Sigh, I don't get a single day without weird incident/s with Cubase SX3. Intermittent problems with no rhyme or reason as to what is happening and why.

Today I could not get sound from my PC via the Emu0404. The meters were showing audio pumping through but I could hear nothing from Cubase or even a normal sound file on my desktop. The only way for me to hear sound again was to system restore. Now I will never know what happened. This has happened in the past. Another thing just happened is My tracks in Cubase were playing perfectly well audio wise but the screen had frozen. Then I got the windows audio chord sound over and over and over again with multiple "serious error" warnings building up the same message all over the screen. The only way out was to reset the PC. Last week all my audio settings had been thrown out and I had to slowly reinstall my emu settings in Cubase. a real pain in the neck as it's so time consuming and frustrating. My little ipad is far more reliable and getting just as good as Cubase with it's apps. I am starting to think PC's running VST's are more trouble than they are worth.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Quote Marbury:

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Today I could not get sound from my PC via the Emu0404. The meters were showing audio pumping through but I could hear nothing from Cubase or even a normal sound file on my desktop.

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This points to a problem outside Cubase, or to Cubase having frozen while hogging the audio device. But if there are meters showing activity, I suspect it's not Cubase that's the issue here.

Quote Marbury:

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My tracks in Cubase were playing perfectly well audio wise but the screen had frozen. Then I got the windows audio chord sound over and over and over again with multiple "serious error" warnings building up the same message all over the screen. The only way out was to reset the PC.

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Either you're asking the system to do too much at that point in the song, or there's something seriously wrong with your system

Quote Marbury:

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Last week all my audio settings had been thrown out and I had to slowly reinstall my emu settings in Cubase. a real pain in the neck as it's so time consuming and frustrating.

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I've had similar experiences in the past. It's a real bummer and has been one of the worst aspects of Cubase — having to remap things manually when such settings are lost or overwritten, when importing a project from elsewhere or trialling another audio interface.

Quote Marbury:

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My little ipad is far more reliable and getting just as good as Cubase with it's apps.

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To be fair, your 'little iPad' was first launched in 2010. Cubase SX3 was launched six years earlier, before even Windows Vista had been launched, never mind Windows 7 or 8. Cubase 7 was launched yesterday — four whole version updates since SX3. Cubase 6 has proved, for me, to be a much more mature and stable DAW than SX3 ever was. Six years is a *very* long time in computing and DAW software. Not that there's anything wrong with using an iPad if it gives you the results you want, but I dare say if you try comparing your SX3 system with any tablet/touch screen apps from the same era you would reach a different conclusion!

The behaviour you're describing does sound like an audio driver problem. When this happens I typically find I have to point Cubase back at the correct driver.

Recovering from an image backup of your system drive is a quick way to get all your Cubase settings back in a few minutes - I take you didn't have an image backup? Tut tut!

I agree with MixedUp. You're continuing to run an ancient (by IT standards) version of Cubase, but you're upset by the fact that it doesn't behave as elegantly as modern software! Time to move on?

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Quote Mixedup:

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Quote Marbury:

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My little ipad is far more reliable and getting just as good as Cubase with it's apps.

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To be fair, your 'little iPad' was first launched in 2010. Cubase SX3 was launched six years earlier, before even Windows Vista had been launched, never mind Windows 7 or 8. Cubase 7 was launched yesterday — four whole version updates since SX3. Cubase 6 has proved, for me, to be a much more mature and stable DAW than SX3 ever was. Six years is a *very* long time in computing and DAW software. Not that there's anything wrong with using an iPad if it gives you the results you want, but I dare say if you try comparing your SX3 system with any tablet/touch screen apps from the same era you would reach a different conclusion!

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I've been working with a pad recently. Great fun and highly portable - yes. But comparing any current "app" to one of the heavyweight DAW programs - even an older version - running a decent audio interface is just ridiculous.

It does seem as if your system has some stability problems though.

How's the RAM usage? If you start fill up your RAM Cubase can start acting strangely. (And you're not using Windows 7, are you, that isn't compatible with SX3?)

No, I use XP. I do have an image of the whole drive backed up. I think you will find that the quality of the more pro music apps like Animoog, Korg Polysix, etc are as good if not beter than any VST.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

It has done it again. After restoring my audio it has booted up silent BUT still showing graphically that there is sound going through the meters. It's so ruddy infuriating why it should do this for no reason. No logical reason but I bet if I system restore it will come back. Looks like I will have to do a full restore everytime I boot the thing up.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Time for an upgrade boss!

Surely because it is old doesn't mean it needs upgrading. If it worked perfectly beforehand, and I haven't added any new software, why should it start this ?

What are my better options if it does come to an upgrade?

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Hey,

I completely understand where your coming from, I went from using SX2 to cubase studio 4 as SX3 proved to be buggy as hell for me.
Then I upgraded my whole pc and went from xp to 7 (home edition) and cubase 6 (studio edition)....My god the improvements in workflow, sound, drivers was amazing...

I also agree with The elf and mixup.

just my 2pence worth of info....
charlie

I did another system restore and nothing. Still no audio. I then re-installed the EMU driver and this time it. Worked. The last time it didn't. That's the annoying thing, the problems have no consistency.

Could I just upgrade Cubase to 6 on this machine and change. The sound card? Also, do Sienberg give you an upgrade rate coming from SX3 ?

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

If I were you I would take the leap to windows 7 and cubase 6....you wont regret it

no idea about pricings though..

cheers

charlie

You didn't answer the RAM question... but it now sounds to me like it's something else.

Make sure you run some virus scans in case it's that.

Sometimes Windows turns down an obscure volume control somewhere inexplicably, check that it's not that.

You could spend three months working out what it is... or you could just upgrade now.

Windows 7 and Cubase 6 or 7 should be able to run on any machine that can run XP and Cubase 3. But do you have any old hardware that doesn't have Windows 7 drivers?

Unfortunately, Steinberg usually restrict the upgrade to one or two jumps, so unless you scour the Steinberg site and find out some way of doing it, you're looking at having to pay the full whack.

My apologies...

I speak with fairly limited knowledge & experience...

I was just trying to be helpful

charlie

Quote charlie chalk:

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My apologies...

I speak with fairly limited knowledge & experience...

I was just trying to be helpful

charlie

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p

Which I appreciate very much.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Without using Cubase, does the computer see the audio interface? It sounds like that is the culprit rather than Cubase, but obviously if it only fails having booted Cubase, then it is clearly the culprit.

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

It fails to play audio before Cubase is loaded.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

So it's not Cubase at fault then (at least not for that issue).

As I said, sometimes Windows inexplicably sets a hidden volume slider to zero. This happens to me occasionally. Check all your Windows system audio settings to make sure this hasn't happened.

And you still haven't answered the RAM question! Using too much RAM in Cubase does cause serious error warnings in Cubase versions of this vintage (but unfortunately these serious error warnings rarely mention RAM being the issue -- the Steinberg site eventually confirmed that this was the cause, though).

What do your error messages say?

Marbury, You might save yourself some grief by reformatting your C;drive and doing a fresh install.
Here I installed Adobe Premiere on my audio computer and it tried to load the expired sample programs that came with Cubase 6. As I tried to fix it, everything went south from there.
Registry problems are nightmares to correct but cleaning house and starting over is always refreshing.

You may find it wise to do this once a year anyway. This also helps isolate problems in hardware or drivers, etc.

Best
Rick

The crashing of Cubase happens when CPU usage isn't being taxed. I was exporting the wav audio from a project and it crashed. Also, Halion 2 crashes it a lot so I no longer use it if I can help it.

In device manager, the multimedia audio controller has a yellow explanation mark next to it. It says "the drivers for this device are not installed (code 28)"

The ram is 1 gig Pentium 4 3.01 GHZ

I checked the windows voulume sliders at the time and they were normal.

What I did do when I rolled back the date was before I installed the latest direct x. Perhaps that was causing some of it though Cubase has been acting strange for years.

I have looked at Cubase 6 and I can't really get that excited about it to be honest. It doesn't seem to do much more than my current version unless I am missing something. As regarding audio quality, SX3 sounds good to my ears. I also resent having to fork out another best part of £500 again.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Quote Marbury:

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I have looked at Cubase 6 and I can't really get that excited about it to be honest. It doesn't seem to do much more than my current version unless I am missing something. As regarding audio quality, SX3 sounds good to my ears. I also resent having to fork out another best part of £500 again.

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You keep saying this and then you keep posting that you're having problems and it's all Cubase SX3's fault (which is debatable, based on what you've said above - I agree with Scramble). You can't have it both ways - either SX3 works perfectly for you, or it's flakey and keeps breaking!

Of course SX3 sounds good - DAWs have sounded good for many years. If you're expecting C6/7 to *sound* better than SX3 you're likely to be disappointed. They will probably sound identical.

C6/7 have LOADS of stuff that SX3 doesn't have. Many of those differences may not be of any interest you, specifically, but the differences are there. Maybe C6/7 don't crash so often, or so inelegantly?

You either have to accept the fact that you're running ancient software that isn't as elegant as new software, or you update and get the benefits of everything Steinberg have learned and implemented since SX3!

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

>The crashing of Cubase happens when CPU usage isn't being taxed... The ram is 1 gig Pentium 4 3.01 GHZ

It sounds like you're not clear on the important distinction between RAM and CPU -- they aren't the same. RAM is memory. You can be running the CPU hard while not using much memory, and conversely you can be maxing out the memory even though the CPU isn't working hard.

If you only have 1Gb of RAM then that may well cause you problems. I don't know how big your projects are, but XP takes quite a lot of memory itself so that doesn't leave a lot for Cubase.

Use Windows Task manager to check how much memory you're using when things start playing up.

If you really don't want to upgrade what is a pretty ancient system (Pentium 4!), then at least install some more memory, have 2Gb at least, 4Gb if you can. That may help, but even if it doesn't it would be a good idea anyway if you really want to run this system into the mid-teens. I only hope that you can still get memory for your motherboard at a decent price -- chips for old boards can start to get more expensive once they get scarce, so do it soon.

Edited by Scramble (07/12/12 08:13 PM)

Having used SX3, 5 and 6.5 I'd arguably say SX was the most reliable. I can't remember a Cubase CAUSED failure on my machine ever with SX3 or 5 but I have had a slight issue with 6.5 once or twice. All the same machine.

I ran them on a 5 year old Toshiba laptop with an Intel Core Duo and 4GB of RAM.. A friend has run Cubase 4 on a less powerful Core 2 Duo flawlessly too.

I'm driving towards the fact you need a computer that is in some way modern. A 4GB ram upgrade will help a lot but I'd say cheap replacement desktop from Gumtree will do you wonders. XP and Cubase SX3 was an unbeatably reliable combination for me until Win7 and Cubase 5 but you need a capable computer. Despite the slight problem I have has once or twice I think Win7/8 with Cubase 6 will be fantastic. Looking forward to using Cubase 7 sometime.

I sound like I am contradicting myself regarding the stability of Cubase versions but there is so little in it for me.

Hi Marbury

Cubase sometimes does this with me.
I usually find (For some reason...)the connections have changed to ones that are
not currently active.

Try going to Devices - VST Connections, then under the "Device Port" column left click
and choose Analogue OUT-1 and Analogue OUT-2, or whatever you have
under yours.
Usually then works for me.

Cheers
billy

Ok, I will take on board what you say. Thanks.

The PC was built by Dawsons specifically for running Cubase SX3 and I haven't really added anything taxing to it since. The last big VST I added was back in 2005 which was Stylus RMX.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Edited by Marbury (07/12/12 11:55 PM)

Quote Marbury:

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Ok, I will take on board what you say. Thanks.

The PC was built by Dawsons specifically for running Cubase SX3 and I haven't really added anything taxing to it since. The last big VST I added was back in 2005 which was Stylus RMX.

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You might as well stick in another GB of RAM if the board will take it.

Quote Exalted Wombat:

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Quote Marbury:

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Ok, I will take on board what you say. Thanks.

The PC was built by Dawsons specifically for running Cubase SX3 and I haven't really added anything taxing to it since. The last big VST I added was back in 2005 which was Stylus RMX.

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You might as well stick in another GB of RAM if the board will take it.

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Worth a try. My desktop is getting on a bit now, and while I don't add new programs those years of application security updates do take their toll on system resources. On paper I am running the same applications as I did 5 years ago, but those programs bear little resemblance to the versions I originally installed.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

My system was built in November 2004.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Quote Marbury:

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My system was built in November 2004.

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Then, realistically, if your music work has any importance to you - spend a bit of money! There's no virtue in limping along on outdated equipment.

Interesting discussion this - mainly because I still run SX3 on a Pentium 4 (Dell Optiplex 3ghz and only 1gb RAM and a Mia soundcard). Tbh it does what I require of it which is fortunate as I couldn't afford to upgrade at the moment anyway. I am planning to stick another gig of RAM in there, but the only issues i've really had with it are audio glitches which again were not a Cubase problem and I managed to solve it. Also of course, there's the danger of trying to run too many (often CPU-hungry) VSTi's at once which will max out the CPU on my system. However, i'm still a hardware junky really and use more MIDI tracks than anything else, with maybe up to 10 audio tracks and then do a comp/mixdown if I want to add more (while keeping the original audio tracks of course - just in case ). I also discovered that SX3 was optimised for PC's that used hyperthreading - which if people dont know creates a "mock" dual processor system - and this Dell can do exactly that. There was an immediate improvement in it's reliability and ability to run more tracks/use more fx etc. when I enabled hyperthreading on the PC.

A somewhat tangential point: This thread also reminds me that, some years ago now (possibly as long ago as the "old" forum! (* leans on zimmer frame and wipes weary brow *) I started a thread asking other forumites whether older DAW/PC system combos, as well as soft synths and-the-like, could be regarded as "vintage" and that perhaps we were all too obsessed with the idea of upgrading all the time, especially if the system we have meets, broadly, our requirements. I'm obviously biased because I cant currently upgrade anyway but I often feel that people are too ready to get the next new thing rather than really maximising the potential of their existing system, and while I understand all the "time to upgrade" comments here, I dont neccessarily think it's always the best solution to a problem. As I mentioned, I get around limited RAM and an older PC by using this version of Cubase in ways which dont overtax the system, and maybe, in a bid to extend the life of your current setup you could consider some of these workarounds? ADmittedly this can be a tough pill to swallow if youre locked into a particular way of working (as we all tend to be), but it worked for me - and continues to do so.

Hope you manage to get your issues sorted though - little is more irritating and frustrating that these kind of system issues - especially if they're not really anything to do with the DAW itself as comments here seem to suggest. Cheers, Les

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"If I had all the money i'd spent on drink, i'd spend it on drink". Vivian Stanshall

That is my issue, I don't have a problem with CPU as I only use a moderate amount of VSTs and effects at one time. My hardware gets recorded down to wav tracks as does my now new ipad audio. Any new software I tend to get on the ipad which can handle it.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

BTW-My other PC just as old (for the internet) seems to play audio slower and slower the more multitasking I do. If I open another website, Youtube's audio starts clicking and popping and the audio gets slower and slower and drags along like a slow timestretch. This has never happened before.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Are you sure you've not just got some spyware/malware interfering with your computers? Personally I'd do a thorough scan with something like Bitdefender's 60 second virus scanner, just to get a second opinion on whether your systems are clean.

Your audio is not working in Windows. If your OS is struggling with your audio, why should any software that uses the OS fair any better? Time to point the finger in the right place - you have an underlying issue that needs solving. Once that is solved, then try your other software and see if you can solve any additional problems. If the OS isn't working properly, it's a safe bet that not much else will run stable either.

So, first things you need to do are clean up temp files, defrag the hard drive, check for malware and spyware, check for viruses, make sure you're running the latest drivers for your system, and get the OS running happily.

I'd be tempted to do the following in respect of your system anyway, given its age:
Replace the RAM - you can get 4Gb dirt cheap now.
Place a SSD in there instead of the main system drive (a small 128Gb one will be around £50, you can judge if you need more based on disk space requirements for your VSTs etc.)
Use the existing HDD as an archive drive for your data.

I've done that with my old P4 3GHz system and it really does fly! It's far more responsive at editing than the Core i5 system I use for work which doesn't have an SSD, though obviously the i5 can run a lot more FX.

Matt, some very helpful points there I will consider.

I think you may has misunderstood me regarding the slowing down of audio etc. I was referring to my internet PC in that instance, not my music making PC (with Cubase) I do not allow that to go online.

I already have Avast virus protection on the internet PC (Medion)and also anti spyware software but I will give it a good scan.

As regarding the music PC, I may up the RAM and see what happens.

Thanks.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Ran a spyware test and defragged drive. Still getting audio clicks and pops when viewing things like BBCi player and youtube.

I remember turning off windows updates about 3 years ago as I had problems getting the machine to boot up, it was a nightmare and took ages to get back. I was advised by a friend to turn off updates as the service pack was causing this.

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

With the greatest respect, Marbury, you need to update your system - you're flogging a dead horse. As Zenguitar kind of said, even if you hadn't added anything new over the years your OS and programs will have changed to some degree. The fact that you have added new programs will be placing additional resource demands on your machine compared to when you turned it on for the first time almost 8 years ago Add to that the wear and tear on the physical and mechanical parts... It's annoying and expensive, but that's the nature of all computers right now.

If you look at the Stylus RMX system requirements it states you need 2gb RAM for proper operation... it's impressive that your machine can run both Cubase SX3 and Stylus at the same time and hasn't already collapsed under the strain!

If you can't afford to spank a wedge on a new/2nd hand computer (and making sure that your soundcard is compatible with any OS upgrades that may come with it) then update the RAM, look for newer drivers for your soundcard, and habitually spring clean your system as suggested by Magic Matt. I wouldn't bother with a new Cubase unless you have a newer machine to run it on.

Also, comparing an iPad with your relatively ancient PC is misguided - like fresh oranges versus rotting apples. Anyone would expect that recent programs run flawlessly on a recent machine that they are specifically coded for. Give it 8 years and I bet you any money that your iPad won't run as nicely as it does now.

With regards the clicks and pops with stuff like iPlayer and youtube, this points to the CPU (someone correct me if I'm wrong). If this is the internet PC and it's approaching the same age as your music PC then the CPU may not be able to process all the info necessary for streaming video, especially higher quality and HD video. If you get a newer music PC you probably won't need a separate internet PC anymore!!

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www.loadedaudio.com - Audio Mastering and home of the Mix Fix
www.audioslap.com - Audio News, Reviews and Interviews

Marbury sounds exactly like the Cubase mental hospital over at Steinberg. Knows everything but just can't get the hang of an out of date Cubase using an out of date system.

What does it say in the eLCC Marbury?

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

I suppose if I do get a new system it will be tax deductible being for business use

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http://www.myspace.com/ianhubball

Edited by Marbury (14/12/12 03:56 PM)

Only if you pay income tax in the first place. And then as plant & machinery you'd only get 25%. As a tax payer you'd know that.

The eLCC? What does it say in there?

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

Good grief, is this thread still going on? I haven't read it, but I'd have expected any thread detailing problems with Cubase SX3 to be over in a couple of posts saying: "Upgrade or change".