Hello, and thanks for taking a peek at this. I’m very new to Cubase, and really modern recording software. So, I’m kind of floundering. Here’s specifically what I’m trying to do. Help in understanding behaviors would be very much appreciated.
My setup, or desired setup looks like this (how I want it to work)
Laptop w/Cubase (and VST’s)
Novation LaunchKey88 as the primary controller
Alesis io2 for audio in only (mic/line)
Yamaha mx49 as hardware synth AND audio output.
About all I’ve managed to do is get things so that the LK88 controls VST properly, and the audio is coming out the mx49, but Cubase doesn’t see the mx49 as a synth, and the io2 just doesn’t do anything. It’s gotta be something in the Studio Setup, but I just don’t know enough about the various behaviors to know what to do.
Maybe I’m trying to do something that can’t be done…
I don’t know these devices but suspect they each appear as Audio Interfaces. Under normal circumstances only one of them would be available at a time.
Cubase wants to see one and only one Audio Interface at any time. It also wants that interface to have an ASIO driver. So if each of those has it’s own ASIO driver you can select and use one or the other but not both.
However some Audio Interfaces do not have an ASIO driver at all (this is common for built in audio and some ‘consumer’ gear). In these situations you can use the Generic ASIO driver that comes with Cubase (or a popular & similar 3rd party driver, ASIO4ALL). Both of these will let Cubase talk to non-ASIO Audio devices. And they can also be configured to to talk to multiple Audio Devices. So you can use these to talk to both devices at the same time. However this will increase your Audio Latency (i.e. the delay between when a sound hits your mic and then come out of your speakers).
Here’s a post you might find useful
Also as a side note, configuring the Audio I/O can get a bit confusing for new folks because everyone’s setup is different and you need to have it configured correctly before anything else works. I’d recommend ignoring for the moment your hardware synths and work on a project or 2 using only the internal Virtual Instruments. And then after you are comfortable with how that works integrate you hardware synth into your rig.
You didn’t specify whether you’re on windows or Mac. On the latter you can combine two audio interfaces to an aggregate device, as far as I know (not a Mac user).
Else, what raino wrote. What you intend to do with two audio interfaces is already an advanced setup. You could also just record your MX49 the good old way, i.e. use the MX49 usb port only for MIDI (this should be visible in Studio->MIDI port setup) and connect the line outs of it to the line inputs of your Alesis, create a stereo track in Cubase with the Alesis ports as inputs and just record that (you could also set it up as an external instrument, but only in the Pro version)
As an aside, Cubase could really do with some kind of audio and midi setup wizard for new users… the whole audio and midi configuration is quite complicated imho for a beginner, and the manual doesn’t always help either.
Yeah, I’m a bit of an older-school midi guy, pre-serial/USB, and certainly well before the idea of ‘controllers’. So, trying to determine if I’m totally missing something, or if it just can’t be done has been a great frustration. Plus, trying to search out specific scenarios and the like is worse than trying to find a needle in haystack.
Anyway…so, I’m thinking I’ll just park the ol’ Yamaha (mx49) in it’s box for a while, and work on getting comfy the VST side (as suggested). I can then also just probably run the ASIO4ALL (even though the Alesis does have it’s own…I’ll play with it and work from there. That way we’ll have something that we can spend some time on, and get the creativeness running again.
It does seem kind of funny/frustrating that all these new devices come with their own drivers, yet making them play nice with each other seems to be a missing solution.
Thanks again for the responses.! I’ll keep an eye here for any other thoughts.
If you’ve simplified your configuration so you are only using a single device as an Audio Interface then you should definitely use its driver rather than ASIO4ALL. The performance will be much better.
