So... I apologise if this has been discussed and I haven't been able to find it.
I am running Cubase SX3 on an Athlon Winchester 3500+ / Windows XP SP2.
All sound I/O is provided via Firewire, using an Edirol FA-101
The Edirol FA-101 has 8 outputs, each with their own balanced socket. Outputs 1&2 are also routed to a headphone bus.
Given this, I thught I would put my main Studio Monitors on Outputs 3&4. I have set up SX3 such that these are the default Outputs. I have renamed the Default Output Bus 'Monitors' and the left channel of this points to FA-101 Output3, the right channel points to FA-101 Output4.
I have created another Output Bus which I have named 'Headphones'. The left channel for this points to FA-101 Output1, the right channel points to FA-101 Output2. This way I can create sends to Outputs 1&2 on each channel, knowing they are going to come out on the Headphone Bus too. I can, therefore, create a completely seperate Headphone mix.
But as a result somehwere in all this, I get some seriously weird behaviour. Essentially, I am unable to monitor incoming signals.
For example, suppose I want to record some guitar. I have everything set up as it should be. I arm the appropriate track and hit 'record'. I do some strumming type stuff. I play it back and, sure enough, I have some guitar recorded.
So far, so good...
But, I am putting the guitar through some plug-in effects and would like to be able to monitor as I play. No problem, I just hit the 'Monitor' button for the track in question.
Now, here is where it gets odd. I hear the signal for only a fraction of a second and then it cuts out again. I see a corresponding burst of activity in the mixer strip for this channel.
If I disable and then re-enable the Monitor button, again, I get a fraction of a second of signal before it cuts out again.
Most strange but maybe there is a logical (or cubasical?
) reason for why this might happen.But the following bit completely did my head in...
If I swap Outputs 3 & 4 in the 'Monitors' Output Bus then Monitoring suddenly works fine! That is, I go from:
Monitor Left --> Output 3
Monitor Right --> Output 4
(this way I have the monitoring issue)
to
Monitor Left --> Output 4
Monitor Right --> Output 3
(this way the monitoring issue goes away)
Of course, now all my Pans are back to front. I can fix this by physically swapping the cables over. But still, I am trying to work out why swaping two outputs on this output bus should have any effect on monitoring. At all.
Has anyone else had similar things happen?
Further info...
- When the Monitoring problem is happening, I can still see the signal coming in on the Input Channels (the FA-101 has ASIO Direct Monitoring so I can control the gain of each input directly in SX3 - each input shows up on the Mixer).
So, it looks as though the signal is reaching Cubase alright. And, as I said above, I can record this signal and then play it back just fine. It seems as though it is just monitoring which is effected.
- I was using Cubase SX2 before I bought SX3. Then, everything worked fine and I didn't have this issue. So, I think it is more likely to be a Cubase SX3 issue than something wrong with my FA-101 soundcard.
Anyone got any ideas what on earth is going here???
Any thoughts gratefully received (as ever).
Holf
