Audio - Cubasis - 3.7

If background audio is switched on, Cubasis playback will continue in the background, even if you press the home button or start another app. Combined with MIDI, background audio provides a set of useful possibilities:

• Play live to a Cubasis backing track with another music app.

• Play live to music coming from another app with Cubasis instruments.

• Press the sleep/wake button to switch off your screen during a long playback.

The latency value sets the system’s audio buffer length in milliseconds. Possible values range from around 1.3 ms (64 samples at 48 kHz) to 43 ms (2048 samples at 48 kHz), depending on the sample rate. Lower latency values are useful for recording or playing an instrument or vocals live, but negatively impact performance. Select a high latency for best performance when arranging or mixing complex projects, or whenever crackling occurs and the DSP meter (in the Inspector) reaches its maximum. The question mark button brings up a breakdown of the total I/O latency. This enables you to identify what makes up the largest part of the total latency. Note that on Android, device I/O latency is unknown, only system and guard buffer latencies will be displayed.

In most situations, Cubasis will perform best if audio rendering is distributed over all CPU cores. Multi-core rendering yields the most performance benefit when playing projects with many tracks and effects on devices with many CPU cores. However, it comes with additional latency because an extra “guard buffer” is required for multi-core rendering. Setting the guard buffer to “low” makes it the same length as the system’s audio buffer (which, on iOS, is the value set for “Latency” above). Default is twice the length of the system’s buffer, high is 4x and max is 8x (which is the default on Android).

If you experience crackling noise and high DSP meter levels (in the Inspector), increase this value, but be aware that this also increases the latency between input (e.g. pressing a keyboard key, or audio monitoring) and audio output.

On iOS, enabling this mode minimizes all input and output signal processing that is normally applied by iOS. This can significantly reduce the output volume and the gain of audio recordings. Use it only if you are certain that you require unprocessed, raw audio I/O.

On Android, this setting maximizes the quality of Android’s automatic sample rate conversion in the case that audio hardware with a sample rate different to the device’s is connected. It also minimizes all input signal processing that is normally applied by Android. Use it only if you are certain that sample rate conversion is required, that the default quality is insufficient for your needs, and that your device’s CPU is powerful enough to handle the increased workload.

Tap the Output Device button to open a list of outputs that are available to iOS.

• Both services operate with fairly high latency.

• Bluetooth: Make sure you have turned on Bluetooth in your device settings and paired your device with a Bluetooth accessory (headphones/speakers).

The I/O loopback latency inherent in every system leads to audio recordings being out of sync with the metronome on the track. If this value is set to the exact loopback latency of your device (and external hardware setup), audio recordings will be in sync without the need of manually nudging recorded audio events to the right position. Tap the Calibrate button and follow the instructions to automatically set this value. For the calibration to work, the audio input device must “hear” the audio output device. Either connect nothing at all, or when using an audio interface, connect speakers and a microphone so that the speaker output is picked up by the microphone. Note that when you change the Latency or Guard Buffer settings on this setup page, or when dis/connecting an audio interface, this value must be re-calibrated.

If enabled, existing audio events on a track are audible while recording or monitoring on the track.

By default, this setting is disabled which means that audio events on this track won't be played if monitoring is enabled of if the track is being recorded on.

Adjust the input gain scale with this slider if the recorded audio material is too quiet or if clipping occurs although the track's volume is set to 0 dB or less. On iOS, the input gain slider is only enabled if an audio device that supports input gain scaling is connected (some devices also support internal microphone gain adjustment).

A list of all possible output devices to receive/send audio from/to.