White noise bursts in 14.0.32 - possible issue/bug for Steinberg to look into

Cubase
1

Hi all, and hi Steinberg reps in particular,

I’m on Win 11 (my detailed specs are in my profile). So, two days ago, on July 4 I updated from 0.30 to 0.32 (just to see if some peculiarities would disappear). Yesterday, when finalising a mix I had been working on with no issues whatsoever in 0.30, suddenly my speakers and phones exploded white noise bursts. Thankfully, I always have Cubase’s brickwall limiter last in my Control Room inserts for both phones and speakers, so no damage to either ears, brain, phones or speakers…

Anyway, after this had happened two, three times more, I managed to isolate the noise bursts to the Gtr fx channel. There are two plugins on that channel, Acustica Audio’s Fire the Delay, and Wave Alchemy’s amazing freebie Magic7.

This is my standard guitar fx channel setup since months, and I have never had these noise bursts before, nor any problems at all.

The bursts last some 5 seconds perhaps, then disappear.

Today, I opened another project which has been flawless in 0.30. And lo and behold, after a minute or so, I have another burst, again on the Gtr fx channel.

I have now reverted back to 0.30 and managed to work until satisfied on today’s project, without any bursts.

If the bursts don’t occur again, my only conclusion is that they were somehow caused by something that has changed from 0.30 to 0.32.

Primarily, I would want Steinberg to look into this, but any other ideas and input is always welcome.

Best,

Magnus

2

Hi,
since this happened with the same plugin on both Cubase versions I would check if these plugins have any activation issues. Maybe try to activate them once again because some vendors use white noise to remind the customer that their license needs to be activated.
Good luck!

3 Likes
3

I think it is more likely that the plugins have switched over to a demo-mode.

1 Like
4

That was my initial thought too. But the issue has not reoccured on 0.30. If it does, I will certainly check if any of them is in demo mode. However, Acustica Audio have dedicated demo versions of their plugins, that time out after 30 days. And the second plugin on the affected channel is a freebie, which shouldn’t really have a demo mode, I would have thought.

Just to be clear: the bursts did not occur on 0.30 but started after I updated to 0.32.

Added: I just checked. None of the plugins on the affected channel are in any kind of demo state. They are all registered and fully functional.

Best,

Magnus

5

Try to install .30 and see if it is there.

6

I too find it highly unlikely that Cubase suddenly decides to mix a noise burst just on your guitar FX channel.
Should be easy to test if you just deactivate (not just bypass) or remove the plugins from that channel one after the other, repeat the test and see if that changes something.

7

I have reverted to 0.30 and no more bursts.

8

OK, so I now got a burst in .30 as well. I use a lot of Acustica Audio plugins in these projects, and they are quite heavy. So I increased the buffer size, and so far so good. Fingers crossed…

At least I can feel confident about re-updating to .32 tomorrow.

Very irritating these bursts, I really hope it is connected to the buffer size. I am sure there are no plugins in demo mode on the concerned channel (nor indeed on my system). I did as @fese suggested and managed to bypass one of the two plugins on this track when I got a burst. And bypassing it stopped the white noise. It was Fire the Delay.

My only thought ATM is that adding a couple of rather old Acustica Audio multiband comps to the drum buss and mix buss respectively in these projects may have triggered the bursts. On the other hand, Cubase’s performance meter showed no dropouts or other irregularities, and was never in the red…

I am happy, though, that the 0.32 update is not the cause, since I have had very good experiences of Cubase 14 in all its iterations.

/Magnus

9

Good to hear!
At least you have identified the culprit. I would ask the Vendor if there are any known problems related to this specific plugin - maybe there’s an update as well?

2 Likes
10

What does the performance-log-meter show when this happen?

11

It shows nothing unusual.