Help! exporting in cubase

[Thomaslikesmusic]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the fourm the first time I saw it was yestarday and became a member right away... what I couldnt learn from like 3 books and many tutorials, this fourm taught me in an hour, so thanks!

Anyway as my first post I have what maybe a really dumb question but I have not been able to figure it out. As time goes Ive gotten better at using cubase and therefore demanding more from it. But lately my computer seems to not be able to handle my mixes. While I playback something I recorded that now has compressors, reverb, midi, and such added to it my computer kinda freezes the effects but still plays the original file. This can be noted most when using stereo reverbs on mono tracks that are panned to one side. For example my drum over heads. Now as long as this happens while Im listening to the mix in cubase its annoying but its not really a problem, but now when it comes to exporting it DOES become a problem since the song will be flowing flawlesly until suddendly you stop hearing the reverb from the guitar panned to the right or even worse when using something like a heavy distortion in GuitarRig.
So basically my question is; is there a way to export a cubase file as either mp3 or wav etc, but letting my computer take as long as it wants to in order to process the file correctly rather than skip over 2 seconds of reverb?

I know there are other ways such as exporting first just the guitar(s) and then the drums and then mixing it together into a new file etc... but thats a pain, or I could process the effect rather than apply it to a track but that also takes a lot of speed away from applying effects in a "trail and error" fashion.
Thanks in advance!

[lividone]

Hello and welcome,

Just wanted to run a quick alternative by you to help with the vst dropout issues you're having.

I'm not sure if you can really manipulate how the mixes are rendered except that you can check/uncheck the "real-time export" option when choosing the mixdown destination path. I doubt this would help but it's the only option I know of.

Here's something else to try,

Freeze the tracks.

I'm not 100% certain this feature is implemented exactly the same in Cubase but I use it in Nuendo all the time ( same company, same engine ).

There should be a little snowflake looking button on each of your tracks, click it. For audio, it should just ask you how long of a tail you want on each track (default is like 10sec) , so as not to cut off reverb tails, etc.

Basically it writes it to a cache file and unloads the effects. If you want to change something you just click the same button to turn freeze off and it's instantly restored for further tweaking. In the "frozen" state you can still used levels, automation, pan, etc. It just writes the effects at they're current settings and unloads them.

This came up in another thread as well in which I gave the same suggestion. Hopefully it works the same in Cubase as it does in Nuendo.

I'll try to upload a small pic of it later to see if it looks familiar to any other Cubase users.


Either way, there should be some sort of Freeze function in Cubase whether or not it's implemented exactly the same way.


P.S. please correct me if I'm wrong cubasers

[lividone]

Ok, I found a pic of the cubase interface...looks like it's exactly the same.



By hevron

If you want to freeze midi instruments ( VSTi's ) , you do it at: Devices>VST Instruments>Click the same snowflake lookin button. Works the same way except it gives you an option to freeze the "channel" which would unload both the instruments and insert effects at their current settings.

Hope it helps

[Thomaslikesmusic]

Hey, thanks a lot for that info, I still have to try it (I will tomorrow morning) but Ive used the freeze thing in other programs aswell and it should work the way you say it does so thanks a lot for the tip!
I also already tried the real time export and set it to the slowest speed and it only helped a bit so Im thinking there must be another way to export somehow... or maybe Im just doing it all wrong which is always an option.
Thanks again!

[jdaug]

you could always solo render each track you are having problems with separately, then render the whole song down with the newly rendered tracks on and the original tracks off with effects unloaded, but that seems pretty excessive. there should be an easier way.

[Thomaslikesmusic]

Yeah I also thought about doing that but the problem with that is that if I later have to change say the reverb on the snare it takes like 10 minutes cause I'd have to go and open the OLD file which isnt mixed down the way it should be because I left it aside for so long and then pretty much guess at the reverb and then export and import to cubase, so its a pain. BUT the good news is that for anyone else having this problem (which seems to happen mostly with reverb) is that the freeze option suggested by lividone works perfectly! Cubase pretty much just does the exporting for you but locks the tracks, then later when you decide you want to change something about it you can just un-freeze and change what ever the problem is. This worked really well with my computer and I dont see why it shouldnt work for anyone else. So good luck! (if someone needs it)

[lividone]

Awesome! I'm glad it worked out for ya

[brandondrury]

#1 What is your latency set on? If your latency is super fast (like for tracking) CRANK IT UP!!! You'll get double the CPU power with a high latency. It won't work while tracking, but you'll notice a GIGANTIC performance boost during mixing.

#2 Make sure you aren't using VSTi's during mixing. Get what you want and render them to WAV. This will save you a ton of CPU juice.

#3 Make sure you are using aux's for reverbs and effects when appropriate. A lot of beginners tend to put reverbs as inserts and that is rarely necessary.

Brandon

[Thomaslikesmusic]

Hey,
Thanks! I hadnt realized that the latency was that consuming, that helped a lot! I dont use too many vsti's so they dont affect that much. As for the effects, Ive been routing them as aux for the most part but I also end up using different effect settings for most tracks so it doesnt help too much, anyway between the freeze function and the latency settings I havent had this problem happen again so thanks all!!

[brandondrury]

I'm glad you got it worked out.

Brandon