Need help after import Cubase SX project to Elements 9.5

Hi there,

I’m a musician with reasonable computer skills that once way back had the ambition to learn how to use Cubase. But it took a while before I did my first attempts and did two test projects around 2010 in my Cubase SX (even old ver by then). But as I tend to be a ‘perfectionist’ in what I do I guess I found out that it took so long time that I prefered playing the guitar instead. :wink: Since then I changed both computer and sound card and moved the old computer to my bedroom.

But I still had some amition to learn how to use Cubase in some ‘easy approach’ way so I bought a Cubase Elements 9.5 license som year ago. But haven’t have time to get into it yet. But now, retired and with a damaged left ring finger, I think it might be time for it :slight_smile:.

Last week I came to think of those two tracks as there was some value in them. One that my then 16 year old daughter was singing and as I didnät consider the project finished I hadn’t even exported some sound file out. Didn’t hope for much but at least they were still on that disk and I simply moved those folders to my newer computer with Cubase Elements and just tried to open them.

To my big surprise, even if I had to skip a lot of ‘warnings’ (see below) before it opened, they did come out! With some losses that is. Would be nice to start work on them again and I did some already, just to learn by doing.

I really would appreciate if I could get some hints related to ‘incompability’ by the forum. I will try to be explicit and short (even if this posting isn’t) but it would for sure prepare me a good start to get going.

  1. What is and isn’t

Most af the recorded tracks are analog ones and I remember using some plugs to edit them. Most of those are missing so the output is ‘dry’ tracks. That doesn’t really matter as I already found native tools to edit them.

Two MIDI-tracks are used, one drum and one keyboard used VST Instruments. As I bought the EZ-drummer licence and that’s installed the drum track is just fine. But when I installed my old copy of the B4 II 2.0.4 hammond Plugin Cubase doesn’t even recognize it as a VST Instrument. Checked and there’s notes about ‘no longer support 32-bit plugs’. I guess that one is a 32-bit then? I can use it as a stand alone from the desktop but Cubase didn’t read it in on startup as I guess ut should have (BTW at the moment I haven’t done a restart of the computer, but probably that don’t work?).

A bit sad as the sound that Plug generated was just great. I tried to use some of the native organ sounds on the MIDI track but it doesn’t do the work like my old B4 II-plug did.

Any advice (hopefully being able to use it in Elements after all) of how to get that fat hammon in again would be appretiated!

  1. Clutter

There’s as said a lot of ‘Warnings’ at startup when I load the projects. But as the project works for me despite I just ignore them it’s just a matter of finding the tools and/or settings to get rid of those irritating popups at start:

2a. Missing files

There’s a looong list of missing Wave-files. Appearantly none important for the project as all those seems to be in place. And I have a vague memory of how to deal with this from my sessions 10 years ago. There is some way to get them out of the way from some menu, but I haven’t found it yet. Don’t seem to be able to do it in the popup as such. From where do I tell Cubase those files is no longer a part of the project?

2b. Missing Ports

Guess no help needed aroudn this. Seems logical. The old computer had a Gina3G MIDI sound card. The new one I a Rubix 22. I just found the references on each track refering to Gina and selected Ribix from the drop down. That way Gina didn’t showed in the Missing Ports popup anylonger but B4 still does as I’ve kept that track for the time beeing as it’s MIDI and can be changed and I really hoped that the new B4 plug installation would take care of it. Some lm-7 plug is reported missing as well but I really don’t know what I used that one to. Guess I just have to find the track reference a change it.

Well, to conclude I would like some help with getting those missing wave-files away and the knowledge if my assumption that my B4 plus IS 32-bit and THEREFORE not loaded. If so perhaps a tip of what nice plug I can replace it to get that fat hammond back :slight_smile:.

And at last an ‘idiot’ quest as the base was not really on the beat at some place. It seems totally unlogical that you could influence an analog track from the track interface, I mean to tighten that base up a little :wink:. Guess I just have to record a new track to get that a bit better.

Thank’s in advance for any reflections and answers on this long posting. I will start to learn from manuals and test. Hope this will get me started for real and when I’m lost I have the forum.

OK, can’t speak to each of your specific issues at the moment. But if you do the following it should help with a lot of your cleanup.

  1. Make a copy of the entire folder structure of the SX Project so you always have an untouched version of that.

  2. Open the old Project in Elements and after all the messages use File>Backup Project to create a brand new 9.5 version of it in its own dedicated folder. This will copy only the wav files actually used by the Project. Presumably the missing files messages are for files the old version thinks are in the Pool, but not actually used by the Project.

  3. In this new version of the Project you can change the Audio Connections to reflect your current hardware, swap out missing plug-ins, and delete anything you don’t need or have anymore.

Your 9.5 license should let you run SX (although I don’t know if Pro vs. Elements impacts that). So another option is to install SX (if you don’t have the distribution anymore Steinberg will send you a link) and then render individual Tracks to audio which you can import into 9.5. Quite likely this is more effort than it’s worth, but as a last resort…

Regarding your B3, go over to KVR and search their database of plug-ins for 64-bit B3’s or Organs. I bet you will find a bunch of free or cheap offerings for the Kontakt Player (aka the free version).

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/catalog/free/

Last, some general advice for avoiding problems: Never use a common folder to create Projects in; always create a new Project in its own dedicated folder.

Good luck & have fun

Thank’s Roger. Think I’ll do the the Backup solution. I checked out the Pool and the Manual references. I know I recorded a lot in wave as different takes that was deleted as tracks in the project. The Pool shows a. wave-files in the virtual ‘Trash’ folder (below) and b. Wave-files in the virtual ‘Audio’ folder that not have any number in the ‘Used’ column (corresponding clip not used according to Manual).

I thought I remebered some action like ‘display-all-not-used-clips-and-let-me- delete-them-from-both-project-and-disk’ but seems like I’m wrong. On the other hand it would be nice to let Cubase delete files from disk as well (perhaps with control quest). Other software I use, like Lightroom for images let med choos if a pic should be deleted from disk or just from the catalogue (read ‘Project’ in Cubase terms).

But if a totally new backup version will sort out files not used and just backup used ones in another folder connected to antoher project I will know that I have just the files I need and delete files I don’t need to free diskspace by deleting the original to the backup. Is that correct? That the new backup ‘thinks’ and act from ‘those files is needed for this project, the other ones I don’t care about and leave them where they are’? I can safely go for that logic if I got it right.

As a copied the full structure from the old computer (and YES, I naturally save projects in different folders then as well) it seems strange though that some files now are missing? Perhaps I manually deleted old files from folders, I really can’t remember routines 10 years back in time :wink:.

As said, I’m quite happy that I had the full output after launching the projects in Elements. Every wave-track that really belonged to each project was there, even if they lost some old VST plugs (like some Guitar effects). It wasn’t hard to find the native Amps and effects and I could use the dry guitars pass those and get a good results. So I forget about those old plugs.

When it comes to the few MIDI tracks the drums had EZ-Drummer VST Instrument and as that was installed on my new computer Cubase found that automatically. And I will look for a 64-bit hammond to replace the old B4. All MIDI info is saved in the track so it’s just a matter to find one I like. Big thank’s for your advices and tip for hammond.

Please correct me if I got things wrong, but it feels like I’m in the game. As in all software you have to use it frequently, hopefully I now start a more active Cubase period. A lot is more or less intuitive (as SOME things from the past was still in my brain). There’s tons of new and exciting things to learn.

Sounds like you’ve got it sorted out. Cubase is actually quite good about both backward and forward compatibility. You can open and play Cubase10.5 Projects in SX. Of course it won’t be able to use stuff that appeared in later versions. And then if you saved the Project in SX and opened it in 10.5 all the 10.5 stuff would still be there.

It’s unfortunate that they named the function “Backup Project…” since it implies it is part of a data recovery scheme - which it totally is not. What it really does is create a brand new Project based on the current Project.

On that B3 Part you should spend some time playing it in a loop while auditioning it on non-organ instruments - horns, synths, strings, whatever. It will give you a sense of the current variety of stock sounds and maybe even spark an idea. Sound design has come a long ways since SX times.

Thank’s Raino. It all worked well and my new versions is now nice and clean and the wave folders just have files used in the projects.

Some few things but due to the lack of me reading the f-ing manual so to speak :wink:

Couldn’t get rid of instances of my old B4 VST Instrument as that showed up in some panels and as I go by pure ‘intuition’ at the moment my attempts just to ‘delete’ them was useless. Just selected some VST that is within the knowledge of my Cubase Elements installation instead and that at least made the alert of ‘missing VSTs’ at startup to disappear. Q&D (Quick and Dirty) perhaps.

I WILL read the manuals and study now when I intend to get into the software once more but just one related question here. I WAS even back then aware of keeping all project saved in uniquie folders but guess I didn’t think of saving some alternat version of the same project once in a while. So in the same folder a couple of MyProject1, MyProject2 etc. was saved. And I didn’t think of that they all shared folders with separate wav-files. Guess that’s one reason it was that many ‘missing’ wave-files opening one of those alternatives. Sometimes you just want to keep one version and try something in an alternate one. To avoid such mixup you perhaps first copy all the project files to another adress and then open and work with the alternative as a unique project? Well, I just have to test and try to find out what suits me best. I can allways come back to the ‘Backup’ solution if I’m in that situation.

Was hard to find free B3/B4 though. In fact it was just two VST’s on the market with the ambition to create a true sound and they cost money. One of the was Native, the very same I had an old 32-bit copy of (from somewhere in the 90’ties). Perhaps there is some free stuff as well but none named explicit as B-organs so they probably isn’t the quality I’m use to. Really like the tru sound so I have to concider to invest some money here :wink:.

Apart from that VST, and a setup for an ‘orchestra’ in my home studio that would be fulfilled, it would be great to have a horn section to use now and then. Will check whats out there. Any suggestions perhaps?

Once more. Thank’s a lot for your engagement. It helped a lot.

When you went to change your B4 to a different instrument one of the available choices is for ‘No Instrument’ and that’s how you remove a VSTi.

The problems that arise from having multiple Projects in the same Folder are generally due to them being completely different Projects with all their component parts intermingled. But if the Projects are just slight variants of each other that are mostly using the same stuff it won’t cause problems. An analogy would be if you had a drawer were you kept your socks, pants, silverware, hammers & remote controls it would create a mess. But if that drawer had white socks, blue socks, striped socks, black socks and green socks it’s OK.

Use “Save As…” to create Project variants in the same Folder. I do this all the time just before or after making major changes - so I can easily get back to that point. For example if the Project is named ABC.cpr I might use Save As… to create variants like:
ABC - pre vocal comps.cpr
ABC - raw guitar tracks.cpr
ABC - pre mixing.cpr
etc.
Or use the same folder for a Projects that are different variants of each other - stereo, 5.1, no vocals, etc.

There are a large number of horn libraries out there and they vary a bunch by price, flexibility, solo or ensemble, number of articulations and musical style - is your intended use in an orchestral context, modern pop, jazz quintet, Motown, K-pop… All of these call for different sounds and there are library developers catering to those needs. I use NI’s Session Horns Pro a fair amount because it is pretty flexible, sounds good & I’m familiar with how to use its articulations. But Halion has a bunch of usable horns that come with Cubase that you should explore - you can always swap in a “better” horn later if you want to. Also keep in mind that a VSTi might not sound totally convincing when soloed, but in the context of a mix it sounds great (side note: often presets that sound amazing when you play them alone don’t blend well with other instruments because they take over a lot of the sonic space).

When I bought Komplete I really only wanted a handful of the instruments. But it turned out buying each separately cost more than the whole package. There are parts of it I generally ignore, but every so often I want a creepy droning pad or an oud and there it is.