Constant problems with adding channel inserts (audio channels and fx channels) where sometimes (appears random) a selected insert will silently refuse to be instantiated as a track insert, no matter how many times it is selected. After closing, exiting and restarting Cubase I can sometimes get the insert to instantiate, however then it will refuse to add the insert to another channel. Affected inserts include UA, Izotope, Fabfilter so far. Both VST2 and VST3.
Now, after working on a single mix for most of yesterday, I open the project this morning to find all the fx send inserts removed. Most of these were UA inserts. Now they are gone and so are all my settings. So it is back to C9 now, this release is wasting too much of my time.
Interesting. However it is not just UA plugins that are failing.
I have 3 different vendor plugins randomly failing to be instantiated. Seems to have happened with the C9.5 update, as I can add them OK in C9.0.
Whatever the cause, it’s a showstopper.
Yes, not just UAD. If you read through the forum threads you’ll find some technical information about the issue (which doesn’t solve it).
As a first aid you can go to C:\Programs\Steinberg\Cubase 9.5\Components and remove some of the dlls there (functions you maybe don’t use like hubfilter, videoengine, euconadapter, omffilter, stepdesigner). Those removed - don’t delete them, copy them to a safe place - won’t work but it will get you a little ‘dll-headroom’ and will make at least a few more plugins possible.
Another important fact to know is that there’s a chance that some of those plugins do not release the slots they are using, unless you completely quit Cubase. In other words when you close the affected project and run another heavy one, most probably you’ll loose some plugins there too. So make sure you completely quit Cubase first between opening projects.
Remember there’s a limitation on the amount of plugins you can load. And UAD plugins seem to make the problem worse.
Another way to improve the situation is to use the same plugins several times where you can. You can replace if you can those plugins used only once or twice, with others you use several times.
That’s seriously limiting when you are trying to mix songs that might have 100-150 track plus many sub groups and groups. I have managed this fine when using the C8 series. It is the C9 series that is limiting functionality, with the problem exacerbated in C9.5. I do not have the time to waste with this kind of workflow workaround.
There should not be a limit to the number of plugins you can load. Why would this exist? The plugin manager only has to read the VST headers to be able to present the plugins in the selection list and the VST plugin information. I have never seen any limitation on this described in the documentation as yet.
This is a Windows issue, not a Cubase limitation. UAD is the worst culprit here, you’ll pretty much never run into this while running plugins from almost every other developer, unless you’re doing something stupid like using completely different compressor and EQ plugins on every single track.
You can load as many plugins as your CPU and RAM can handle.
That has nothing to do with anything described in this thread.
Except it is not just UA plugins. It is Izotope plugins and FabFilter plugins as well. And I am not using a huge number of instances across this project, maybe 40 or 50 including the sub groups and effects channels. Nothing that has ever caused problems in previous versions.
Which is what I would have thought to be the case.
Might be a Windows issue, but in Reaper it works I think due to opening plugin in a separate process. We have 64-bit OS with 64-bit DAW and we still hit some dll memory problem, nice. I have like 100 Reaper projects each has triple amount of VSTs I can use in Cubase 9.5 !!!
Finally read through all the links and side links/conversations on various forums about the issue.
I don’t envy Steinberg’s position, there’s not a whole lot they can do about it, they seem to be caught between Microsoft and the third-party plugin developers. Some behave, others do not. I guess the best they can do is to try and convince the plugin developers to change their plugins to dynamic types. After all, it would benefit both parties when trying to sell software systems for audio production.
As far as I know Bitwig uses a kind of a sandboxing system for plugins that runs them in seperate processes (if a plugin fails not the whole DAW fails). Stuff like that… there must be a solution. Of course I have no idea of how hard it is to implement into Cubase or what exactly the ‘right’ solution would be. But I’m sure it can and will be found. And needs to as the situation (maybe?!?) concerns more and more users.
That’s a nice idea since it takes away DAW instabilities caused by third-party programming that can’t be verified by Steinberg.
Very useful for VSTi’s and multicore processors.
A single currently in mixing with 112 tracks. This one loses all its UAD FX send inserts when opened in C9.5.10, but does not in C9.0.30.
I did a count of different plugins. There are 6 different FabFilter plugins being used (multiple instances of each) and 13 different UAD plugins being used (several with multiple instances).
When I load it in C9.5.10 the FX channels lose UAD plugins silently. It makes C9.5 rather useless for mixing this track. I have mixed much larger projects on previous versions of Cubase without any problems. There is something new and ‘improved’ in this version of Cubase…
This will be partially addressed in 9.5.20. You’ll be able to load more plugins than Cubase 9 could, and each new update after that will allow you to load even more plugins.
Just installed and tried 9.5.20. The situation is much improved.
One large mix appears to have all its plugins.
Another, however, does not and is working fine in C8.5.
So whilst it is not perfect, it is much better!