Hey,
Maybe I need to lower the expectations a bit for the “Vote” feature or the “feature requests” tag.
Yes, we are observing both of these and as you can see we are also answering feature requests from both lists frequently with every version. But it’s not possible to answer, comment or discuss every feature request. I have to admit that the situation with Gapless Audio is different. This has been a request for years and it’s on top of the voting list here in the forum. So I understand that some more feedback from Steinberg on this topic would be appreciated.
We are absolutely aware of the requests and our audio engine team is working towards a solution. Some of you may have noticed that there have been already minor improvements in this area with Cubase 12. If you are making the 1 on 1 test with Cubase 11 and Cubase 12, you will notice (or measure) that the audio engine gap has been decreased significantly when inserting effects or instruments. Some part of that was achieved with the removal of the eLicenser, but the team also improved the behaviour with different new methods. Basically this needs to be solved with a new routing architecture that allows the audio engine to proceed while the routing is changing. Unfortunately this is complex and needs the full focus of the team for a long period of time. Which also means that other topics like optimisation for new CPU generations on both Win and Mac or other performance optimisation topics will be prioritised lower. And that’s where we have the conflict and we need to make decisions. The last years have been very dynamic and we have prioritised other audio engine related topics higher that working on a “gapless audio engine”. But that doesn’t mean that we are not aware of the request, the use-case or the benefit for the users. Currently the audio engine team has different projects on their roadmap that are working towards improvements in this regards, but we cannot communicate any release date for a Cubase version without audio engine gaps when changing the routing.