Unbelievable and so frustrating! So wonderfully weird, as you said. The crunching noise exists in Cubase 9 and I would say even more than in Dorico. I never experienced such an issue. Before purchasing Studio One 3, I was evaluating FL Studio, Cakewalk Sonar, Avid Pro Tools and Ableton Live more than six months and didn’t find any audio problem. Only Steinberg was omitted from evaluation because the top-three most irritating things when it comes to Steinberg are: dongle, the fact it must be purchased separately and the fact it must be purchased even for some demo versions of its products. I know many people who refused to buy anything from Steinberg just because of dongle policy.
Beside Saffire audio device and Yamaha monitors connected to it, there is also a cheap SB Audigy PCI sound card in the same computer with two small and cheap Logitech speakers connected to it, sounding poorly. The third audio device (on-board sound chip) is OFF in BIOS. I can easily switch between Saffire audio (“Speakers Saffire Audio”) and SB Audigy audio (“Speakers SB Audigy”) by setting a device as default device in the system Sound playback window and it has nothing to do with ASIO drivers that are specific for studio recording and notation apps only. Steinberg ASIO Generic Lower Latency Driver works with both audio devices, while ASIO Saffire driver can certainly work only with Saffire audio device. Here is what I found.
If ASIO Saffire driver is set as VST Audio System in Cubase 9 Device Setup, it works exclusively with Saffire audio device (see screenshots in ‘ASIO Saffire’ directory of attached zip file). In that case
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the crunching noise exists in Cubase 9 playback
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all the apps using ASIO Saffire driver and therefore Saffire audio as output for playback (Studio One, Sibelius, Notion etc) are affected producing the same noise
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all the apps using Saffire audio device for playback (Groove Music, Media Player etc) are affected producing the same noise
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only the apps using SB Audigy audio device for playback are not affected (no noise, clear, but poor sound)
If Steinberg ASIO Generic Lower Latency Driver is set as VST Audio System, it works with both Saffire and SB Audigy audio devices (see screenshots in ‘ASIO Steinberg Generic Low’ directory). In that case
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if Saffire audio device (“Speakers Saffire Audio”) is set as output, the crunching noise exists in Cubase 9 playback
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If SB Audigy audio device (“Speakers SB Audigy”) is set as output, no noise in Cubase 9 playback, no noise in apps using SB Audigy audio for playback
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regardless of which audio device is set for output, the noise still persists in all the apps using ASIO Saffire driver or just Saffire audio device for playback, just because Steinberg audio engine is running
As the noise issue exists even if No Driver is set as VST Audio System in Device Setup, I am coming to the conclusion that the issue is not a matter of ASIO drivers. The issue is a matter of interference between Saffire audio device and Steinberg audio engine. In other words, they don’t like each other.
My next step will be to contact Focusrite technical support and ask them why Saffire Pro 24 DSP doesn’t like Steinberg audio engine and why Steinberg audio engine is the only exception.
screenshots.zip (514 KB)