KVR Audio

JerGoertz · Post by **JerGoertz** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:51 pm

Hi,

I've been on Cubase 3 SX for many (> 5) years, but it's been crashing recently, and I think this may be due to some more modern plugins I've recently started using. I figure Cubase 6 might fix my situation there. I'm also unsatisfied with the way SX 3 does declicking of audio clips. The "align sizing with zero crossings" option (or whatever its called) doesn't seem to do much, probably because I'm working with stereo clips so there's no guarantee the zero-crossings of the 2 channels will coincide. I tried to use the fade in/out and envelope processes, but these still seem to leave noticeable clicks. FLStudio seems to have a great implementation of audio clip click-removal, with fade in/out gain envelopes that actually remove the click.

Any opinions about whether I should upgrade?

-Jer

Johnny! · Post by **Johnny!** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:01 am

CS3SX is ancient software, you should definitely move on to something newer

JerGoertz · Post by **JerGoertz** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:38 am

Tehnik wrote:CS3SX is ancient software, you should definitely move on to something newer

If it weren't for the crashes and the issues with audio clip declicking, I would probably still be perfectly happy with it. "Old" doesn't matter if it suits a person's purposes.

Do you have any opinions about my specific issues?

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 2:13 am

I don't have Cubase 6. I'm not an early adopter, I don't follow lot of changes people decide are de rigeur from some hype. I was sorely tempted to go right away to C6 out of the whole 'note expression', VST 3.5 thing, but remembered how dodgy .zero and .01 versions are historically.

But I went from SX2 to Cubase 5 and I'm extremely happy I did. If you have a guess your stability issues correlate with newer plug-in versions and all other things are equal it's an educated guess I think.

Grain Bastard · Post by **Grain Bastard** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 3:01 am

It's been a while since I used sx3 but I'm sure it had auto cross fades you could activate to stop clicking. Or you grab the little blue arrow and drag a little fade in or out. You don't need much to so zoom in and you see the waveform update in real time.

Can't do much about the plug crashing tho. If they're upto date and their support forum isn't full of people moaning it might be something other than software. Random crashes are hard to pin point their cause.

JerGoertz · Post by **JerGoertz** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 3:12 am

Grain Bastard wrote:It's been a while since I used sx3 but I'm sure it had auto cross fades you could activate to stop clicking. Or you grab the little blue arrow and drag a little fade in or out. You don't need much to so zoom in and you see the waveform update in real time.

Can't do much about the plug crashing tho. If they're upto date and their support forum isn't full of people moaning it might be something other than software. Random crashes are hard to pin point their cause.

Thanks dude. The crashes seem to be related to some recent FXpansion products (BFD Eco, maybe SynthSquad synths). When I load them in FLStudio 10, all seems to go smoothly, so it's quite likely a specific interaction with 3 SX. But I'm downloading the latest versions of my soundcard drivers to be sure!

Using the fade in/out options in the audio edit menu (or whatever it's called) doesn't always stop the click, that's what's frustrating (even if put the envelope all the way down at the clip's intro). But thanks for reminding me about the little blue handles, I had totally forgotten about them and they might just do the trick.

JerGoertz · Post by **JerGoertz** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 3:13 am

jancivil wrote:I don't have Cubase 6. I'm not an early adopter, I don't follow lot of changes people decide are de rigeur from some hype. I was sorely tempted to go right away to C6 out of the whole 'note expression', VST 3.5 thing, but remembered how dodgy .zero and .01 versions are historically.

But I went from SX2 to Cubase 5 and I'm extremely happy I did. If you have a guess your stability issues correlate with newer plug-in versions and all other things are equal it's an educated guess I think.

Okay, thanks for your perspective. You ever have the "clicking" problem with audio clips & the Cubase solutions not working?

geroyannis · Post by **geroyannis** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 3:21 am

There's a trial version here. Go ahead and try it. I'm sure you're going to upgrade.

MickGael · Post by **MickGael** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:15 am

In case you do not know, Cubase 6 (which I am very happy with) only supports Windows 7. From what I see on the official forum, some people are run on XP (but there is no official support for them).

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:20 am

JerGoertz wrote: Okay, thanks for your perspective. You ever have the "clicking" problem with audio clips & the Cubase solutions not working?

Well, what I do is what I did then, I zoom in to 'below 1' as they say, where you draw out the click with a pencil. I'm not sure there's a difference in functionality in this regards.

lotus2035 · Post by **lotus2035** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:36 am

There's someone selling Cubase Studio 4 here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4810623

No idea if its gone or not.

Features from Cubase Studio 4 listed here:

http://www.steinberg.net/fileadmin/reda ... 071022.pdf

Might be some use to you and a fair bit cheaper than the full upgrade to 6.

sqigls · Post by **sqigls** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:37 am

In my opinion, 'official support' is a strange phrase when it comes to Steinberg. I haven't had to submit any customer support requests with v6 though, so I'm not sure if they are any better now?

v6 runs on XP, but XP is ancient software too, since I've gone to Win7 I've had very few crashes. And the crashes I'e had were mostly to do with changing patches too fast in a 3rd party vst synth for example. I can honestly say that Win7 crashes FAAAAAAR less than XP, in my experience.

I feel that features such as re-orderable inserts are probably the only reason I could not compose in SX3 anymore, v4 probably would have been good enough for me, I only upgraded to v6 to be compatiable with my studio partner. I'm glad though, v6 is the stablest version yet, in my experience. v6 also has lots of handy little improvements which reduce clicking here and there, but it also has no ability to export a god-dang FXP!!!!! (or does it? people help!)

MickGael · Post by **MickGael** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:00 am

sqigls wrote:I haven't had to submit any customer support requests with v6 though, so I'm not sure if they are any better now?

Official as defined by an actual support ticket. In my case, the support was good.

ford442 · Post by **ford442** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:22 am

i went from VST to SX 2 to Studio 4 to Cubase 6 and i am happy with just the move from CS4 to C6 - it is up to handling all of the new plugs including 64bit and VST3 functions.. it loads faster and installing the full product again is quick and clean..
the interface has been drastically updated since the SX versions - handling chunks of audio and MIDI is very streamlined.. i do a lot of MIDI sequencing in C6 and i feel like it was worth the money.. the included plugs in 6 are better and modern.. you get a lot of creative potential owning a full fledged modern DAW.. i don't know how SX3 dealt with multiple cores or large amounts of RAM, but i am thankful that C6 lets me use the full CPU power of my rig and of my future computers and software..

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 6:21 am

MickGael wrote:
sqigls wrote:I haven't had to submit any customer support requests with v6 though, so I'm not sure if they are any better now?

Official as defined by an actual support ticket. In my case, the support was good.

right. it's funny, many people seem to think the forums are support, they are not. I've never had poor support, in fact it's been unbelievably good. the forums are Bizarro World Steinberg.

Help me decide whether to upgrade to Cubase 6