Elastique crackles/artifacts on audio playback in some cases

I can’t say I’ve noticed this but my songs are up to about 40 tracks and I don’t freeze vst instruments. I just render when I e finished. By the sounds of it it could take some finding if it doesn’t happen all the time. If I get a chance tomorrow I’ll try and reproduce

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Just installed and tested .41 version - no luck :face_with_head_bandage:
same crackling

regards

@audiosnob … Just little bits of history repeating :grin:
But now it is one of my projects

regards

Ok.

I have installed Cubase 8.5 in VirtualBox (Win7x64 environment)
And make it work using generic VBox audio controller (Intel HD audio) with Asio4all driver.
Opened my project and… it crackles there too!
and no crackles with Play tool just like in С11.0.41 :face_with_monocle:

@Martin.Jirsak @system would you please look into this ?
(just check my test project for crackling issues actually)

regards

Well, well…

Come one, guys, do a proper Elastique implementation and let us automate the parameters.
Some of us are doing sound design from 9 to 5 and this is just embarrassing.

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Here on my system:
spikes.test.cpr - I dont get any glitching issues u described
spikes.freezed.cpr - here I have those glitches since audio is frozen.

When I freeze audio from spikes.test.cpr I got exact same glitches as in spikes.freezed.cpr
However if I do render in place or Audio - Bounce Selection I don’t get any glitches.

I experience those glitches often when I am doing a delicate and detailed manipulation which involves:

  1. Cross-fades
  2. Stretching in musical mode (Audio Warp)
  3. Free Warp
  4. Vari Audio

For example:
Combining Audio Warp and cross -fades(X) I got glitches depend of the position of cross-fades (or to be precise starting point of cross-fade)

When you dial those settings to some extend, Cubase gets unreliable and also depends of the combination of those 4 above.

I first encounter with these utter odd things 5 years ago when you duplicate 2 tracks, flip polarity on 1 track and move length extension by micro point and suddenly on some point 2 tracks don’t get null. To be more weird it is easily reproducible when you have tempo track in your project, but its also reproducible without tempo track too but just way way harder.
More info here: Tempo Track Null Test Bug?

So I assume that lot of things has to be rewritten from the ground in order to get this engine properly and stable (like you have in Reaper) as I work for 6h to 10h almost everyday on some detailed stuff that involves lot of processing as described I can clearly feel that unreliability which are not always straight forward and easy to reproduce.

My advise would be to find way around as from my “tempo track null test bug” thread I don’t cut section(which I want to emphasize) on duplicate track but rather automating volume when I want to be silent or emphasized.
-Avoid combining massive audio warp and pitch shifting (especially with formant algos) but rather do one by the time. First Warp/Bounce it, than pitch it etc.

As many times you across with these oddities you will get sense what is no! and what is no! no! and what is NO! NO! NO! NO! :joy:

Good Luck

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Thank you for the extensive input!

Unfortunately, the workarounds you mentioned suit some enthusiast open-source software on Linux, not a pricey, 30+ years old behemoth of a DAW.

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@User131231 Thanks for the info!
Just confirmed that my issue happens on several machines.

regards

That’s how it is unfortunately, I am not covering steinberg here but opposite I am agreeing that this should be more reliable. From long practice being enthusiastic about fixing stuff like these is often a rabbit pit and that “30+ years old” you mentioned is one of the reason why updates often brakes some things that in previous worked well and why sometimes it takes so long some stuff to get sorted out.

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Bump!

Same thing happening on Cubase 12.0.30 on MacBook Pro 16" M1 Max

Crossfades and Elastique = massive crackling / artifacts.
Also happens with Elastique time stretch combined with transpose.

Changing time stretch algorithm to Standard eliminates all artifacts.
Using Play tool also eliminates artifacts! :exploding_head:

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I can confirm. I have the same issue with elastique pro algorithms and applying fades. I always need to bounce audio to get rid of crackles and artifacts. Super annoying.

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I talked to support for a while.
But they wasn’t able to reproduce that issue
So they closed the ticket

What I have discovered is that Generic ASIO driver is way more stable regarding that issue

regards

This is crazy :sweat_smile:! I can replicate this on both my Windows and Mac machine with different interfaces and ASIO drivers. All my friends on cubase have the same issue. This is not setup or user related…

I compared to Logic and FL Studio and there are none of those issues. I don’t think it has anything to do with the elastique algorithms from zPlane.

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No stretch in audio, but have one click on my Mac in Cubase 12. After 3-5 renders one is good. Seems it’s the Cubase bug

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Im also getting the same issue on any of the elastique settings, but switching to standard fixes it. on m2 mbp, cubase pro 12.0.70. Lots of crackles just setting a warp marker

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same here! every time i use free warp and a crossfade / fade out is an automatic pop / crackle :confused: the only solution i currently have is, as someone mentioned before to bounce it in place and then do the fades. it’s so frustrating!

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If I switch to standard, then back to elastique, it sometimes goes away.

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I’m running into these issues in Cubase 13.0.10 on my new M3 MacBook Pro. I have an Apollo Solo interface. Buffer doesn’t seem to affect the clicks and pops, as they are somewhat at random. I’m especially noticing it when using Elastique Pro Time with the Sizing Applies Time Stretch tool. It’s frustrating when editing vocals and other audio and I’ve run into it on different computers and different versions of Cubase for several years now. Has Steinberg ever said anything about this issue? Has anyone found sure-fire workarounds? Thanks so much.

EDIT: I also get clicks and pops sometimes with Melodyne on adjacent events that are crossfaded. Is this related? Some posts suggest the Elastique issues are related to crossfades.

The only workaround is to render or bounce those “problem areas”
unfortunately :slightly_smiling_face:

regards

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