Bandstand Useless as VST Instrument

I have a Mac G4 with dual 1.3 GHz processors and am using Cubase SE. I have a song with 5 tracks. With bandstand standalone the MIDI file plays fine with 100 ms latency. It uses a maximum of 55% of CPU. The same tracks in Cubase SE (played through the universal sound module) use a maximum of 30% CPU. When Bandstand is chosen as the VST instrument I just get crackling. Even if I just choose Bandstand for one track (the other four on USM) I get just crackling.

I bought this to use as a VST instrument, and it is useless for that purpose.

 

Hi Gerry,

sorry to hear about your bad experience with Bandstand!

I can try to run your scenario by our test team next week. what is your latency setting in SE? Bandstand should work with great results if it is similar to your stand-alone setting. maybe some other users have more experience with this scenario?

what I do realize is that your machine is below the minimum requirements of Bandstand (G4 1.5 GHz) - what I am not sure about is if the result should be that drastic. This even more given the fact that your dual processors should be fully supported. I just doublechecked that this option is indeed switched on with Bandstand by default.


Best,
Markus

 

Thanks for the prompt reply. I think I understand the problem now. I am using Cubase SE, which does not support dual processors. If Bandstand standalone uses both processors, that would explain the difference in performance.

The standalone version was working fine on my midi file with 0.1 sec latency (this should be a buffer size of 4.41 kB), while the buffer size as a plugin was set to 384 kB.

Operated as a plugin and soloing any instrument except bass (piano, horns or drums) the VST performance bar stays around 40%, but every time it hits 50% the overload light goes on and I get skips. There seems to be much greater than a factor of two difference in performance between standalone and plugin.

I would like to know how Bandstand perfroms with Cubase SL (which does support dual processors) with a dual 1.25 GHz G4.

I have checked that I can save tracks as audio from the standalone version and import them into Cubase SE. This works fine, but once you do this the tempo can not be changed.

 

Hi Jerry,

I am trying to find out for you!

meanwhile: please tell us more about your scenario! are you laying down background tracks with Bandstand and recording guitar in addition? are you using MIDI files are the basis?


Best,
Markus

 

Markus,

You have it right. I am using MIDI files (some bought, some made with Band-in-a-Box, all of them tweaked a little) as backing tracks and practicing/recording guitar parts. I used to use VirtualSoundCanvas with CuBase VST under System 9. I have replaced Cubase VST with Cubase SE and VirtualSoundCanvas with BandStand so I don't have to boot under system 9. It appears tha Roland is never going to convert VirtualSoundCanvas or HyperCanvas to System X. Bandstand is very similar, except for its VST plugin performance.

I like the Bandstand user interface and the alternate tuning capability. This should be listed in the features; I only learned about it from watching the advertising video.

Jerry

 

Hi Jerry,

thanks for sharing your Bandstand usage scenario! I was hoping that some people will use the program for practicing purposes.

most likely your performance will not be much better with another Cubase version (in spite of the dual processor support).

I hate to say it but you will probably make up more by getting a more performant hardware than a more capable host software.

meanwhile we are actively working on an improvement plan for reducing CPU usage in general.


Best,
Markus