Bulletproof ASIO-Guard - Is this what I've been waiting for?

Guessing at this:

So, plugins add latency. ADC compensates for it, keeping everything in sync. Add a few more buffers to all playback tracks for some headroom. Note the amount of buffers and align the newly recorded audio based on it.

I believe Logic and Protools does something similar, but the latency report of your sound card is no longer valid. I am not sure exactly how PT and logic do it, but I remember reading about it.

Main question for me is can we get lower record latency in OSX?

Hi Helge,

THIS is the most exciting new feature of C7… even though the other features and changes are all fantastic!

I have been hoping for this since moving back from Logic about a year ago.

Can you confirm though, will it be possible to manually choose the buffer settings for playback tracks, as a number of samples?

So for example will it be possible to choose 1024 sample buffer for playback tracks, but 64 samples for recording tracks?

Really excited by this update and the performance improvements it will absolutely bring, especially to those of us running OS-X.

Cheers,
Mike

So if you are tracking 24 tracks at one time (all with input monitoring within Cubase) will you get lower latency in OSX??

Bump

I don’t know, but I think ASIO guard will be mostly beneficial for heavy VI users.

Tracking is not as hard on resources in my experience, but I could be wrong.

I would like confirmation on this point too. Will the additional buffers also be there on vst instrument tracks whilst live midi recording?. If so, then whats the point? might as well just increase the ASIO buffer size.

If however this does mean that for realtime recording (audio AND midi) there is no additional buffer, but only buffer for channels playing back with no audio input and no realtime midi input, then it is a welcome addition.

I would only imagine it would be like this…which would be awesome.

If it works like Logic, (high buffer) tracks get shifted forward or backwards to sync up with the live track (which has the low-buffer).

There are gotchas and pitfalls, depending on what you’re recording (i.e. if you’re recording with latency-inducing plug-ins on your inserts) and Logic has options to deal with certain situations.

Hopefully, Cubase will handle this better, though. I re-read that part of the Logic manual, like 10 times, and I still don’t completely understand that system… Hopefully a Steinberg tech will jump in with some details on the new ASIO feature soon (and what it means for mac users)…

I’m bumping for Steinberg to answer these unanswered questions:

My understanding from what has been said so far is that it is indeed like Logic’s system, where non-recording tracks have a very high buffer (which you can choose from three levels, the highest of which I believe is 2056 samples), while any track that is armed for recording uses the “record buffer” setting, which could be set at 32 or 64 samples for example - for very very low latency.

This has always meant Logic can deliver amazing efficiency, as there is no need for a compromise between a low-latency buffer, but one which is high enough to allow all the tracks of a complex project to play without getting audio dropouts. (In Cubase I use 128, which is still not ideal as there’s a perceivable delay when using V-drums to play BFD, for example - but with this buffer, I eventually have to freeze tracks to try to keep the project “playable”!)

This is a feature I have hoped for years that Steinberg would add to Cubase. To date, only Logic has used this kind of dual-buffer system (there have been speculations that ProTools does, but this is not the case, nor is DP’s automatic background rendering the same thing, it is instead just an auto-freeze function that does not have anything to do with buffer settings).

My big questions to Helge and the team at Steinberg are:

  • Will it be possible to choose manually the buffer for both recording and non-recording tracks? For example, could I set a nice low 64 sample buffer for my recording tracks, but 1024 samples (or even higher!) for any non-recording track in the project? OR… does ASIO-Guard set the non-recording buffer automatically based on needs of the project? (Which could also be very good if it’s implemented well!)
  • Can you confirm that ASIO-Guard IS definitely a dual-buffer system, and not just an auto-rendering approach?

This is very exciting news that will put Cubase at the very head of DAWs from a performance/efficiency perspective, especially for Mac users who generally adore Cubase but find that it struggles with large, plugin-heavy projects.

Cheers,
Mike

I guess I will find out in the weeks after December 5 as I use Cubase 7 whether a dual buffering system is, in fact, better than a system that renders effects during idle. I have to say that sometimes, despite having an i7 980x with more than enough RAM, I find that no amount of buffer (not even 2048) is enough and I have to start freezing tracks. Some effects and synths just chew up a ton of resources. So pre-rendering would be more optimal in those circumstances.

I’m still waiting for Steinberg to answer my two questions. Especially why people with Macs will see larger improvements than Windows users.

Quoted from Fredo:

ASIO Guard: The benefits are:

  • less Drop outs
  • more tracks with more FX
  • lower ASIO Buffer possible

With ASIO Guard active the Audio Engine works like this:

Internally all Tracks got a higher Latency until the Track is “Record Ready” or in “Monitoring” Mode.
Let’s say you have set the ASIO Buffer to 64 Samples, which is nice for using Midi or Audio Inputs with the lowest Latency. But when the Project gets bigger an bigger the ASIO Buffer needs to grow with the Project Size.

Its just like you are working with 1024 Samples ASIO Buffer all the time … until you need to have low Latency when playing Instruments. The Record (or Monitoring) Button will set the Track into “Realtime Mode” and reduce the latency for that track. Especially on the MAC side you will see an increase of performance.
ASIO Guard works very well for all Instruments like Synthesizer and/or Audio Effects. You can just use more Synths more Effects on the Same PC or Mac just by using Cubase 7/Nuendo6.

I am so confused as to why this helps “especially on the Mac side”. Can someone from Steinberg clarify that?

+1

It is because OS X is lacking in terms of realtime audio performance due to a lets say different threading model. That’s the reason why PCs are performing much better with lower latencies. However, the result is that ASIO Guard improves the performance under OS X heavily.

Cheers,
Helge

What will be the benefit of it for PC users? Will we be able to load more plugins with low latencies? Something else? Or will it be more or less the same on PCs as it was?

So would would it improve performance when you are tracking 24 tracks with (with no or very few plugins running) No playback tracks vs 6.53 yielding lower latencies or would one only see a difference when mixing playback and record tracks? This is the big question for me.

Very interested to see the difference this makes on OSX

+1