Cubase 12 wasn’t stable at all on my M1. Lot’s of crashes in the middle of the workflow.
After the update to 12.0.10 it got better but I still experience crashes. Sometime while editing or turning a knob (could be the mixer, could be a plugin), but most often when closing a project.
MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021) M1
Cubase 12.0.10
Native Arm Mode
Third party plugins? Of course! (u-he, Arturia, Sugar Bytes, Audiothing, Softube, Eventide, Valhalla, iZotope, … )
Same issues for me. Waves plugins seem to be the main cause. I have only V13 waves plugins and they worked fine before the 12.0.10 update. Now I get the same issues as jgaryt. I have to turn off the plugins for it to start working again. I talked to both Steinberg and Waves. Steinberg told to upgrade all my waves plugins to V13 which I did which did not solve the issue. Waves support said they are getting lots of reports from Cubase 12.0.10 users with identical issues.
Absolutely no issues with Cubase 11.
Asio guard keeps overflowing when hardly using any VSTi. This issue started on Cubase 12 Pro, but doesn’t seem to have been fixed.
System details:
Project settings:
Another project I tested showed that bundleExit is being called and taking some significant resources during a very short playback, though all plugins were always active:
I hate to say this, but this version is unusable.
I just upgraded from Artist 11 to 12 a couple of days ago, so presumably I have the latest updates provided by Steinberg. Of the 19 projects I brought over from 11 only 7 will play without ASIOGard going bonkers. I’ve tried all the settings suggested here. Some made things worse but nothing ever made it better. The weird thing is that every project that doesn’t play does the same thing. If there is a break it will play for about 15 seconds and then the ASIOGuard meter will shoot up to 100% over about 2 seconds. Once the peak turns red there is no more sound (except clicking) until the vocals come back in. After that the song will play until the end.
Simple projects, no midi, no VST instruments, and only 7 to 30 tracks all recorded at 24/48.
Thanks Steve, that was actually a good idea to try, but alas it made no difference. Cubase starts normally, then when I load my project it seems to sit on around 5-10% load for about 5 seconds, then it shoots to 100% in about a second and the red overload light comes on. This happens without me touching anything or attempting to play audio. It happens regardless of what audio interface I use. It happens regardless of whether I use the laptop’s inbuilt screen or an external monitor.
I do not have Waves plugins as mentioned by some other forum users, but I do have Korg VSTs (latest VST3 versions), Roland Cloud and Arturia V Collection 8. However I still have the problem even when I remove all VSTs and reduce the number of tracks.
I see I’m not alone reporting this, so I will be patient and hopefully somebody can shed light on it soon.
Cubase last update, one VST (Superior drummer 3), after 10min, cpu peaks…
Is the plug-in set to use its own multi processing. Try turning that off It might not be on of course.
yes, no multithread on it, but sometimes it crashes, sometimes not. BTW, very weird cpu performance overall on this update.
Hey there,
I have been testing Cubase’s perfomance on 2 different OS on my 2018 Mac Mini over the last few days and I thought I might share my findings.
Details of the Setup
2018 MacMini with
Inel i7-8700B
32 TB of Ram
1 TB SSD
Antelope Orion Studio Rev. 2017 via Thunderbolt
Let me start out by saying that before I updated to C12 I was running C10 on Mojave and it was FLYING on 64 Samples of buffersize with a roundtrip latency of just under 2.8ms
Silly me updated to Montery to run C12, had a lot of issues with thirdparty plugins so downgraded to Big Sur.
Working in projects openend from 10 I found the audio stabilty running just a few plugins and one or two software instruments terrible, ASIO guard peaking out when notes were being hit on halion sonic SE or autiomations run on other plugins. Even playback of just audio, with all plugins disabled is not possible under 256 samples buffersize, rountrip latenty of just under 6ms. I also had massive problems with using the new multichannel freewarp. Random glitches. Phasing issues on the whole clip, cubase crashing. 12.0.10 fixed the crashing problem however sadly not the audioperfomance problem. Recording on 64 samples with some plugins disabled worked fine and with no dropouts.
As a lot of windows users had been reporting stellar perfomance I decided to do a little bootcamp install and open the same projects there. Same setup as mentioned above using the antelope thunderbolt for windows driver.
Driver Set to 64 samples buffersize, resulting in roundtrip latency just under 4ms.
All projects running very smoothly. I also started a test Projekt wtih 25 instances of Halion Sonic opened, playing big chords through all the instruments. No perfomance issues.
I did however discover that just one instance of halion sonic running Verve caused clicks and pops.
Multi Channel Freewarp also sounds a lot better, less phasing issues on the iniatally moved hit. But sadly it also still affects the phase on the whole of the clip after being warped, even with a “safety marker” after the quantizing.
I also found after leaving a project unattended for about 2.5 hours, that cubase was just not usable anymore. I had to resart my system to get the playback issues to stop. Playback was not just crackling and popping it was utterly destroyed and distorted.
After doing a couple of hours of working in windows 10 just mixing in a few of my different projects I have to say perfomance was very stable, barely even causing a dent in my cpu load.
Recording has yet to be tested, but I would imagine this not being an issue.
Currently I am asking myself the following question:
Would C12 run more reliably on Catalina possibly?
Are there any Mac users that can share their experiences?
I would much prefer to run Cubase on MacOS, it feels a lot smoother and looks much better than on Windows. It feels a little clunky on Windows. But at least with the windows option there, I have a stable running DAW until the issues are fixed for Mac.
All the Best
Hey there,
I’m using Cubase 12.0.10 with Monterey 12.3.1 and I don’t encounter the main issues listed in this thread. I actually had performance issues with 12.0.0 where the peak meter was constantly hitting the red and therefore creating audio dropouts and crackles. Same project with Cubase 11 was completely fine and was running smoothly. I’ve experienced a slight improvement on that level when I upgraded from Cubase 12.0.0 to Cubase 12.0.10.
However, another issue I have been having with both Cubase 12.0.0 and 12.0.10 (but not with cubase 11) is that whenever I open a plugin window with moving graphics (i.e. FabFilter EQ and MB and the worst is Voxengo SPAN Plus), immediately everything hits the red and I get crackles and audio dropouts. As soon as I close the VST window, performance and peak meters go back from 100% to 25%. I want to highlight that I don’t need to deactivate the plugin. The plugin can be active in the background and it’s all fine but as soon as I open the window, all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately, a plugin like SPAN Plus is only useful when the window is open for monitoring purposes.
Hello Mathias,
It really doesn’t seem as if Steinberg is taking this matter seriously enough. Right after I installed the new CUBSE 12.0.10 update, I no longer could close the program. I tried every suggestion I could find here in “support” but nothing worked. I re-installed the previous version of CUBASE Pro 12 and it’s still not allowing me to quit the program but the first version was working fine before the update. We should not have to hear things like use Control, Alt & Delete to open the taskbar and then close out CUBASE. Steinberg should be embarrassed! When it’s done that way nothing will show in the recent projects window when attempting to open a previously recorded project. This should not be taken lightly but instead one of CUBASE’s main projects until it is resolved. I convinced another DAW user to purchase CUBASE Pro 12 and have been embarrassed ever since. Some of the replies from Steinberg have been absurd and very insulting. Those that may not be as computer savvy as others may not realize how big of an issue this is. Exiting out of any computer program is one of the most basic functions that should happen flawlessly. I know that you as a support or customer service representative are only allowed to say what Steinberg wants you to say. It doesn’t seem as if you have any real say or can contact the programmers directly. If this is not the case then please let me know. For now, I have a very useless program that I have invested a lot of money into.
Hi Ron, I am really sorry to hear that. I can assure you that we are taking this very seriously. The next maintenance update is just around the corner.
I am having so many crashes with the newest version of 12 serious issues has occurred, performance peaking with nothing even loaded. So many seem to be having the same issues. How do we know if they are even considering addressing this, is there a way to find out if they are even lookin into it.
It would at least give me peace of mind to wait patiently. I spent allot of Money on this program.
Do I just hope or move onto another DAW?
Yes, we are looking into this and the next maintenance update is just around the corner. I am the Product Marketing Manager in charge of Cubase at Steinberg, so I should know.
Thank you for the feedback Matthias. 12 is going to be fantastic once it is sorted.
Was there a Beta testing program with user beta testers for Cubase Pro 12? if so, why weren’t these issues identified at that time? It’s strange that so many people are reporting similar, if not the same, issues.
Awesome Thank you so much, It helps to know.
I have been trying every trick in the book to get the performance will no success.
I find a lot of issues are to do with the operating systems and certain computer builds.
Maybe someone could do an operating system for DAWs. i find a lot of Windows stuff are full of bloatware and spyware. On the Windows forums a lot of issues were reported after the release of Windows 10 1903, this was for all different bits of Audio software including Ableton and Cubase and everyone else. To prove this out i’ve just re installed from scratch Windows 10 1809 on my pc. So far so good, i’ve got as far as Cubase 11 and will get onto Cubase 12 later in the week. Using LatencyMon i could see the difference straight away, just a thought for all to ponder.
Other DAWs, including Cubase 11, run perfectly fine on the same systems.
The issue is Cubase 12, which looks like a rushed and untested release.
Cubase 12 had more betas and a longer testing phase than any other version in the last 20 years. Unfortunately it’s not that simple.
