Digital artifacts with Cubase 5 Multi-band Compression even withHighest Latency

[Paul[_13_]]

I noticed these artifacts with a saxophone I just recorded.

You don't really notice them in the mix, but they are obvious when you
solo the track.

I had previously gotten rid of these artifacts by switching to the
highest latency with my Tascam US-1641, but now they are still there.

I suppose I may just have too many tracks processing at once.

Perhaps going to at least a quad-core, with 16 gigs of RAM would be
the only real solution...

[geoff]

On 1/06/2014 10:47 p.m., Paul wrote:
> I noticed these artifacts with a saxophone I just recorded.
>
> You don't really notice them in the mix, but they are obvious when you
> solo the track.
>
> I had previously gotten rid of these artifacts by switching to the
> highest latency with my Tascam US-1641, but now they are still there.
>
> I suppose I may just have too many tracks processing at once.
>
> Perhaps going to at least a quad-core, with 16 gigs of RAM would be
> the only real solution...


You may be loading the cpu too hard with plugins and tracks, causing
problems with preview, but this should not simply affect one tiny part
of the mix.

Is it still there when that one track is rendered (or whatever Cubase
calls it) - ? Or try recording with FX turned off (if it's the load
while recording running you out of steam.

Or look at he source signal. A faster CPU and RAM may help if it's just
the steam issue.

geoff

[Paul[_13_]]

On 6/1/2014 6:00 PM, geoff wrote:

>
> You may be loading the cpu too hard with plugins and tracks, causing
> problems with preview, but this should not simply affect one tiny part
> of the mix.
>
> Is it still there when that one track is rendered (or whatever Cubase
> calls it) - ? Or try recording with FX turned off (if it's the load
> while recording running you out of steam.

Cubase calls it "exporting" an audio file into the project folder.

So when I soloed the track, and exported it into the project as a
WAV file, it pops up as another audio track.

Lo and behold....artifacts where still there!

Then I made my big discovery tonight: I switched to using the
Ozone iZotope multi-band compressor, and.....it's CLEAN!! Super clean!

So it appears the Cubase 5 compression algorithms basically suck
donkey-balls. The artifacts are a bit subtle, and I didn't notice them
on most instruments, and especially not with the whole mix going on.
But when I had a solo sax, and monitored WITH HEADPHONES, it stuck out
like a sore thumb for some reason.

Looks like I will have to replace the compressor on ALL my tracks,
and switch over to Ozone. It not only sounds superior, it's a better
user interface as well.

I'm quite happy I installed Ozone into my plug-ins. So far, the
reverbs are not necessarily better, but just different...



>
> Or look at he source signal. A faster CPU and RAM may help if it's just
> the steam issue.
>
> geoff