Is Cubase falling behind?

jamie1981uk

New member
I have been a massive Cubase fan currently using Cubase Artist 8.5 atm and love the way it looks and the ease of how it is but I guess it helps using it after all these years. My audio processor is the 11rack (I also have a focusrite 6i6 but that's boxed up). I've noticed the sound popping and cutting out and the vst performance was going ape ****. Even the meter on the play/stop bar is moving up and down and I'm not even doing anything. So I upgraded my pc from amd (and this will make you laugh) to...... Asus H370-F, Intel i7 8700, 16gb ddr4 and it still does the same. I even tried the focusrite and its the same. Turning off hyper threading helped a little and turning the buffer up helped but the meters are still moving halfway up. Does Reaper have this issue? Should I wave goodbye to Cubase? I heard something about Reaper and midi being a issue? I'm really getting depressed with all this recording lark.
 
It's not Cubase - it's your computer. With Windows 10 the current version 9.5 pro uses less resources than 8.5 and 9 and is more stable, but those big processor spikes are your computer doing something - what, I don't know, but something you also have running in the background is probably the cause. Easy to blame the software, but it will be something else. If you tried a different computer then have a think about what is common? Slow drives, having audio on the C drive - that kind of thing. Cubase itself is unlikely to the the culprit, although it could be in conflict with something else. On my machines I have never had to adjust buffer sizes or turn off hyper threading.
 
Can you confirm where the two meters are on vst performance on your system? Are they stable or moving when you are doing nothing? If Steinberg can't get Cubase to work with Windows 10 after all these years, they really have gone down hill. I'll repost part of my comment into the Cubase section. I mainly wanted to know if Reaper was more stable.
 
Here's a screenshot - loads of audio tracks on the go, some VST instruments and the meter hardly ticking over. The computer spec is i7-4790-3-6GHz 16GB RAM Windows 10
Honestly - Cubase is not your problem.
 

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What audio processor do you use and buffer size? Also what is the latency at with your settings? It's possible that the 11 rack could be the issue. Without looking I know my buffer size was around 700ish and the latency around 8. System wise we aren't a million miles from each other expect I'm using a 8th gen intel and possibly ddr4?
 
You had two threads going for the same topic. I deleted the other one and will respond here.

Buffer settings, I missed where you said you set them higher. I don't usually use the 2i2 and so I had to hook it up to see what was what. The buffer said 10ms, which I find a little misleading. The input latency was 22ms and the output was 23ms. I always thought of buffer settings as the value of number of samples being buffered at one time.

I checked my VST performance meter and while doing nothing it was at about 40%. Win7-64 with Cubase 7.5. go figure. But it doesn't seem to really affect the overall performance. I never glitch or cut-out.

Honestly, I'm kinda souring on Steinberg software. recently been having so many problems with plug-in folders and the software not finding my plugs.
 
I've never had an issue in Reaper that wasn't directly attributable to bad hardware or bad device drivers. Enough people happily use Cubase that I can't imagine that it's a software fault. Maybe Steinberg has drifted out of compliance with modern hardware/software standards, but I kinda doubt that. I'd have to agree that you've got something funky going on with your hardware/firmware/software somewhere. I had a finicky motherboard a few years ago that made my life living hell with audio and video devices.

I've been using Win10 on a few different desktop computers since it was released with no major issues. I've got a Ryzen 7 1700 machine that's been a media creation beast, an Intel i7 4790K machine, and lately an Intel i3 8100 machine that have all been happy with Reaper and Win10. No glitches, crackles, pops, stutters, dropouts, etc. Even with tiny ASIO buffers and relatively demanding projects with all sorts of VSTi and VST plugins running.

What does DPC Latency Checker tell you when you run it?
 
You had two threads going for the same topic. I deleted the other one and will respond here

I had two threads because one was edited about Cubase under "Cubase" and the other was telling people about my issue and if Reaper was any better under "Reaper". I did mention this in my comments. The helps is appreciated but I did want to cover both bases and not look like I'm discounting Cubase altogether.
 
He's running an i7 8700 on an 370 chipset! WTF is he going to upgrade to? He's running Cubase, not modeling weather predictions.

Sorry, I missed that part.
I'm not sure what's going on, but I run 9.5 on my 6 year old laptop (I7 and 16GB of RAM also) and it runs perfectly.
 
Cubase 9.5 is the best yet, so no. Maybe upgrade your computer.

No offence but my pc is brand new and only recently built myself. I stated what it was but just incase you skipped that part......
Benq GL2450 Monitor
Fractal Design R5 white case
OCZ-ZS 750w
Asus Rog Strix H370-F Gaming
Intel I7 8700 (8th gen)
Corsair Vengeance ddr4 16gb
EVGA 1060 6gb

Edit:-
Didn't realise you replied page 2. Now my big problem with people saying 9 or 9.5 is better is that I paid a lot of money for Cubase Artist 8 when it was first released. I paid further money to upgrade to Artist 8.5 when it was released. And now I'm told to upgrade even more? You have to understand that this swapping and changing versions is putting me off recording altogether. Best thing I can do is post some images later on to see if everyone agrees I either have a issue or I'm not doing something right. My first to do will be a factory restore of my 11 rack and then I can discount that.
 
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Yeah ignore my post I didn't read that you had a new PC. 8.5 should be fast on that computer. Cubase has awful tech support, but you can try their forum. It's pretty good for tips.
Run a computer cleaning like Ccleaner to make sure you don't have junk bogging you down, too.
 
We're in the Reaper section, so this is getting a bit confusing, but Steinberg have had Cubase an awfully long time now, and the others are not really newcomers. I started with Cubase on an Atari 500 series in black and white with a new fangled invention called a mouse. Constant upgrading is a fact of life, and with great respect, NOT upgrading is dangerous, because while you don't risk being an unpaid bug finder, you also risk a sudden total failure when Windows or Apple suddenly make a tiny change. 9.5 is the most stable it's been for years. I can't remember how much I paid, probably a hundred quid? The alternative is a subscription model. It's just how it is. It is never going to be buy and use for ever. I'm convinced your problem is not Cubase. I don't know Reaper, never ever used it, but I do know that installing some new software can undo things you don't expect. A friend had Cubase elements 8.5, but on one Windows update his Lexicon interface suddenly wouldn't talk to it any longer, yet was happy playing Windows sounds? The Lexicon driver was old and no new version so useless for Cubase, but worked on an old copy of Audacity,

I feel your pain, but has Cubase fell behind? Absolutely not. I have still not fully explored some features from version 8. Cubase fior me is a business expense, it generates income. If I wasn't happy with it I'd be running something else.
 
I have run a few tests and these are the results....

Avid Eleven Rack ASIO (64b-bit)
Latency - 18.798ms
Preferred Buffer Size - 704

VST Peformance

Average Load - 20/100
Real-time peak - 5/100
--------------------------------
Avid Eleven Rack ASIO (64b-bit)
Latency - 14.444ms
Preferred Buffer Size - 512

VST Peformance

Average Load - 20/100
Real-time peak - 5/100
--------------------------------
Avid Eleven Rack ASIO (64b-bit)
Latency - 7.914ms
Preferred Buffer Size - 224

VST Peformance

Average Load - 25/100 (spiked into red)
Real-time peak - 10/100
--------------------------------
After factory reset these are the defaults.

Avid Eleven Rack ASIO (64b-bit)
Latency - 21.927ms
Preferred Buffer Size - 704

VST Peformance

Average Load - 20/100
Real-time peak - 5/100


Without knowing other peoples latency I woudlnt know if 20ms is good or bad and if it starts happing again it would be hard to raise the buffer without lag but I will update if it spikes again on the default setting. Anything above the default buffer size (704) I will be able to tell through Scuffham. If Cubase 9.5 is the solution then the question would be....Does it matter if it's pro or Artist? Is Cubase 9.5 more compatible to hyper threading, multi cores etc? What makes 9.5 more stable?
 
My buffer is around 3ms.

I7 16GB built in 2013 computer. I use the focusrite software to get latency that low, though, and without it it's closer to your numbers. Have you tried Ccleaner and optimizing the computer for audio? Ccleaner will clean out a lot of junk that bogs down PCs.

The one thing I don't like about 9.5 is it's slow to open. Once it's open it's great.
 
Mine is pretty slow too, to be honest, but that's because I have bundles of VSTs all over the place and it's looking for them in 4 or 5 paths. My audio driver latency is about 9ms I believe. I don't know for certain because I never have too fiddle with anything - My colleague/collaborator runs artiste 9.5 and I run pro 9.5. Neither of us have issues of any kind, and most files are interchangeable, although artist cannot make sense of VCA tracks.
 
Mine is pretty slow too, to be honest, but that's because I have bundles of VSTs all over the place and it's looking for them in 4 or 5 paths. My audio driver latency is about 9ms I believe. I don't know for certain because I never have too fiddle with anything - My colleague/collaborator runs artiste 9.5 and I run pro 9.5. Neither of us have issues of any kind, and most files are interchangeable, although artist cannot make sense of VCA tracks.

Yeah my VSTs are in 5 different places, too. If you try to move them to one folder they usually break. It's a bummer that installation is still not standardized and so inefficient.
 
Yep - that's exactly my reason. Usually my fault when installing them, and I left the location to the default, which isn't a default for the others. Spreading them around though does work for large sample libraries as different drives can speed things up a bit. Mine also insists on trying to access an old bit of software that was on the dongle years ago, and it always gives me an error saying hypersonic cannot be found. It's ancient and long gone, and the licence is still on the dongle - but the software is not on the computer. It seems it cannot cope with this, and I don't intend removing it from the dongle just in case. Running the maintenance utility would probably stick it back anyway.
 
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