Cubase 9 Performance Issues!

I just spent the weekend testing both Cubase 8.5 and 9.0.1 on a Mac Pro desktop (2012). I tested both Cubase versions on (3) internal drives - (2) SSD drives and (1) mechanical. On these drives I installed brand new copies of Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra (all latest versions). After testing multiple projects of varying sizes, it became quite clear that the performance of both Cubase 8.5 and 9.01 under Yosemite (10.10) was quite better than either El Capitan (10.11) or Sierra (10.12). Everything seems to respond quicker, especially when switching between tracks or making multiple audio/midi selections in the project window. I reinstalled Cubase and each system on all (3) internal drives with the same results. I find this especially problematic, especially considering that Cubase 9 is not even supposed to be officially supported under OSX 10.10 or below any longer. If I was able to make these comparisons by myself in a single weekend, shouldn’t the beta testers for this product have discovered these issues as well? I have not had the chance to test any current versions of Cubase on a PC, bu there are definitely issues on the Mac system that need to be worked out. This is also why I rarely update systems any longer until I have to. After over twenty years of using Mac computers professionally as well as testing them, I find these days that very rarely do new system versions on the Mac actually improve much of anything, especially performance wise. After coming to these conclusions from further testing, it looks like I won’t be updating anything any time soon at this point.

Thanks for sharing. I have heard this before that the best MacOS for audio was Yosemite. Your results confirm me this statement.

I rolled back to Yosemite (10.10.5) about a month ago to find out this exact same thing, as I became quite frustrated with the jerky, lagged out graphics response in Cubase 8.5 with large sessions under El Cap and then Sierra. I can 100% confirm what you have discovered as well. There seems to be no benefit to El Cap or Sierra for me right now. The only thing is that it’s a bit difficult to get some plugins to be ‘un-blacklisted’ under C9.01 in Yosemite, but I’ve been able to get some working. But begin able to work and not be slowed down by ridiculously terrible graphics more than makes up for it to me.

Yes, I noticed some of my own plugins get blacklisted as well (such as iZotope Ozone and Altiverb) that I use quite a bit. Sternberg seems to claim that the blacklisted plugins may have always been a potential problem and Cubase was just not detecting it till now. I wonder if anyone has compiled a list as of yet regarding blacklisted plugins in Cubase and which ones may be an actual issue or not.

And yes, I’m back on Yosemite after testing the entire weekend. Things seem to be running better again though at least.

I can’t handle the GUI sluggishness anymore – it’s really affecting my making-money work with super tight deadlines and fast turnarounds. It’s frustrating because both Pro Tools and Reaper are super quick GUI-wise on the same computer. So: How would you recommend going to Yosemite from Sierra? Will it require a complete re-install of everything? I’ve never “downgraded” an OS before.

Yes, best and safest way to downgrade is to generally just to a lean install of the system and then add the programs that you need back on. Any time I upgrade or downgrade a system I always use (2) drives, installing the new system on the second drive. Then I can test both systems as well as transfer preferences, etc. When I’m finished with everything, I can then either erase the first drive and use it for something else, or keep it as a backup just in case I ever need to go back to it for any reason.

That’s a “clean” install of the system…

Good idea, and thanks!

As for the Blacklisted plugs, especially Izotope, just reactivate them. then they work fine, thats what i did

Yes, I’ll have to try reactivating them and see what happens. I have had some strange issues in the past under Cubase 7/8 with both iZotope plugins as well as Altiverb. Some have been confirmed, some not. So maybe these plugins are a little flakey and can cause instability at times without even being aware of it. For some reason, I’ve owned a few iZotope plugins for years now, and even after reporting various bugs, they often don’t get fixed. It gets frustrating after a while.

Hi km08
Did you solve your problems ?
You’re not the only one.
Check my post with Xcode solutions. If you try it can you tell me if it helped you more ?

I opened a ticket support…
Very difficult to work now.
All my best

Hi, I had the same problem, terrible spikes. Went File => Preferences => VST Plug-Ins and unchecked “Suspend VST 3 plug-in processing when no audio signals are recieved”. No spikes since then, everything works fine.