HI everyone,
I just tried to use this function, that I remembered having heard of in some YouTube video, but it doesn’t run as expected: if I deactivate insert effect after having dragged them on an audio event I don’t hear any change at all…
I’m I doing something wrong? Is this a known issue?
Thank you,
Art
I think you are confusing regular inserts in the project window with Direct Offline Processing
Hi @Reco29,
thank you for answering, but I’m not confused…
I had searched on the web and on Steinberg Online Manual before posting and there is [a page with the same title of my post:
I followed instruction step by step but something, as I wrote, didn’t function as expected and I’m trying to understand why…
Art
Haha, no, I didn’t want to imply that you are confused… merely that you had confused something with something…
Direct Offline Processing:
Turning off an insert effect plugin is the same as tweaking a parameter of said plugin. The process is applied instantly to the related clip and stored as a separate file in the Edits folder.
This works as it is supposed to do. If your intention was to reduce CPU load than you don’t have to worry. Once the effect of a pluging is applied to a clip it will not put any more strains on the CPU. In other words - no need to deactivate the plugin.
HI @Reco29, I didn’t take it as a personal remark, I simply expressed myself not precisely 
Sorry but I’m not so sure about this, instead 
I opened a new project then I imported a Bloom vocal loop and I applied a Vocal Chain preset as an insert fx, then I dragged it into the Offline processing window, as explained in the online manual page; the waveform changed, as expected (unlike in the project I wrote for) BUT:
- if I deactivated (not simply switched off) insert fx, playing level (after fader) was about 1 dB softer and channel latency was equal to zero ms
- leaving insert fx active playing level (after fader) was about 1 dB louder and channel latency was equal to 222.3 ms meaning that insert fx was summing is effect on the offline one and that deactivating insert fx is absolutely useful.
These are numbers…
What I would like to understand is why this didn’t happen in my project; my hypothesis is that I tried to drag insert fx on an event that has versions but I’m not so sure it’s the answer.
Hope someone else has some more hint about this…
Art
1 Like
Hi,
thanks for the screenshots and the step by step instruction. That really helped.
Let’s pretend no Direct Offline Processing is involved:
The results should be exactly like you described: Deactivating a plugin on any insert slot by Alt + Click takes it completely out of the equation. In other words - no latency, no influence on level whatsoever.
An activated insert plugin does of course affect latency and level.
Direct Offline Processing
If you drag a plugin from an insert to Direct Offline Processing you open a second independent instance of this plugin. This instance and its parameters will be applied to the selected clip and afterwards it is automatically deactivated and will not affect the CPU anymore. As a result, the same plugin in your insert slot is now obsolete. You can delete it or deactivate it. If it stays activated, you apply the same amount of FX again on the affected events.
Regarding duplicates - if you’ve just copied the event than all events will be affected by Direct Offline Processing. If these copies are independent copies than DOP will not affect them.
EDIT: Just to be clear - don’t deactivate plugins in the DOP window. Although their status is displayed as active they will be deactivated behind the scenes after DOP is applied to the selected event. As a result, they will not affect your CPU as I said before.
1 Like
Hi again @Reco29,
this was clear to me from the beginning… I think we are basically saying the same thing 
but I probably didn’t explained my question clearly enough: I never wrote about deactivating plugin in DOP window but to deactivate those in the insert slots after dragging them to DOP window (that is the basic reason for doin’ DOP).
Trying to be short and precise I did this:
- selected one event
- opened DOP window (F7 shortcut)
- dragged a couple of insert fx into DOP window in the dedicated space (autoapply flagged); at this point event wafeform changed due to DOP processing, as expected
- competely deactivated insert fx in insert slot (alt + click);
here the issue started:
playing back the song no effect was heard… hope it’s clearer now.
Doing some more try in a custom project, after writing, everything was ok so I’m asking myself what could be the cause for the problem I tryied to describe but I haven’t figured out yet…
Thanks, anyway, for trying to help me, really appreciated!
Art
1 Like
Hi,
as far as I can tell there’s a bug involved. As it didn’t seem to affect you (obviously I was wrong about that 
) I have left this bit out in order to do more research.
If you drag a plugin from an insert to DOP some plugin instances seem to interact with the original instance from the insert. In other words, they are co-dependent and do weird stuff like getting muted altogether although each of these instances should be independent from one another.
So far I can say that Vocalchain and a couple of 3rd party plugins are affected. Most of the stock plugins work as expected.
Workaround for now: After dragging the plugin instance from an insert to DOP deactivate and reactivate the instance in the DOP or change a parameter. This seems to do the trick to establish two independent instances as expected.
As I said, I didn’t have time to look more into it but that workaround might be okay for now. Maybe others can confirm? In that case you should add the tag “issue” to this thread or it might be helpful to open a new one which summarizes the findings.
I can’t reproduce such a bug on Cubase 14.
1 Like
Update:
I couldn’t reproduce this behaviour on a C14 Win 10 system. However, when I went back to my first system with C14 Win 11 the bug was still existent on my test track. I tried again on a couple of newly added tracks and now it worked as expected. To conclude: Something was off with the test track. Actually, I have no clue what it was since it was a clean track (no inserts, sends, automation, busses and so on). I remember having faulty tracks back in the days but rarely nowadays.
To cut a long story short - no issue to report from my side.
1 Like
Hi @Reco29, my issue happened with Vocalchain, actually, so it’s possible that’s the cause but having tests in a new project everything worked as expected so the bug could be project related, I couldn’t be sure…
Another weird behaviour I’d forgot to mention was that during my tests in the ‘investigated’ project sometimes after dragging inset on DOP window waveform shifted to the right side and it went back only after undoing process.
I still have to test your workaround but I’ll do as soon I’ll reopen the project, thank you in advance!
@Johnny_Moneto: I’m on Cubase 14 but, as I wrote, it could be a project related bug; there’s also an arranger track included in the project I could test if it’s involved someway (toggling between active/non active).
Thank you both for supporting 
Art
1 Like