VOCAL CHAIN: Punching In/Out with VC on

Cubase
1

I’ve just moved on to Cubase 13 Pro a few days ago, and love it. Specially the Vocal Chain, which makes mixing vocals much easier for a non-engineer musician like me. Incidentally, I work on Mac.
However, yesterday I realised that if I try punching in on a vocal track with the VC (Vocal Chain) on, there is a terrible time lag echoing created on the punched-in bit, which makes it impossible to sing your best, or even to sing on time.
This echoing does not go away even if I switch the VC off; I have to totally delete it from my Insert chain for it to stop. Which is certainly not an option, specially if you’ve tweaked the VC here and there to suit your particular purpose
Has anyone else encountered this problem? Or have I accidentally turned something on or off which I shouldn’t have?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Remo.

2

I’m afraid I don’t have a solution for your problem, I just wanted to check if you actually disabled the plugin or just bypassed it? (To disable an insert hold Alt and click the Bypass button.)

3

Thanks so very much! You’re right, I was simply bypassing the plugin. When I disable it there’s no more echoing. I forgot to mention that I’m on Mac, so I Googled and found out that here it’s Option instead of Alt! :slight_smile:
Although this solves the problem temporarily, it is however not the ideal way to work, as the level of the playback of the audio track lowers considerably once VC is turned off. I like to do the punch-ins with all plugins operational, as I used to do earlier before VC.
But thanks very much again, this is going to make life easier for me until someone solves my problem completely - or Steinberg deletes that bug, in case it is a bug.

4

Phew, now I have another problem: how do I type a reply without it getting auto-
formatted with a strange font and strange never-ending lines?! Yes, I’ve been a
member since 2016, but didn’t use the Forum much earlier… Looks like I’ve got a
lot to learn about it!!!
I’ve pressed ‘Return’ when I felt the line was running out of the framework, but
I’m sure that’s not what one is supposed to do… Or is it?

5

Hi Remo_Fernandes,

you are right. VocalChain should not resume its Delay or Reverb when leaving the bypass state. I’ll add this to our bug base.

Best,
Andreas

6

Thanks for your response, Andreasm! You wrote ‘our bug base’; do you work for
Steinberg? Wow, I sure hope so!
Best -
Remo

7

This is not a bug. Every plugin needs some time in order to process audio that runs through it. Many plugins need so small time that you as the user won’t hear it.
It is called plugin (induced) latency.

VocalChain uses a lot of time. It will be >200ms. There is nothing you can do to change it.
VocalChain is not suitable for live monitoring, only for processing after recording. That’s the way it (currently) is.

You get the same latency if you load all the incorporated plugins as individual plugins. If I remember correctly StereoImager hits heavy and there was one or two others.

8

I don’t think that was what anybody complained about. See my post above regarding plugin latency.

9

All Steinberg employees have a little Steinberg logo on their profile picture. So yes, Andreas do work for Steinberg.

10

Thanks, Mlib! I hadn’t noticed the little logo! Learnt yet another new thing about this forum now. :slight_smile:

11

Apart from the latency issue, the bypass is ALSO not working as expected, some of the effects in VocalChain remain on, only switching off the plug from withing it really disables it.

12

I’m complaining about it! haha I’m fine with bypassing the VocalChain to get around the lag while recording and reintroducing it once recorded. But I literally have to delete it from my effects chain or it causes every track in my system to lag. Even if I disable it with alt+click.