Hello to all,
I have a strange phenomenon every time I load a project containing VSTi tracks.
On first playback, I get dropouts and other midi timing issues whether the project is small or large.
On subsequent playbacks everything goes smoothly.
I have tried with various sound cards (RME Digiface, Steinberg UR22mk2, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen2), with Nvidia and AMD video cards, various Cubase Studio settings: without success.
My system is an ASROCK X570 Taichi motherboard with a Ryzen 9 5900X, 64GB, NVMe SSD drives under Windows 10
Another way to avoid the problem is to do an audio-mixdown of the project before the first playback (which is faster). In this case I have no problem with playback afterwards.
Do you have any idea what is causing the problem?
Thanks for your advice.
Thank you for the suggestion but it is not the case.
I checked before the start of the read that the activity on the libraries SSD was inactive. I get a heavy activity when loading the project and then nothing; this seems to confirm that all the required samples are loaded into memory at playback time.
Furthermore, I also noticed that for a given project, the audio stuttering and dropout on first playback always occurs non-randomly at specific time-codes; this proves that the origin is clearly deterministic depending on the project.
Once again, on subsequent playbacks no more problemsā¦
See if it helps if you have no track record armed. I have the exact same issue on occasion and could never figure it out, but I gave up early as for me it is not a big issue.
An armed or unarmed record track makes no difference.
Even with the workaround working well this first playback is driving me crazy but, my guess, I will have to live with it.
Indeed itās more annoying than criticalā¦
You are right, but for projects with VSTi I am fortunately alone as a composer.
In front of clients I only work in classic audio recording as a sound engineerā¦ and in pure audio mode I have no dropout worries on this PC.
Kontakt : yes but not only, I also use libraries that use their own sample player (Spitfire Audio, EastWest, VSL,ā¦)
I checked that the problem also occurs on first playback with Cubase demo songs which only use Sonic SE as VSTi as far as I know.
Suggestion:
Disable your anti-virus software before opening the project, as well as any unnecessary SW that runs in the background (like oneDrive, DropBox, widgets of any sorts).
My theory:
Starting a project triggers all sorts of background tasks, some might run only once on the first playback.
Imagine the antivirus that scans every file on the first time you ātouchā it, but the next time it just recognize this file and says āHo, I know this one - no need to rescan itāā¦
I finally found the cause of the problem (at least in my case).
The culprit was : āSteinberg Audio Powerā scheme !!!
In Studio setup I had āSteinberg Audio Powerā scheme activated ,as suggested.
Very strangely this was the problemā¦
I deactivated this option and activated in Windows Setup>Power & Sleep>Additional power settings>High Performance instead and miracleā¦ the droupout problem on first playback disappeared.
Now Cubase works as it supposed to be without any audio dropout issue.
For me this fixes this issue. Hope this could helps others.
Itās not just on first playback or onload thoughā¦ itās whenever an instrument is loaded/enabled or disabled. Of course itās terrible on load of a project, because it has all the active instruments to load; and sometimes when you think itās doneā¦ itās not really. But itās to do with loading instruments, and so it happens every time you add or remove something.
I built a template a while ago in 9.5, so I only have to enable/disable tracks I want. In 9.5 enabling a track would only take as long as it takes for Kontakt to load the instrument. It was fast and super convenient. But nowā¦ Cubase is showing Audio Processing activity (off the scale) for much, much longer that it takes to actually load the instrument. Same again when disabling it (which really makes no sense). Whilst this Audio Processing is taking place, nothing will work. This can take a minute, several minutesā¦ on the odd occasion it literally doesnāt stop and I have to kill the whole session.
Iāve updated to the latest version, I checked the Audio Power setting, Iāve uninstalled the 9.5 instance, Iāve even cleared out some plug-ins that I wasnāt really using (though knowing those werenāt the cause).
Iām āonly a hobby composerā, so itās not like my livelihood depends on this, but I donāt have as much free time as Iād like to make music, so these looong delays really kill my flow and any enthusiasm I had. Iām seriously thinking about reverting back to 9.5 and cut my losses on the upgrade. I was sooo looking forward to 11 and now I regret upgrading.
I have exactly the same issue. Audio dropouts on first playback, usually at the same point in the track. I have a brand new PC from scan with 12th gen i7. Scan support were great and got me to try a few things. Interestingly, performance with latencymon was terrible, which turned out to be caused by the cubase power profile. Deactivating this and using Windows High Performance power pofile solved the latencymon issue but not the audio dropouts on first playback. I feel like the cause is around Kontakt sample libraries, although Iām not a heavy user of them. Also wondering if DDR5 is a factor - perhaps software not quite optimised for it? Itās not annoying enough to spend time investigating but it is irritating when you have bought a decent PC and latest cubase.
