Cubase Sucks - Presonus Sucks

[rexde]

(and Microsoft sucks)

I bought a Presonus Firestudio Project bundled with Cubase LE4 at the end last year and it still doesn't work. I have spent a lot of time with Presonus tech support and Cubase tech support, and I have done everything they have told me, including buying more equipment, and it still doesn't work. I have asked many times about system configurations and what I should be able to expect, and I have gotten vague answers, but always something like 'that should work fine'. Well, it doesn't. It sucks. I am trying to record 4 audio tracks and three MIDI tracks, and I can't get more than 10 seconds of playback before the pops and skips.
On Aug 30 I sent a request for tech support to Cubase. I'm lucky if they respond once a day, and they will ask me one question each day, just to prolong this agony. Today they sent me this email:


"It sounds like a hardware issue with the hard drives.

What kind of audio interface or soundcard are you using?"

Wow, fucking brilliant. Especially since way back on Aug 30 I included this in an email:

> Platform: PC
> OS: Windows XP SP2
> CPU/Computer model: Intel Pentium 4
> Clock speed: P4 HT - 3.0 GHz
> Mainboard/Chipset: HP/Compaq Intel
> RAM (MB): 768
> Audio Hardware/Driver version: Presonus Firestudio Project Driver version:3.0.1.108
> MIDI Interface/Driver version: Presonus Firestudio Project Driver version:3.0.1.108

We've also had detailed discussions about what hard drives I have used.

Brandon, I'd like to suggest that you add some warning information in your soundcard wizard for people getting into recording. Basically, it is much more time-consuming, expensive, and soul-sucking than it appears.

I am now 9 months into this, and I can't play 10 goddamn seconds of audio.

[richiebee]

You have a piddly amount of RAM which surely won't help. What are the MIDI tracks driving? What are the specs of your hard drives? Are you using any VST instruments or effects? When was the last time you defragged your hard drive? Do you run real time anti-virus protection? Do you surf the web? Do you like porn sites? Do you have bit torrent software? What are your buffer settings?

I understand your frustration. Tech support isn't always the best answer. It's unfortunate, but there are so many thigns that could influence your performance, that its incredibly hard to do anything other than make suggestions.

Answer all the above, and we'll see if there's anything that tech support has missed.

[Vulconizer]

Goat porn and Cubase do not mix well. Trust me...

[rexde]

Vulconizer: Thank you, I'll burn my goat porn onto DVD's.

Richiebee:
What are the MIDI tracks driving?
- 3 VST Instruments, very simple
What are the specs of your hard drives?
- I have tried an internal 4200RPM, an external firewire 7200RPM and an external USB 7200RPM. Strangely, the slow internal drive performs best. However, in all cases, the Cubase "DISK" performance meter shows zero activity, until it (playback) suddenly freezes, peaks at 100, then continues...
Are you using any VST instruments or effects?
- 3 VST instruments, some EQ on the audio tracks
When was the last time you defragged your hard drive?
- Before recording
Do you run real time anti-virus protection?
- No
Do you surf the web?
- Not with this PC
Do you like porn sites?
- Not with this PC
Do you have bit torrent software?
- No
What are your buffer settings?
- I tried several different settings on my firestudio from the min to the max


To All:
In less than 1/2 hour, Richiebee asked more comprehensive relevant questions than Steinberg and Presonus have in about 9 months.

[Vulconizer]

Richiebee just plain rocks.

I hope you get your problems sorted out, rexde. Cubase can be an excellent program and a lot of fun.

I'm not much of a computer guy, so I'm little help. I'm good at trying to make a joke to keep it from being so frustrating though.

[adorian]

I will try the Steinberg forum first if I were you, usually the people on there are more knowledgeable that Steinberg staff.
Cubase.net .:::. View Forum - Cubase LE | AI 4 for Mac OS X & PC Windows

There are many things that could be causing your problem and not necessarily coming from either Presonus or Cubase. Setup on Windows OS for audio is a total b*tch and this is coming from a systems administrator. I hated it so much that I actually tried a Mac. Your card basically hooks flawlessly to the Mac, you install Cubase and go.

A few steps to try:

- Try this:
Device Setup->Midi->Midi Port Setup
Make sure "use system timestamp for windows midi input" is checked.
- Do a much simpler test - only one audio track at a time and see if it records. If it doesn't - try changing the drivers by d/loading the latest from Presonus.

-Try different recording program. D/load say Reaper and see how it record in there or some other program, plenty of trial software to see if at least it records.

- Make sure your OS and software are on one drive and you're recording audio to another drive, preferably both of them at 7200rpm minimum and not chained to the firewire after the Presonus card but on separate firewire or USB ports. If USB ports - make sure they're USB 2.0 as that could be a big difference.

- Look into the firewire card you have and the chipset, make sure it is compatible with Presonus. There was some weirdness between firewire and XP SP2 which might be screwing up your system - it rendered one XP I ran Presonus FP10 useless. None of the Windoze tweaks fixed it and it was a Windoze problem. Only RME (another audio card maker) had posted on it and had a workaround which still for some reason didn't take on mine. If that's your case I'd say try uninstalling SP 2 if you can, or even better - do a full fresh system reinstall.

- The RAM is kinda diminutive but I made some pretty decent recordings when I initially bought the FP10 on my iBook with 256ram and 1.3 gig processor on a USB external drive. It was choking a bit on the internal 4200rpm notebook drive. I later added more RAM and things got smoother but I was recording up to 16-20 tracks in Ableton Live okay on that setup.
So in your case - throw in some RAM in there, it won't hurt and it is pretty cheap nowadays.

- A few other culprits to check on would be graphics card, antivirus, firewall, internet card, audio card that came with the PC. There was some software I read about that can diagnose your CPU cycles and what card is acting up particularly for audio but can't remember the name. It was in Sound on Sound magazine so maybe someone on their forums might help better.

Good luck and don't hesitate to ask more if this doesn't resolve your issues.

[richiebee]

Okay, so sounds to me like it COULD be a combination of your internal hard drive and the amount of RAM you have.

When you set up a new project, you have to specify the location for all files relating to that project. I assume you're specifying one of the faster drives. Which one is your project residing on? Internal, Firewire or USB? Are your USB ports definitely USB 2?

Next up, you say you're using three VSTi's. Which ones? Some use virtually no resources, others, use masses of resources. If any of them are sample based, are the samples for them stored on the slow drive? If any of them are sample based and use large samples, you could be completely out of RAM before you've started. Some that are processor intensive rather than RAM intensive (NI's Massive springs to mind) would almost certainly choke your machine when trying to run other things alongside.

Is the firewire drive daisychained with the Firestudio, or is it plugged straight into your computer?

Are you using Cubase's own EQ, or a third party VST? If the latter, which one?

Some manufacturers report issues with certain firewire chipsets. Do you know what kind of firewire chipset you have in your PC? Not really quite sure how to find this out without opening up your computer.

Depending on what VST's you're using, it might be possible to improve efficiency of your machine significantly to stop your problem.

I'm sure you think you shouldn't be having issues with this low number of tracks/instruments regardless, but it's not always as simple as this. The inherent design of some software instruments make them resource pigs unfortunately, and that sometimes means you have to deal with them.

Rich

[brandondrury]

Everyone has posted solid info here. There a billion factors. This stuff can be horrendous, unfortunately. However, I don't think it's fair to call out one (or 3) companies and say "they suck". I Presonus and Cubase and I'm very happy with both of them.

Of course, I have a clean operating system, Recording Computer Troubleshooting: Is Your Windows Operating System Clean?, adequate hard drives, chipsets that are compatible, my latency set to a reasonable level, pay close attention to my CPU usage, etc and I'm doing all of this on a computer slower than most.

Brandon

[rexde]

Adorian:
- I’ll check the Midi Port Setup, although this problem has occurred on other trivial projects with no MIDI
- I do intend to check with reaper and n-track, but that will be more time…
- I only have used one internal drive for my system, however, I have tried my project files on my internal drive, external USB, and external firewire
- I spent a lot of time with presonus going over firewire chipsets and I bought exactly the firewire interface card they recommended
- I know the RAM isn’t massive, but I’m only doing 4 audio tracks and 3 VST’s. Am I out of line? I don’t think that should take much RAM

Richiebee:
- The VST’s are all Halion one. One is a drum kit, one is bass, and one is a xylo. I have no idea how much memory they consume. Is there any way to tell?
- I have tried the firewire drive daisychained as well as in a separate jack
- I am using Cubase’s builtin eq
- I am using the exact firewire card that Presonus recommended to me

Brandon:
My complaint with these companies (mostly Cubase) is the lame stupid support. I’ve invested $1000’s in equipment and I have nothing to show for it. I gave them explicit details about a problem, and their responses are slow, redundant, and useless. I asked for tech support on Aug 30, and after about 8 emails (including lots of details on hard drives, interfaces, and drivers) in one week, I get “Sounds like a hard drive problem, What interface are you using?” That’s bullshit.
At this point, I do suspect that my PC is just not up to the task, and that I will have to replace it. However, that’s another $1000, and when I got into this, I thought I had a pretty decent machine for my needs, based on the information I could find. There’s also no guarantee that that will solve the problem, there maybe something else I’m missing. I’ve read most of the manual, I’ve watched 6 hours of tutorial videos, and I’ve worked on this for many months. I think I should be able to record a 2 minute song with less than 8 tracks. This has not been an enjoyable way to pursue my musical interests.

I’d like to thank everyone at recordingreview.com for providing a lot more help than Cubase.

[richiebee]

Okay, so you're only VSTi is Halion One. That shouldn't be a problem. I can't imagine any of the instruments you mention have huge memory requirements. At Steinberg, they say something about being able to change the efficiency of Halion One. I can't see a manual there, but it would be worth checking this feature. I'm not sure if it has the ability to stream samples from disk, but if so, this could be a performance bottle neck for you if your samples are on your internal drive, and you're trying to record audio tracks to it too. When you have tons of memory and a fast hard drive, this becomes less of an issue. It doesn't go away completely - a drive can only read/write so fast. 768Mb of RAM is close to the minimum requirements. OF course it should work, but it really is scraping the barrel a little. Since it seems you go along fine for 10 seconds or so, then the disk maxes out, it does suggest that your computer can't read/write your drive fast enough. With a 4200rpm drive, that's not really a big surprise. More RAM would help you out here, because it wouldn't have to read or write to disk as fast or as often. A faster drive would definitely help too. Can you uninstall Halion without uninstalling Cubase? If you can, I would do that, and try re-installing it with the samples on one of the other hard drives. This would spread the load. Then use the other fast drive as your project drive. Cubase can reside on the slow drive... I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think it has an impact.

In Cubase 3, there is a performance set up in (Devices>) Device Set up. I would think the same thing is in Cubase 4. In the VST Audio Bay you can set things like pre-load amount, audio priority etc... here you might have to reduce the pre-load amount because of the small amount of RAM you have.

One thing I forgot to ask, but I assume you've done - update to the latest version of Cubase. It had a lot of problems with performance when 4 was released, that appear ot have pretty much leveled out now.

Finally, do you have a way to take a screen shot? I'd like to see what your screen looks like, particularly icons in the tray, and on the task bar.