poor playback macbook pro 2013 (solved)

Nuendo
1

Hi, just got a macbook pro 15 (late 2013) 15 inch retina. Cubase 7.5 & Nuendo 6.5 can’t playback about 20 tracks of 96k audio without drop outs at max audio buffer 2048 (internal built in audio). Same tracks in Logic X playback fine. Tried everything…

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

2

Aloha T,

One approach:
Since using ‘built-in audio’ means you don’t have to worry about
drivers etc for 3rd party audio/MIDI devices, why not try running your Mac
as a ‘PC’ in ‘BootCamp’ (or Parallels/Fusion) mode?

IMHO
Cubase seems to be more ‘efficient’ running in a ‘Windows’ environment.

Good Luck!
{‘-’}

3

yeaaaaaah… no

4

I hear ya!

Perhaps some other users will chime in with
additional approaches.

Good Luck!
{‘-’}

5

If Steinberg is abandoning mac, I’m abandoning Steinberg.

6

Oh … Please … where did you get that?

Fredo

7

I don’t know man… all I know is I bought the top of the line MacBook Pro with all the bells and whistles and Cubendo can’t play audio. Logic plays it fine. My session is only 20 tracks of 96k playing off internal flash. No VST performance spiking, lots of headroom.

Tried
-32 & 64 bit Cubase 7.5 and Nuendo 6.5
-turning off app nap
-different sound cards (TB and internal)
-high and low audio buffers
-disable multicore
-disable ASIO gard
-upping playback buffer

Ideas are welcome… my quirky response is party in response to the silly suggestion to install windows after just dropping 3k on a mac. Psh… riiiiight :wink:

8

silly suggestion?

You asked:

Any ideas?

I gave one in a sincere attempt to comply with your post/request.

Sending much Aloha.
{‘-’}

9

Hi.

  1. Do you have track peak meter activity and no sound, or no meter / no sound ?
  2. If no meter+no sound, do sounds play well in sample editor ?
    If so, try another fresh session after rebooting, just in case…
  3. What does it do with 48kHz sounds ?
  4. Did you try trashing Prefs ?

If nothing works, I would try to create a new mavericks user, just to make sure something is really screwed up on the OS part, and I would try to totally deinstall / reinstall cubendo…

About windows, actually Macs are very good pcs IMHO because drivers are pretty good.
But I would run in bootcamp personally, to get the most native possible access to the hardware part.
But I also understand that you’d rather use what you paid for :wink:
And actually there is absolutely no reason for it to fail…
Hopes that helps a bit.

10

This is a fresh instal. It should work. I know you all are trying to be helpful, but windows is a poop os. Not installing it.

11

I’m not suggesting at all to install windows to solve your problem. It would be a nasty workaround, not a solution.
I just said Mac make top pcs, providing you actually boot on windows IMHO, but it’s another story, I give you that.

Now, just saying that it should work is not gonna solve it.
Your setup should work like a charm, indeed, though, and I run Nuendo on various Mac with tons of tracks and automation in surround modes with no problems other than obvious supercharged vst system… There is a limit… But in case, as long as lignocaine can handle it…

Maybe you could monitor activity of your Mac regarding ram and CPU and compare logic and cubendo this way. Not only with the vst meter.
Something seems to hold cubendo down, and I don’t see what it is…

Did you try with fewer tracks, or 48kHz only.
Is the problem happening in every case and if not, when does it happen ?
From here, it seems the only way to try and understand what is happening…
And If cubendo works really badly with every session you can come up with, I would definitely go for deinstall reinstall or at the very least, pref trashing…

12

Looks like unauthorized iZotope plugins screw up your sessions PDC. Once authed the issue is gone.

13

Congrats for finding the problem.

So far anytime I have had a stability problem with Nuendo it has been related to a plugin. I have so many plugins that it can be a pain to track it down but ultimately I get there.

Dean