Problems with Cubase 10 on OSX with UAD Apollo

Hi, first and hopefully not last post…

I am looking to crossgrade to Cubase 10 Pro from Logic Pro X as a cross-platform DAW is becoming more important for me and I am thinking of switching to Dorico too so sticking in one ecosystem is enticing.

I started the LE trial as I had a small project it could handle and I don’t have an e-licenser yet. To be honest, though, there have been issues… firstly, on random occasions it seems to decide start having a spiking average load in the Audio Performance which results in stuttering playback. Only managed to get this to stop by increasing the Buffer to 2048 (which is useless for me) and this is on a project with two instances of Kontakt. A couple of reverbs per channel and a bus reverb and a UAD Manley MPEQ on the mix bus. I tried the same project set up in logic and lo and behold no issues. Then I go back to Cubase and all of a sudden, no issues again with buffer back to 64!

This then happened again briefly but oddly only when I stopped monitoring track 2 of Kontakt (2 tracks, both piano libraries) but was fine when I was real-time monitoring both.

I actually then realise bypassing the one UAD plugin I had running (first generation Apollo Quad on FW running one instance of Manley Massive Passive on the bus) this issue reliably disappeared. Sometimes, the plugin works fine though. Obviously, if I can’t use my many expensive powered plug-ins reliably this is a total non-starter.

I also had several artefacts on Audio Mixdowns which were very frustrating as they were random and simply re-exporting got rid of them. pops and clicks and the likes. Have no idea why they happened, disabling a setting to do with VST3 and audio signal seemed to help but then again I got the issue to pop up again. I need to be able to trust my mixdowns, that would be embarrassing as although of course I check them, come on…

Is this kind of instability par for the course with Cubase 10 on OSX with the UAD or am I doing something very obviously wrong? I was being sensible for a change and doing a trial instead of jumping in with both feet but I am starting to think it has shown me to stick where I am… I have been liking the features though and I don’t want to give up yet but feel like Cubase is a starting to seem like a liability.

Oh one other frustration when troubleshooting. Cubase 10 is a nightmare to troubleshoot as the versions seem to have varied massively in layout over the years and googling yields advice you simply can’t follow half of the time. The menu is not there. Also LE makes it even harder as poop is just not there. Spent an hour trying to work out how to fix some pedalling in a midi file before it dawned on me LE simply doens’t have the same expression editing capabilities as the bigger versions.

Bump! I had these issues w cu10 but 9.5 worked fine so i just left 10 and back to 9.5. Only now 9.5 is having issues too. Im using a 24 core UAD system: apollo 8p, 16, 2 oct sats. Im using console 1, and have tracked maybe 50 sessions successfully w 9.5, and mixed as many. 10 just wont play any mix w uad plugs, its all crackly like snow almost. 9.5 is clear but the asio meter is capping out and stuttering now. Im a pro working at a commercial studio and have had my rig tight for the last 8 months. But updates changed it last week

Bump again, sorry to hear you had the same problems @thealps. Mine still isn’t resolved but has now gotten worse…

Seems like I am almost to the point of not being able to track virtual instruments (Kontakt 6) in real-time in any substantial quantity. This afternoon I have had multiple dropouts, masses of crackling etc running 4 Kontakt libraries each with one plug-in each and ZERO UAD plug-ins. It seems to inexplicably be getting worse too. System specs are:

Intel i7 9700k
32GB RAM
Samsung Evo 970 drives (3 separate involved, boot, projects, samples)
Apollo Quad Firewire original series running latest firmware
macOS High Sierra

The only thing I have running is Cubase yet I seem to be peaking out my Real-Time frequently when running 4 Kontakt VIs (3 pianos layered, Spitfire Contemp Strings) with an EQ or so each, a couple of things on the bus and 3 Reverb Plugins. I also have logic and it is absolutely fine with all the same channels and plugs playing the same midi, when I duplicate every track 6 times!!!