OK - I made a mistake trying out Catalina w Cubase 10.5. Basically unusable - Steinberg help hasn’t worked, nor has blowing away preferences, changing VST settings… I could go on and on.
I’ve been using Univeral Audio’s LUNA DAW just to work on ideas as Cubase is crippled.
BIG QUESTION: If I’m going to go through the ass pain of wiping my Mac, downgrading my OS and re-installing/re-authenticating many plugins and virtual instruments I want to make the “right” decision.
MOJAVE OR HIGH SIERRA?
Any sage ideas? I’m “assuming” High Sierra is the most stable. I’ve lost weeks of productivity. Looking for your experience with both OS’s.
bro just get Windows, I’ve been running Cubase on Windows since Cubase SX3 on Windows XP, and I’m currently running Cubase 10 and 10.5 on both Windows 7 and 10 and I can still run XP software on both Windows 7 and 10.
All the apple/anti-windows hype was bullsht marketing. Be done with Apple bro, your allegiance is based on a misperception.
I hear ya – I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been using a mac for a long time. I know PCs are much more stable as Steinberg seems to be a more PC-centric company.
I had Sierra and skipped high Sierra and upgraded to Mojave about 10 months ago. Works fine for me. Considered upgrading to Catalina but I guess I’d better wait!
Catalina is not the problem.
Cubase 10.5.x is a big problem. You will see it if you downgrade to Cubase 10.0.5 all these problems will gone.
Or Use Logic.
Apple is a problem. My entire audio career from the time I was an audio engineering student in a commercial facility/school, Apple has been the problem. Everyone raves about Apple being the professional standard and it’s BS, it’s a real problem people believe this - I’ve seen Hospitals changing their infrastructure over to Apple because the staff are fanboys - - - - people will die - - - - because of this. Every time they update something, compatibility is gone and they pretty much force you to update - it’s nothing but problems for people in the professional world. Apple computers should be kitchen interfaces grannies use to watch apple pie tutorials on YouTube. These are user experience platforms, not engineering platforms.
Like I said, I can still run Windows XP software on Windows 7 and Windows 10. I run Cubase 4 and Cubase 10 and Cubase 10.5 on Windows 7, and both Cubase 10 and 10.5 on Windows 10.
I can buy used parts off Ebay and build a cheap monster Windows 7 PC today, even after Windows 7 has been officially unsupported, and run everything fine.
One of the grey areas of developing software for macOS is that loaded dynamic libraries may be unsafe to attempt to unload from memory.
Apple themselves advise against unloading of Objective-C code. It may leave the Objective-C runtime in an unstable state. The relevant documents are referenced in my post here…
Why does this matter? Well, Objective-C is the programming language of the macOS AppKit (also referred to as ‘Cocoa’). AppKit is the library that provides most of the GUI functionality of a macOS application. Many VST plugins will have at least a small stub of Objective-C code that allows the plugin to insert itself into the host application GUI. Some VST plugins will have all their user interface coded in Objective-C.
What is the issue here? Well, my investigations of Cubase indicate that VST2 plugins are ALWAYS unloaded from memory when a user removes them from a project. This goes against the advice of Apple, referenced above. Investigation of other major macOS DAWs show that they KEEP plugins in memory after a user has removed them from a project, i.e. they follow the advice of Apple.
So, my advice to macOS Cubase users is NEVER to remove a VST2 plugin from a project. Disable it and close its window, but leave it in the project. Set preferences option “Keep Plug-ins in Memory until the Application Quits”, which applies to VST3 plugins only.
If you must remove a plugin from a project then I suggest you immediately save and exit Cubase. Re-start and re-open the project to carry on working.
