everything you say points to it be a problem with that particular project (which was pointed out at the beginning)
it’s impossible to debug the project remotely - you will need to start pulling it apart a bit to see what causes it
I’m still confused that you never use input monitor ?
What are you implying here then?
For live audio I use direct monitoring which is independent of Cubase and has 0 latency. MIDI doesn’t need it to be active to hear the play back, simply highlight the track and the MIDI input outputs through whatever VST is loaded on it, no activating input monitoring necessary.
That’s what I’ve been trying to say, I’ve pulled everything out and once I disable those plugins the ASIO meter drops to less than 10%, but that is failing to explain what else is different that those same plugins are running fine in much large numbers on a different project.
I’m not really implying anything I’m specifically saying some plugins are VERY CPU (ASIO) heavy - so the number of plugins is often irrelevant. You can’t measure the the load of a project by saying it has 1 0 plugins or 100 plugins or 1000 plugins. Even different patches on some plugins are heavier than others.
yes, it’s would be odd to by playing a VSTi with input monitoring not enabled. so I assume you have AUTO monitoring enabled - (it’s still input monitoring)
Every time you select a track (and because you’ve probably got auto monitoring enabled) input monitoring becomes enabled and you lose ASIO guard on that track…which often bumps the ASIO load. Make sure NOTHING is selected and NO input monitoring is active.
again, I’m saying there is no evidence that there is a problem with the performance of your system - I can’t tell you what is causing the high load in the particular project - you need to go through systematically to find out. It might not even be one thing - it might be several.
I’ll quote from the beginning of my very first post
Auto monitor set to manual in my preferences, which I’m guessing means it’s off as that’s the closest option to it, and unless there’s a setting I’m not aware of on the interface that controls auto monitoring where the yellow monitor icon remains off, I’m not sure that’s what is happening…
Besides I’m seeing the meter clipping even while nothing is playing and nothing is selected.
If you load a VSTi onto a track and then enter the piano roll editor do you not hear any playback while monitoring is off?
I wasn’t asking you to fix my issue for me, but I’ve already been taking it apart inch by inch, but nothing seems to be making a great deal of difference and while disabling everything obviously stops the project overloading, that doesn’t really solve the issue, and I’m running out of ideas, all I’m hoping for is some suggestions as to what else could be causing issues aside from the plugins in and of themselves.
I’ve tried removing everything that’s not 100% necessary, and I’ve already been trying to narrow it down for at least week and I’m not having much success. Even ruling out it being a bug in this particular project, by transferring to a new one as I’ve already tested for that too.
Have you tried using another audio interface just to rule out the sound driver?!
Is it possible to run this project on an Intel powered PC?!
you will hear audio/midi from the editors if input monitoring is on OR off.
meaning the channel is ‘listening’ to the input source (MIDI or audio). It’s the brown button in this picture.
I don’t know if you have it enabled ? - but I’m suggesting that if you do it can make the ASIO meter read higher because it disables ASIO guard for that track.
It’s more yellow/orange on my system, but yes I mean the same button and no I never use it, it is never highlighted or active, and I’ve never needed to turn it on.
I asked Dr. Strangelove for any suggestions of audio interfaces that would be worth testing against that aren’t going to cost me 4 figures just to test out, but he’s not given me an answer, my old interface died a while back, so would require buying one, I’m perfectly willing the spend the money if I know for sure that’s going to fix the problem though. But it seems like a last resort of spend over a grand until I’ve ruled out other options and as the testing I’ve done shows I can run over a thousand plugins at the same time I’m in agreement with Dr. Stangelove that it must be something about the project that is causing the issue, but having tried countless variations of the setup I’m at a loss as to why this combination of things is struggling so much.
Not without more hassle than it’s worth and testing it on a separate machine introduces so many variables weather it runs okay or not, it wouldn’t be very helpful, if it works I’d only know that something different between the systems is the answer, which could be anything (software or hardware. ) and if it doesn’t, it might be something else that is causing it to run badly on that system which might not be the same as mine.
Just would like to add, I have apricated your help in this and I do feel like you’ve gotten me closer to an answer overall, because I do agree now this is a project based issue, but feeling like I’ve ruled out the versions of plugins I’m using and the number of instances alone isn’t the cause, can you think of anything else that might be worth looking at besides the input monitor?
I’d like to apologise you felt you had to repeat yourself on multiple occasions, as that obviously means you don’t think I was paying attention to your words, but please know I’ve read every post on this thread at least half a dozen times already, and I put in many hours (most of my weekend) crafting my replies (OCD& AuDHD is a bitch trying to communicate on forums) to try and convey that I was ruling out the examples you’d kindly provided me with, but due to my struggles in communicating my intentions clearly especially technical problems such as this, I think I just sounded like I was being wilfully ignorant to your suggestions which I promise couldn’t have been further from the truth.
If I hear any more from you in terms of ideas I can test that would be amazing, but either way, thank you for your help so far I know you’ve taken a lot of your valuable time to help.
Personally I think the only way to debug that particular project is to pull it apart and see if you can pin down the issue to a particular plugin or track
It’s worth bearing in mind that some plugins (FX and VSTi) are just heavy on the CPU - most especially if you are using them in real time.
Examples of ‘potential’ problems might be:
Slate plugins - don’t use them myself but I’ve heard these can be problematic
Amp sims - you said there were a few ? and if you are using them in real time, whilst recording, they can be very CPU heavy…depending on which one of course.
Spitfire ‘native’ plugins can be heavy - depending on patch (abbey road 2 for example)
Some kontakt instrument - depending on scripting etc
This could be a very long list …
As I mentioned sometimes an individual plugin can bring you system to it’s knees. I use a tuner plugin called ‘Ircam the Snail’ - it’s the closest to a strobe tuner that I could find. It’s been updated recently but it’s much better - but in earlier versions it was so heavy it would give me about 50% ASIO load (on a 32 sample ASIO buffer). So heavy that I would have to use it to tune then disable it whenever I actually wanted to do anything else (record/play/etc)
You demonstrated to yourself how powerful your PC is on a ‘dummy’ project - so if you can’t find the issue with the ‘problem’ project maybe it’s better to accept it and move on ?
Busses can cause lots of processing problems so try the same project without bussing and in any case no processing on the busses.
I confirm. About all the crashes I had the last years was from Slate Plugins. It wasnt a lot of crashes, but still. I fortunately got rid of the subscription, so I don’t even use them anymore.
Also this I can confirm. Amp sims are usually really heavy on the CPU, the are modelling a lot of different distortion stages, and depending on the oversampling they can be very very heavy.
I’ve noticed that External Instruments and Effects have a huge impact on ASIO performance. You need to delete whatever you’re not using in the Audio connections window.
Haven’t read the whole thread but someone recommended running LatencyMon. I would highly recommend this - I had significant performance issues on relatively small projects - core spikes, crackles, pops, dropouts etc.
LatencyMon told me it was a result of my video card graphics driver causing significant DPC latency. After reinstalling a slimmer version of the driver, the DPC score in LatencyMon improved significantly and performance issues went away.