Cubase has been my main DAW for about 4 years. Up until a couple of months ago my sessions had been acoustic and minimal, with almost all live audio tracks. Since then I’ve been experimenting with pop music i.e. synths and considerably larger arrangements. But even though my processor and RAM usage are nowhere nearly maxed out, Cubase is functioning as if it is. Right now I’m using basically the Austin Hull template but with 3rd party plugins, and even though almost all tracks are either disabled or frozen, and I have just one synth enabled, playback skips and stutters constantly.
I contacted support, who guided me through removing all 3rd party plugs and then adding them back one by one to make sure they’re compatible with Cubase. I found that a synth called Cardinal was to a small degree worsening the issue, but even with it removed Cubase is still unusable when any moderately CPU-intensive synth is enabled. Right now the synth I’m using is Arturia’s Analog Lab V. The weird thing is, if I create a brand new session and use Analog Lab as the only track, it works just fine. This is why I say Cubase is functioning as though I’m giving it too much to handle with my processor with these larger sessions. This is also why my second call to support ended with such a verdict. I wish the support agent or myself had, on that call, looked at my Task Manager. Because when Analog Lab is enabled in the larger session and Cubase is in playback, I’m using only 37% CPU, and 28% Memory. I know I’ve used this rig at over 60% CPU in other contexts before it demonstrated any indications of strain.
Most of my synth libraries (Spectrasonics, Arturia) are on my C drive, while the rest are on an internal SSD disk. All of my plugins are up to date (80% of them were bought within the last month). I have uninstalled/reinstalled Cubase multiple times. I’ve deleted Cubase preferences multiple times. No anti-virus scanning is happening in the background. I’m not trying to get 2 issues resolved with one post, but in case the two are related, it has always taken Cubase about 10 minutes to load (even on Cubase 10 and 10.5), which I know is super slow, I’ve just never taken the time to get that fixed. I have disabled my firewalls in an attempt to alleviate it, to no avail. The only time it doesn’t take forever for Cubase to load is if it was already open previously within the same “waking” session i.e. I haven’t put it to sleep or restarted it in the interim.
But right now I just want to focus on getting Cubase to work at all. Does anyone have any advice or ideas to try? Thanks in advance.
SYSTEM :
Processor Intel(R) Core™ i7-8850H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2592 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 64.0 GB
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
System Model HP ZBook 17 G5
INTERFACE:
Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen
Sample Rate 44.1
Buffer Size 1024
CUBASE:
Cubase Pro 12 Version 12.0.60
TASK MANAGER:
CPU at 37% when stuttering
RAM at 28% when stuttering
SESSION OVERVIEW:
Enabled, Unfrozen Instrument Tracks - 1 (Arturia Analog Lab V)
Enabled, Frozen Instrument Tracks - 8
Enabled, Unfrozen Audio Tracks - 0
Enabled, Frozen Audio Tracks - 8
FX / Group Tracks - 14
Unfrozen Effect Plugins - 43
PLUGIN INVENTORY:
Synth Instrument / Amp Plugins on Non-Frozen, Enabled Tracks
- Arturia Analog Lab V - 1
- Archetype Cory Wong – 1
Effect Plugins on Non-Frozen, Enabled Tracks
- Fabfilter Pro Q – 8
- Valhalla Vintage Verb – 2
- Fabfilter Pro MB – 1
- Waves Linear Phase MB – 2
- Slate Virtual Tape – 2
- Steinberg Frequency – 2
- Eventide Instant Flanger – 1
- Eventide Instant Phaser --1
- Slate Repeater – 3
- Decapitator – 1
- Fresh Air – 1
- Super VHS – 2
- Korneff Guitar Amp Processor – 1
- Roland RC-20 – 1
- Fabfilter Pro DS – 3
- Khs Distortion – 1
- UAD Roland Dimension D – 1
- Slate Verbsuite – 1
- Baby Audio - Comeback Kid – 1
- Waves H-Delay – 1
- Nicky Romero Kickstart – 1
- Baby Audio Crystalline – 1
- Slate VBC – 1
- Fabfilter Saturn – 1
- Museq Elysia – 1
- Fabfilter Pro-L – 1
- Gullfoss – 1
