Two Questions...

[3strandchords]

Hi everyone... I have two questions I'd love to get some help on.

1) A friend recently set-up his home studio and is running Cubase SE... We threw together, as much as a joke as anything else, a (c)rap song about a friend. We all had a good laugh about it.

However, after mixing the song down and 'exporting' it to wav we ran into a problem. The mixdown has no problems in Cubase. The wav plays fine in iTunes (it's ~50mb)... However, if you try to open it in Windows Media or burn it to CD everything crashes. The CD burns fail, and WMP says it can't play the file (codec error).

More interestingly, I threw the song on my iPod. If I try to play it on my iPod, the whole iPod freezes and 'reboots'. Strange since it plays in iTunes.

Has anyone seen this before? If so, appreciate some advice re: what we did wrong.



2) I've been inspired to setup a little project studio of my own... Having way to much fun, and spending way too much time over at my friend's house. The trick is my budget is much more limited...

I'm figuring that, at a max, I'd be recording 20 tracks into Cubase (mix of audio and MIDI) with no more than two or three tracks going in at once. I'd be firing several VSTs, both for instruments and effects.

I guess I'm looking for recommendations regarding the minimal version of Cubase to get (should I be fine with LE that's boxed with my future interface, or will I need to upgrade to SE) and some minimal hardware I can run on.

I'd like to be able to 'redeploy' our current home computer (900mhz PIII), wipe it, reinstall just WinXP/Cubase, load it up with RAM and disk and use that. However, if that's *way* underpowered I'd like to know.

Any help appreciated .... Thanks!

Brian

 

[TimOBrien]

1) Bet the song you exported isn't 16bit/44.1kHz (standard CD format). Export to that and I bet it'll work....

2) CubaseSE or LE would do you fine (I'm using SE).

 

[3strandchords]

Tim!

Thanks so much for both answers... I really appreciate the help.

As you noted, the mixdown .wav is, in fact, 24bit. I had no idea that was 'better than' CD quality.

Also, thanks for the advice re: LE/SE. I'd love to know what hardware you're using and how that affects performance.

Again, thank you!

 

[Carter]

Hi everyone... I have two questions I'd love to get some help on.

1) A friend recently set-up his home studio and is running Cubase SE... We threw together, as much as a joke as anything else, a (c)rap song about a friend. We all had a good laugh about it.

However, after mixing the song down and 'exporting' it to wav we ran into a problem. The mixdown has no problems in Cubase. The wav plays fine in iTunes (it's ~50mb)... However, if you try to open it in Windows Media or burn it to CD everything crashes. The CD burns fail, and WMP says it can't play the file (codec error).

More interestingly, I threw the song on my iPod. If I try to play it on my iPod, the whole iPod freezes and 'reboots'. Strange since it plays in iTunes.

Has anyone seen this before? If so, appreciate some advice re: what we did wrong.

To me it sounds like you didnt mix it down to 16/44.1 if it is any other format that can happen to you!

2) I've been inspired to setup a little project studio of my own... Having way to much fun, and spending way too much time over at my friend's house. The trick is my budget is much more limited...

I'm figuring that, at a max, I'd be recording 20 tracks into Cubase (mix of audio and MIDI) with no more than two or three tracks going in at once. I'd be firing several VSTs, both for instruments and effects.

I guess I'm looking for recommendations regarding the minimal version of Cubase to get (should I be fine with LE that's boxed with my future interface, or will I need to upgrade to SE) and some minimal hardware I can run on.

I'd like to be able to 'redeploy' our current home computer (900mhz PIII), wipe it, reinstall just WinXP/Cubase, load it up with RAM and disk and use that. However, if that's *way* underpowered I'd like to know.

Any help appreciated .... Thanks!

Brian

If you are going to get a interface bundled with Cubase LE your computer should be able to handle it, it's not the fastest but it will work. LE is OK and you can do up to 48 tracks or up until your computer bogs down, I think you can pull off close to 20 tracks so go for it!

 

[3strandchords]

Carter,

Thanks for the additional help... Most of what I'd be doing is midi triggering VSTs (or samples, using something like Jamstix). So, I hope the current computer is ok.

We'll be replacing it with an upgraded one, but it will be focused on family use. And kids games and recording probably won't play well together.

Thanks again.... Brian

 

[noisewreck]

Yeah, it should be able to handle the audio tracks, and 2-3 VSTs (depending on the synths/sampler and number of voices used). Just load it up with as much RAM as you can, recommend 1GB if possible.

Also, if you run out of processing power, you can always bounce tracks to save some CPU. Bouncing is a way of life on any computer, come to think of it.