Audio Dropouts and wild peaks, but only with Inst track selected

Cubase
,
1

Hi all,

I know a few people are having peaking problems, but I haven’t found existing threads with this exactly.

Modern custom laptop, Cubase 14, I’m getting constant wild cpu peaks and RealTime jumps, on playback but even also just sitting idle. But only when an Instrument track is selected. If I select an Audio track, Real Time and Peak drop down to almost nothing, ASIO-Guard is around 25%, playback is smooth. You can see on the Performance Monitor here, starting and ending with an Audio track selected, middle section is with various Instrument tracks selected.

Screenshot 2026-05-29 132945
Screenshot 2026-05-29 132945564×815 107 KB

Doesn’t matter what instrument is loaded on the Inst track - I’ve tried with Komplete Kontrol, EWQL Opus, Massive X, etc. This is a track written on my home PC, where it worked fine, no problems. The problem is only on the laptop. Specs/hardware below. Interface is RME Babyface for both systems. Any thoughts?

Laptop -

Metabox Prime-XR X560WNR-G*

Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX 24-Core (36M Cache up to 5.40 GHz)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070Ti 12GB GDDR7 VRAM
64GB DDR5 5200MHZ (2 x 32GB)
Crucial P3 1TB - System
Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB - Internal
Crucial X9 4TB - External

PC -

Intel Core i9 11900F 8x Core (16 Threads)
Intel LGA Z590 1200 Workstation Board
64GB Intel Certified PC3200+ Memory
Nvidia 2GB GT1030 Graphics With Dual Display
500GB M2 PCI-E NVME “Boot” Drive
Various Crucial SSDs

2

Hi,

By default, if you select a track, the track becomes Record Enabled. That means, it’s processed in real-time, and uses higher CPU load.

  1. ASIO-Guard: Ensure that ASIO-Guard is activated. It helps shift processing from the real-time path to a preprocessed path, which can stabilize your performance.

  2. Buffer Size: Consider increasing your audio buffer size. This can handle more processing without dropouts but may increase latency.

  3. Reduce Load: Try reducing the number of active effects or tracks playing simultaneously. This may lower the processing load significantly.

  4. Multi Processing: Make sure that Multi Processing is enabled, as it distributes the CPU load across multiple cores.

3

I too have this issue, predominantly with MusicLab’s RealGuitar style plugins and XLN’s Addictive Drums.

The problem is alleviated the instance a track is deselected … and does appear with some other plugins.

I thought it was peculiar to my Carillon setup which is why I didn’t mention it formally to Steinberg’s Tech Support.

These are tracks that ran fine under Cubase v14.

4

@Martin - it is definitely NOT related to any of the suggestions you mentioned. Please see my other post for some additional details.

The Projects where this occurs are entirely unplayable if these tracks (or some others ) are selected.

5

Hi,

Could you link it, please?

6

Do you have Enable Record on Selected Audio / Midi Track activated in Preferences? (Under Editing - Project and Mix Console)

If you do then every time you select a track its processing will be moved from ASIOGuard to Real Time. Depending on various circumstances this can upset the load balance of a project and cause dropouts.