Instruments getting stuck making sounds after stopping playback

Hey everyone,

I’m experiencing this issue with basically all vsts I use including Kontakt instruments, many times when I stop the playback, different instruments keep making a non-changing sound. In vsts that have Panic button (such as in Kontakt) I can press it to stop the sound, but with instruments that do not, what I do is duplicate the channel and then delete the audible one.

What do you think can cause this issue? I’m quite sure it’s not the instruments plugins because I’m an Ableton user too and there it all runs smoothly

I’m using Cubase 11 if it matters

Thanks a lot in advance

A few things you might try.

In Preferences/MIDI
Tick Reset on Stop to on.
Tick Never Reset Chased Controllers.

If that doesn’t help. Do you get hangs with other VSTi instruments too?

If the plugins that are hanging are VST3, but come in VST2, give the VST2 variant a try. Yes, VST3 is theoretically better performance and feature wise, but if it’s not working properly, what else can ya do?

If none of that helps, try rolling your Plugin back a version or two.

I don’t use Kontakt so I can’t even remotely promise this will help at all, but it’s worth giving it a try. I have had some issues with some 3rd party VST3 plugins though, where the VST2 variant, or even rolling back a version proved to be less ‘sticky’ and more stable.

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Hello Brian thank you very much for your help! I tried what you suggested I will have to give it some time to see. Also I didn’t know that VST3 is better performance that’s good to know since I normally choose the VST2 over the VST3 versions out of habit lol

Thanks again!

I will report back later if that helps maybe it can also help others that have the same problem

Ah, if you’re using the VST2 one and it gives trouble, try the VST3.

LOL

Point being, it’s possible where one misbehaves the other might not.

Yes, my understanding is that VST3 has some features that can help optimize cpu and memory management. It has a lot of extra parameters for monitoring (info streams plugins can use to make smarter decisions, update the UI, etc.) and control (Note Expression as an example), better controller resolutions, etc. (of course not all players and instruments use them yet). I think it has better support for things like side-chaining, DAW routing, etc (again, all hosts and instruments won’t take advantage of everything).

Since Steinberg controls VST…Cubase/HALion is going to be the first to implement VST3 stuff, while Nuendo and the 3rd party hosts/instruments, naturally, will take a little longer.

Sometimes it takes the third parties a version or two to get VST3 working like it should, and they tend to hold back a bit on Nuendo to implement the ‘bleeding edge technologies’ for the sake of research and bug fixes on Cubase. (Misunderstandings, or general developer learning curve over how the protocol should work for instance, where theory and real world application clash, etc.)

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Hey Brian

Yes I tried now with both Vsts2 and 3, with the MIDI preferences you mentioned, and it keeps on getting those hangs very frequently, in just every soft synth I use

I don’t know what to do already, I’m experiencing many bugs with vsts that I don’t experience in Ableton or in Cubase 8 (I tested to be sure), maybe I should just give up and downgrade from Cubase 11? It’s becoming very frustrating

Thanks again and hope these problems will be fixed by Steinberg

Odd, check ASIO Guard and buffer settings?
Are those the same as your good running instances of Cubase 8?

Any other plugins in the data stream that could be bugging it up? Perhaps stuff in mixer inserts?

Yes, your new Cubase 11 key will also work for 8 - 11, and the old stuff back to SX too. Can have different versions installed on the same system.

You’re right in Cubase 11 the Asio Guard is enabled, and on Cubase 8 it’s disabled, maybe it could be this and I should disable it?

By buffer settings do you mean buffer size? The buffer size is the same yes I rarely change it.

Thank you again

Yes…I am speaking of the ASIO buffers to your audio interface.

I don’t know that you should ‘disable’ it, but it does have impact on performance. ASIO guard is meant to do some pre-calculations through logical cores on as much as it can so it’s ready to be dumped into the main audio stream when the time comes. When disabled, everything has be done in real time, on demand. Also ‘armed’ tracks bypass the ASIO guard thing.

If you have huge projects with a lot of virtual instruments, effects, etc…it’s generally good to have it ON and use larger buffers (beware of latency though). When you need very precise control over things with as little latency as possible is when you might cut it off, and use the smallest buffer size you can get away with.

I have no idea if/why it would cause plugins to ‘stick’, but it’s usually one of the first things I check when going down a trouble shooting list.

What are the best setting? All depends…system, and a given project’s demands for a given stage of your workflow.

Experiment…

Thanks a lot for your explanation.

So it sounds like it’s not gonna have an effect on the hangs I’m experiencing. Those hangs are not related at all to performance unfortunately, they happen in large projects, small projects etc.

For example, If I have an insert of a “ducking effect” on the channel it will turn the hanging monotonic sound into a groovy repeating note that hangs. So I think it shows it’s not related to performance, it’s just a note that is stuck.

I noticed that sometimes notes are hanging and I can solve it with the 64 SUSTAIN cc, I just draw it at 0, and it clears the sound. This is some kind of a bug in itself I think because it doesn’t happen in Cubase 8, But those hangs I’m talking about nothing helps with them I can playback the project again and this hanging sound will just continue in the background…

Thank you again for trying to help and I hope that downgrading to Cubase 10 will help

I see.

If it’s suspension pedal related, make sure there is an event to release the pedal where it needs to be. This can sometimes get tricky if you have things repeating through arranger tracks.

One other thing I can think of to check is make sure that a part hasn’t been shrunk accidentally so the note-off portion got cut off.

If the problem notes live near the end of a part, maybe stretch it a few samples/ms/ppq to the right and see if that fixes things.

I’ve also noticed that some plugins cannot stand it if a note is repeated in succession, and the note-end/off overlaps the next note on. For me, when this happens, I get ‘missing notes’ instead of hanging ones, but it’s something I’ve seen before. The fix was to make sure any note in succession isn’t overlapping his neighbor. I’d use a MIDI logic editor to batch process such note lengths pretty quickly.

Yes of course I checked all those, the thing is that it happens randomly, it’s not even related to the midi event, the event can have even a one note and no more, and it will hang. It just happens out of the blue once in a while with an event that previously for an hour was totally fine.

If it’s ok to ask on this thread even if it’s a different subject - can I open Cubase 11 projects in older Cubase versions? I mean is there a version you think it’s better to downgrade to over another? Or maybe I should go for the nears version first maybe 10.5?

Thanks Brian

I see. If you have time it might be worth it to prepare a report in your favorite format (written, video, whatever) and submit a support ticket. Maybe attach a copy of the project (or parts of it that demonstrate the failtures if you’re highly protective of your work). Even if support can’t immediately provide a good answer, with luck it’ll get sent to technicians closer to the dev team to have a closer look…see if they can duplicate the problem, or spot issues with your particular project.

Good question.

My suggestion is to give it a try. Some things supported in newer versions might be ignored when opened in an older version, but it should be safe to try.

I haven’t looked, but there might even be a way to ‘prep’ a project for legacy support. Kind of how something like Sibelius has an option to save it for ‘older versions of Sibelius’. I can’t say off the top of my head, but worthy of a few web searches to see if experiences and approaches are documented out there somewhere.

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Ok I will try that thank you very much!

P.S.

If you’d like me to load something and see if my system behaves the same, just get with me in a PM.

Stuff I have here to compare:
Everything included in Cubase

HALion 6/Sonic 3

Groove Agent 5

HALion Symphonic Orchestra

Pretty much everything Garritan but their big flagship piano.

Anything I’m entitled to with the East West composer cloud X subscription.

SONiVOX orchestral Film Composer series (not very useful to me, both of my systems I tried with HATES these plugins, in ALL of my DAWS (CPU spikes and glitches like crazy, unusable without MASSIVE ASIO buffers well over 1 megabyte, and one of them is Ryzen 5 3900XT with 12 cores, 64gig 3200Mhz memory, and a quality m2 SSD drive hosing the samples).

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Thanks again Brian

Just letting anyone interested know that in Cubase 10.5 for now the random hangs do not occur at all.

I will try to contact the Cubase support team to let them know and for now will keep working with 10.5

Hi Omer:
I was having the same issues until I think that I know what the problem is now. If you try to turn off /deactivate the (stuck) instrument while mashing the foot/sustain pedal, it sticks the sustain MIDI message in a loop. Also if we are changing between tracks/instruments with the sustain pedal pressed, you will get the same problem. Sometimes we stop playback or change tracks without realising that we are mashing down on the sustain pedal. Try it without the sustain pedal and see. This should fix the issue. I tried the steps Brian suggested, and while they are useful (I think we should apply them), they didn’t help until I realised what I was doing with the pedal (absentmindedly).

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Hey Chris that’s very interesting, since then after some time I didn’t notice that problem anymore also in CB11 but I’ll try to take it into account thanks a lot!