Should I uninstall and reinstall?

Hi Guys,
I’m struggling with a lot of things…mostly lack of experience - this I’ll overcome however I’ve had some strange things happen with Cubase 12 that is adding to the stress of not moving forward after spending the money to purchase Cubase.

I can’t so far save a project as a template. Nothing I do allows me to do this. I can’t figure out what is going on. I thought it was a permission thing but it doesn’t seem that way since I can save the project to the same location as the template if I wanted to.

I can’t get any audio out of the VST Halion SE. I reinstalled it and it’s contents and still nothing. If switch the track to any other VST it works like a charm but not the Halion VST. All the setting that I could find look correct.

There are some other issues that I"m trying to recall and will update this post if I recall what they were but every time I think I’m making progress I have something like this ruin it.

Should I uninstall and reinstall Cubase or could it be something else going on?
C

Why exactly can’t you save as template? Is the menu item missing? Is there an error message? What exactly are you doing and what is the outcome?

Hi Fese,
This is a video that shows it. I haven’t been able to save a project as a temple since I purchased Cubase. Maybe it’s something that I overlooked but so far I don’t see that. Somebody was also trying to help figure this out but so far we are at a loss. What do ya think?

Huh, seems weird, yeah. Looks to me like it either don’t have write permission on the templates folder or the templates folder doesn’t exists. Both of which unlikely and should trigger an error message.
Does the “New Folder” Button work?
Just as a workaround: have you tried saving the file elsewhere and just copying it manually into the templates folder in your settings?

hey.
Yup I tried that and I thought the same thing about file permissions. I can’t even save a template anywhere…so there’s really nothing to move. I’m lost. This stuff is really dragging me down. It’s taking the wind out of my sails!
No the New Folder button doesn’t work either.

I suppose you did the whole “disable preferences “ and such already? Then I have not really no further ideas atm.
But what I meant as a workaround is not saving the project as a template, but just save it as a regular project in a new folder. Then copy the cpr file from that folder to the templates directory in the cubase settings folder using windows explorer or Mac Finder (don’t know your OS). That should work.

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Emmm. I didn’t think of that. Good idea. So do I chnge the extention of the “regular” project file type to whatever a template type of file would be, then I guess I could move it to the template folder?

Ah the other thing that won’t work is there is no audio output at all from Halion synth. All the settings seem correct…if I switch the instrument on the same track to anything else, it works fine.
It’s one thing after another here man! If I uninstalled. Sweep the registry of any sign of Cubase, remove any appdata left over from the uninstalls…then try rebooting and reinstalling. Maybe that will fix this stuff?? (Oh unfortunately I’m on Windows 10 (freakin JUNK!) but would have loved to stick with Linux)
This is rather depressing how slow things are going so far. All these weird issues are just making me feel like I made a mistake switching to Cubase. It’s a lot of money spent to feel like this ya know?
C

I think the template files are just .cpr files, but i am not 100% sure, not at my computer…
Can’t really help you with the Halion stuff. I had a problem where Halion just wouldn’t load, nothing happened. I think I actually solved that with a complete uninstall and reinstall of Halion SE.
Apart from that, I rarely have problems with Cubase, but I can understand that it is frustrating if you affected bysome and you cannot solve them.
I would suggest though, for getting the most out of this forum, to be a bit more precise in your topic titles and description of the problem (what is the problem, how do you reproduce it etc. add picture or video). Only one problem per post, and tag the post with “issue”. Make it easy for people to help you.

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Ok Fese will do.
I just fullying uninstalled Cubase. I mean FULLY. I used windows to uninstalled everything from control panel…then manually remove everything associated with Steinberg and Cubase in Appdata…program files, etc. Then I swept the system registry for 20 mins and removed over 300 entires. Now I’m reinstalling everything from scratch. I orginally purchased Cubase 12 Artists then upgraded to pro. I found the install files for Pro and just installed that along with many other applications related to it. Now when I go into Studio Setup, Remote Devices the Mackie option isn’t there! This is killing me and making me feel like I made a big mistake making this move. No help from the people who make the software all this stress and paid $525 for the this.
I really need to find a way to get everything working without this roller coaster ride…

Hey how did you learn Cubase? I mean I feel like I’m just bouncing from thing to thing. The manual isn’t all that great as it doesn’t show any examples of setup or anything. It more or less just tells you the obvious things. I feel like I’m being thorough at all. Just a learn as I go. If this all keeps up it will be a decade before I produce anything with Cubase. Any thoughts on this?

Well, remember how it felt when you first tried to play an instrument? Unless you were a musical genius, it took probably a while before you learned to produce something similar to music :wink: But you got better over time, even if you probably felt frustrated at times.
Learning a DAW is a bit like that imho. Takes lots of time. And yes, Cubase can be complicated at times. But other DAWs can be too, in my experience.
I started nearly twenty years ago, when information on the net was much much scarcer and there was no YouTube and Howto-videos. Everything took ages to learn. My advantage is that as an IT specialist and system administrator I am used to finding my way around software and working systematically. Another advantage was probably that I initially started out on a 4 track cassette studio and compared to that, a DAW was heaven, although more complicated :slight_smile:

If I may be honest (and maybe I am wrong because I don’t know where you come from and who you are), but I get the impression that you want to much at once and then get tangled up in stuff and get frustrated when it doesn’t work immediately (I’m a bit like that too)

Maybe just start by doing practice sessions in Cubase, keep it simple and set yourself a little target, like “today I will just learn about quantising in Cubase”. Doesn’t matter if the resulting music is “good” or not.
(and if Halion doesn’t work, get one of the many freeware instruments out there and use that).
Little baby steps, like when you started to learn your instrument.

I fully agree about the manual not being very good, though.

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Hey Fese,
I think you are correct about me. Well most of it. I started in the 90s with Calkwalk when audio recording on a DAW was a pipe dream. There are several circumstances to lead me to be this way however. I guess the first would be that I’ve been doing this for near 30 years and have nothing to show for it. I started taking piano very serious in 1995. I had already written a lot of music at that point, although I’m not sure how much of it was good. I wanted to progress and do things right so I started to teach myself music theory and started seeing a classicaly trained vocal coach to round off the skills. About three months into the training I noticed I was having trouble doing some simple things vocally that I was always able to do. The coach though I was BS-ing her. I dropped out of the course 4 months later and years went by - I was so upset about this that I pulled away from music for a very long time. I later found out that I have chronic reflux issues with no “heartburn” symptoms and still do to this day. After nearly 15 years of dealing with this and not getting anyway with music due to this and other medical issue…along with major life style changes with a broken relationship (after 16 years) and four moves I didn’t think I’d ever want to get back to music. It’s water under the bridge now …but I wish I stuck to music all these years as I would be much further along.
Anyway I settled into my new place with music gear stacked in a corner but I was playing everyday…again. Last year for the first time in over a decade my reflux symptoms starting going away and by June of last year I had no symptoms at all! My voice starting coming back. I was feeling good about music again- like I could do it and do it well. I was using Ardour as my DAW for the past ten years but due to all that I mentioned, I never really learned it well. I was going to change this. So I started to dig into it and realized that I can’t work with my gear stacked in a corning. I have VERY VERY limited space (I’m in a park model living trailer) so I couldn’t set things up the way most people have it. I had to design a studio desk specifically for the space and be very creative to get everything in. I also knew I had to get rid of some of the old way of thinking and build a PC that will handle some of the new tech. I trashed my old Alesis Studio32 console and purchased a Behringer XR18 digital mixer, dual monitor setup, X-Touch controller, etc. as I really didn’t have a choice. I needed compact and none of which I had was compact for this space. I built the studio desk around the new gear with room for expansion.
In Sept. of last year my reflux issue came back in full rage. Within 2 weeks I couldn’t sing again. Depression hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought I was finally going to be able to move forward and have something to show for all these years writing music. I’ve taken everything drug out there to help with it and have seen many doctors. It looks like surgery is the only option with no guaranty. So why I stressed about this and seeked out a surgeon I thought I would start to learn Ardour and start diving back into music theory, getting things setup so things are functional as possible. All the while I’m thinking "all this is for nothing if I can’t sing anymore and make the music what work so hard on.
Prior to Cubase I was using Ardour on Linux for a long time and only switched to Windows because the VST instrument weren’t available on the Linux platform so I switched to Ardour on Windows for that reason. I had a business in computers and system integration and actually started building PC for the pro audio recording in 2000. I do IT work now although I’m not a network admin. Hardware was more my thing and I’ve always been sharp when it comes to computers and OS. In fact I developed a Linux based OS from 2007 to 2011 with my own line of computers.
This is part of my frustration. I seem to have lost a bit of my tech edge. I’m not sure why or how but I was diagnosed with ADHD which makes it a bit harder to focus on things. I’m sure that’s contributing to my issue.

Anyway after I switched to Ardour on PC I was getting many crashes which I never experienced at all when running Ardour on Linux. After a lot of back and forth I decided to switch to Cubase because of the amount of support, the massive community and tons of tutorials on line…this is pros using it around the globe. I knew switches DAWs was going to be a big challenge. Especially since I never really learned Ardour in the first place. I said to myself “it will be at least a year until you are comfortable with any DAW, so get used to the idea of spending every day learning it”. The discouraging part start the momenty I purchase Cubase with the Behringer X-Touch control surface. The script and functionality in Ardour for this device was perfect. I thought “well Cubase has been around for a long time, I’m sure they have the scripts for this device” . This was not the case. I’m was disappointed that Cubase didn’t have this working because now once again I was messin’ with tech stuff instead of making music and learning how to use the DAW. The I started having other issues, like not being able to save a project as a template and have issue with track rendering and trying to find a way to record in a way where I could keep time but have it sound natural. I’m still struggling with that.
So our backgrounds are not all that different but somehow with the medical crap and lack of forward progress it’s really ruined my confidence in myself. Something I never had an issue with before. I know what I’m capable of but I’ve been struggling for the last 15 years to have things work out the way they used to and this is a big part of my frustration moving forward with Cubase. I still don’t know if this will all come together so I can finally finish all of this music to some I can be proud of.
Anyway thanks for your input on this. You are mostly correctly about what you said. I just feel like time is ticking and after about 17 years or so of messing with tech issue, medical issues, discouragement ad doubting my abilities, this is why I’m so hard on myself.
Thanks man. Sorry for this long bio. I know this forum isn’t for this but I felt it was relevant to our conversion here.
Chris

I can actually fully understand some of your frustration, especially the singing… about five years ago I finally got my act together and started taking vocal lessons. Unluckily, some months in after two infections, I was left with chronic sinus problems and post nasal drip syndrome, which led to my vocal chords more or less permanently being covered with mucus. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but made proper singing really difficult. Utterly frustrating, as I was just getting better at singing… and I stopped more or less recording new songs, because I see myself more as a singer/songwriter and am not really interested in soing instrumentals.
Nevertheless, not making music is not an option, so I started learning bass a couple of months ago, which is fun, and doing a guitar/vocals duo with a friend of mine, just for fun.
Hope you get your stuff sorted out with Cubase. It is a really capable program after all, but the beginning is difficult, as with all complex software. Keep going!

Hey Fese
Thanks for sharing. Yeah I’ glad you found a way to get through it and at least still be doing what you need to do. Thank you. The issue is both reflux (GERD) and post nasal drip.
Twice in the last 20 years I came very very close to moving my gear from my studio to a dumpster behind a supermarket. I’m not only feeling that again but I had wished I did done that years ago because I wouldn’t be going through this again. The health issues cause so much stress and uncomfortable issues AND also stop me from doing what I feel I need to do. The doctors so far are a joke in helping with any of it.

Hi @C.F.Christopher -

Some things that might help learn Cubase:

  1. Youtube Steinberg Cubase vids
  2. Those not free but not expensive tutorial vids (MacPro Video?, others)
  3. Contacting local musicians and finding one that uses Cubase who will contract with you (e.g., an hour weekly to go over the problems that have come up since last session)
  4. If you can’t get something to work a certain way in Cubase … Skip it, and keep on moving forward if at all possible!

And of course, coming to the forum for specific questions like you are doing! :grinning:

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Yes thanks. I’ll get it…I hope. Things just aren’t “clicking” right now. I’m not just talking about music and Cubase either. Thanks for your input.
Chris

hey guys,
I wanted to follow up with the weird anomalies that I was having with Cubase. Remember I had these issues with Artist and Pro 12 (with the latest updates).
I have since wiped my OS drive clean and reinstalled everything. All of the anomalies are gone.
These anomalies were not just Cubase but also the X-Air Edit software as well. The reinstall seem to resolve everything.

I do have a question however.
Since I had to reinstall everything from scratch I debated how I was going to do this. When I first installed Cubase I of course used the Download Assistant software which of course downloaded and installed everything I had choose but this time I had all of the software archived from the previous install which was only a few weeks old, since I recently upgraded to Pro from Artist.
Since I had all of the software archived I just used the binary EXE file to install everything back as it was but when I reinstalled Download Assistant, then opened it, it doesn’t reflect any of the software that I just installed. Why? Steinberg really has to simplify the licensing and installation of Cubase, it’s support software and accessories. It feels very clunky. So why does Download Assistant software not reflect what’s installed? Is this “normal”?

Yes, that is “normal”. I fully agree with you, the current Download Assistant is rather “user-unfriendly” and confusing. It is also confusing that there are at least three “managing programs”, the Download Assistant, the Library Manager and the Activation manager. I already made a topic about that, and Matthias Quellmann wrote that in fact Steinberg are planning to migrate all those apps into one unified management app, but of course they first have to migrate all their stuff to the new licensing system.

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Ahh well it’s good to know they are aware of it. I like my OS and installed apps clean. I’ve used Linux based DAW and would still be if Cubase was available for Linux. Windows has enough of trouble on it’s own functioning but having all of the “manager” programs as you say is super confusing…I agree. In fact I think I’ve tried at least three different ways to install software and all of it worked but there is no clear way to do anything really. It for sure added to my lack of confidence in myself and working with Cubase for sure. Don’t get me wrong I’m not unhappy with Cubase I just thought that with it’s long history and established track record they would have sorted this stuff out…that’s all.

Thanks Fese
Chris