Sustained noise overloads - Cubase Elements 10, Mac

Cubase
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1

Hello everyone,

I am having a persistent issue with Cubase. Running Cubase Elements 10.0.20 on Mac OS High Sierra on a mid-2015 21” iMac. Interface is a Resident Audio T4, monitoring through AKG K240 Studio headphones. Recorded files go to an external hard drive. This also occurs with Cubase Elements 9.5 and Cubase AI 9.5.

When I open a project, once it loads, there is a sudden very loud consistent stream of what I believe is pink noise. It does not stop and the only way for me to end it is to close Cubase. In the mixing section, the Stereo Out meter is 100% overloaded and depending on the instance, all or some of the tracks themselves display the same on the meter. Sometimes the fx busses, sometimes certain tracks, it seems random. This happens with no audio inputs to generate any feedback or anything like that. The next time I open a project, the application “crashes unexpectedly” as soon as I click on the file. Occasionally the noise will stop after about three minutes or so, but then there is no audio leaving Cubase even though the faders will display that there is sound. The volume faders/mixing console faders do not affect the output except for the stereo out buss which will sometimes mute the noise when set to 0 (but then as soon as it’s raised even a tiny bit the noise goes back to full volume). The mute buttons make no difference either. I posted over in a Cubase Facebook group but they were unable to help me (suggestions tried are removing certain plugins like H-Comp and making a blank project file to see if the noise happens [it does sometimes]). My interface shows the output to be bright red/totally overloaded as well when it is connected.

I’m not having any luck tracking this down and it appears to be generated in the program itself. This happens with the interface, with the computer’s internal speakers, and with a usb headset (when set as the audio system in Studio Setup). I did not experience this issue prior to updating to Cubase Elements 10 from AI 9.5. Now both programs are affected. What are your thoughts?

Thanks,

-Max

2

Hi and welcome,

Is it clearly reproducible at some project? If yes, could you share it, please?

I would recommend to trash all your Cubase preferences and of course to update to the latest Cubase 10.0.40.

3

Thank you. Apologies for the delay in getting back, I was out of town and didn’t have a chance to read this. There is one project file that this occurs with more than any other. I can upload it, but I am also using some third party plugins; will that be an issue? Also, as I’ve not shared a project before, are the audio files included in the .cpr file if I send it?

4

Hi,

It might by I couldn’t reproduce it without the plugins or the audio files. But we can try.

5

Alright. Here is the entire backup. This should give you what you need except for the third-party plugins. It was too large to upload directly so I uploaded it to Google Drive instead.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XhcGcnWeM_d2pz4xYh1D64KsUV22KuW9/view?usp=sharing

Thank you!

6

Hi,

I open the project and I get no noise at all. So I can’t reproduce it, sorry.

7

Hmm…how long does the file take to open on your end?

8

I haven’t been online here on the forum for a while…such is life. I just wanted to update this thread and say that it turns out that the iMac has some kind of memory corruption. A repair tech I know cleaned and reseated the memory, which fixed the numerous issues (freezing, random audio pops, etc) the computer had developed since this thread for about a week. Then it went back. Cubase was just showing the beginning of the problem I think. Either way that iMac is now needing replacement. So it was likely not a problem with Cubase after all.

Thanks for your help, it was appreciated.