I turned off ASIO Guard then I used safe start mode (ctrl+alt+shift) + delete program preferences.
No more glitches, even with older projects.
I need now to try with ASIO Guard turned on again, I’ll tell you later.
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Did you read this? WinRT MIDI and Windows Bluetooth MIDI support in Cubase 12 – Steinberg Support
If you are on Windows, try disabling the BT connection in the notification window. I have ASIO Guard ‘On’ and 6 Kontakt instances installed and armed for recording. The Audio Performance meter hasn’t changed. Worth a try.
Also, I own 3 Kontakt keyboards, the Alicia Keys, the Scarbee 200 and the Hybrid Keys, and they seem to play well with the ASIO meter. However, the freebee that I downloaded, the ‘Kontakt 25’ does some crazy thing to the ASIO Guard aspect of the meter, it actually tends to blow it up. So much for the free synth, Kontakt.
I’m having very bad performance in C12 compared to C11. Audio errors and dropouts pretty much independent on how large my ASIO buffer size is.
It’s a pretty old (but stabile) Windows 10 based machine, but the problems happens on very small projects with like 4 VST instruments. Going back to C11 on the same project everything runs like it should.
I’ve started investigation doing the usual stuff (nuking the preferences, reinstall and so on.)
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I worked a while with C12 yesterday and observed some strange things regarding this:
- In general it looks to be depended on some VST plugins (e.g. HALion, Groove Agent)
- It looks to be not an issue with audio tracks
I have a project where I use Electric Bass in HALion. Playback from the MIDI track seems to be fine (roughly load ~33%). As soon I select the corresponding Midi track the peak indicator goes to 100% and the overload red box is highligted…
I have similar issue. I have very heavy projects with tonns of plugins, tracks, busses etc… created in CB 11 Pro and they works fine without issues there but when I open them in CB 12 Pro even with same ASIO Guard High - project start stutter, I have dropouts and just overall CB12 Pro feels struggling and a lot slower in heavy projects. It seems there need to be done some improvements in CB12 engine or improve performance to state like CB 11. Otherwise CB12 is useless for me now - it feels laggy and unresponsive in huge projects for now. Will stay on CB 11 Pro for now until Steinberg fix and improve performance to same level as CB 11 Pro.
Is anyone else experiencing ASIO Guard inconsistencies? When I first ran a project the Realtime, Asio, Peak meters were sitting at about 1/2 - 3/4 running even better than CB11, but today running same project Asio meter is spiking and getting dropouts with Realtime and Peak meters sitting at zero.
The Asio meter is going up and down as well.
Very strange behaviour.
Update
So this is interesting. In my template there are tracks that are routed out from the different Mics. If you are selecting those tracks and play back audio the I getting dropouts, but if I am selecting Instrument tracks then playback is normal. Not sure why this happens.
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Yes! There seems to be some issues with ASIO-Guard in CB12 (at least in my experience). As a simple test, I created a new empty project, no routing, no additional processing. Then added 3 Kontakt instruments. With AG set to Low or Normal, I get dropouts/clicks when switching between the tracks. With AG set to High, I don’t get the dropouts. This never happened in CB11.
From everyone shared experience here, seems we are all having similar issues with CB12. I have tried my best to troubleshoot, thanks mr.roos for suggesting to look into WinRT MIDI. This is new and I can confirm this has been disabled, and still I have the same problems. Not sure what to do next, other than keep talking about it until this issue gets some attention. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future update.
Hi again.
I just wanted to say that this thread is extremely helpful. Also, I’m happy to report that I got my copy of Cubase Pro 11 working again! I also ran a test with Nuendo 11.
The CPU spikes definitely appear to be a C12 issue.
C12: I opened an empty project in C12. Added one track with Padshop 2 + a ModMachine plugin. Crazy, random CPU spikes all over the place.
Did the same thing in C11. No problems whatsoever.
All settings (ASIO Guard, boost, buffer, audio interface, etc.) are the same between the two.
Nuendo: I created another very simple 1 track project in C12.
- Added a VST instrument.
- Added an effect.
- CPU spikes all over the place.
- Saved the project.
- Opened the exact same file in Nuendo 11.0.41
- File played with NO hiccups, spikes, etc.
In Nuendo: ASIO Guard is normal, audio priority is normal, disk preload is 2 secs, 32 bit float processing, 512 buffer.
I’m on an iMacPro 10 core, 64gb ram, latest BigSur.
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Thanks so much gesslr for the update and confirmation regarding the CPU spikes in C12.
Yes, I agree this thread is a useful resource for others experiencing the same problems. At the very least we know that we are not alone, and the source of the problems may be the software itself and not user errors. I hope others will continue to contribute with their experiences as we begin troubleshooting in hopes of pinpointing the source of the problem (whether it be software or user related). This may prove beneficial if someone at Steinberg takes notice - fingers crossed!!
I havent had much time to test 12 but I remember running into this issue when I installed 11
My issue was that I didnt have “Activate Steinberg Audio Power Scheme” checked in the Audio System settings. Just mentioning it here in case this fixes that issue for anyone. In 10 I had it checked, no ASIO issues, upgraded to 11 where the default was off, tons of ASIO issues, checked this pref and it fixed them all. So worth a shot if its not set the same as 11 was.
Hmm thanks the info i have to check C11 to see if i have it checked or not… i have been seeing spikes since C12 install i will check it again thank you…
Thank you peAk for the great suggestion! Definitely worth a try, maybe this will help some of us having problems.
Unfortunately, this did not resolve the problems for me. I tried with the Power Scheme on and off, made no difference on my system, the current issue of dropouts remains. I have also tried to adjust some of the other setting as well (Activate Multi Processing, Audio Priority, Disk Preload, Adjust For Record Latency). Still no luck. At the moment the only solution I’ve found (on my system) is to set the AG on High. C12 is only days old, I’ll keep digging!
Here a short video demonstration of my issue (Bass is from Electrical Bass in HALion 6): iCloud
In some projects the issue is gone when I select another track. In new project I can’t reproduce this effect. Here the issue is present all the time.
It’s strange: it looks like HALion (all versions) and Groove Agent are having the issue. Other 3rd party libraries not (MusicLabs RealGuitars, Arturia AnalogLab, Synthogy Ivory, …).
I’m having very bad performance in C12 compared to C11. Audio errors and dropouts pretty much independent on how large my ASIO buffer size is.
It’s a pretty old (but stabile) Windows 10 based machine, but the problems happens on very small projects with like 4 VST instruments. Going back to C11 on the same project everything runs like it should.
Update:
Starting as clean as I possible can I removed Cubase 11 and cleared out all files and folders belonging to Cubase before doing a new install of Cubase 12.
I usually manage just fine with 128 buffer size with my UCX2 but with Cubase12 and 2048 sample buffer size the errors just keeps counting up with just a single VST instrument in the project.
And at the same time the performance meter in Cubase 12 looks like this:
So I’m currently out of ideas.Especially since Cubase 11 runs just fine on this machine.
Thank you WEM and LarsErik for your detailed replies. It’s great to get this issue documented.
Although we’re all approaching it from different angles, we all share the same end result with overloads/dropouts/peaks. This is leading me to believe the root of the problem lies within C12 and not how we’re using it or in the way we setup our projects. I’m also currently out of ideas for further troubleshooting. The best next step is to try and report this problem directly to Steinberg and get their feedback. I’ll look into how to do that, In the meantime looks like I’ll need to stay on C11 for awhile longer.
Does anyone know how to add a Tag to this thread as an issue(bug) with C12? In hopes it will get the attention of Steinberg. Not sure how to do this since we’ve already started the thread, and I mistakenly did not include any Tags when I created it.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!!
I too can confirm spikes, peaks and lags in C12. I am struggling running even a small project and get lots of peaks which I don’t have in C11.
Also C12 seems to crash almost every time I quit it.
I have intel i5 10600K with 32gb ram (4x8gb)
C11 runs very smooth and has fast response. C12 feels laggy, and also seem to have some dropouts.
I hope they look into it.
I noticed something interesting. If I have record enabled on one of my VST-synths (VPS Avenger in this case) the peak jumps like crazy. Here I have two pictures, I took this picture while playback. In other I have just record enabled on VPS while playing back, and on other I have no record enabled and the difference in peak is huge while playing back.
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Im seeing a similar issue. Ive been dealing with this issue for years, but had worked around it in c10, c11.
I saw mention of improvements in ASIO performance in the marketing for C12 and was hopeful this could finally offer me something, but alas… Ive again had to disable ASIO guard to stop pops/clicks, which was enabled by default in c12. CPU usage on average much higher than C11. I look forward to updates from steinberg on this.
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The quoted box below shows an old post I made on this forum sometime ago in response to glitching in C11Pro:
Glitching seemed random in C11Pro, except it was definitely time-use related. Glitches are absent for 1st minute or so of play, then become more frequent as play rolls on.
Complete cure achieved by TURNING OFF HYPERTHREADING in BIOS setup (Lenovo Laptop Core i7). Thanks to all who suggested doing this on here, and on other DAW forums.
It now all makes sense to me. Hyperthreading allows background processes to hijack and use the spare capacity of a core that APPEARS to be idle. This is why glitching is often absent at the beginning of a session, then gets progressively worse as background process covertly slip into the core(s) you are using for your DAW. Turning off background processes in WIN 10 doesn’t work on its own , but with hyperthreading turned off too, the problem is solved.
Since turning OFF hyperthreading, I’m now running Latency down to 4 ms for recording with no glitches whatoever, whereas, before, 40 ms wouldn’t be enough to stop glitches, and the huge latency was unusable for recording anyhow.
So I experimented with hyperthreading /multicore states within my CBPro12 update this morning:
Running Groove Agent 5 on a drum loop (Beat Agent) and playing Halyon SE3 on a synth lead (Hammer something):
Experiment 1.
- ASIO selected = Yamaha’s ASIO THR11
- Latency settings: INput = 8.9 ms; Output = 31.5 ms
- Hyperthreading switched OFF in BIOS = 2 cores available.
- GA5 multicore = OFF
- Halyon se3 multicore = OFF
- RESULT = marked glitching with just the drum loop running - playing Halyon made it worse.
Experiment 2:
- ASIO selected = Yamaha’s ASIO THR11
- Latency settings: INput = 8.9 ms; Output = 31.5 ms
- Hyperthreading switched OFF in BIOS = 2 cores available.
- GA5 multicore = 2 CORES
- Halyon se3 multicore = OFF
- RESULT = NO glitching with just the drum loop running - playing Halyon was glitch-free
I then rebooted and switched hyperthreading = ON in BIOS (4 cores now available) and repeated Experiment 1 and 2 .
RESULT: Both GA 5 and Halyon were rendered UNPLAYABLE. It did not matter which core state is selected in either GA 5 or Halyon; i.e. OFF, 1, 2, ,3 or 4 cores selected.
I then repeated both experiments with ASIO4ALL selected (512 buffers = Input 13 ms; Output 20 ms) and it was aceptable with hyperthreading OFF but unplayable with hyperthreading ON.
Conclusion: Steinberg has an issue with hyperthreading /core handling that existed in CBPro11 and is even worse in CBPro12.
Groove Agent 5 works best with 2 cores selected with hyperthreading in bios = OFF.
And it remains playable/glitch-free if Halyon cores are on (2 cores) or OFF, when playing along with a GA5 drum loop on 2 cores.
And definitely, for my ThinkPad i7 at least, hyperthreading should be switched off when using either CB11, or CB12.
Sorry for long post!! 
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