Virus TI control with analog audio outs, audio out of sync when bouncing.

Does that mean you use the Virus Control plugin to setup the sounds but you additionally use a Cubase external instrument to send notes and receive audio at the same time?

What you are doing sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

You cannot "bounce offline" with external instruments. That's probably the main problem. Cubase tries to compensate for VC or other plugins running at the same time. Also, check the delay settings for your external instrument. Probably best to deactivate or remove the VC plugin for the bounce.

AFAIR, you can use the analog outputs together with VC if you like. Just set the outputs for every part. I've never done that (didn't need to, and my converters are not good enough to sound better when doing two conversions), so I have no idea how timing is handled then.

Zitat von Lsixtysix

Also it's not about the DAC or anything, it's about the output being 24bit over the analog vs 16bits on the usb.

you are worried about the bit depth and you don't hear that what you playback is not in sync (not only while bouncing). strange.

Zitat von Lsixtysix

Marc What i playback is in sync in realtime...i never stated otherwise. Maybe you misunderstood what i was referring to? I was referring to Oli stating that he had never considered the analog outs because of his Dac not being up to the task.

my point was that the analog outs will not playback in time when you use Virus Control. They will playback to early. In difference to the USB outs which are in time. and as for the converters, i'm reading olli's statement the way that his ADCs are not good enough. but maybe i'm wrong there.

Lsixtysix: in Cubase, try routing your Virus 1/2 outs to a simple audio track with monitoring enabled (or use direct monitoring if you don't have vsts fxs after that). Try avoiding the use of an external instrument track to get audio routed (this probably add some timing and rendering trick that are interfering with the expected results)...just have a try. Also remember that you are obbliged to do a realtime rendering since the VC (even if it's a vst) behaves as "external instrument" itself (it is that in reality), when bouncing. It's like that with both usb outs or analogs.

Have you tried changing the outputs of the virus software channel to a empty bus channel and create a new audio track with those bus inputs, then record it live. That way you can potentially loop record audio and get live with the modulation parameters on the TI hardware.

Lsixtysix: Can you please give a more detailed description of your setup? I tried different things now for about 2 hours, but I was not able to "bounce" the tracks when using the Virus analogue Outs coming back to a Cubase External Instrument. I could hear the audio but would get empty audio files, which is sort of logical because Cubase doesn't know that the audio for the midi regions sent to VC are coming back through a different return.

So how exactly have you set up VC, how did you set up your external instrument that acts as returns for the Virus analogue Outs, what's the target for your MIDI tracks. Maybe some pics would help as well.

Daksha: I was able to record audio when coming back into a plain audio track as suggested, but with that setup the timing was all over the place and totally unusable!

Ahahaha I've a Nord Modular G1 and a Pulse 1
Nice instruments there

Thanks for the description and pics. What I did to test your described problem is more or less identical. However...

Zitat von Lsixtysix

Yeah the offline bouncing feature does work only from the VC channel you have selected, but it's not in sync because the audio path is routed to the analog outs.

Frankly, I have no idea which function you are referring to with "offline bouncing". Do you mean "Freeze" (track? instrument?) or do you mean "Render Audio" (with what settings?)?

There's no way I can use either the "Freeze" or "Render Audio" when I have set up a part (e.g. Part 2) to use the analogue Out 1&2 returning via an External Instrument.
I was not able to replicate your problem, simply because I can't even get to the point where audio from the Virus coming back through an External Instrument can be rendered. However, I did a lot of experiments, and found out that Cubase obviously has a couple of weird timing problems with the whole render audio function, not only when using it with VC, but also when I did it for my Moog Sub37 hooked up as External Instrument. When using synced LFOs and ENVs or the ARP or SEQ, some notes just get swallowed. Sometimes it's fine, most of the time not. And the exact same phrase can be fine at one place in the song, but not in another. But after a restart of Cubase, it can be fine in both places or nowhere.

(btw, using Cubase 9, checked back with Cubase 8.5, same problem)

For now, I would say that most of the timing problems with VC (or External Instruments) are not because of VC but because of Cubase.

Zitat von Lsixtysix

its recommended to use the "Audio mix down" option if you want to avoid any hassle and timing/sync issues. The way to do that is to solo the analog out and the midi channel with the midi information you want to render then go to "file" "export" "audio mix down" and tick the external instrument out (analog output) to render the audio and not the VC midi channel. This should work flawlessly and in sync.

Wow. This is a lot of work. I rather stick with using VC the way it's intended.

I did a couple of experiments and you can nicely render only parts of a track instead of the complete track or only the outs. So before finishing a song, I can render all the synth parts to audio (with maximum output level) and then do the mix of all the synth tracks in Cubase without any loss of Bit depth.

Zitat von Lsixtysix

Im talking about the edit menu then go to render in place. Doing it this way causes an issue when the VC is pointing to the analog 1+2 outs. Remember to make it work you need to render out the VC midi channel you are attempting to render and NOT the External instrument (analog out) otherwise it definitely won't work with external instrument this way as you have found that out.

If I do a render in place for the VC Midi track, I get an empty audio region.

Zitat von Lsixtysix

Regarding your issue here,it seems to me you may have a configuration problem as i export and audio mix down my external gear with no hiccups and no issues of timing you are explaining here, this has been the way since Cubase 5 and now on 9.

Don't know. I ran into the timing issues only when using ARP/SEQ or looped envelopers on the Sub37. With any other use, it wouldn't be obvious at all. We're talking abut 1ms shifts here, which only get obvious if you have a real mono-synth that cuts notes off if a displaced Note On/Note Off sequence interferes with the internal clock.

Anyway, I do have little problems with the VC. Except after a while of working, where VC starts to seriously lag when playing live and and the note lengths from played sequences get shortened. Which seems to be a latency correction mis-calculation, most probably introduced by Cubase.

Zitat von Lsixtysix

The reason for analog outs is simple 24 bit>16 bit. There are definitely differences here, some may claim otherwise but there have been numerous posts and audio examples all around the web showing that the analog audio outs or the spdif outs are 24-bit audio while the usb audio is 16 bit. This causes less aliasing as the resolution is higher and the sound somewhat more "rounded" or "smooth" some might say.

Aliasing has to do with the sample frequency regardless of bit depth. If played over the same DACs, I very much doubt you'd hear any difference between a 16Bit and a 24Bit recording, except for the extreme low volume parts (< -60dB). Which you generally don't hear in a mix anyway.

But, I'm sure that there's a difference if you compare the audio of the Virus outs with the audio of the VC rendered over other DACs. My guess would be that the Virus has rather good DACs and probably excellent analogue low pass filters after the DAC to get rid of high frequency artifacts and thus acheive a "round smooth" sound even at stage volume. A trick that was used by E-mu for their samplers with 38kHz sampling rate.

Zitat von Lsixtysix

What audio interface are you using? could this be part of your problem? how have your connected your synths to it?

Audio interface NI Komplete 6. Virus over USB. Sub37 MIDI over USB, Audio back in over interface OR VC (doesn't matter which way). USB 3.0 MTT Hub.

Everything else is in the box.

Oh, good to hear I'm not alone wirh this, and it's not directly related to my setup! My hope was to get rid of the VC lag issue with upgrading to Cubase 9/macOS sierra/VirusOs 5.1.6 combo. And it got indeed better but not fully cured.

Haven't tried a different DAW because I generally run into these issues while actually creating or arranging music, and Cubase is what we use in the band.

But I have to try yoursuggestipns, also regarding the Sub37 to isolate the problem. More fun. More time to spend bug hunting instead of producing music.

PS: I still don't get how you acheive to render audio wcoming back from the analogue outs. If I do as in your pics I get nothing. I must be missing a step...