SpectraLayers 7 ARA 2 Problems

I upgraded to SL 7 for a project and after trying it in both Cubase 10.5 and Nuendo 10 and the ARA 2 functionality doesn’t seem to be working for me at all.

If I select an audio file, add the extension and then tell it to unmix stems, I can see the stems in the editor but I’m unable to solo them. If I hit the solo button, it seems to play back the selected stem as well as the whole audio file at the same time.

If I solo a stem and bounce-in-place the resulting file is completely silent.

Has anyone else managed to get this work? Am I missing something here?

This is on macOS Mojave.

ARA in Cubase/Nuendo in general seems really unstable to me still.

The patch coming early next week solves several ARA issues.

Thanks Robin, appreciate the quick response! It was difficult for me to tell if this was a more general Cubase/Nuendo ARA problem, as ARA is still generally buggy for me in both DAWs with other ARA-capable tools like Melodyne and Revoice Pro as well (for example, any audio with an ARA extension placed inside an Audio Part won’t play back and the DAW slows down). So it’s great to know that this will be fixed sooner rather than later.

Robin I am having Problem.

I am using it with Reaper and Calkwalk Robin.I load a audio file on to a track with spectral layers seems like it is missing some part of the audio.Also Using with Melodyne to get tempo.Runing it on iMac.not sure same problem in Windows.

Hi JesusSHeep00a, I just sent you a beta of the upcoming patch, let me know if that fixes your issue.
If not, please record a video of it.
Thanks !

After applying the patch/update, on solo’ing an Unmixed stem in SL7 Pro ARA in Nuendo and bouncing the audio it results in a completely silent file the same way MarkRM describes.

Hi
When I open REAPER 6 I see it as a plugin, but when I try to load it I get a popup message of “SpectrLayers ARA” and "SpectraLayers library could not be loaded (С:\Program Files\Steinberg\Spectralayers 7\Win64\Spectraleters.dll) Error Code:87 ". How can this be fixed? Thank you so much .

ChazC and MarRM I can indeed repro the issue with Nuendo 10.3 and Cubase 10.5, but not with the latest beta of Cubase 11… So I guess it’s more a Cubase issue in this case.

AlexStaindooff I guess that’s a typo in your message ? it should be С:\Program Files\Steinberg\Spectralayers 7\Win64\SpectraLayers.dll
What exact version of Reaper do you use ? (for instance: REAPER v6.12c/x64)
Have you tried uninstalling SL7 and reinstalling it ?

Yes. С: \ Program Files \ Steinberg \ Spectralayers 7 \ Win64 \ SpectraLayers .dll
Version of Reaper 6.13 / x64 Was uninstalling SL7 and reinstalling it but doesn’t work.

What exact version of Windows are you using ?

Windows 7 professional x64

That’s why; officially SpectraLayers 7 only support Windows 10 and above.
That being said, you can try installing this Microsoft patch, it should help with this issue you’re having: Microsoft Security Advisory: Insecure library loading could allow remote code execution - Microsoft Support

Successful fix.Thank you very much. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Well, excuse me for being blunt, but for a program that advertises itself as being ARA2 compatible and which is now a Steinberg product simply stating that “it’s more of a Cubase issue” is not an acceptable answer.

Does this mean as far as you’re concerned we’ve all just got to wait for Cubase 11 (or even longer for Nuendo 11) just to get an advertised feature to work or will it be addressed in another SL7 patch? I hope it’s the latter because if we have to rely on Cubase/Nuendo support to fix the issue we’re never going to see it unless you can push it with them.

All your answer implies is “yes, we know ARA doesn’t work properly - but we’re passing the buck. Tough luck”.

Hi Robin.

Yeah, this is disappointing to me too. In fact the ARA integration in both Cubase and Nuendo (I own both) has been very problematic for me since the start. I imagine this ‘silent region’ bug could be related to the same bug I’ve experienced with all ARA extensions in Cubase - they output silent audio when ‘nested’ within an Audio Part and make the program generally unstable. This is a bug I’ve reported more than once and had confirmed by Martin, but this has never been addressed by Steinberg. It now seems as if the fix might be attached to a paid upgrade. In other words, a feature that was a big part of my buy-in to Cubase/Nuendo 10 (ARA) will not work properly until I pay again for another upgrade.

If Steinberg’s beta process was more open (like Ableton’s, for example) where those with a problem could download and test the beta then I would take my chances and run it to get the functionality I paid for. As it stands, I guess I’ll just have to wait a few months until Cubase 11 is officially released for this to work properly, as I (like ChazC) don’t have a lot of faith in Steinberg to fix it before then.

I understand. I’ll see if a workaround can be found on SL’s side. I can’t guarantee to find a solution on SL’s side alone though, but will get in touch with the Cubase developers about it.

It’s tricky - I noticed Cubase 10.5 creates a new layer out of nowhere when “Bounce Selection” is clicked (it appears in the Layers Panel, and seems to be an unwanted duplicate of the bounced layer). Hence why you get unexpected results.

Here’s a workaround meanwhile: just before doing the Bounce Selection, right click the layer that is going to be bounced, and then “Merge Up”. Then proceed with the bounce. It’ll do the trick until I can properly filter out that unwanted layer.

Thanks Robin, appreciated.