Tightness and inconsistent playback

Cubase
1

a quick rant and I wonder if anyone has any suggestions…

I’m running as simple setup as possible, pure ITB, using a couple of VST instruments and limited effects… my overall processing load is around 25%, disc useage is near zero. Cubase 13, windows, just a fastish i5 but as I already said it’s not an overall processing issue as such… planning an upgrade which I’ll get to later… external audio interface just for monitoring.

No hardware, no external midi etc… to consider.

I’m running deliberately simple projects, i.e. less than 10 tracks… some of the VST are just sample playback, i.e. virtual drum machines, so no major processing going on. Serato sample, which seems to work fine.

I’m working with EDM type music for 30 odd years… so I would say I have a very well trained ear, particularly when it comes to timing.

What I find is that the timing of the playback keeps changing, i.e. it seems that the timing of tracks relative to one another keeps changing, so e.g. a snare drum will be tight in the pocket with the kick… but after pressing stop and play again it changes. This is happening all the time as I work, e.g. when jumping to the start locator, or after pressing stop and play. Because I have a very sensitive ear to the timing it sort of drives me insane… as it constantly distracts me. I’ve been finding this over the last 18 months or so and have tried to igore the issue but it keeps coming back to plague me…

I think the issue is probably related to track latency introduced by the VST instruments and the plugin chain and so it becomes much more obvious when introducing an element that has a higher latency… so e.g. today I introduced a track using BX_oberhausen, just a mono bass, so no problem on the processing side. My highest channel latencies are 10ms, but this doesn’t report the latency of VST intruments… only the inserts. But after starting to use the VST intrument in the projects the timing really falls apart, everything starts to sound sloppy and if I repeatedly re-start playback the timing will change each time… it seems to shift around so it’s possible to e.g. repeatedly hit jump to locator until I get lucky and it sounds better…

So my 1st question is… what the hell is going on :slight_smile: Presumably Cubase wants to keep playing and not stop to do it’s housework whenever something changes… I get that, we don’t want to be back in the days of staring at a rotating egg timer whenever we change something in the project… but I find the timing being thrown out to be unacceptable. Does anyone know if there any options related to this behaviour… i.e. is there some way to just say play the damn thing exactly in time, exactly the same…every time… no matter if it does cause a pause to prepare buffers? ( btw before someone says it, I have tried experimenting with smaller and larger audio output buffers but this doesn’t help, actually it got much worse with a very small output buffer of 2 ms?? )

My next question, what else can I do, it doesn’t seem to be a limitation of my system… but could it help to move Cubase over to Mac? Would it help to get a different audio interface for monitoring… ( currently just an older USB ) I fail to understand why… but could it make a difference… but?? I’ve also checked with Latency Monitor and the current system does not have any issues… I run everything very minimal, no other software in background no WIFI etc… but could a MAC or significantly faster PC make a difference here… or is it just a limitation of the VST/ Cubase architecure? That’s what I’m asking?

2

Tracks that don’t align properly during playback is an unusual problem, especially if the misalignment isn’t consistent. If I had to guess, I’d say you have an insert plugin that is misbehaving and introducing a variable amount of latency. An instrument with any latency at all would be unusual.

First, turn on Constrain Delay Compensation and see if it improves. Second, go through a process of elimination and see if you can find an offending plugin.

3

thanks Glenno, I just disabled everything… so all I have is a kick and a snare each playing on a seperate channel into a bus and then stereo. All inserts disabled on channels and bus. No internal fx or processing in the drum machine… just playing a sample. The problem is still there, in fact I can hear it far more clearly now… but you made me realise something. Currently these sounds are just playing on cycle, i.e. they are coming from the virtual drum machine internally being synched to the DAW and not from MIDI. So all I can guess is that it’s a problem of the VST instrument’s internal timing synching to the DAW… I will do the next test…( EDIT: 2 instances of the same VST drum machine… not using multiple outputs, in case that wasn’t clear )

4

If you suspect a Phase issue, this test can provide quick information:

  • Place an identical mono signal with a strong transient (e.g. click) on 2 tracks
  • Pan the tracks hard left and right to the sum output (Stereo Out)
  • Insert a phase meter (e.g. SuperVision PhaseScope) into the sum output
  • Check the phase correlation; it shows a perfect vertical line if there is an exact match between the tracks; if there are phase shifts (e.g. due to delays between the tracks during playback), the figure deviates from the perfect line

Phase Issue
Phase Issue822×771 117 KB

5

Yes, that sounds like it’s simply a bug in the internal sequencer in your drum VI.

6

yes, I’m going to contact the developer of the Drum machine. I did a double track null test with the snare and it was perfect… same test with the kick and it doesn’t null at all, it’s all over the place flaming etc… I presume they are doing some ‘secret’ internal processing with the kick and it doesn’t stay in time for some reason… of course if the kick is going out then it makes it seem like everything else is out of time…

7

so I continued to test the issue which also happens with other software instruments, not just drum plugs which should be tempo synchronising. Test is really simple… just take something that is doing some processing and therefore must have latency, I used BX_oberhausen. Duplicate the track exactly, also switch off anything which could introduce random variations such as circuit simulation, switch off any other fx for the sake of argument. Phase flip the duplicate. The tracks don’t null at all, repeatedly jumping back to start locator you can hear that there are a series of different latency which are audible as major phase issues, but they are roughly repeatable and presumably correlate to some fixed time offsets… Also to compare I did a null check of a vocal track built from samples played with Serato sample and going into a heavy processing chain… this one nulls perfectly. So my conclusion is that there is an issue with VST instruments of a certain latency not synchronising correctly with Cubase. The reason why I did this further test was because on continuing to test the drum plug there would be long periods of it having issues… and then not having issues… and you could stimulate it into having issues by scewing around with Cubase, or simply doing something else and then coming back… It’s certainly a strange one but for me it feels like a host problem. Also this is a massive issue because DAWs need to play in time.

8

Sorry, I’ve never seen anything like that. With any DAW. As I mentioned above, it’s rare for a virtual instrument to have any latency at all. If you’re using sample playback VI’s which have round robin, then of course they won’t null, but their timing should align. How much of a timing discrepancy are you measuring?

By the way, it says right on the BX_oberhausen product page that one of the features is slight variations in playback.

9

I don’t have a measurement yet… but it is way too much, if it’s drums they sound sh*t… and if it’s synths the phase issues are huge. I suggest trying it out if you’re curious. With VA’s there is the issue that they are probably doing a lot of stuff to get that ‘analog feel’ which means that 2 instances playing the same notes won’t produce the same sound, but despite that you can still hear that there are different phase relationships between the 2 channels and these phase relationships are inconsistent and change when ‘jumping’ the play position or doing a ‘solo/unsolo’ on one of the channels. I’ve also just tested with EZbass which is sample based and the same thing is happening, inconsistent phase relationships. Conclusion, the timing is not fixed… it changes all the time.

10

yes, I disabled the TMT on BX_oberhausen for that reason

11

I just did a quick check on Cubase 13.0.41 with a few VI’s (Omnisphere, Stylus, and Groove Agent) and they null perfectly. AFAIK, you can’t turn off roundrobin in EZBass, so I’m not sure why you would expect that to null.

12

hey GlennO,

Thanks for taking the trouble to check this with me. As regards EZbass, again it’s that there are different phase alignments… so irrespective of whatever else is going on, you can hear that the overall way that the 2 tracks are cancelling each other changes after e.g. solo/unsolo or by hitting return to locator when playing a simple pattern in a loop. Obvisouly this issue is not easy to pin down and I’m trying to work out a better test now, I really hope it is just something with my setup because then I’ll be able to fix it… So now I start with an empty project and build some proper tests. Also, as I said in my 1st post this is usually an issue that creeps in as I get well into a project, which is often what’s most annoying… and it has happened many times over the last 18 months, so I think it is also somehow related to overall load of the project, although nothing that can be seen on the performance monitors. So my test will be to get something reliable and accurate and then also load the project… let’s see.

13

What you’re describing would be explained by round robins, not a timing problem, but good luck with your search.

14

I have had similar oddities along the the way - long time Stein-Cubendo user here since Cubase Audio XT… Time before vst… I’m still on version 11 - have the license for 12 but haven’t had the time/need for upgrade. Cubase Does fugg up and corrupt sessions sometimes. I recently had a session corrupt which would crash for no reason. The plugins crashing were Plugin Alliance and Cubase native plugins that are not a problem, but for no reason that session would crash. I had to make a new session, tempomaps etc. - I was surprised that importing tracks from other session does not bring automation along. Never saw that coming… But these things don’t happen too often though. But yeah… timing, phase/flam stuff etc. It’s real. Now try Atari MIDI or Alesis MMT-8…

15

the fact that everything does not play perfectly in time… all the time is undeniable. If you are using VST instruments and you skip the play position to another location while playing it is of course impossible that any DAW can continue to play perfectly in time because it can’t know where you are about to click with the mouse. Whatever is about to happen, calculating VA synths etc… cannot be done in a sample… so it’s easy to hear that the timing breaks down temporarily at this point, which as I said in my 1st post is an acceptable compromise because it’s usually better than having playback simply stop or go silent… What should happen is that Cubase then somehow gradually pulls things back and gets everything back in time perfectly, but in my tests this doesn’t always happen, sometimes VST instruments end up out of sync and they will stay there until you hit stop, even when looping a section they will continue to play out of time. I’m able to reproduce this bug just using 2 instances of a drum sample VST instrument which should be nulling each other on 2 consecutive tracks in an otherwise empty project. Now I’m trying to figure out how to do a video capture. Used the Atari and MMT-8, great tools. I suffered on PC, eventually getting the MIDI to work with Midex drivers… but studios always insisted on moving projects to Atari to get the Midi timing tighter… I recently pulled up some old stuff I worked on in late 90’s… using Cubase only primarily as MIDI sequencer with external hardware… and then bouncing the tracks down to Cubase as audio towards the end of a mix. Just cheap equipment, Behringer 8-bus desk etc… no fancy eq’s, only budget lexicon effects and some simple compression. I was shocked that everything sounded lovely and tight and the overall mixes sounded natural and wide, well balanced etc… We get so many great toys to play with nowadays yet still the fundamentals of getting a tight good sounding mix ITB seems to be a struggle. I think working with audio no problem… work extensively with loops no problem, because loops always mask timing issues… but if you are trying to do a virtual synths+drum machines type setup, I think these subtle timing issues are one of the main culprits. Also to consider is that problems can get masked with glue compression and mastering etc… Probably I will try a Mac… if that doesn’t sort it then going to have to go partly Hybrid and bring back some hardware synths… let’s seee

16

I made the same experience. Cycling within a iVST can be a nightmare. Some iVSTs are very sloppy regarding tightness. I always print it to midi after experimenting with grooves. Many support drag&drop directly into the arrangement.

17

yes, this is part of the problem… I’m using Phil Speiser THE_PATTERN, the kick simply does not sync correctly… If I do a null test, 2 identical kick tracks with 1 phase inverted and alter the tempo I can control the size of the flam between the 2 tracks… so e.g. between 114 and 120 bpm you get a totally different result for each change in bpm… this means the calculation of tempo to sync is way off with a big rounding error somewhere. It seems a lot better triggering with MIDI. Also with PS THE_PATTERN while the kick nulls perfectly when triggering from MIDI the snare is consistent but doesn’t null completely, even will all fx switched off.

With Triaz ( another drum iVST ) I’m able to get a flam in null test when triggering from MIDI…

An awful lot of stuff to think about… but at least I’m finally digging in the details to hear what is going on.

18

Hi there. Do you still have timing issues or did you solve them? I’m having timing issues and found your post and it’s very similar to my problem. I have noticed the timing over a periode, but it is so suttle so it’s hard to know if it is something I imagine or the daw, but if you found a solution please let me know:)

19

hi Lica,

I changed from Artist 13 to Pro 13, immediately noticed a big improvement in timing and sonics, slight improvement in overall performance ( less dropouts, audio interface driver no longer craps out and needs resetting after a loss of audio also ). In this change absolutely nothing else changed, i.e. it is the same Exe install for both versions, I simply applied the license change and re-started with the same project. So I concluded that it must be an issue of the crippling of the application for the Artist version, or some other side effect related to that. Now I finally find the way Cubase is working to be acceptable after struggling for a very long time, I was immediately able to start improving my mixes due to the more consistent quality. Yes I know that the advertising blurb for Artist claims to have the same audio quality as the Pro versions, so why this happened is a question for Steinberg to answer. If you’re using Pro then I guess this is not a relevant answer for you, but it could be interesting for other people. Best regards.

20

the other part of the answer is as already stated, don’t rely on the internal timing of plugins, so move note sequences to normal MIDI / Instrument tracks after using plugins with their own pattern designers etc… and I haven’t re-tested this aspect after switching to Pro, but the timing is solid now so I will just stick to this way of working.