any idea on this one?
i am using cubase 5.1 on mac 9.2 (laptop) and problem is the cubase cant seem to handle heavy plug-in... meaning i cant use all the good ones!
the sound stops or certain sounds will be ommitted etc. moog modular or waveshell is out of control. and everything suddenly slows down.
i dont know if it's cubase memory problem or plag-in or even my hard drive as it's laptop and it's been overloaded with so many things...
so give me your opinion on this please. cheers+

I am running an ibook 800mhz with 320mg of memory, Cubase 5.1, mac os 9.22. I use Halion, TC works mercury and Waldorf attack.

I am constantly running up against processor spikes when using all three vst instruments together. The vst performance window gives a good idea of what is happening as i can see that the processor overloads, peaks in the red, then returns to it's stable 50-70% mark.

When the spike occurs, all audio, whether vst instrument or direct audio ismuted for a short period, then the processor returns to its normal level of use but the vst instruments wack out and have serious midi overload, causing me to have to stop playback, then wait for the midi to clear , then restart, only for it to occur a few moments later.

I contacted Apple in the first instance as i thought that this was an ibook problem, but they suggested that it would be a software problem.

I searched the Cubase forums but cannot find anyone owning up to having this problem.

The only way to go get round it seems to be to bounce any vst midi down to audio, then replace the midi parts with the audio. This is time consuming, and removes the flexibility of using midi instruments, it also degrades the audio quality somewhat.

I have no real answer to the processor spikes, but hope maybe someone does!?

(Other than upgrading to OSX and rebuying all my software of course).

Normally and officialy Cubase 5.1 runs with Mac OS 9.04 and that's all !!!!
I had an Email of Steinberg support in Europe which dissuade me tu run cubase with OS 9.1 and 9.2

So I have two hard disks
- first one with OS 9.2.2 with no music software
- second one with OS 9.0.4 with Cubase and all my music and musical stuff

Good piece of advice to come back to 9.0.4

thanks for the advice ptilou!

I have recently discovered that i will need a seperate set of extensions for music and should ideally partition my hard drive between applications and audio files.

Sound like alot of work!

Where can i get OS 9.04 from then?

My ibook came with OS 9.22 and OSX, i wonder if the install disc has previous versions of the OS on it?

First, you need the OS 9.0 disk. It was not for free...
and then you update with OS 9.0.4 (download on the Apple site)
http://www.info.apple.com/support/downloads.html (Europe page )
But check out that your ibook supports and runs with OS 9.0 !!!


That's a pretty good idea ! partition or hard disk dedicated to audio files and audio soft.
If you handle lot of audio files you'll need to defrag regularly your hard disk (with norton disk tool for exemple)