Hi all. Well I received an email from Steinberg to upgrade to version 11 for free! Great I ran the Download Assistant, selected ALL and the install went forward. Version 11 now has it’s own folder and runs - great. Here is the question(s). I see that in the process of running this install a HUGE pile of folders/files have appeared in my User/Download folder. A few of the files are the actual installer .exe files that I assume ran during the install process. Most of the files are *.vstsound files. Where should these end up? I see that in the actual folder where version 11 has installed itself there is a folder called VST Sound. Should I move them all into this folder? (There are only 4 *.vstsound files in this folder at present. Anyway - any help understanding where these files should end up would be appreciated. Thanks, Rich
Anywhere you like. Cubase doesn’t care where they are as long as you let Cubase know where that location is.
That said many folks will use a separate disk (or disks) to store their sound libraries (both from Steinberg & 3rd parties). This is because sound libraries tend to create a lot of disk I/O, so when its on a dedicated disk it’s not competing for that I/O.
Probably the worst place to put them is on your system disk because not only do you have the I/O competition - sound libraries tend to grow over time as you buy more and you don’t want to start running out of space on your system disk. However if it’s on a notebook that may be your only choice. In that case I’d recommend creating a top level folder for them.
The best place would be on a dedicated SSD.
You can just use the OS file system to move them to your new location. Then double click on any .vstsound file. This will launch the Library Manager which will then register all the content it finds there and in any sub-folders. For one or two libraries you can also use the Library Manager to move the files - but for a bunch of libraries that can get tedious. The Library Manager can also tell you where a library is currently located.
I recently consolidated my libraries from several disks down to two. Here’s what that looks like.
Many thanks for this information. I tried to find this “install kind of stuff” at the Steinberg site - but gave up after noodling around a while. While I may have your ear…I see that each time I did an upgrade to my Cubase AI a completely new folder was created on my C drive (I am on a laptop) which contains a complete install of the each version. I would like to get rid of these older files as space is limited in my situation. Would you suggest a Windows uninstall of the previous versions - or should I let them stand. I am a bit worried running an uninstall about “breaking” my current install. I have found Cubase to be very quirky over the past couple of installs and want to avoid dealing with Support. Thanks again, Rich
No, its fine to uninstall older versions of Cubase. Each major version of Cubase (the X.0 & X.5 versions, but not the incremental versions like 11.0.0 to 11.0.41) are totally independent installations of the program. And while they might share lots of content in common, removing the program does not remove that content. Installs may add new content, but uninstalls don’t take it away.
However you might be disappointed at the disk space recovered by uninstalling older versions since the program itself isn’t that big. It’s mostly content that eats up the diskspace. I like to keep at least one rev. back still installed in case something doesn’t work in the latest - but that’s mostly me being overly cautious.
In addition to older installations, you probably also have the downloads for those - which could also be deleted.
That means you’ll probably need to manage your diskspace on an ongoing basis. How large is the drive & how much free space does it currently have?
One tool I find super useful is TreeSize Free which helps you find what is consuming diskspace.
Here’s some other things to consider
- Pick & choose which Steinberg content to download. For example if you don’t make EDM music don’t download the EDM content
- Get an external drive & put your content there. It will increase the load time for some VSTi’s but may well be worth it to have the extra space