Cubase 4

[egbert]

Playback buffers, like Samplitude's Hybrid Engine would be cool (http://www.samplitude.com/eng/sam/hybrid.html), but I have very little hope.

Time to switch, I guess

Oh yes, the old Logic trick (that's the second time this millenium Chief).

Logic is extremely efficient CPU wise with FX and VSTis. This is because only the currently selected track is running with low latency buffers and all the others are more efficient high latency buffers. Where Emagic screwed up with Logic 5/6 is that they didn't let you nominate as many low latency tracks as you wanted - eg if you are performing live with two or three keyboards you couldn't have them all active at once without screwing around with splitters in the environment or some other workaround.

Cubase puts everything on the same low latency and has everything live at once, all the time - that's partly why (in a tune with lots of plugs active) the CPU meter shows high loads with the transport stationary whereas in Logic it shows zero CPU load under that circumstance.

[bduffy]

Playback buffers, like Samplitude's Hybrid Engine would be cool (http://www.samplitude.com/eng/sam/hybrid.html), but I have very little hope.

Time to switch, I guess

Oh yes, the old Logic trick (that's the second time this millenium Chief).

Logic is extremely efficient CPU wise with FX and VSTis. This is because only the currently selected track is running with low latency buffers and all the others are more efficient high latency buffers. Where Emagic screwed up with Logic 5/6 is that they didn't let you nominate as many low latency tracks as you wanted - eg if you are performing live with two or three keyboards you couldn't have them all active at once without screwing around with splitters in the environment or some other workaround.

Cubase puts everything on the same low latency and has everything live at once, all the time - that's partly why (in a tune with lots of plugs active) the CPU meter shows high loads with the transport stationary whereas in Logic it shows zero CPU load under that circumstance.

Really? I never heard that before.

[flynn]

Compressor, Limiter, Expander, Amp Simulator, Multiband Compressor, Studio EQ, Envelope Shaper, Tuner, Studio Chorus... There sure is alot of new stuff going on

/Majken

Oh how exciting! I only have about 3 of each already, likely in superior quality.
(I'll give a pity point for trying though)

Have to agree with Kingston. I really hope they dont put all effort in bringing a handfull of effects & instruments justifying the upgrade fee, but focusing on making an even better CUBASE.

I think it's better to get higher class plugs separate if one wants them.


EF

[Kingston]

Playback buffers, like Samplitude's Hybrid Engine would be cool (http://www.samplitude.com/eng/sam/hybrid.html), but I have very little hope.

Time to switch, I guess

Oh yes, the old Logic trick (that's the second time this millenium Chief).

Logic is extremely efficient CPU wise with FX and VSTis. This is because only the currently selected track is running with low latency buffers and all the others are more efficient high latency buffers. Where Emagic screwed up with Logic 5/6 is that they didn't let you nominate as many low latency tracks as you wanted - eg if you are performing live with two or three keyboards you couldn't have them all active at once without screwing around with splitters in the environment or some other workaround.

Cubase puts everything on the same low latency and has everything live at once, all the time - that's partly why (in a tune with lots of plugs active) the CPU meter shows high loads with the transport stationary whereas in Logic it shows zero CPU load under that circumstance.

..and one of life's long lasting mysteries is solved! Thanks egbert.

You know, way back then I always hated the fact that if I did layering or splitting of midi channels to play more than one VSTi at once, only one of them would play real-time, and the rest with a terrible latency. After recording and in playback the thing would be perfectly in synch again.

Turns out it was this buffer trickery you explained! Clever idea but oh the troubles it caused.

[bduffy]

Compressor, Limiter, Expander, Amp Simulator, Multiband Compressor, Studio EQ, Envelope Shaper, Tuner, Studio Chorus... There sure is alot of new stuff going on

/Majken

Oh how exciting! I only have about 3 of each already, likely in superior quality.
(I'll give a pity point for trying though)

Have to agree with Kingston. I really hope they dont put all effort in bringing a handfull of effects & instruments justifying the upgrade fee, but focusing on making an even better CUBASE.

I think it's better to get higher class plugs separate if one wants them.


EF

You might have noticed it's terribly important to some people to have the the best plugins ship with their host. I'm sure this is an attempt to win/keep that crowd, and in all fairness, some of those Cubase plugins are getting a little long in the tooth.

Kingston, if that's the end result of that hybrid crap, then...yuck. Like I was saying, sounds pretty hype-y to me.

[Kingston]

Kingston, if that's the end result of that hybrid crap, then...yuck. Like I was saying, sounds pretty hype-y to me.

I don't know much about samplitude, but I have a feeling these things would be thought out well in it. Clearly the logic scenario was a bug, and I suspect it's been fixed for a very long time already. Remember it's the ancient logic 5.5.1 PC version I was talking about.

[mbncp]

Playback buffers, like Samplitude's Hybrid Engine would be cool (http://www.samplitude.com/eng/sam/hybrid.html), but I have very little hope.

Time to switch, I guess

Oh yes, the old Logic trick (that's the second time this millenium Chief).

Logic is extremely efficient CPU wise with FX and VSTis. This is because only the currently selected track is running with low latency buffers and all the others are more efficient high latency buffers. Where Emagic screwed up with Logic 5/6 is that they didn't let you nominate as many low latency tracks as you wanted - eg if you are performing live with two or three keyboards you couldn't have them all active at once without screwing around with splitters in the environment or some other workaround.

Cubase puts everything on the same low latency and has everything live at once, all the time - that's partly why (in a tune with lots of plugs active) the CPU meter shows high loads with the transport stationary whereas in Logic it shows zero CPU load under that circumstance.

The trick I use now is that SX is playing (at high latency) the recorded tracks and recording (but not connected to a vsti) the new midi track(s), very low cpu usage. And use VSTHost with a very small buffer as a monitor/live host and I can still have more than one plug running.

The problem is that I use 2 cheap cards to do that and latency is not too good.
If the playback host (sx) would be able to run the plugs with a large buffer (less cpu) and split the buffer before sending them to the driver, I could use a single multi-client asio card with even better results, lower cpu and perfect sync.
Another trick is to use asio4all for the second driver (which uses wdm), and still being able to use 2 different buffer size.

[wonder6oy]

Yes, it works very well. But it doesn't show them as actual crossfades but does the fade anyway. Try setting it to an insanely high amount like 250 ms and then put two audio files so they overlap each other and you'll hear it.

/Majken

I HATE this "feature" (auto-crossfades in Cubase SX). Wanna know why? 'Cause it's buggy - as in sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And there is absolutely no visual feedback whatsoever to tell me which.

Plus, if there's gonna be a fade there, I wanna see it!

[bduffy]

Playback buffers, like Samplitude's Hybrid Engine would be cool (http://www.samplitude.com/eng/sam/hybrid.html), but I have very little hope.

Time to switch, I guess

Oh yes, the old Logic trick (that's the second time this millenium Chief).

Logic is extremely efficient CPU wise with FX and VSTis. This is because only the currently selected track is running with low latency buffers and all the others are more efficient high latency buffers. Where Emagic screwed up with Logic 5/6 is that they didn't let you nominate as many low latency tracks as you wanted - eg if you are performing live with two or three keyboards you couldn't have them all active at once without screwing around with splitters in the environment or some other workaround.

Cubase puts everything on the same low latency and has everything live at once, all the time - that's partly why (in a tune with lots of plugs active) the CPU meter shows high loads with the transport stationary whereas in Logic it shows zero CPU load under that circumstance.

The trick I use now is that SX is playing (at high latency) the recorded tracks and recording (but not connected to a vsti) the new midi track(s), very low cpu usage. And use VSTHost with a very small buffer as a monitor/live host and I can still have more than one plug running.

The problem is that I use 2 cheap cards to do that and latency is not too good.
If the playback host (sx) would be able to run the plugs with a large buffer (less cpu) and split the buffer before sending them to the driver, I could use a single multi-client asio card with even better results, lower cpu and perfect sync.
Another trick is to use asio4all for the second driver (which uses wdm), and still being able to use 2 different buffer size.

Another trick is to buy a decent soundcard.

[TotcProductions]

Playback buffers, like Samplitude's Hybrid Engine would be cool (http://www.samplitude.com/eng/sam/hybrid.html), but I have very little hope.

Time to switch, I guess

Oh yes, the old Logic trick (that's the second time this millenium Chief).

Logic is extremely efficient CPU wise with FX and VSTis. This is because only the currently selected track is running with low latency buffers and all the others are more efficient high latency buffers. Where Emagic screwed up with Logic 5/6 is that they didn't let you nominate as many low latency tracks as you wanted - eg if you are performing live with two or three keyboards you couldn't have them all active at once without screwing around with splitters in the environment or some other workaround.

Cubase puts everything on the same low latency and has everything live at once, all the time - that's partly why (in a tune with lots of plugs active) the CPU meter shows high loads with the transport stationary whereas in Logic it shows zero CPU load under that circumstance.

The trick I use now is that SX is playing (at high latency) the recorded tracks and recording (but not connected to a vsti) the new midi track(s), very low cpu usage. And use VSTHost with a very small buffer as a monitor/live host and I can still have more than one plug running.

The problem is that I use 2 cheap cards to do that and latency is not too good.
If the playback host (sx) would be able to run the plugs with a large buffer (less cpu) and split the buffer before sending them to the driver, I could use a single multi-client asio card with even better results, lower cpu and perfect sync.
Another trick is to use asio4all for the second driver (which uses wdm), and still being able to use 2 different buffer size.

Another trick is to buy a decent soundcard.

!!!

[mbncp]

>> Another trick is to buy a decent soundcard.
That's not going to solve everything.
Currently I can record new midi tracks even if I have plugs with delay enabled in sx. I never need to freeze, and I can still record live tracks.
And it would be even better with a single multi-client card, the problem is that these cards cannot work with different buffer size, all apps sharing the driver must be set to the same sample rate and buffer size.

[egbert]

The Logic trick/Hyrbid engine in Samp 9 (as I understand it) are not a problem if done right. It is a smart strategy not a mistake IMO.

Say you have 10 tracks recorded - 3 midi tracks driving VSTi's and 7 audio tracks. On top of this you want to record a performance where someone is playing two new midi tracks at once - bass and Elec piano say. You only need the resource hungry low latency system working with the two tracks you are playing live - say you want to use 64 samples buffer. The program already knows what you are going to do with the other tracks so why not up the buffer size on those ones - 1024 samples or more even, could be half a second for example.

Any track with higher buffer sizes is going to be less responsive to real time fader changes - any real time changes for that matter - like changing the level on a send. What you gain is specactular low latency efficiency on what matters while conserving CPU on your already recorded tracks. This sort of resource conservation is how our own brains cope believe me.

The other brilliant thing about Logic was that a VSTi or effect only used any CPU when it was actually processing something. Say you had a tune with a big string or choral section - (eg Under the Bridge say ) where all the string/voice samples were only working in one section of the tune, In Logic, you could have your samplers and effects on their outputs all powered up but they wouldn't use any CPU till you got to the big finale when they actually had midi signals driving them. Same with intermittent audio tracks - if you have them running through a stack of FX then those FX only use CPU when audio is actually running through them - as soon as your audio clip/object ends CPU consumption for that FX chain drops to almost nil.

[bduffy]

>> Another trick is to buy a decent soundcard.
That's not going to solve everything.
Currently I can record new midi tracks even if I have plugs with delay enabled in sx. I never need to freeze, and I can still record live tracks.
And it would be even better with a single multi-client card, the problem is that these cards cannot work with different buffer size, all apps sharing the driver must be set to the same sample rate and buffer size.

Fine, but I'd focus on the experiments after I got rid of my cheap, high-latency soundcards.

[BERFAB]

I looked through the thread and followed some of the links, but couldn't find an expected release date, price, or upgrade price from SX3. Does anyone know this information? Has it been released yet?

-B

[egbert]

I looked through the thread and followed some of the links, but couldn't find an expected release date, price, or upgrade price from SX3. Does anyone know this information? Has it been released yet?-B

Besides this teaser on the MF site (and probably others soon if not already) the info on SX4 or Cubase 4 is embargoed - the beta testers etc are all on NDA. Steinberg forum moderators have said announcements will be made by the end of September so expect more teasers and then a full release of the gory details. I would expect this to be in the stores by Oct/Nov unless there is some holdup.