Cubase - MIDI latency

[WithoutMotive]

Hi guys,

 

I've just been informed of a strange latency problem with Cubase.

Seems like when recording MIDI, it's recording it half a beat later than it's played therefore mucking it up when it gets to the end.

The person in question has tried looking around on the net but the only answer he's got is, "Try starting the recording before you start playing"! Not sure that's a workaround but it's not solving the problem.

 

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[TechMonkey]

We have had interesting problems with this. What we were told to check was teh Buffer Size Samples settings. we have Cubase SE so I'm not sure if it is in the same place but we go to:

Devices > Device Setup >VST MultiTrack (in the left side bar)

 

Make sure "ASIO Multimedia Driver" is chosen NOT DirectX option

 

Then click:

Control Panel > Advanced Options

 

Douible click teh number under the Buffer size and set it to what you want. We were told 540 is an ok number. Do this for Input and Output.

 

Click apply and Ok as many times it takes to get out. Don't worry about the test it asks yout to run. You can do it or click no.

 

Once set it seems to persist for all users on that machine.

 

Hope that helps

[Optics]

We use ASIO4ALL to solve our latency problems with Cubase.

 

http://www.asio4all.com/

[nickholme]

you won't get a low enough latency without a decent sound card. The ones on motherboards usually aren't good enough. SB Audigy/X-fi cards will work OK. USB type external souncards also are usually OK. You can get hold of older SB Live cards which won't work with their own drivers, but you can use others called KX project drivers.

[WithoutMotive]

@TechMonkey - we've just tried this and it didn't work, I'm afraid.

 

@Optics - just about to give this a go now.

 

@nickholme - The computer in question is one of several of the same spec and the latency is fine on the rest of them. Just seems to be one or two that has the problem.

They're "music-specific" computers and so have decent external soundcards.

 

Thanks for your suggestions, guys. I'll keep you posted.

[TheFopp]

What spec are the PCs.

 

If I understand you correctly this problem isn't an audio latency problem (ie the placying back of VST instruments sounding late after you press a key) but with midi notes in the editor being either very early or late in comparison to when you actually played them.

 

We had this problem on a couple of PCs but I can't remember if we were using VST5 or SX3 at the time, and there were a lot of people struggling with this in the Cubase forums at the time.

 

I found a cure that worked great for us. I went into the BIOS and altered the CPU settings from automatically configured to manually configuring the Speed/Multiplier for that processor (It was an Athlon of some sort). Once it was set manually the midi timing issues vanished.... Don't ask why as I've no idea, but it did cure the problem.

[lestfuk]

You need to click on use System Timestamp in the Device Setup section for the MIDI drivers

[mjs_mjs]

Also if using external devices with ASIO drives, Cubase will some times revert to other ASIO drivers if the device has been removed and replaced, a quick work around was to actually remove all other ASIO drivers than the ones for the sound card. Worked very well. We now have a Sibelius suite and use the ASIO4All driver to combat the latency issues (our music teacher says it's ok but deep down i know it isn't.)

 

TBH tha ASIO Multimedia Driver is crap and has massive latency issues when recording audio. ASIO4All is better but not the best. You say you have 'decent external soundcards' try completely disabling all other sound cards, and make sure you have updated the firmware recently and are using the correct ASIO drivers (a computer i regularly work on has 10+ ASIO drivers installed as i take different interfaces depending on what i'm recording - the on-board soundblaster has 4 on it's own).

 

Another thing to watch out for when using USB keyboards is that you ither have the manufacturer specific drivers for them or use the windows one. our keyboards have a switch on the side to select what they appear to the host as (i found the windows ones to be better than the edirol ones!!!).

 

Also (this is configuration specific) they IS a difference between using MIDI outputs, Virtual MIDI outputs (such as windows SW synth) and VST instruments. MIDI outputs that go to an external sound module as MIDI data require the MIDI drivers and buffers to be correct, Virtual MIDI outputs require a good sound card with good drivers (even then they're limited) and VST instruments require good ASIO config. If using USB midi devices then the 'use system timestamp' is important, however if using MIDI in and outs of a decent sound card (eg a motu 828mk3) you will be better off using the soundcards timestamp or wordclock or SMTPE for sync, Usually.

 

I'm a cubase sx3, LE and studio4 user and i understand different versions work in different ways. I also used to use sx3 on an AMD speadstep machine and had no issues as the CPU clock speed changed.

[russasaurous]

ASIO4ALL totally and completely solved this problem for CuBase LE4 on dual core amdX2 processor running Vista Home Premium- thanks Optics!