The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

--- In AN1x-list@y..., "Randy Johnson" <daltec@p...> wrote:
> At any rate, my set-up is as follows: I am recording onto a 4-gig 
barracuda, internal scsi, 7200 rpm. It is not my startup or system 
drive. I am using a Mac 7500 (upgraded to a 233-mhz 604 
processor), 224 megs of ram, OS 8.6, cubase 4.2.1., built-in 
audio (Sound Manager). I have 135 meg of ram allocated to 
cubase itself, and presently the disk buffer and memory settings 
are at the maximum. Note that I can record mono/stereo in Deck 
and Vision DSP without any problems at all, but Cubase just 
does not want to play ball.

Hi Randy,
Couple of thoughts...

The 7500 was never going to win Apple any design awards - they 
practically rendered it obsolete within months of its initial 
release. Pissed off a lot of users ;-) The fact that you can record 
audio via Sound Manager using both Deck and Vision DSP 
(great program!) is great! I'd think the 50 MHz System bus would 
be a real bottle neck but apparently not (based on the above.) Are 
you able to run any VSTs - or VSTi's (more demanding on the 
System Bus)? Do you have a sound card with ASIO drivers?

If you haven't already done so I would...

1) run off a minimal extension set if for no other reason then to 
conserve resources and place less demand on the CPU. From 
your problem description it doesn't appear to be the result of an 
extension conflict w/ Cubase otherwise you'd be getting lots of 
nasty Type 2 & 3 errors. Still, a min. ext set won't hurt.

2) Have you defragmented and optimized your Audio drive? 
Cubase may be more demanding on seeing free, contiguous 
tracks then either Deck or VDSP. Disk Warrior or Norton is good 
for this.

3) You've probably tried a number of buffer settings at this point. 
I'd recommend you reset everything to their default setting and 
start from the top. There is a free PDF named 'Optimum Setting 
for Cubase on a Mac' available for download at the Cubase.net 
website http://www.cubsae.net/  Have you read this yet? It might 
be of use.

4) Keep in mind that the minimum recommended system 
requirements for audio/MIDI apps aren't really going to allow you 
to expoit everything these apps have to offer. That said - the min. 
sys requirement for Cubase 4.2 were 601/120 MHz Processor 
and 32 MB RAM and 256 k Second Level Cache. It sounds like 
your 7500 meets these spec's (even exceeds them since you 
tossed in a 604 processor update.)

Maybe there's a sound manager bug with OS 8.6 but I don't recall 
such a thing (I've been on OS 9 for awhile now.) My gut feeling is 
either a. the bus speed of your 7500 is biting you in the butt or b. 
the audio drive needs to be defragmented or c. a combination of 
the two.

If you need some help with a min. extension set let me know and 
I'll email you a text copy of mine. A guy on the Battery list helped 
me strip mine down pretty slim but Iam running OS 9.2.2 which 
has a bunch of stuff OS 8.6 doesn't....

regards,

Jon