Elastique in Audio Warp Free Warp Glitch/Bug (in Cubase 12 and 14)

Cubase
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I have a bug with Audio Warp. When I use Free Warp to tweak the timing of a part (these are tiny tweaks, milliseconds) I often get pops, cracks, or glitches on playback. I tried changing the buffer of my audio drivers, and there is no change. I doubt it’s CPU load related—this is a quasi-empty project. There are 4 acoustic guitar tracks and zero plugins. I have a Ryzen 9 5950X with 16 cores; it’s a beast. I had this bug in Cubase 12 and wondered if it was fixed in version 14. I installed a trial version of 14, and no go, it’s the exact same behavior.

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When I start playback at 13.6s on the timeline, I get the pop/crackle at the purple line I drew, every single time. But if I start playback at 12.6s on the timeline, I hear no glitch—it’s perfect.

There is no glitch if I switch the algorithm to Standard. The thing is, Elastique sounds so much better than Standard; it has no noticeable audio degradation. Standard has a lot. The bug is the same for ALL the Elastique algorithm variants.

A search on the web and these forums shows this has been a bug since probably Cubase 8. It’s surprising it’s never been fixed. I was hoping 14 solved it, but nope, still there, still the exact same.

Here is something super weird: if I activate pre-roll and set it to 1s and start at 14.6s on the timeline, therefore making playback start at 13.6s, there is no glitch. But if I start with no pre-roll at 13.6s proper, there is the bug!

It would be awesome if you guys could fix this once and for all. It really feels like a bug with the software and not something wrong with my hardware.

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I get this all the time. I bounce the clip to a new file as a workaround.

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I do this as well when I have no options (when standard is really bad) and it glitches a lot. I feel like we shouldn’t have to do this (freeze or bounce).

Like I said changing the buffer on my audio interface changes nothing, changing the ASIO Guard (off all the way to high) also changes nothing.

BUT good news for anyone with this bug:
Changing the Disk Preload (Studio Setup → Audio System) from the 2s (min and default) up to the max of 6s made a huge difference. The glitches are virtually gone, but it’s not 100%. If you’re googling this I hope this is a little bit of help. :slight_smile:

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There have been problems like this for ages. They ignore it year after year unfortunately.

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Thanks for that David. I’ll try it. Is there a downside/cost when setting it to 6s?

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From the manual:

“Disk Preload
Allows you to specify how many seconds of audio are preloaded into RAM prior to starting playback. This allows for smooth playback.”

As far as I understand it will consume more RAM, which could be prohibitive on a system with low RAM, or if you have a lot of audio tracks. For my usual amount of a max of 40 ish tracks it’s not a problem. But there isn’t a lot of documentation or info on the feature, maybe someone could chime in if they know more.

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