4.0

15
Setting up your system
1. Launch Cubase AI, select Device Setup from the De-
vices menu and click on VST Audio System in the Devices
list to the left.
The VST Audio System page in the Device Setup dialog.
2. Select your audio hardware driver from the ASIO
Driver menu.
There may be several options here that all refer to the same audio hard-
ware. When you have selected a driver, it is added to the Devices list.
3. Select the driver in the Devices list to open the Driver
settings for your audio hardware.
4. Bring up the control panel for the audio hardware and
adjust the settings as recommended by the audio hard-
ware manufacturer.
• Under Windows, you open the control panel by clicking
the Control Panel button.
The control panel that appears when you click this button is provided by
the audio hardware manufacturer and not Cubase AI (unless you use Di-
rectX, see below). Hence it will be different for each audio card brand
and model.
The Control panel for the ASIO DirectX driver is an exception, as it is
provided by Steinberg, and is described in the dialog help, opened by
clicking the Help button in the dialog. See also the notes below.
• Under Mac OS X, you will find the control panel for your
audio hardware in the System Preferences (“Other” sec-
tion), opened from the Apple menu or from the Dock.
If you are using the built-in audio hardware of the Macintosh, you use the
“Sound” control panel in the System Preferences to set levels, balance, etc.
If you are using ASIO audio hardware, you can click the Control Panel but-
ton to bring up its panel.
5. If you plan to use several audio applications simulta-
neously, you may want to activate the option “Release
Driver when Application is in Background” on the VST
Audio System page. This will allow another application to
play back via your audio hardware even though Cubase AI
is running.
The application that is currently active (i.e. the “top window” on the desk-
top) will get access to the audio hardware. Make sure that any other au-
dio application accessing the audio hardware is also set to release the
ASIO (or Mac OS X) driver so Cubase AI can use it when it becomes the
active application again.
6. If your audio hardware and its driver support ASIO Di-
rect Monitoring, you may want to activate the Direct Moni-
toring checkbox on the page for the driver.
Read more about monitoring later in this chapter and in the chapter “Re-
cording” in the Operation Manual.
7. Click Apply and then OK to close the dialog.
If you are using audio hardware with a DirectX driver
(Windows only)
Cubase AI comes with a driver called ASIO DirectX Full
Duplex, available for selection on the ASIO Driver pop-up
menu (VST Audio System page).
Ö To be able to take full advantage of DirectX Full Du-
plex, the audio hardware must support WDM (Windows
Driver Model) in combination with DirectX version 8.1 or
higher.
In all other cases, the audio inputs will be emulated by DirectX (see the
dialog help for the ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Setup dialog for details
about how this is reported).
Ö During the installation of Cubase AI, the latest DirectX
will be installed on your computer.
!
Under Windows, we strongly recommend that you
access your hardware via an ASIO driver written
specifically for the hardware, if available. If no ASIO
driver is installed, we recommend that you check
with your audio hardware manufacturer if they have
an ASIO driver available, for example for download
via the Internet.
!
If your Windows audio hardware doesn’t have a spe-
cific ASIO driver, a DirectX driver is the next best op-
tion.