Problems with Cubase 6 and Aggregate Device

Hi,

I’m a Mac user, making the move from Logic back to Cubase (I say back but the truth is the last time I used Cubase Audio it was a non-Audio version!) While working with Logic, I was using Apple’s Aggregate Device function, linking together 1 Apogee Ensemble Unit and 2 MOTU 2408 units - and it was all recognised and worked perfectly. With Cubase 6, however, it’s a different story…

If, on the VST Audio System page, I set the ASIO driver to the Ensemble Unit and the click on the unit itself, I can see all the ins and outs just as they should be. The same goes if I set the ASIO driver to PCI-424 (for the MOTU units) - again, all present and correct. However, if I set the ASIO driver to “Aggregate Device” I get missing ports (Ensemble), duplicated ports (MOTU), an extra port (MOTU) and renamed ports (Ensemble).

I contacted the guys at Apogee who replied swiftly but were unable to help, saying that the Ensemble Unit didn’t support the Aggregate Device function. As Apogee and Apple obviously work very closely together I find that a bit bizarre - but anyway…

Has anyone managed to get the Aggregate Device function working with Cubase and if so, is there any advice you can pass on as to how to set it up?

I’d appreciate any help - many thanks.

(this message was previously posted in Studio Hardware & Setup)

• MacPro 3,1
• Quad Core Intel Xeon, 2.8 Ghz
• 24 GB Ram
• Hitachi 1TB HD x2
• Logic Pro 9.1.3
• Apogee Ensemble, MOTU 2408 x2
• MOTU Midi Express 128 x2

Hi David
I´m a Cubase&mac user and I´ve also an audio aggregate device, and of course, the aggregated works fine (44,1KHz, 24b, 256 samples). My audio setup is formed for a TC Studiokonnket48 and a motif-rackXS both are firewired connected to a PCIe sonnet card. The motif unit is setted as clock master and SK48 is clock slaved to S/PDIF motif out. All I/O are shown in the ASIO Cubase setup device window in the order as were built in the aggregated device (in the audioMIDI setup app). These ports are numerated by order (the original names are missed) and you must find the correspondence.

I don’t know if this will be of any help, but I have just discovered that, after updating to Mac OS X 10.6.7, I had to rebuild all my Aggregate Devices (in the Audio MIDI Setup app, the outputs were all “greyed out”).

[to be a little more precise: As far as I can tell ('cos I can’t go back to OS X 10.6.6 to double-check), the Aggregate Device in OS X 10.6.7 seems to handle the Mac’s Built-In audio differently, so if you had already (e.g. in OS X 10.6.6) defined Built-In audio as one of the Aggregate Device sources, its inputs/outputs are no longer valid, and have to be re-entered]

(hmm…it’s just one of those days when I have to keep on making apologies :blush: :sunglasses: )…
I’ve just rebooted from an earlier backup disk, and the Aggregate Device corruption was present there too… so it is obviously nothing to do with updating to OS X 10.6.7.
(I can now merely guess that it occurred when updating the MOTU driver, or perhaps when installing SoundFlower). Anyways, all is fine again here after rebuilding the Aggregate Devices.

Many thanks Buhardilla and Vic_France - much appreciated.

I’ve tried rebuilding the Aggregate Device again, but I get the same errors. However, I’ve now found out that if I list the devices in a different order on the aggregate list, I get closer to what I’m looking for. This time all the ports appear to be there, even if their names are wrong. Over the next few days I’ll set it up based on the most favorable order (it might even pay to put a spurious one in there at the top of the list - e.g. Built in Microphone). Hopefully I won’t run into any clock or sampling rate issues - let’s see. If I can sort it out I’ll post the information back here.

Buhardilla - I’m not sure what you meant by “you must find the correspondence”…

• MacPro 3,1
• Quad Core Intel Xeon, 2.8 Ghz
• 24 GB Ram
• Hitachi 1TB HD x2
• Logic Pro 9.1.3
• Apogee Ensemble, MOTU 2408 x2
• MOTU Midi Express 128 x2