When dragging from the right hand VST Instruments list, instruments are still ‘Always on Top’ when the ‘VST/Plug-in Editors Always on top’ option in settings is disabled.
Make sure the setting is disabled
drag an instrument
Right click to verify that always on top is ticked.
Adding a track via right click in tracklist/add instrument actually does work most of the time & respects the setting. I’ve switched to adding instruments this way, but sometimes it still doesn’t work & I’m not sure what causes it to stop working.
I’m not sure what your point is? The setting isn’t respected on VST effects either. searching on the forum this issue has been around for over a decade so I guess it’s just another thing Steinberg don’t care about fixing.
Dragging Halion onto a track respects this setting ( and Halion goes to the background)
Dragging a non-Steinberg VST, they are indeed ‘Always on top’ . ( It tried it with Addictive keys and with Spitfire BBCSO)
When adding an instrument track via the ‘Add Track’ menu
Halion respects the setting, but remains visible (so on top)
Spitfire BBCSO shows ‘Always on top’ and remains visible.
Conclusion:
Steinberg producst respect the setting, but third party VST’s don’t
Dragging VST’s from the right Media tab makes Steinberg VST go to the background,
Creating an Insgtrument track using ‘Add Track’ keeps the VST’s on top (regardless the setting)
That’s not always true though, 3rd party plug-ins mostly respect it when right click adding, but occasionally they don’t. The same plug-in can end up either way unfortunately. I work with this setting disabled permanently & so see the result all the time, I don’t use any stock instruments so that’s an interesting aspect I’ll test.
There doesn’t seem to be any discernible logic so far to whether the setting is respected, it feels like a 70-80% probability, but I do know that dragging from the right to a track with 3rd party plug-ins never works & so I have stopped using that method day to day.
It’s a much better way of working for me, how it used to be in SX. I’m on a Mac these days & have Mission Control set to the middle mouse button (or 4 finger swipe up on MacBook) & it’s a really great way of working with plug-ins/instruments without having to close/hide all the time, or need a 2nd display. It also means you can use drag n drop from the OS to a specific plug-in. The always on top makes me feel claustrophobic.
I really hope they fix it soon, it really shouldn’t be that difficult to fix seeing as it works most of the time via the right click method.
I noticed this next expected Cubase version takes a longer than usual time to be released. I hope this is because they are fixing all known issues for once and for all
