No more mixer channels?

[Richard Birdsall]

I'm using Cubasis with GPO. I dont have a midi keyboard, I just write the midi sequences down in cubasis with the mouse. I go on the "VST Instruments" pannel and fill up the 1st, 2nd and 3rd slots with Personal Orchestra VST. The problem is I want to load more intruments, so I try to change the 4th slot to Personal Orchestra VST but I get a message saying "No more mixer channels". I am realy new to these programs and have tried to teach myself how to use them, but everything still seems daunting and confusing. Is there a way for me to get more mixer channels? If not, is there a way for me to load more instruments for my composition?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Richard.

[Jonny Lost]

Richard,


Your best bet would be to use the GPO Studio that came bundled with GPO. Set it up and use it as your MIDI inputs. That gives you more channels and more instances of the Kontakt player.

As far as more mixer channels, I believe if you use the VST version, you only have the four slots. That's why I suggested to use the studio host. Let me know if I can be of more assistance.


Good luck,
Jonny

[NDEE]

I'm using Cubasis with GPO. The problem is I want to load more intruments, so I try to change the 4th slot to Personal Orchestra VST but I get a message saying "No more mixer channels".

I think in Cubasis you are limited to 3 instances/24 instruments.

I'm sure somebody else can comment on this as it has been discussed on the forum.

One alternative could be to pre-mix those 3 instances to audio tracks then clear up those 3 instances and load them with new instruments to work alongside the audio tracks.

By the way, as anyone done this successfully with Cubasis?

NDEE

[Shazbot]

In Cubasis, you can indeed only use 3 instances of GPO, as it only supports 48 tracks, which would be 24 stereo GPO instruments. That is definitely the limit as far as that goes.

One way to use more instruments is to use GPOStudio as Jonny suggests, but you need the latest beta version 1.2 to be able to record as a WAV from Cubasis. You cannot export to a WAV using GPOStudio as you can using GPO as a VST. Search for "Cubasis GPOStudio tutorial" and you'll find a link for a tutorial I wrote for more detail about how to do that. (My web server is currently down, but should be up within a day, so you may have to wait until later to access that.)

Another solution that worked well enough for me is to get up to your 24 instruments with GPO as a VST, then export to WAV. Start a new file and import that WAV file, then continue from there with more instruments.

[Tom Hopkins]

Richard,

Jonny is correct. Using GPO Studio is your best option for increasing capacity beyond 3 instances in real-time. Why is it limited to 3 instances instead of 4 when there is an additional slot available? Because Cubasis allows 4 instances OR 48 outputs. GPO has 8 stereo pairs of outputs (16 outputs) per instance. That leaves room for only 3 instances (3 x 16 = 48). GPO Studio will give you 8 instances.

Tom

[Richard Birdsall]

Thanks for the help.

I would use GPO studio, but I can't because of driver problems (which ive posted for help about in the technical support forum). So I've gave up trying to use GPO studio.

Is there a way to use the 4th slot in the vst intruments pannel in cubasis? I can't use it because I get the "no more mixer channels" message after the 3rd slot is used? If I could use the 4th slot I would then be able to load the extra instruments.

[Tom Hopkins]

Richard,

I guess I didn't make myself clear. There is a hard limit of 48 outputs. That is equivalent to 3 instances. 3 instances is the maximum possible in Cubasis. You may want to move on to a more full-featured sequencing program at some point, one without the built-in limitations.

Tom

[Richard Birdsall]

Richard,

I guess I didn't make myself clear. There is a hard limit of 48 outputs. That is equivalent to 3 instances. 3 instances is the maximum possible in Cubasis. You may want to move on to a more full-featured sequencing program at some point, one without the built-in limitations.

Tom
lol sorry, you where very clear, I just accidently skipped half of the replies on this page when I wrote that last post. Ive just came back on and noticed all the posts I missed.

Thank you all for your help, thats answered a lot of questions.

[NDEE]

...3 instances is the maximum possible in Cubasis. You may want to move on to a more full-featured sequencing program at some point, one without the built-in limitations.

Tom
Tom, how would this "built-in limitation" be labeled on the spec sheet of a sequencer?

Is it the number of AUDIO outputs or VST outputs or something like that???

NDEE

[NDEE]

...your best bet would be to use the GPO Studio that came bundled with GPO. Set it up and use it as your MIDI inputs.

How do you set it up that way?

How is this set-up different than using GPO Studio as a VST plugin in Cubasis?

NDEE

[Jonny Lost]

NDEE,


The difference here is the way that you use the studio. Here's what's going on. You guys are using GPO as a VST plugin within Cubasis. In the Midi track information view, there is a spot that says "MIDI Outputs" or something to that effect (I don't have it right in front of me, so bear with me!) Now when you use the VST version of GPO, the outputs are probably set to your soundcard, Soundblaster, Crystal, etc.

So what you need to do, is first make sure that GPO studio is loaded, open Cubasis, create a track, open the Midi track information view, then click on the MIDI Output panel. In there, you should see your soundcard as well as the GPO Studio outputs.

Now, you need to go back into GPO Studio, load the instrumets into as many instances of the Konatkt player that you need, then go back into Cubasis and assign each track a seperate MIDI Channel (1-16) and the correct instance of the Kontakt Player (GPO Studio Output 1, 2 etc).

Once again, I'm sorry that this is so very vaugue. I'm attempting to do this by memory. If anyone has any corrections or additions please feel free to tell me I'm stupid!!! (Just kidding, no really!)

I hope this helps you out. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you guys.

Good luck,
Jonny

[Shazbot]

A reminder that you can't export audio out of Cubasis using GPOStudio as a host. You'll end up with a big blank WAV file. So you'll have to use the Record function of GPOStudio 1.2 to record what you playback in Cubasis in real-time. Another option for capturing the output of Cubasis while using GPOStudio is to use something like TapeIt (http://www.silverspike.com/PlugIns/TapeIt/tapeit.html).

[Tom Hopkins]

NDEE,

“Tom, how would this "built-in limitation" be labeled on the spec sheet of a sequencer?”

Probably as “maximum VST instruments” or something similar. I did a quick search on Windows sequencers and found that even the lower priced options I checked had the ability to do at least 8. Many were limited only by the user’s CPU.

Cubasis4 is an OEM product and, as such, has limitations intended (by Steinberg) to encourage users to upgrade to their commercial products that do not have the same restrictions (I just saw that Cubase SE has a VSTi limit of 16). The lower priced Cakewalk products do not seem to have any restrictions since they use the Cakewalk VST wrapper. Of course, the higher end products of all manufacturers remove any limits.

Tom

[NDEE]

Thanks Jonny, Shazbot and Tom for all the info,

NDEE ;)

[NDEE]

BTW, this forum is GREAT !!!

NDEE

[Richard Birdsall]

Ahhhhh... cubase sx fixes everything! I can finaly start work on my competition piece hehe. Thanks a lot people. I dont know where I'd be without advice form you guys.

[GregW]

Hi

New to the forum....hope someone can help. I just acquired a copy of cubase VST 3.7 and when I try to add VST instruments to the rack it tells me..."no more mixer channels" How can I get round this problem? I am an experienced Cubasis user and have had this message in Cubasis but only after I'd loaded a number of VST instruments...Cubase won't let me load any....!

Thanks in advance

G

[L0W]

I think the answer you need is somewhere further up the thread, but not to worry.

Each VST instrument uses up a number of VST mixer channels when you open it. GPO Player v1 uses 16 per instance. Cubase/Cubasis have a fixed upper limit of mixer channels - Cubase 5 VST eg is 112 I think Cubasis is less than this. Some VST instruments only use 2, some as many as 64, so you can see that depending one what instruments you use, you will more or less quickly use up all your mixer channels. This is different too and independent of the number of VST slots you have (which is 8 in Cubase) and niether of these figures is dependent on your system capacity/resources (despite what others might try to tell you) they are fixed in Cubas/is code. With 8 instruments which use 2 mixer channels each, then you will run out of slots first. With 2 instruments with 64 channels each,you will run out of mixer channels first.

The big problems start when you suddenly one day see you don't have your maximum number of channels anymore. This is almost always due to REWIRE software being installed. Any REWIRE client will CONSUME your mixer channels (by reserving them) EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT USING IT IN CUBASE/Cubasis. Examples of REWIRE clients here: Reason, ACid Pro, FruityLoops. IF you have any of these installed, bye, bye limited ration of mixer channels. With Fruityloops you can reinstall in non-rewire mode to overcome this. I don't know about the others.

[L0W]

Richard,

I guess I didn't make myself clear. There is a hard limit of 48 outputs. That is equivalent to 3 instances. 3 instances is the maximum possible in Cubasis. You may want to move on to a more full-featured sequencing program at some point, one without the built-in limitations.

Tom

And there's your answer from further up. Cubasis has the hard limit of 48 mixer channels. GPOPlayer v1 uses 16/instance, so 3 instances is the maximum. Install Reason, Fruityloops and/or Acid Pro and I can see a situation where you can't start ANY GPO instances! Interesting comment about full=featured because Cubase 5 VST just increases the hard limit. I've not seen this problem with Sonar occuring at all - I think with Sonar you really do run out of system resources before you hit any hard-coded limits. I don't know about Cubase LE, SX, 4 etc.

What you have then is the prospect that your Cubase 3.7 actually has fewer mixer channels hard coded than your Cubasis version (which might be a later version?). Couple that with REWIRE clients you could well have a situation where you can open up VST instruments in Cubasis, but none in Cubase. Without the presence of Rewire clients, your problem is harder to explain.

[GregW]

Hmmm

Yes - I have a demo version of Reason on my PC. Do you think that if I uninstall Reason it will free up mixer channels in Cubase so that I can use my VST instrument plug ins....sounds possible so I'll try it.

Is there the possiblity that Cubase and Cubasis (both of which I have installed) are "interfering" with each other?

Many thanks for the hints and tips

G

[L0W]

Yes if you uninstall REASON you WILL have more mixer channels free.

Cubase and Cubasis won't interfere with each other because neither are a ReWire Client.

[GregW]

Many thanks for the advice, uninstalling Reason has freed up the mixer channels....one last thing, the Universal Sound Module that came with Cubasis seems to crash Cubase, are they compatible?

G