Synch issues (?) with Cubase 6

Cubase
1

Hi there,

I have Cubase 6.0.5, running on Windows 7, with a Fireface 400. I have tried to set the Fireface to Master but I’m a bit confused by both the Fireface’s setting and Cubase’s. I’m not sure this is what is causing my issue, which is: Some of my projects play back fine, others play for a second, then the left channel (I’m working with two-track recordings at the moment, but note a six-track project played back fine), then the left channel starts clicking as if a synch issue, then appears to feed back but in any case goes all the way to the top of the meter and stays there although there is no loud noise, and the file appears to play the same section over and over, even though the transport indicates normal transport.

When I stop the transport, the meters remain high for maybe 10 seconds (it usually affects the right channel as welll, sometimes not as fast), and then they somewhat slowly return to zero.

Can anyone point me in a direction as to what might be causing this? I’m not sure if it’s related to the upgrade and unfortunately I can’t remember if I just started having this problem before I upgraded to 6.0.5 (from 6 which never gave me problems other than perhaps this, if I could remember).

In the meantime I will try and read up and understand how the settings on the Fireface and Cubase work as far as synching; Fireface has new firmware as well within the last year or so and I have installed that but again its master/slave settings are confusing to me,I will check out the info. on that in case that is the issue, although I’ve never known a synch issue to cause looping.

The source files I’m working with play fine in Windows Media Player, they just mess up after I import them to Cubase. I’m importing at 96kHz and not changing that but I’m converting to 32-bit from 24-bit (yes, adding zeros at the end) but any conversion of files has never caused problems before.

Thanks for any help, if not I’ll contact support directly, again in the meantime I’ll check synch settings for the above-mentioned setup.

I update all my software and drivers to the best of my knowledge, thanks again.

2

Why are you using Sync to begin with, especially with the soundcard?

3

Is the Fireface’s Clock Source set to anything other than “Internal”? Do you have “Externally Clocked” clicked in Cubase? Are there other equipment that require clock syncing connected to the Fireface?

If the answer to these questions is NO, then you may have a defective unit. I would open a thread over at the RME forums if you haven’t still.

4

I’m not even sure it’s a synch issue, but some of the behavior seems like it could be. Yes, I have the Fireface set to “internal” and I believe I have corresponding settings in Cubase.

I will review the manuals pertaining to each menu/synch setup for Cubase and Fireface (always a good idea!). I’ve had the Fireface for about four years or so, never any problems with it (other than the fact I’m too stupid to understand its Byzantine mixer software, but I get it to pass a signal and do what I need it to do for my purposes).

If anyone has encountered similar problems and had a solution just let me know and I do appreciate the possibilities presented thus far, thank you.

I don’t do this full-time (as if you couldn’t tell already!) and I’m getting back after a bit of an absence and this cropped up, but normally everything has been working fine.

Hopefully I’ll have time to look at this in more detail very soon. (Yes, I like to keep my posts short and to-the-point, don’t I?)

5

Apparently this is an issue with communicating with a particular external drive. I thought I had tried another external drive previously, but I am able to create the same project after copying files over to a different external drive and it works fine. And this is only a two-track project. A (whopping ; ) 8-track project previously done on a different drive than the one I’m having trouble with, also works fine. So, it appears to be this particular drive, which I will simply not use. I believe this problem started BEFORE I upgraded from 6.0 to 6.0.5 but am not certain; I thought I had successfully mixed off the problem drive, before. In any case the problem seems to be with the drive and I’m just going to work around unless of course it crops up elsewhere. Also for the record, on the two-track project, the left channel would play fine but the right channel would behave as if going into a feedback loop of some sort judging by the meters, but no loud audio, it would appear to repeat audio that was just played, in a loop that would be delayed from the “okay” left channel. Strange. I tried all the routing and clock settings I could think of to avoid anything unusual, although I do still need to review and fully understand the clock settings on the relatively new Fireface 400 software and Cubase 6.0.5. Thanks!!!