I have a strange issue and am trying to narrow it down to what it is. I have a 12core mac pro with 32gb of Ram and a Raydat card. Now i had a massive setup file with loads of vst etc etc and the buffer set to 1024 it does ok but decided to re do the setup file a different way (more efficient)
I started this by adding only about 5 vst instruments (Kontakt 5, Halion 5, Addictive drums, Supperior drummer and another ) Everything updated to latest updates etc etc. Now if i set all these instruments going at a buffer size of 256 it starts to spike and crackle etc.
Surely this shouldn’t be that bad as its nothing particularly stressful on the system. I have updated all hardware aswell (Raydat card included).
The only thing I haven’t updated is Cubase. I am on cubase 7.0.4 as the 0.5 update actually made it alot worse.
I have almost the same set up as you and operate the same plugs.
I have experienced the same thing. It got a lot better with 0.5 and when I ditched the old preference folder and let CB build a new one after the 0.5 upgrade. I do not have the ASIO guard activated.
I did however notice previously that certain plugs/instruments tend to bring out the problem more often than others, or say the combination of plugs/instruments. I especially have problems whith Halion4 (I have 5 now but so far no experience with it). I also noticded that Addicitve and Superior does not like each other. Experienced several CB crashes when those two are operating at the same time. But that too seems stable now. Depending on the loaded instrument Kontakt can also be tough on the system together with, say an Omnisphere heavy sample. When I experienced the problem nothing helped except the following:
What I do as soon as I am finished composing is to internally sum MIDI tracks to audio. This is also a good way of not having the project go obsolete when a plug is not supported anymore. A wav file is always a wav file.
I will also add that in addition to the problems you mentioned, adding automation to a “Send” (like on/off Send Delay) messes up the sound if the project is heavy. It messes up the sound even if the plug is not activated. Just the added automation will mess up the sound. Strange thing.