While I wouldn’t think this would be a factor with Melodyne, some past observations (back on my old Windows 10 system for sure) may suggest there could be something to this for WaveLab and SpectraLayers. Specifically, it would relate to the significantly extended size of the data in project files in certain ARA extension uses, which I believe may be relevant to both WaveLab and SpectraLayers, but I would not expect to be relevant to Melodyne.
The specific experience I am remembering was with Synchro Arts RePitch (the 1.x would have been relevant at the time-- I haven’t upgraded to 2.x, but I also haven’t used RePitch recently). There was an option in its settings to choose whether to store its data in the DAW’s project file instead of the default, which stored them in a system-level directory that wouldn’t be obvious in terms of any relationship to a given project. I’d initially interpreted the DAW project file option to mean it would store the data in the ARA subdirectory Cubase creates under your project directory, which would have been welcome for project cleanup considerations the project is finished – the default directories it used were accumulating a lot of data over time, just filling up space with most of that being from long-completed projects (because RePitch was not cleaning up after itself – this issue is not unique to RePitch or even Synchro Arts plugins as Melodyne seems to do the same thing). However, the option actually added the data to your Cubase CPR file, and the amount of data could be significant. I don’t remember what my AutoSave interval was at the time, but I’d be working in RePitch for a long time, and every time it autosaved while this setting was active, Cubase was not responsive to anything I did, and the size of the files (and I may have still had a hard disk at that time, though I’m not positive on that front) meant long write times, so at least several second interruptions.
I don’t recall at this point if there may also have been any connection to “typeahead” or “mouse-ahead”, but I do know I could be in the middle of some editing moves when the interruptions for autosave would occur, and I also know that RePitch was not very stable at the time. I eventually went back to using the option that stored the data on disk, just having to remember to manually clean up at some point.
I think the amount of data WaveLab and SpectraLayers can add to project files may possibly be significant. (This is based on the issues that arose with CPR file size limitations a few years back when people started using these applications via ARA, and CPR files were exceeding some previous size limitation – I’m thinking 2 GB, but my memory may be faulty. By way of comparison, largest the CPR file for my current project got when I had Melodyne on 4 background vocal tracks in parallel was around 36 MB, and it was a little smaller than that when I had Sync Vx live on those same tracks plus the lead vocal as the reference track. But those ARA plugins are storing their cache on disk, not in the project file. I don’t know if the two Steinberg ARA extensions have an option on that or may have changed how they do things since the time when the issue arose.)
Coincidentally, I did have a couple of Cubase crashes (one may have been more of a hang) yesterday while working with Waves Sync Vx. The first time it happened, what I noticed was that the graph that shows progress on processing the audio after selecting the reference track either wasn’t moving or moved for a little while then froze. I wanted to get an idea of what was going on, so I tried bringing up Task Manager to look at the performance tab information, but it didn’t come up for a long time, then when it did, it wasn’t its usual view, but something that suggested I was short on memory (highly unlikely to be the case based on information I found later in a similar context – it was likely the system was only using about 45% of my 64 GB of RAM at that point). I don’t recall the exact sequence of events at that point, but I do know Cubase’s interface wouldn’t repaint, and there were a bunch of white areas on the screen (it is possible that Sync Vx uses GPU acceleration, but I’m not positive on that). What I do remember, though, was that, at some point I saw a pop-up message that suggested my Antares Mic Modeler plugin was not authorized (it was), and at some point I saw a popup message:
This was very likely Cubase crashing, and what I found later when looking at the DMP file was it had zero size, assumedly due to the WerFault.exe issue reported here.
Once I cleared that message, I saw another popup:
During the same session I’d previously been doing various RX stuff (e.g. de-clicking) using iZotope’s RX Connect. I’d already made the direct audio processing permanent, but I’d forgotten to close the RX application. I seem to recall having seen an issue in the past similar to this where I was using Sync Vx after RX and may have had an issue. (So perhaps there is some sort of conflict between the two applications???)
After this, with RX now closed, I tried starting Cubase again, but the Cubase icon on my task bar was loading Dorico instead(!!!). I ended up rebooting my system to get back to some sanity.
Once I got back into Cubase, I opened the instance of Mic Modeler I had active to verify that it was authorized (yep), then I tried using Sync Vx again, with the same basic activity as before (i.e. adding it to all the BGV and lead vocal clips, then selecting the lead vocal as the reference track). This time I know the graph moved to about the three-quarters level before it froze, and I again got a message about Mic Modeler authorization. (I should note that the Mic Modeler instance was on the lead vocal, which was being used as the reference track in Sync Vx.) This suggests to me there may be some conflict between Waves Sync Vx’s analysis and Antares’ software protection. Again, I’m not quite sure of the sequence here, but Cubase did generate a non-empty freezedump DMP file this time, showing a Break instruction exception (0x80000003) in win32u.dll at win32u!NtDCompositionWaitForChannel+14.
I know I rebooted again after this, and this time I disabled Mic Modeler, and also the rest of the plugins in my lead vocal inserts (and also BGV inserts, but they may have been disabled previously) before trying again. Sync Vx did finish its graph, and I was working on tweaking some sync markers where the automated processing didn’t quite get things right for quite a while. Once I got things the way I wanted, I saved the file with Sync Vx live so, if there were further crashes, at least I wouldn’t have to redo my work within Sync Vx. At that point, I started bouncing down the various song sections (I chose to do that rather than “make extension permanent” because I wanted the results in the pool, rather than in edits). I know I also had a crash of Cubase when rendering one of the sections. Actually, I don’t recall if the freezedump came from that or the earlier scenario. What I do know is I had one crash that didn’t produce a crashdump at all, one that produced the empty crashdump, and one that produced the freezedump.
I ended up going back into the project one more time and rendering slightly differently in terms of what clips were selected at each step (and also saving after each section was rendered). It all worked in the end, but what a lot of frustration and just after having replied in this thread that I hadn’t had ARA issues in a long time.
BTW, I mention these specific experiences in the (perhaps unlikely) case there may be some relationship to what you’re seeing, specifically with respect to the possibility of some ARA plugins having some weird interactions with some other plugins on your system (e.g. the potential that RX 11’s RX Connect plugin and Antares’ Mic Modeler plugin may have somehow interacted badly with Waves Sync Vx in my case). In particular, if the tracks you’re using an ARA plugin on when Cubase crashes, it may be worth seeing if temporarily disabling any plugins on the tracks in question may help workaround whatever underlying problems there may be in this area (be it in Cubase’s ARA handling or with specific ARA plugins).
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