ASIO spikes

Cubase
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bump

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Right I have the same problem, Asio spiking.

And for me its a simple case that Cubase 6.0.2 is the issue.

  1. I can load an old AI4 project, which in AI4, on the same equipment (exactly) works fine, as soon as its loaded (12 tracks of audio) into C6, the Asio Spikes. I don’t even have to press play, you can see the Asio is in the red permanently. Bug! No excuses its a bug… Like I Said works happily in AI4.

  2. If I can record more than 5-6 tracks, in a NEW project, of audio without spiking I am lucky (in C6), but in AI4 I have lots of 12-16 audio track projects which never spike, despite heavy processing with inbuilt VST effects.

My only way around all this, is to continually mix/bounce tracks down to a managable number of tracks with no effects on them (I can get to about 12 audio tracks with no effects on them).

Its a bug. Its not a feature.

Anyone defending having to go round what was a perfectly servicable and workable AI4 system (hardware/software), with perfectly working projects and then have to tweak system performance for Version 6 is having a laugh. Bug, simple as. Performance is terrible in C6. I am so dissappointed I upgraded now :cry:

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I just read through this thread, and followed the advice from the NI tweaking vista link. I wanted to post, just to let people know the outcome.

I just recently finished a remix, and was able to complete it simply because the mix was almost done, and the few changes were slight enough, that even though the entire song would not play through without crackles, I could manage the few fixes I needed. The problem with the crackles was really annoying though, and I wanted to find a way to solve the issue.

Logged into the forum today, and found this thread.

Turning on the Steinberg Power Plan reduced my cpu spikes by more than half. I didn’t even realize this was an option, as I never needed it with previous versions. Also, updated my BIOS and chipset.

Finally, there is a hotfix from MS listed in the article, and I downloaded and installed that as well.

Now, the mix is playing back perfectly with no pops or crackles. I could only get the latency down to 23ms, but as this is the final mixing phase, this is not an issue for me. The song was entirely unlistenable yesterday, regardless of how high I set the buffer. This is really good news! Thanks!

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@MarkCST: I feel with you… Got the same problem… :confused:

@Mokus: Congratulations! 23ms? That’s really high. Impossible to track for me @ this latency… It’s a pity that this is not the solution for my problem because I’m using a Firaface 400…

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Yes, 23ms is too high for tracking. However, for mixing, 23ms is not a problem for me. Also, if I’m tracking, it would most likely be towards the beginning of a project. My latency is about 8.9 ms at 256. This still seems like it should be lower somehow, but it’s usable.

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I think cubase and the vstbridge communicate over the internal network. Can´t be 100% sure without confirmation by steinberg, but this would explain the traffic and would be 100% normal.

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I’m currently using my Mackie Onyx Firewire mixer (the original release one) with 64 buffers and have use tons of VST synths and effect plugins with no pops/crackles whatsoever unless I load Native Instruments Reaktor - which is a well known issue that they have stated will be fixed in the 5.6.1 update. I didn’t need to do the legacy firewire thingy for my interface but have read it’s pertinent for some older firewire devices to function properly. I find it interesting this issue is reported to happen even just using Halion by itself. Has any submitted a bug report? Or is this issue not exactly reproduceable across every machine?


Rev.

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Sorry I can’t be any help but just want to add my +1 to this problem. For me Cubase 6 on Mac spikes awfully with Addictive Drums. My favourite VSTi hardly works!

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Ok here’s my workaround, not quite sure if it will help out everyone but it’s perfectly sold this problem for me. The tirck is quite simple and you have to play with a bit with the CPU cores.
I’m on an i7 2600K with no overclocking, HT enabled. I’ve installed Win7 64bit, the correct diver for my old SB Audigy platinumEx2. The first core (core 0) is running on a relative high load with windows installed only. Nothing else. First, check whether your CPU’s first core is loaded high or not in the task manager. If you see that it persists and ASIO usage is overloaded set the affinity of the processor. Right click on cubase.exe - set affinity and choose all the processor cores but core 0. Load the project and check if cubase plays it smoothly. I’m using a very high number of Kontakt instruments and after I’ve done this trick ASIO usage went back to absolute normal with a very low buffer setting. Also you don’t have to set the affinity every time you start up Cubase - StartAffinity is your friend. Put this little program to your desired place on your hard drive and edit Cubase’s shortcut to start it with the core IDs you’ve set. Hope it helps you and everyone who ran into this problem.

I hope Steinberg will investigate this problem very soon. It seems that if core 0 is loaded high Cubase can’t deal with this and working erratically. Please check this out!

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Can you check what is causing this load on core 1? All my cores are at 0% but I am on a different architecture (Q9550) and OS (XP64).

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I’ve tried that affinity-thingy 3 weeks ago… Was not the cure for my problem…

Cheers

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I tried to figure out but no luck. The thing is that it’s a new PC, I’ve used the same CPU as yours and this problem did not pop up. I guess the problem lies between the motherboard/CPU/Windows triad. It’s immediately there when only Windows installed.

Hope that someone will wind a perfect solution for this, it’s really annoying. This affinity tweak works perfectly in my case but it’s not a real solution.

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It must be possible to find out through process explorer, taskmanager or something similar. If not start disabling as many devices as possible in device manager or kill as many processes in taskmanager until you find the cause. If you can´t find it, it could also be a bios setting, a autostart program for motherboard monitoring or even a virus. I don´t think cubase can ever take a load already there into account when distributing the threads. If you can´t work it out, ask for help at dawbench.com or cubendo.com.

oh and don´t forget the latest bios.

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This any use to anyone? best method for layering - whats your view - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

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ok, finally the spiking in my case is gone! At least the one project i treid out seems to work normally now…
Solution? I downloaded PLAY 3, and the spiking was gone, hopefully forever(crossing fingers).

Hope this might help others with the same problem.

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Would be much more helpful if you could elaborate more on what this Play 3 is. Googling it gives very generic responses. I have no spiking except in Reaktor, which will be fixed in the next update, but I’m still curious anyhow.


Rev.

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sample player by east west

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Sorry, the PLAY3 engine is as mentioned above the sample player for EastWest Quantum Leap sample libraries.

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Hi all!

I know the problem IS Cubase 6. I have proof!

I’ve installed on the same system C5 (5.5) and C6 (6.0.4). I’ve downloaded the DAW bench (http://www.dawbench.com/benchmarks.htm) and loaded the basic project.

Cubase 6 don’t go as far as C5 goes. Same machine, same installation, same Cubase config, same system.

→ Cubase 6 IS “guilty” and I don’t know what to do to open projects that were doing just fine in C5 and that are spiking with C6

Any idea Steinberg???

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Hi all, I updated from 5.5 to 6.0.5 today and I have exactly the same behavior. Projects which work fine on 5.5 have spikes on 6.0.5 - this is very disappointing and makes the update unusable. Is there any solution found by anyone or by Steinberg until now? Or do we need to wait for the next minor update which hopefully fixes this problem.