP, may this be the issue?

B.

Hello Codsworth,
You should consider resetting your MediaBay. To reset the MediaBay remove (don’t delete move to another location) the following preference files from your preferences folder:

ContentManager.xml
FileSysObserver.xml
mediabay3.db
mediaOffline3.db
MediaDefaults.xml
MediaFactoryDefaults.xml
scannedFolders3.bin

This are the preferences locations:
Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings[Your Username]\ Application Data \Steinberg\Cubase xx

Mac OSx
“/Users//Library/Preferences/Cubase xx”

PC Windows 7 / Vista
“OS Disk \User<Your Username>\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\Cubase xx”

If you start Cubase now the Factory Content and the VST Sound Archive will be scanned. Now wait until the system does not show hard disc activity anymore. Just to make sure that everything is correctly scanned.

Once the Factory- and Library- content has been rescanned, in the MediaBay you can navigate to other locations in the Tree (Define Locations), select the folder and set a check in the checkbox so it will be scanned. Now once you have marked a custom folder to be scanned wait until it is fully scanned and gets light grey. Every search query related to these locations should be quite fast now.

Do not check unnecessary folders and in no case check the entire file system.

If the problem persists then you should consider demonstrating the problem with screen captures.
The only way to demonstrate the problem is with a screen capture. Everything else is just not concrete and it is hard for others to assess the situation if they are not fully aware of the occurrences.

Gr,
JHP

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Right, thats it, i’ve had enough!

i’ve tried everything, done what apparantly fixes it & it is still so slow that I can’t work with it anymore!

I’ve just bought Halion 4 which I love but now I won’t be able to use it much as it works best for me dropping stuff from the the Media bay into it. Kontakt is calling me!

The mini browser & other browsers seem to work much quicker but you can’t choose where you get the samples from! Crazy stuff Steinberg! (local hard disks is a bit vague don’t you think?)

If you just put an option to direct the mini browser(or loop & sound browser) to any folder you wanted everything would be fine.

What’s all this about having a sound browser & a loop browser but you have to pick from the selection it finds for you & not from where you want to get it from?!

Please tell me i’m not going mad. You open Media bay & sometimes have to wait a while for that to open, then you pick a folder that is blue & you again have to wait for it to open & then you try to open the folder with the + sign & you again have to sit there & wait for it to open & all this while you can’t use Cubase because it’s all waiting for Media bay to open,just to get one sound, absolutely crazy!

Am I the only one with this?

Please Steinberg either tell me what the problem is or please try & fix it. This is the worst problem i’ve had with Cubase since I first started using it in 1990!

I am now going to go back to a backup of the system I did earlier this month. I’m hoping it wasn’t this bad before & it’s just because i want to use it more now with Halion.

Please wish me luck!

Regards,

Codsworth

OK, sorry about that. I’ve just found how to save the locations so they come up in mini browser etc!

Hopefully after reloading samples & putting new locations in it will be ok :slight_smile:

More testing to come.

Regards,

Codsworth

Well even though I choose a blue folder to add to the list that comes up at the top of the browsers (including mini browser etc) it still seems to re-scan them for about 30sec to a minute before you can add them! so slow!

And because I don’t want the browser to show all samples in the main folders ie DRUMS, i’ll have to add all the subfolders seperately to the list ie Kiks, snares, hats etc. A very long, tedious, flow stopping procedure.

I don’t like to moan but it has to be said so people know & can improve it.

Regards,

Codsworth

OK, one thing that needs to happen is- you add the main folder you want to appear in the locations list, but then when you select it in the locations list it then should give you the option to go into the sub folders within that main folder so you can pick just the snares to preview rather than a mish mash of all the drums in the Main drums folder for example.

I really haven’t got time to go through my large sample library going into subfolders(which takes ages in itself just to get to the subfolders) just to add them to a list so i can be more specific about which samles I want to preview.

Also this would create a huge list that you’d have to schroll down when you opened the locations.

Any thoughts anyone? Steinberg?

Regards,

Codsworth

Well you gave them the answer and were totally ignored. Thanks from me anyway.
Professional preparation does not hold up the “work flow”. You put in an hours work early and save a day later in the week.

Thanks Conman.

This guy has a different way of working to me or what i’m used to & the way I keep my samples etc. He sounds happy though! :smiley:

I’d love to have my sample library on a ssd but I need at least a 640 gb & from what I can see on the net that’s at least £500 I haven’t got spare at the moment. :frowning:

regards,

Codsworth

Maybe I could get a small ssd just for the media bay data base :smiley:

This is exactly what I have. My main boot and applications drive is an SSD and I have all my actual samples stored on a 10,000rpm Western Digital Velociraptor drive, so I get the best of both worlds, either of the drives I am using is much faster than a standard 7,200 platter drive. I have about 20,000+ samples or so and Mediabay really isn’t that bad for me tbh.

Best of luck on getting yourself sorted however.

My solution: I installed a completely new Windows 7 64-bit on my brand new desktop, installed Cubase 6.0.2 32-bit only and following the recommandation of JHP above I made a clean re-scan on my audio library. The problem has gone!

Maybe the problem was because of the Cubase 5 → Cubase 6 upgarde, maybe my old 1.5 years old Windows, who knows, but the Mediabay is now fast. So this should work on a HDD as well in Cubase 6

B.

That’s a good solution and one I should do myself soon. Cheaper than an ssd which probably won’t solve any problems outlined here. Time and brainwork definitely outdo throwing money at problems.
One of the drawbacks with Cubase and other DAWs is that you can’t exactly throw a system together and be instantly creative. Can take a long time working out exactly what it will do versus what you think it should do.
Rather than buy an ssd I’d fork out $60 on Reaper and use that while I find out exactly how Cubase can work for ME.

I cannot believe I checked in today and found this thread. It is exactly what is bugging the s**t out of me.

I haven’t yet had a chance to go through JHP’s suggestions … which I will. But one thing perplexes me.

How can you take a ‘screen shot’ of waiting for 30 seconds or more until the window populates? (Rhetorical question)

I have accepted this delay using Media Bay as I have a lot of content material.

But I notice two things.

  1. In the basic file structure for Media Bay (database, I supppose) it shows VSTSounds as the last item in the tree in the Media Bay browser window. This suggests that the program has to scan through all of your other content before it gets to VSTSounds.

  2. Even when Media Bay is closed, if you are browsing Halion SE for presets, for an example, it still takes the 30 seconds or more for the preset window to populate. What is funny is that about 10 presets will show up immediately on a search … usually the GM ones first and then a few more in alphabetical order. Then you wait and wait until the rest of the presets arrive. It almost seems as though the entire database is being searched not for presets for Halion specifically, but in alphabetical file order. Then, blam! … about a hundred or so of the rest of the presets all appear at once.

So, I’m wondering if the fact that the tree structure with VSTSounds at the end of the tree accounts for this slowness when searching for presets in the VSTi GUI.

And why do just thos 10 presets show up so fast?

Como

Does anyone set any mediabay preferences?
Maybe we’re too slow to use mediabay properly? :smiling_imp: :mrgreen:

Instead of ‘casting your pearls before swine,’ perhaps you’ d care to edify the unwashed hordes?

Got a specific suggestion or a manual reference for ‘preferring’ the C6 instruments’ presets in a search?

Surely with your vast erudition it would take no longer to toss a ‘bon mot’ to the crowd than to bewail the pervasive benightedness of forum members?

Anyway … Media Bay preferences are on pg 326 of the OP Manual. The only setting that would appear to change preset search behavior is ‘scan only when media bay is open or changing the total number of search results.’ However, changing these settings has no affect on the slow population of presets in the preset windows of C6 instruments.

Como

OK, sorry again Steinberg!

I’ve just found that if you turn off the “Deep results” button at the top of the browser, you can go into individual folders.
Sorry about that, just me jumping the gun because I was so wound up!

More tests to come.

regards,

Codsworth :slight_smile:

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