As long as I’ve been using Cubase, I’ve never actually used any of it’s built in synths. Lately, I’ve been trying to minimize my CPU & ASIO Buffer usage by using more lightweight synths, like FL Studio’s 3x Oscillator or Ableton’s various sound generators, for certain sounds that don’t need anything crazy (like simple supersaw chord stacks).
Are any of the Cubase synths optimized for performance? How do they compare to a 3rd party synth in terms of performance, such as Vital?
I suppose the easiest way for you to find out would be to … ummm … try them?
Hi,
Using multi-timbral approach safes some CPU usage.
Have you tried out u-he’s free synths? These are pretty light weight CPU-wise.
The free ones are down the bottom:
I have been using the TyrellN6 for years and really dig it:
Actually I didn’t even realize they had free versions.
However, what I’m wondering (which is something the genius ‘Scab’ above apparently doesn’t quite follow) is whether these synth’s are better optimized than third party synths. I would imagine that since they are a part of the DAW they can be better optimized than say, if I were to make a simple 3x-osc style VST plugin.
Yeah I’m not actually sure about that. You would need to test and see what the results are. I find the u-he stuff is very light weight though and in terms of getting some parts going fast I feel they’re easier to use than than what comes with Cubase. I guess this is more of a workflow recommendation than number crunching analysis on my part. I tend to need simple keyboard parts myself so thought for your needs they might be good.
But you lose flexibility when it comes to disabling certain instruments you won’t use from your template in the project - unless you dive into the instances and remove from there, within the project.
Even my orchestral scoring templates use one instrument per instance, unless I’m using single articulation per track for one instrument. In that case, I’ll do them multitimbral since I’m generally doing to enable or disable them together, and everything is pre-purged in the template anyways.
Built-in synths don’t have anything ‘heavy’ or CPU demanding in them, like some kind of ultra-deep analogue emulation etc. Besides Retrologue and PadShop all other synths are rather ‘ancient’ and were written a long time ago for way slower computers.
From my experience, their synths have almost no impact on the CPU, or it’s so small that I can’t feel it. Can’t speak about Vital but in comparison to U-he, Arturia synths or Massive X, Steinberg synths are ultra light-weight.