Random audio spikes that almost blow out my ears

Cubase
1

Hi everybody,

I am experiencing a strange issue with my newly setup Cubase 9 pro installation on a custom Mac and was wondering if anyone here has experienced something similar as well. I recently upgraded from 8.5 with which I had no issues whatsoever…

I get random audio spikes that almost blow out my ears when they occur. I hear an extreme static noise which lasts a few seconds and usually decays shortly after.

So far I was unable to narrow the problem down sufficiently to say it only occurs under particular circumstances.

It usually occurs well into the session seemingly at random. When it happens, I can see the meters of the first VEP 6 channel in the Cubase meter all the way up in red without moving. Same with the output. In addition, sometimes after it occurs I can only play back on a single channel, usually L with R dead.

There is no error message or crash. Once the spike is gone I can usually keep working normally until another hit down the road…

I am using a RME Babyface 1. I have VEP 6 with 5 instances with a full virtual orchestra running in in the background. Other plug-ins running are a couple of instances of B2 reverb, u-he Satin and Bias FX for guitar amplification.

Any ideas what may cause this strange behavior?

I also noticed that Cubase 9 for whatever reason blacklisted the B2 reverb initially. I reactivated it manually in the plugin manager…

The box has 64GB. All data is coming from 5 Samsung SSS. Intel I7 6700k at standard clock.

Many thanks!

2

Hi,

Is it somehow on the regular basis? Make sure you have no plug-in in Trial/DEMO Mode, please.

Could you try to increase the Buffer Size?

What is routed to the first VE Chanel?

3

Nope. All plugins are properly registered. The spikes only appear at irregular intervals. Sometimes it does not even occur once during a session. It’s really strange :frowning:

I should maybe also mention that I have Asio guard enabled (high).

First VEP audio channel strip houses all my strings and has one B2 reverb send. It goes directly to the main output. No other plugins are used on this channel.

On the mains I have the build in eq activated with a low cut at 30 Hz and an instance of u-he Satin. That’s it…