Steinberg Yamaha ASIO Driver with UR28M and CP88; trouble.
I have been using Steinberg UR28m and Cubase with satisfaction for some time. I just bought me a Yamaha CP88. One of the reasons for my choice was my hope of a good integration with the Steinberg / Yamaha ecosystem. Turn out this is not the case.
My system: Cubase Elements, Win 10 running on powerful i7 / 32 Gigs / M.2 system. Steinberg UR28M as an audio interface and Yamaha CP88 as my main instrument
I want to do something simple. At least it seems simple in my mind. Record some midi stuff from CP88 into Cubase Elements and have Cubase play it back into CP88. From there I would like to have the audio sent it back to Cubase over USB so that I have eventually an audio file in Cubase of my Midi performance.
First problem. The Yamaha Steinberg ASIO driver is a single piece for both UR28M and CP88. Turns out not a great idea. In the ASIO control panel you can choose either CP88 or UR28 as an interface, not both at the same time. Even worst, you can’t have one of them function as audio in and the other as audio out (which is what I would need, having USB audio output from CP88 into Cubase audio input and Cubase audio output into UR28. No such luck. You have to use either on or the other. Why, I should have bought another audio interface. Never mind.
Second problem. The USB audio output of CP88 is temperamental. Loses the port, have to close and restart Cubase. Never mind again. Eventually I can record my live performance from CP88 into Cubase audio via USB. For some reason the audio level is very very low. The meter while playing looks healthy but the track eventually recorded is very very flimsy.
Yes, probably I could workaround this by recording analog audio into Cubase instead of insisting on recording USB audio; I was hoping of saving me some cable spaghetti. Better still, I will end up buying another cheap audio interface just for the task.
Bottom line. CP88 is good, the keybed is excellent actually. So is Cubase and UR28 of course but:
- Having a single driver for both is a very bad idea
- The quality of the USB audio on the CP88 is very poor. Unstable, erratic, totally non flexible, unacceptable low audio output.
Or have I done something wrong ?
Regards,
Mark.