Recently with cubase 15, I have a huge delay when recording MIDI (the track is a VST instrument). I’ve created to debug this problem an empty project. One track with Retrologue => more than one 1 beat delay, notes are not on ticks.
It’s only during recording, no delay whan I’m playing keyboard.
Focusrite 18i20 latency in 24ms (last driver). No delay compensation in the track. MIDI use this ASIO driver in the studio setup. I tried with other VST vendors, same problem. The computer is freshly installed, no other applications except soud banks NI and EastWest. I’m on Windows 11 last updates.
Do you use the “Constrain Delay Compensation” button (the small icon with the curved arrow) on the Transport or Project toolbar to temporarily mute or switch to live mode any CPU-intensive or latency-inducing plug-ins?
No, this one is grey, I tried to click on it (color orange), same problem.
After a lot of tests (driver Focusrite reinstalled, Cubase settings studio…), I’m in this situation => MIDI recorded before (half a tick)
my setup is: Keyboard MIDI → Focusrite MIDI → USB to PC to Cubase → VST Instrument track. Ok in live, KO during record
AsioGuard is enabled but same result if disabled (also, monitoring the track or not = same result). My MIDI iinput is not in “All in MIDI” in the Studio port MIDI table.
It would be better to state exactly what’s happening : are the notes recorded on time and played with a delay offset or are they put wrongly on the time line during the record process ? If the former and just in case (yep, it’s too obvious, but still… ) : anything mistakenly set in Track delay parameter of the involved instrument track inspector ?
Otherwise, are you sure that the Auto Quantize option (in the MIDI Record Modes - reachable in the left of the Transport bar) isn’t activated ?
The problems occurs during recording. Il I try to record 4 notes at measure 19 (so I’ve placed the cursor on 19), the notes are placed in the measure 18. I can see it in real time. (Same thing if preroll is disabled). The playback is good, but of course one measure before what I’ve played.
Track delay is set to 0 ms unfortunately. Auto quantization is disabled.
At a point, I was suspecting the Time Offset parameter, in the Project setup window, but no, it doesn’t place incoming MIDI messages one bar before the actual cursor position, out of nowhere.
Just in case (I guess that you already did it, but well…) : have you tried to relaunch Cubase in Safe Mode, using the Disable program preferences option ?
Belive it or not, today windows update has solved the problem… What to say…
I’m curious if some people are really using windows + cubase at a PRO level… It’s quite frustating when you want to do music to spend several hours in vain in IT Tech… I have a recent and dedicated computer only for music… really not reliable. Is it more reliable on Mac ?
Absolutely. Have been since Cubase pro 4.
Now windows 11 and the latest Cubase 15 solid as a rock.
Sorry you had issues I guess we’ll never know what went wrong.
My setup is the default one: automatic updates (Windows 11). My computer is recent, with SSD and M2 disks), I moved on Windows 11 end of 2025 and it’s really difficult since (My hardware / setup has not changed). Big updates related to MIDI in Windows has created issues with MIDI NanoKontrol, I’ve reinstalled from scratch the computer, it worked some months. Then I’ve not used this computer some month, when I powered on in July, MIDI was weird (notes created 1 measure before). No updates were downloading this day, I’ve waited of course some minutes to be able to use Cubase (impossible when anti malware and others processes are running at each boot).
So I’ve played a lot with Cubase parameters without success, in my understanding, everything in Cubase is more related to small delays. Here I faced 1 full measure (exactly one measure) between note displayed and the Cubase bar where not should have been placed. (However during play, no problem, note is played exactly like the screen).
Probably important: the checkbox ‘Use system timestamp for Windows MIDI input’ is checked. I don’t remember if it was checked when I was under Windows 10.
Focusrite is preparing a new driver soon for my soundcard (scarlett 18i20 III), hope it can help.
