I’m experiencing an issue in Cubase Pro 14.0.10 (macOS Ventura 13.7.1) with latency compensation when I activate or bypass plugins in the insert slots of a track.
My setup:
Cubase 14.0.10
macOS Ventura 13.7.1
iMac 27” 2017 - Intel , 64 GB RAM
Audio Interface: MOTU M4
Buffer Size: 1024 samples
ASIO Guard: Tried both Normal and High
The issue:
I have a Kick track with two inserted plugins:
Waves DBX 160 (31 ms latency)
A Tape Saturator
When I bypass either of these plugins, the Kick gets out of sync with the rest of the percussion, as if Cubase isn’t compensating for latency correctly.
This never happened in previous versions of Cubase.
Additional details:
I tried with other projects, and the issue persists.
If I Disable the plugin instead of Bypassing, the desynchronization disappears.
I’m not sure if this is a Cubase issue or a Waves issue, but the DAW should adjust latency when bypassing a plugin, and now it’s not doing so.
Has anyone else noticed this problem? Is this a Cubase 14.0.10 bug?
If a problem only exists in specific plugins, generally the issue it with the plugin(s).
More generally: Plugin latency needs to be reported by the plugin to the host (in this case Cubase), so the host can make the correct compensation. If the plugin gets that wrong, then the host can’t do the right thing.
In the case of Cubase 14 vs prior versions, opening a project in an older version might have been using the VST2 versions of plugins, while Cubase 14 uses the VST3 version (unless VST2 is specifically enabled).
VST3 has different coding demands and to the best of my understanding the differences are also in the area of latency reporting. So maybe those plugins aren’t getting that right in their VST3 versions?
Not sure, if the VST2 vs VST3 difference is at the root of what you’re experiencing, but it’s the first thing I’d check.
Sorry, that isn’t the case normally. Latency compensation has worked always like it should, except with some plugins that introduced compatibility issues with Cubase.
But most Waves plugins do what they should.
No it’s not the other way around. Bypassed or disabled there should be no loss of sync when compensation is working correctly.
The difference is that bypassed the latency is still active but compensated… disabled there is no latency so no need for compensation.
It seems that the issue was related to T-Racks 5 plugins.
Some TR5 plugins may cause latency issues and even interact with or influence other plugins in the same insert chain (such as the DBX-160).
Also, this is the first production I’m working on in Cubase 14. In Cubase 13, this issue didn’t happen, which makes me think there is some difference in how Cubase 14 handles latency compensation with certain plugins.
I will keep testing to confirm 100%, but it looks like that was the root of the problem.
My setup: