Cubase Frustration

[JonPorobil]

For the last year and a half, I've been increasinly relying on Cubase LE 4 for my recording and less on Audition. This has not been a matter of choice. I lost my old Audition install, and to be honest it wasn't a legitimate copy to begin with, so I can't replace it. Also, Audition doesn't allow for MIDI writing, and the Cubase piano roll/drumroll has become an essential step in my process.

However, there's a few things about Cubase LE 4 that drive me up the wall. I'm thinking about upgrading to Cubase 5 or 6, but before I do so, I'd like some assurance that it will actually fix my Cubase problems.

1.) When I load up a new project, it invariably fails to load my ASIO driver. I get an error message telling me that the ASIO drive could not be started, and then I have to open up the drivers submenu and "reset" the driver. Sometimes I have to do this multiple times.

2.) It often registers an "unexpected error" at the end of recording a take. I have to save the project and restart the program when this happens.

3.) It always registers one of these unexpected errors when I try to process an audio track via destructive editing.

4.) There are no volume envelopes. Resolved. Thanks, Sam!

5.) Often when selecting or resizing - any feature that requires me to hold down the mouse button while scrolling, really - the program will seem to freeze. I regain control as soon as I let go of the mouse button, but it ruins the precision of whatever I was trying to select, move, or resize.

6.) My tilt-wheel mouse does not scroll right and left.

7.) When Cubase is not the active window, I need to click on it twice to do anything. Once to bring the window back to "active" status and once to do the thing I wanted to do in the first place. For instance, I'm listening to some of the tracks for my next album right now. I often click over to an Openoffice window to write down some notes during playback. Let's say I want to stop the playback now. I click right on the "stop" icon, but it doesn't do anything. I have to click on "stop" again to make it actually stop. This is a minor issue, but it's more frustrating every time it comes up. edit: Looks like this is going to be a problem, no matter what version of Cubase I'm on. Oh well; this was the most minor of the bunch.

8.) I can non-destructively apply effects such as compression or reverb to a whole track, but not to individual audio files within that track. So for instance, in my "Blame it on Ginger," the first four lines of the third verse are softer than the rest of the rap, and I wanted the vocals on that part to be "naked," without the StereoPan effect or compression that affected the rest of the vocal. To accomplish that, I had to create a whole new track with just that one part. I'd really like to be able to selectively add and remove effects by file, as opposed to by track. Resolved; thanks, Lunkhead!

9.) Takes. When I record a line and screw it up (which is most of the time, of course), I hit "stop," but the cursor does not revert back to where it was when I started recording. Instead I need to manually replace it with the mouse between each take. Resolved: thanks, Ken!

I know there's at least a few of you guys who use Cubase and swear by it, and now that I'm accustomed to the way it works, I feel like I could become very proficient in using it to make the kind of music that I want to make. It's a powerful piece of software, and I'd like to invest in it when the paychecks start coming in from my new job. But these issues are dealbreakers. I don't want to pay $250-$450 for a piece of software that will continue to act up the way LE4 does.

So, Cubase users of Songfight, will upgrading fix this stuff?

[ken]

I haven't used LE, so I can't really say whether it is the program, your computer or you. I will try to address whatever I actually might have experience with.

1. I use a number of different devices and often have to switch my driver. This takes two or three clicks. If I leave the same device plugged in it seems to remember which is the correct driver.

2.) I do not get errors when recording.

3.) I do not get errors when processing tracks.

4.) I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can click on the waveform itself and adjust the volume of that piece of audio. You can also do fade ins and outs there.

5.) i do not have this problem, though the trackpad/mousebutton on my laptop is fussy.

6.) I don't know what a titmouse has to do with anything.

7.) Two clicks. Man up.

8.)You can automate tracks to turn effects on and off, but I actually find it easier to just make a new track and put it there.

9.) If you click the stop button a second time it will take you back to the spot it started at. Be thankful you aren't using a tape machine and have to rewind the tape each time.

Ken

[Lunkhead]

4.) I really thought there were, but it's possible they stripped that feature out for LE. LE is definitely missing some stuff that I use a lot in the full version (one thing that comes to mind is the beat calculator that lets you tap in a tempo). Assuming the feature is there in LE, you should be able to drag the upper-left and upper-right corners of a waveform's box to set a fade-in and a fade-out, respectively.

8.) Automation is your friend. You don't even necessarily have to "record" all the automation in realtime by hand. There should be little "circle with a V" icons in your track controls that let you expand down your track to show more than just the waveform. In there you can show tracks for the automation for all kinds of stuff and you can use the drawing tools to draw in the automation.

9.) What Ken said, and there should also be a preference for changing the behavior so that the transport goes back to the last starting point when you stop automatically every time, without having to stop twice.

1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7.) This is the kind of stuff that is generally not an issue on a Mac. I know it's not an option and I know I sound like a broken record. I really don't know how people put up with that stuff, though.

[JonPorobil]

4.) I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can click on the waveform itself and adjust the volume of that piece of audio. You can also do fade ins and outs there.

Non-destructive, in-file adjustment of volume. For instance, in Audition, If I have a section of piano where I pounded a little too loud, I can manually put in two points on either side of the loud section and drag down the middle so that it's softer than the rest of the file. Sounds like, based on Sam's comments, the full version has this feature. I always thought it was kind of key for any DAW, so I was surprised that Cubase didn't seem to have it.

9.) If you click the stop button a second time it will take you back to the spot it started at. Be thankful you aren't using a tape machine and have to rewind the tape each time.

Holy crap, a year and a half of putting up with this program and I never figured that out. Thanks!

[JonPorobil]

8.) Automation is your friend. You don't even necessarily have to "record" all the automation in realtime by hand. There should be little "circle with a V" icons in your track controls that let you expand down your track to show more than just the waveform. In there you can show tracks for the automation for all kinds of stuff and you can use the drawing tools to draw in the automation.

Sorry, I didn't really understand anything about what you just described. However, the fact that the "circle with a V" icon you're talking about doesn't seem to exist in my version of Cubase gives me hope that my issue would be addressed by upgrading.

[Lunkhead]

Sorry, I didn't really understand anything about what you just described. However, the fact that the "circle with a V" icon you're talking about doesn't seem to exist in my version of Cubase gives me hope that my issue would be addressed by upgrading.

Check out this screenshot somebody posted of Cubase:



Full image:

http://img.emuleday.com/data/img/a5/a5a ... 163fd4.jpg

Look for the track "Heaven Lead Vocal". Under it you can see the automation info for "Volume". You'll see that they have drawn in a line that starts out flat, curves down then back up to a point, then angles down in a straight line, then goes flat again. To show automation info like that, you need to mouse over the area above and to the left of the green "R" for the "Volume" track, the area at the bottom of the blue box with "7" in it, for the "Heaven Lead Vocal" track.If you mouse over the right area, there "circle with a v in it" icon should show up. (It's only visible if you mouse over the right spot.)

[JonPorobil]

Ohhhhhh. That also contains access to volume enveloping as I know it. Two more down, then.

Thanks, guys!

Do you know if later/fuller versions have an automation type for "wetness" of inserted effects? Scratch that, I found it.

[Lunkhead]

Oh, and in the full version at least, in the middle of the top border of a selected waveform there should be a little black square you can drag up and down to non-destructively change the volume of just that one piece of recorded audio in a track.

[ken]

You might also try using the range selection tool to select a part of you file that is too loud and then process it with a negative gain. I would think that wouldn't be too hard. Sadly, it is sooo much easier to cut the wav on either side of the problem section and pull down the volume on it. Sooo easy in regular Cubase.

If it makes you feel any better, I set up a friend with Nuendo many years ago when I was using it and a few years later went back to see how he was doing. You couldn't imagine his surprise when I hit F3 and brought up the mixer. He had NO IDEA it existed and had been mixing his tracks using the project window.

You learn a lot when you collaborate with others who use the same program. I've upgraded to Cubase 5 recently and have to learn new shortcuts because not everything works the way I'm used to from Cubase SX3.

Ken

[JonPorobil]

Oh, and in the full version at least, in the middle of the top border of a selected waveform there should be a little black square you can drag up and down to non-destructively change the volume of just that one piece of recorded audio in a track.

Yes, I can do that in my version, too (in mine the little square is blue, but I bet that's configurable). I had been laboring under the impression that that was the ONLY volume control I had. Thanks for showing me otherwise.

You might also try using the range selection tool to select a part of you file that is too loud and then process it with a negative gain. I would think that wouldn't be too hard. Sadly, it is sooo much easier to cut the wav on either side of the problem section and pull down the volume on it. Sooo easy in regular Cubase.

I can do that, but then I fall victim to problem #3. Also, I just prefer envelopes because they make changes more visible and easier to undo.

If it makes you feel any better, I set up a friend with Nuendo many years ago when I was using it and a few years later went back to see how he was doing. You couldn't imagine his surprise when I hit F3 and brought up the mixer. He had NO IDEA it existed and had been mixing his tracks using the project window.

You learn a lot when you collaborate with others who use the same program. I've upgraded to Cubase 5 recently and have to learn new shortcuts because not everything works the way I'm used to from Cubase SX3.

Ken

That does make me feel better. For a while I was one of maybe three Songfighters using N-Track, and then I was one of only two who continued using Audition after Adobe bought Cool Edit Pro. It's nice to have a DAW that other people use - I can actually ask other people if they've found clever workarounds for things.

Anyway, I'm definitely going to upgrade to the full version of Cubase 6 when my paychecks start coming in. Thanks for the help, guys!

[Billy's Little Trip]

1.) When I load up a new project, it invariably fails to load my ASIO driver. I get an error message telling me that the ASIO drive could not be started, and then I have to open up the drivers submenu and "reset" the driver. Sometimes I have to do this multiple times.
A. Are you starting your computer with your interface plugged in to the computer and powered up? It should automatically assign the right asio driver if powered up with turning on your computer. Then open Cubase, THEN go to file and open your project. That's how I do it and never have this issue. But it could be different for you.

2.) It often registers an "unexpected error" at the end of recording a take. I have to save the project and restart the program when this happens.
A. This happens to me when I start having a lot of tracks and heavy fx per track. Emptying your trash helps a ton. It saves EVERYTHING even if you deleted stuff. I will turn off fx on tracks when this starts to happen and turn them back on to mix and export.

3.) It always registers one of these unexpected errors when I try to process an audio track via destructive editing.
A. Same as #2

4.) There are no volume envelopes. Resolved. Thanks, Sam!

5.) Often when selecting or resizing - any feature that requires me to hold down the mouse button while scrolling, really - the program will seem to freeze. I regain control as soon as I let go of the mouse button, but it ruins the precision of whatever I was trying to select, move, or resize.
A. Not sure what you are saying/doing. Might have to do with your double click issue. It's like it freezes because it's not clicked? *shrugs*

6.) My tilt-wheel mouse does not scroll right and left.
A. I don't use side to side scrolling so I don't know.

7.) When Cubase is not the active window, I need to click on it twice to do anything. Once to bring the window back to "active" status and once to do the thing I wanted to do in the first place. For instance, I'm listening to some of the tracks for my next album right now. I often click over to an Openoffice window to write down some notes during playback. Let's say I want to stop the playback now. I click right on the "stop" icon, but it doesn't do anything. I have to click on "stop" again to make it actually stop. This is a minor issue, but it's more frustrating every time it comes up. edit: Looks like this is going to be a problem, no matter what version of Cubase I'm on. Oh well; this was the most minor of the bunch.
A. The only time this happens to me is when my mouse batteries are low or my wireless receiver is not getting a good range/signal from my mouse. I do know that Cubase is very needy when open. I notice that even going online while Cubase is open can slow things down. Cubase wants all the attention when open.

8.) I can non-destructively apply effects such as compression or reverb to a whole track, but not to individual audio files within that track. So for instance, in my "Blame it on Ginger," the first four lines of the third verse are softer than the rest of the rap, and I wanted the vocals on that part to be "naked," without the StereoPan effect or compression that affected the rest of the vocal. To accomplish that, I had to create a whole new track with just that one part. I'd really like to be able to selectively add and remove effects by file, as opposed to by track. Resolved; thanks, Lunkhead!
A. I didn't read what Lunk wrote yet, but I just move parts on a track that I want different fx on, to it's own new track. Either by duplicating the track and cutting off everything but the part I want FX different, then change my fx, or just use a new track. You CAN increase/decrease gain, fade in/out, etc on a part on the same track.

9.) Takes. When I record a line and screw it up (which is most of the time, of course), I hit "stop," but the cursor does not revert back to where it was when I started recording. Instead I need to manually replace it with the mouse between each take. Resolved: thanks, Ken!
A. I didn't read what Ken suggested, but you hit stop once to stop and a second time to move the cursor to the beginning where it started. Or in transport, hit "locate previous/next marker" assuming you are recording in a loop.