User manual

114
Recording
Audio recording specifics
• The higher the bit resolution, the larger the files and the more strain is put on the
disk system.
If this is an issue, you may want to lower the record format setting.
RAM requirements for recording
When recording live music performances, you will often simultaneously record on a
large number of tracks at the same time.
Each track on which you record requires a certain amount of RAM, and the memory
usage increases the longer the recording lasts.
Please consider the RAM limitation (see “RAM” on page 22) of your operating system
when setting up your project for recording.
For each audio channel, 2.4 MB of RAM are required for MixConsole settings, etc.
One minute of audio recording with a sample rate of 96
kHz on a mono track will
increase memory usage by another 176
KB (Windows Task Manager, average).
Examples:
• Recording on a 32-bit system with 64 mono tracks at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz,
lasting 60 minutes.
This would require a total of 403 MB of memory – not a problem on a modern
computer.
• Recording on a 32-bit system with 128 mono tracks at a sample rate of 96 kHz,
lasting 60 minutes.
This would require 1658 MB of memory – dangerously close to the 2 GB limit for
RAM on a 32-bit Windows computer.
Ö Also note that the maximum file size for regular Wave files is 2 GB. If you want to
record larger files, use the Waves 64 format (see
“Record File Type” on page 113).
Setting up the track
Creating a track and selecting the channel configuration
Audio tracks can be configured as mono, stereo, or surround tracks (Cubase only).
This allows you to record or import a file containing multiple channels and treat it as
one entity, with no need to split it up into several mono files, etc. The signal path for an
audio track maintains its channel configuration all the way from the input bus, via EQ,
level and other MixConsole settings to the output bus.
You specify the channel configuration for a track when you create it:
1. Select “Add Audio Track” from the track list context menu or the Project menu (or,
if an audio track is already selected, double-click in an empty area of the track list).
A dialog opens with a channel configuration pop-up menu.
2. Select the desired format from the pop-up menu.
In Cubase Artist, you choose between mono and stereo. In Cubase, the most
common formats are listed directly on the pop-up menu, with the remaining
surround formats listed on the “More…” submenu. For a list of the available
surround formats, see
“Output bus configuration” on page 267.
!
For further information on the options in the Project Setup dialog, see “The Project
Setup dialog” on page 62.
!
When a recording has used up all the memory made available by the operating
system, the computer may crash.