Steinberg Cubase 8 Manual
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Customizing
Appearance
1036
• To copy a color and paste it on another element, even on another subpage,
open the context menu in the color selector pane and select “Copy Color” and
“Paste Color”.
You can also copy colors on the same subpage using drag and drop.
• To edit the colors numerically, open the context menu in the color selector
pane, and select “Show Color Values”.
• To select any color in Cubase as new color, open the color selector pane, hold
down [Alt]/[Option], and click anywhere in the...](http://img.usermanuals.tech/thumb/86/98229/w64_d_1507296127-steinberg-cubase-8-manual_d-1035.png "Page 1036
Customizing
Appearance
1036
• To copy a color and paste it on another element, even on another subpage,
open the context menu in the color selector pane and select “Copy Color” and
“Paste Color”.
You can also copy colors on the same subpage using drag and drop.
• To edit the colors numerically, open the context menu in the color selector
pane, and select “Show Color Values”.
• To select any color in Cubase as new color, open the color selector pane, hold
down [Alt]/[Option], and click anywhere in the...")
Customizing Applying colors in the Project window 1041 Color fields Click a field to open a color selector pane that allows you to specify a new color. Click Options for the following options. Append New Color Adds a new color button at the bottom of the color list. Insert New Color before Selection Adds a new color button above the selected color button. Remove Selected Color Removes the selected color. Reset Selected Color Resets the selected color to the factory settings. Increase/Reduce Intensity of all Colors Increases or reduces the intensity of all colors. Increase/Reduce Brightness of all Colors Increases or reduces the brightness of all colors. Save Current Set as Program Defaults Saves the current set of colors as default. Load Program Defaults to Current Set Applies the default set of colors. Reset Current Set to Factory Settings Returns to the standard color palette.
Customizing Where are the settings stored? 1042 Adding and editing individual colors In the Project Colors dialog, you can fully customize the color palette. To add new colors to the color palette, proceed as follows: PROCEDURE 1. Add a new color by clicking the Insert New Color button. 2. In the Project Colors section, click the newly created color field to activate the new color for editing. 3. Use the Standard Colors or Modify Color sections to specify a new color. To do this, pick a different color from the color palette, drag the cursor in the color circle, move the handle in the color meter, or enter new RGB values as well as values for hue, saturation, and luminosity manually. 4. Click the Apply button. The color setting is applied to the selected color field in the Project Colors section. NOTE Every color in the Project Colors section can be edited this way. Setting intensity and brightness To increase or decrease the intensity and the brightness of all colors, use the corresponding buttons in the Project Colors section. Increase/decrease intensity for all colors Increase/decrease brightness for all colors Where are the settings stored? As you have seen, there are a large number of ways in which you can customize Cubase. While some of the settings you make are stored with each project, others are stored in separate preference files. If you need to transfer your projects to another computer (e. g. in another studio), you can bring all your settings along by copying the desired preference files and installing them on the other computer. NOTE It is a good idea to make a backup copy of your preference files once you have set things up the way you want! This way, if another Cubase user wants to use his or her personal settings when working on your computer, you can restore your own preferences afterwards.
Customizing Where are the settings stored? 1043 • On Windows systems, preference files are stored in the following location: “\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\\”. On the Start menu, you will find a shortcut to this folder for easy access. • On Mac OS X systems, preference files are stored in the following location: “/Library/Preferences//” under your home directory. The full path is: “/Users//Library/Preferences//”. NOTE The RAMpresets.xml file, which contains various presets settings (see below), is saved when exiting the program. NOTE Program functions (e. g. crossfade) or configurations (e. g. panels) not used in the project will not be stored. Some of the preferences are not stored in the default preferences folder. A list can be found in the Steinberg Knowledge Base. To open the Knowledge Base, browse to the Steinberg web site, click “Support” and choose “Knowledge Base” in the list on the left. Updating from a Previous Version of Cubase When you are updating from Cubase 6 or higher, the customized settings of your previous installation are used for the new Cubase version. When your previous Cubase version is older than Cubase 6, its settings are discarded, and the default settings of the new version of Cubase are used. Disabling the Preferences Sometimes you might experience odd program behaviour that can be due to inconsistent preferences settings. In such a case, you should save your project and relaunch Cubase. You can disable or delete the current preferences settings, and load the factory defaults instead. PROCEDURE 1. Quit Cubase. 2. Launch Cubase, and when the splash screen appears, hold down [Shift]-[Ctrl]/[Command]-[Alt]/[Option]. 3. Select one of the following options in the dialog that appears: •Use current program preferences Opens the program with the current preference settings.
Customizing Where are the settings stored? 1044 •Disable program preferences Disables the current preferences, and opens the program with the factory default settings instead. •Delete program preferences Deletes the preferences and opens the program with the factory default settings instead. This process cannot be undone. Note that this affects all versions of Cubase installed on your computer. RELATED LINKS Preferences on page 1051
1045 Optimizing Optimizing Audio Performance This section gives you some hints and tips on how to get the most out of your Cubase system, performance-wise. Some of this text refers to hardware properties and can be used as a guide when upgrading your system. Look for details and current information on the Cubase web site. Performance Aspects Tracks and Effects The faster your computer, the more tracks, effects, and EQ you are able to play. Exactly what constitutes a fast computer is almost a science in itself, but some hints are given below. Short Response Times (Latency) Another aspect of performance is response time. The term “latency” refers to the buffering, that is the temporary storing of small chunks of audio data during various steps of the recording and playback process on a computer. The more and larger those chunks, the higher the latency. High latency is most irritating when playing VST instruments and when monitoring through the computer, that is when listening to a live audio source via the Cubase MixConsole and effects. However, very long latency times (several hundred milliseconds) can also affect other processes like mixing, for example, when the effect of a fader movement is heard only after a noticeable delay. While Direct Monitoring and other techniques reduce the problems associated with ve ry lo ng laten cy t ime s, a syst em th at respon ds fast wi ll alw ays be mor e c onve nien t to work with. • Depending on your audio hardware, it may be possible to trim your latency times, usually by lowering the size and the number of buffers. • For details, refer to the audio hardware documentation.
Optimizing Optimizing Audio Performance 1046 System Factors That Affect Performance RAM The more RAM is installed in your computer, the better. IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT On computers running a Windows 32-bit operating system, a running application can address a maximum of 2 GB of RAM. On a Macintosh computer running 32-bit Mac OS X, this limit is 4 GB. The 64-bit versions of Windows and Mac OS X are able t o assign c onsider ably mo re t han 4 GB of RAM to a running 64-bit application. The RAM limitation is imposed by the operating system, and it is independent of the amount of RAM that you may have installed in your computer. Some program functions may use all the available memory, for example, recording, the use of effect plug-ins, and the pre-loading of samples. IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT When a function has used up all the memory made available by the operating system, the computer will crash. Always keep in mind the RAM limitation of your operating system when setting up your projects. RELATED LINKS RAM Requirements for Recording on page 220 Smart Plug-In Processing on page 373 CPU and Processor Cache The faster the computer processor, the better. But there are a number of factors that affect the apparent speed of a computer: the bus speed and type (PCI is strongly recommended), the processor cache size and of course, the processor type and brand. Cubase relies heavily on floating point calculations. When shopping for a processor, make sure that you get one that is powerful in calculating floating point arithmetics. Cubase features full support for multi-processor systems. If you own a computer system with more than one processor, Cubase can take advantage of the total capacity and evenly distribute the processing load to all available processors. RELATED LINKS Multi Processing on page 1048
Optimizing Optimizing Audio Performance 1047 Hard Disk and Controller The number of hard disk tracks that you can record and play back at the same time also depends on the speed of your hard disk and hard disk controller. If you use E-IDE disks and controllers, make sure that the transfer mode is DMA Busmaster. Under Windows, you can check the current mode by launching the Windows Device Manager and looking for properties of the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller’s primary and secondary channel. DMA transfer mode is enabled by default, but may be turned off by the system in case of hardware problems. Audio Hardware and Driver The hardware and its driver can have some effect on regular performance. A badly written driver can reduce the performance of your computer. But where the hardware driver design makes the most difference is with latency. NOTE We recommend that you use audio hardware for which there is a specific ASIO driver. This is especially true when using Cubase for Windows: • Under Windows, ASIO drivers written specifically for the hardware are more efficient than the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver or a DirectX driver and produce shorter latency times. • Under Mac OS X, audio hardware with properly written Mac OS X (Core Audio) drivers can be very efficient and produce very low latency times. However, there are additional features currently only available with ASIO drivers, such as the ASIO Positioning Protocol. Settings That Affect Performance Audio Buffer Settings Audio buffers affect how audio is sent to and from the audio hardware. The size of the audio buffers affects both the latency and the audio performance. Generally, the smaller the buffer size, the lower the latency. On the other hand, working with small buffers can be demanding for the computer. If the audio buffers are too small, you may get clicks, pops or other audio playback problems. • To adjust the buffer size settings under Mac OS X, select Devices > Device Setup, and select the Device Setup dialog. You may also find buffer settings in the control panel for the audio hardware. • To adjust the buffer size settings under Windows, select Devices > Device Setup, select the driver page, and click Control Panel.
Optimizing Optimizing Audio Performance 1048 Multi Processing When Multi Processing is activated and there is more than one CPU in your system, the processing load is distributed evenly to all available CPUs, allowing Cubase to make full use of the combined power of the multiple processors. • To activate Multi Processing, select Devices > Device Setup, select VST Audio System, and activate Multi Processing. VST Performance Window This window shows the audio processing load and the hard disk transfer rate. This allows you to verify that you do not run into performance problems when adding effects or plug-ins, for example. • To open the VST Performance window, select Devices > VST Performance. Average load Shows how much of the available CPU power is used for audio processing. Real-time peak Shows the processing load in the realtime path of the audio engine. The higher this value, the higher the risk that dropouts occur. Overload indicator The overload indicator to the right of the real-time peak indicator and the average load indicator displays overloads of the average or real-time indicator. If it lights up, decrease the number of EQ modules, active effects, and audio channels that play back simultaneously. You can also activate the ASIO-Guard. Disk Shows the hard disk transfer load. Disk overload indicator The overload indicator to the right of the disk indicator lights up if the hard disk does not supply data fast enough. If it lights up, use Disable Track to reduce the number of tracks playing back. If this does not help, you need a faster hard disk.
Optimizing Optimizing Audio Performance 1049 NOTE You can show a simple view of the performance meter on the Transport panel and on the Project window toolbar. These meters only feature the average and the disk indicator. ASIO-Guard The ASIO-Guard allows you to shift as much processing as possible from the ASIO realtime path to the ASIO-Guard processing path. This results in a more stable system. The ASIO-Guard allows you to preprocess all channels as well as VST instruments that do not need to be calculated in realtime. This leads to less dropouts, the ability to process more tracks or plug-ins, and the ability to use smaller buffer sizes. ASIO-Guard Latency High ASIO-Guard levels lead to an increased ASIO-Guard latency. When you adjust a volume fader, for example, you will hear the parameter changes with a slight delay. The ASIO-Guard latency, in contrast to the latency of the audio hardware, is independant from live input. Restrictions The ASIO-Guard cannot be used for: • Realtime-dependent signals • External effects and instruments • Plug-ins that have a different bit version than the operating system NOTE If you select Devices > Plug-in Manager and click Show Plug-in Information, you can deactivate the ASIO-Guard option for selected plug-ins. If you activate the monitoring for an input channel, a MIDI or a VST instrument channel, the audio channel and all dependent channels are automatically switched from ASIO-Guard to realtime processing and vice versa. This results in a gentle fade out and fade in of the audio channel. Activating the ASIO-Guard PROCEDURE 1. Select Devices > Device Setup. 2. In the Device Setup dialog, open the VST Audio System page.
Optimizing Optimizing Audio Performance 1050 3. Activate the Activate ASIO-Guard option. NOTE This option is only available, if you activate Multi Processing. 4. Select an ASIO-Guard Level. The higher the level, the higher the processing stability and audio processing performance. However, higher levels also lead to an increased ASIO-Guard latency and memory usage.