Audio Drop-out, Random Crashing, and more problems with Cubase 4...

[Guitardude324]

I've been working on my bands demo CD for the last month or so, and I've had tons and tons of problems. Everything from Cubase not finding VST Plugins that I've installed, to Audio Drop-out during playback, to Cubase simply crashing unexpectedly.

1. Cubase will not find the new batch of VST plugins I've installed. I've put them all in the necessary folder/s. I've posted about this, and couldn't get any help that fixed the problem. The post is at the bottom of this forum.

2. I'm running between 15-25 tracks (I like to quad track my guitar parts, and each song has at least a few different guitar lines going at once...so 8-12 guitar tracks alone), all with 1-5 plugins, and even with the ASIO buffer maxed out at 2048 or whatever it is, I'm getting audio drop-outs every few seconds, which is making playback and recording literally impossible. Am I using too many plugins? I thought this wasn't too many.

3. Cubase randomly quits/crashes. This usually happens when I'm changing preset on my plugins, but has also happened during playback, along with the above problem.

I'm using a 2.3 GHz, MacBook pro with 2GB of memory installed. All other programs are closed. I am running Cubase 4 Academic Edition.

Can any of these issues be resolved? Am I just running too many plugins? I thought my mac could handle this type of shit...

Thanks

[timthetortoise]

So, at the least, you're using 15-25 plugs. Okay, that's quite a few, but not too bad. But 75-125? Come on dude, no way you're getting or NEED that many on there. You're definitely overloading your project. What's your CPU usage at? If it's 70% or over, you're pushing it too hard. Try freezing tracks as you go along.

PS: Macs are not the end-all solution. You have just as many limitations as with PCs (if not more). Don't think that hype = a solution that will meet 100% of your needs

[Guitardude324]

I guess I'm not being very efficient, eh?

I should probably setup a few FX channels and use sends and shit instead of adding the same compression and EQ on every single guitar track...

I think a lot of my issues are also the fact that I'm using EZDrummer and Melodyne, and they are hogs...

[Agent47]

Yeah, use some groups. It'd be more efficient to put your matched guitar lines through a group with 1 compressor, than creating 4 compressors (one on each channel) etc.

Like you say some softsynths can be resources hogs. I'm currently on a project that's using 4 instances of Virtual Guitarist 2, and EZDrummer. Runs ok, but you have to wait about a minute when you open the project otherwise it crashes, cos it's loading all those guitar libraries...