ask atma

ok i got a strange one for you, in cubase sx a recorded midi track on a vst instrument plays back fine, but when i play the soft synth via my keyboard or direct mouse clicks, i get a full 2 seconds delay and it won't send staccato notes. wtf? this can't be a hardware/driver problem right? i mean, it plays back fine on the sequencer so how can it be? and do you ever work with stuff in double speed mode? like to get 96 khz through adat lightpipe? i'm having trouble getting my audio routed, i'm wondering if it's worth it, or just go to 48 or even 44.1..........coz, chime in too.

ok, the lag (midi latency) you're getting is because of the audio driver you're using. you need to use an ASIO driver, otherwise you're going to get serious lag when you try controlling soft-synths from your hardware synth. in SX, go into:

Devices >> Device Setup >> VST Multitrack

now you need to select a driver for your soundcard that is ASIO. Not directx, not any other crap, but ASIO. the actual latency with that asio driver you're going to get should be adjustable in your soundcard's control panel, and right below where you select a new driver in SX, there should be a button to pop up that control panel so you can adjust the latency settings on your card. i.e., if you had an audiophile card, you'd go to it's control panel, then go to hardware settings, then where it says DMA Buffer Size, you adjust it to the smallest setting you can, without getting clicks or glitches in your audio (in other words, if one setting gives you glitches recording or playing back, you need to go to the next biggest number).

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "double speed mode", but 44.1, 48, or 96 are sample-rates. the standard samplerate is 44.1 because that's what ends up on CD. if you use a samplerate that's any higher than that, you're going to have to resample and "dither" it back down to 44.1 before you put it on a CD.

you can think of samplerates as a kind of digital resolution. the higher the samplerate, the less digital errors there will be, which will result in your quieter audio material sounding somewhat better.

see what happens with digital is that its essentially binary, you have everything represented by zeros or ones. so when you try to represent analog audio in this manner, anything that's inbetween those numbers either has to go one way or the other, so this leads to tiny quantization errors (nothing to do with beat-quantizing). so if you have a sample rate of 22, everything is going to start sounding kind of digitally chunky--it's because of all the digital quantization errors. if you set the samplerate to 44, you now have twice as much space for the analog information to go, because there's more resolution... if that makes sense..

anyway, it's my opinion that basically it's a waste of time to record things at anything else but 44.1, because CDs use use that and you have to resample your shit for it to go on a CD if you use anything else.

P.S. once you change your driver to an asio one, it's a good idea to run the asio driver setup thingy. in your windows start menu, go to the cubase folder and in there you should see it, it's called asio multimedia setup or something like that. run that and have it test your cards drivers so it knows what the latency times are and so forth, you can read the help file associated with it if it's confusing..

also, if you want some software, you can log onto EFNET, and check out #audioappz. i'm in there sometimes, and they have automated freeservers set up where you can download basically any audio program or file you want. just ask if you need help using the fservers, or recommendations for plugins/synths/whatever. good luck...

yeah i was all up in the drivers and buffer settings already, the drivers it lets me select are ASIO DirectX Full Duplex which doesn't work at all, the ASIO Multimedia driver which is the only one that works, and the driver for the nuendo 96/52 card ASIO Digi96 36/52 but that driver doesn't give me any output either. All my hardware suggested that the buffers should be set to max and still operate fine, but even when i cut down the buffers and there size i'm getting the same thing.........oh and the double speed thing, my nuendo 8 I/O sends the audio via ADAT lightpipe after the AD conversion to the 96/52 card. light pipe will handle 8 channels of 48 khz, but the 8 I/O in ds mode will send 4 channels of 96khz down the line instead. it has aux in and out for the digital so i can still send 8 channels, it just uses 2 pairs of digital ports on the card itself (it has 3) the clock and everything still remains at 48 khz though and the 8 I/O is the actual master of the system, maybe i should just make the card the master and get back to 44.1? i doubt i'd really tell the difference anyway :donno:

Ok, this is blind on my part but I would assume that the card should be the master of the system. The fact that only the asio multimedia driver will work sounds like your computer is setup with windows multimedia as your default sound system, which then controls your nuendo, thus the lag. Maybe you can fix that in control panels by changing it to the nuendo. Do you still have your old soundcard installed? If so then that may be the reason.

All I know is that if you had a mac you'd be making music now...heheheh :flipoff:

yeah i was thinking that, the old sound card is still installed, and shows up in some of the settings window, i want to just rip it out, but the nuendo manual said that it should not be set as the preferred device in the control panel, but maybe i'll change that shit anyway.........i dropped that double speed shit and went to 44.1, and i'm getting stereo playback now at least, but the spidf in from my sampler is losing all kindsa sync n shit.............why did i have to pick this? why couldn't i just pick up some drum sticks or a guitar or somethin when i was little? much simpler :) i'll figure it out though, i aint got the synth hardware to get real tracks goin, so i got until then to get everything working smoothly :thumup:

ok, you definately need to be using the driver for your specific card, which would be the nuendo hardware driver, or whatever it's called. if you're not getting audio output from it, it's because you dont have shit set up right in cubase, you need to assign that card to the inputs/outputs in SX. you'll probably need to read through your card's manual and then go in and adjust some other settings on the control panel. i'd assume that you need to set the master clock to spdif IN on your card if you want your sampler to send stuff properly through digital i/o.

all the other directx asio, and multimedia asio are worthless man, you're gonna get ridiculous latency using those.

:thumup: now playing vst instruments in real time and i almost have my buffers at max too!, that was all it was atma (why didn't i check that?), it defaults the out bus to my adat 1 port, but i'm using the adat 2 port, it seems to do so every new project though, i doubt i'll have to change it every time though, i'll look through.....or maybe just save a custom palate for my projects (which i planned to do anyway) with all the midi tracks set up for my gear and all...........ok now i'm set, next to start integrating hardware audio for internal mixing, hopefully no more latency with that.......but i doubt i'm that lucky :)

cool.

remember, the asio buffer settings on your card's control panel should be set at the lowest number possible (the lower the number, lower latency for audio/midi).

the buffers in cubase's settings are more to do with RAM. if you get glitches recording or playing back, then you need to increase the size of the buffers &/or increase the number of buffers in SX.

somebody bought the last virus C we had today :cry: that shit's like losing my gurl........oh well still got the nord 3 to fuck off on all day

http://www.hot.ee/nipro53/

grab that. native instruments pro-53. nice synth, & a fairly good emulation of the original prophet 5 from the 80s.

dope! once again, you the shit atma

i've been peepin native instruments, i was gonna get a nord 3 but i figured fuck it, there's i can do more with stuff like battery(specially with the expansion packages), fm7, absynth, reaktor 3 (well, i'll wait till i get into the soft synth stuff more before i fuck with that one) i got a knobby and a slide mate ready for em.........still want a virus kc and a roland unit, it's nice to have some hardware at least

yo, you guys seen these:

http://www.evolution-uk.com/

too bad we don't carry them at the store, they look dope as hell though....they'd put an end to the oxygen 8s if given the chance

atma can you tell me some progarms that are good for remixes n shit..
:thumup:

traktor by native instruments

ya, traktor, and also you might like something like sonic foundry's ACID which is more of an audio based sequencer where you can easily arrange loops and apply fx, etc. or even something like fruity loops would be better than mixman. you could just grab all those and try them and figure out for yourself which program(s) will best suit your needs.

thanx :thumup: :thumup:

i have an ask atma too...
why won't cakewalk effin' let me use 32nd notes???!

gotta set your quantize setting to 32..

your probably better off with traktor or acid than fruity loops hiero, i really wasn't too impressed by it....the synths in it aint half bad though i gotta admit and the simplicity of it is nice too, but the other 2 are more capable me thinks........you ever get some soft synths workin E?


and atma, you ever have problems with a program after it's been running for a while? just over all clunkiness and even latency and plain closing itself after running for a while, problem just started with the SX........(and yeah i know coz, "if you were just on a damn mac......") :lol:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Told ya...heheheh

BTW, ya'll CDs will be a lil delayed. Just redid my pc today, but I got meetings tomorrow and Wednesday. Hopefully this piece of crap will prove to be stable by Thursday and then some reason to be cheerful will be on it's way. :wink:

actually fruity is way more functional than traktor, traktor is more like a virtual DJ setup, something you can use in live situations, or whatever. in my opinion the synths and all the misc. crap in fruity loops is all garbage, but as far as a basic sampler/sequencer, it's one of the quickest and easiest things to put together beats or loops with, and all the panning, envelopes, filters, fx are all right there to quickly access.

anyway, no, i dont have any problems like that frek. i still say you need more than 128mb ram for sure, but i have no idea why your programs would be having major problems like that. just keep in mind that any fx your run, and especially any softsynths you start running can begin to eat up massive amounts of CPU, so the more virtual shit you try to run simultaneously, the more likely your system is going to start freezing up or acting erratically and crashing.

you can select VST performance in cubases menu to see how much of your CPU is being used up, or how much your hard drive is stressing out. if you see big jumps in that when you get glitches or sluggishness or whatever, then your system is probably overloading.

the more ram, the better... you can also try adjusting the buffer sizes and buffer numbers in cubase if your system is glitching

Quote:

---

gotta set your quantize setting to 32..

---

thank you!! but how do i do it? i went to edit>... but it won't let me click it.

Quote:

---

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Told ya...heheheh

---

Yeah, checking into a g4 i found out i can get a student discount and they got some rebates n shit but its still $5749.00 but that's the dual 1.25 ghz packed with 2 gigs of ram, dual scsi drives, and a 17" lcd monitor........dope computer, but damn even taking the ram and monitor out only knocks off like a grand +........but it'd be nice (that and getting the steinberg rep to hook me up with nuendo 2.0) :wink:

i can also finance it through apple for only $51.00 a month......but a g10'll be out by the time i pay that shit off :rofl:

Yo, thats the absolute top of the line shit. Scatch the scsi drives and controller also, that's at least another grand, maybe 1 and a half. I don't know if they'll scratch the superdrive but if they will get rid of that shit too. You can always add 1 later, I'm gonna pick up a firewire 1 next week.

actually that's already without the superdrive shit, just the regular one. i doubt i'd need the super anyway really. with no scsi, only 512 ram and no monitor the shit's only 28 hundred.......but i'd really want dual drives to keep audio and everything else separate and the scsi's are just so much faster than regular hard drives and yeah that's a grand and a half + right there for dual 72 gig scsi...the fukkin ram is like 7-8 hundred, it's tempting to just get cheap shit for like a fifth that price, gotta really look into wtf the difference is and why/if apple ram is better and the 17" monitor would just be a present to me really, even if it's dope as hell it's still just a damn monitor, but with the system and rebates it's only like 600 for the lcd........been doin my homework though, all these cats with there dual 2ghz + pc's look at the 1.25 g4 like it aint shit, but that g4'll hang right there, the system is so solid, it makes that number deceiving, 18.3 gigaflops, specially for a cubase user is dope, i be gigafloppin all up in that shit :lol: ..........fuck i want one a these damn things :)

jesus man--just fucking get accustomed to using a pc for music in the first place, you dont need an insane studio quality mac running all your shit at this point. macs ARE sick, but all my friends that run macs really dont have huge advantages, they crash all the time, and they're still gonna choke the fuck up if you're trying to run mad amounts of software plugins/synths/whatever. you're also not going to have access to most of the audio software out there for macs, i can't even find cracked mac audio software, that's like extremely rare for me to ever see it.

coz was saying he was running like 2 plugins at once, at max i think. i dont have a great PC but i run like seperate compressors on every channel, different reverbs, soft samplers and synths, etc. etc. simultaneously without too much trouble.

i'd really try to get used to the computer environment for audio and learn all the basic shit before you get gung ho and buy a 5 grand mac. it might be several years before you're ready to drop a serious album--i mean, i spent about a year just learning as much as i could about production techniques, like compression, digital editing, and mastering. and it took that long before i was confident that i knew what i was doing. so i'd say just chill out and learn as much as you get and get used to different software, see what you like working with, and then in time when you really need to get an insane workstation mac, then go for it.

yeah don't get me wrong, i wouldn't even be able to afford a new computer for like almost a year and by the time i can mac just might have a dual 2 ghz model out, i'm just kinda doin homework now (and yeah gettin caught up in alot of it too ;) )as for the pc for now, i'm able to get a decent number of vst instruments up with effects (but that cpu meter goes fukkin nuts when i do) and no way am i ready to get into any really serious recording yet............but yeah it does seem alot of the software out there is still trying to catch up to osX, but they'll get there..... but damn, macs are dope...............oh and i may have brought up the cubase system link shit before but i just got word that cubase will be releasing a kind of shell program to just house vst instruments on a particular computer, kind of like making that computer into a big old rack to hold a bunch of synths while another computer does all the sequencing or audio and shit.........that shit is cool, and it's not platform dependent, so you could have like a mac as the brain and a suped up pc as the muscle......pretty cool shit, maybe i can get a setup like that at over at work going (and then hide the dongle so it's all mine :) )

Quote:

---

you're also not going to have access to most of the audio software out there for macs, i can't even find cracked mac audio software, that's like extremely rare for me to ever see it.

coz was saying he was running like 2 plugins at once, at max i think. i dont have a great PC but i run like seperate compressors on every channel, different reverbs, soft samplers and synths, etc. etc. simultaneously without too much trouble.

---

alt.binaries.mac.applications...get all the cracked, or release mac audio software you need. You can also go to alt.binaries.mac, alt.binaries.mac.cd-images, alt.binaries.mac.osx.apps, and if ya wanna play some games...alt.binaries.mac.games. There's a shitload more but these are the main ones that I use. Maybe you should tell your boys about this, cause just like on the pc side I DON'T PAY FOR SHIT!!!...heheheh.

Your memory is a little fuzzy there, but anyway, how's this? Just did a mix with 28 trax of audio, independent eq and compression on each track, about 8 trax with various plug-ins inserted, and 2 stereo busses with independent waves truverb plug-ins. Nice and smooth baby! Now remember, this is on a 333mhz (66 mhz system bus) G3 with a 500mhz G4 zif socket upgrade...and only 384 megs of ram. It's a freakin slowly creepin dinosaur...but it's loyal and almost never fails me. The computer that FrEk is talking about is at least 10X more powerfull than mine.

If your friends macs are always crashing then they are ABSOLUTELY doing something wrong, nobody I know that runs them for music ever has that problem unless they're either running buggy software or they fukk their system up (believe me, not impossible). You can give them my email and maybe I can help them out, though they are probably running better and more up to date machines than mine.

BTW...my wonderfull PC is still down, sorry guys. I fixed 1 problem but now I have another, and she's still pretty unstable. Hopefully I can figure it all out this week. I may just trash the motherboard and cpu and go P4, AMD and me just don't seem to get along. I would burn the CDs on the mac but I only have a 8X on it, should get it done this week though.

yo check this shit out:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=2065059827

quantity: 13
2 days left

hmmmm......http://smilies.networkessence.net/cwm/3dlil/idea.gif



i don't know, think it's for real? he's got a good feedback rating, but all his transactions are too old to view........but it's only a 3 day auction, so that price'll probably be toast by the time 13 headz get to bidding

Yo, I'm gonna keep my eyes on that shit and if the price don't get too high, I WILL BE BUYING ONE!!! :rock: :rock: :rock:

ya no shit, that's ridiculous. wish i had a spare grand or so for one of em :(

here's a beta version of some beat i did like a week back, definately nothing special, but i forgot i put it up, and coz you wanted to hear something of mine, so there you go:

http://www.pmdawnonline.com/~atma/ATMA%20-...DEAD%20CITY.mp3

it's a few solid hours of work (mostly sample editing and mundane shit).. it might end up ok if i spend a bit more time on it.

yo that shit's pretty hot, you gonna add vocals?

i think that shit on ebay disappeared

Yo, That shit is phat as hell Atma! I know a few MCs who would spit on that shit in a minnit! :rock: :rock: :rock:

Awww mannnn!!! That's fukked up, maybe he found some local buyers for them.

check this shit:

http://www.showdown.net/tech/g5_large.jpg















too bad it's fake :)

man what you should do, is think about saving up like a grand or so and buy some speaker monitors.. like maybe the newer mackie HR624 or something like that.. helps a lot to have monitors instead of some shitty consumer speakers.

yeah i've heard alot about those, people have been swearin by them, i've got a pair of alesis monitor 2's (not the greatest) but the next shit i get will be a roland xv 5080 and an evolution midi controller, i'll worry about new monitors way way down the line

did some sampling earlier today.... here's the basic loop, it's sort of uh.. jazzy i guess, it's also kind of a mess, but whatever:


http://www.pmdawnonline.com/~atma/atma%20-...0-%20willow.mp3

fuck man! can you rap too? you could be makin green man, no doubt....the syncopation in that shit is dope keep workin shit man