Why the trip outs?

Certain plugins dont interrupt the flow when inserting on playback. But I think its more the Delay compensation in operation that audio needs briefly cease when you insert a plugin. I imagine in 10 years as computer power becomes exponentially faster then delay compensation might be unnecessary - but we’l have to wait a while!

First. Don’t twist my words arround. I never said someone is lying. As for the shown plugin latency in the plugin manager i noticed that alot of plugins show 0 Latency there while in fact they have. Take a look at the Standard Compressor and Multiband Compressor in Cubase. In the pluginmanager it show me 0 Latency when insertings somewhere in the project.

So question to you: Why do these two compressor even have a “live” mode if they operate at zero latency?. Conclusion: You can give a damn what the pluginmanager says. According to it none of the Cubase stock plugins add any latency. Who reports the right latency are the voxengo plugs for instance. Add the Latency Delay from voxengo and it shows you 10000 Samples delay wich is correct here.

Real Zero latency would mean that the plugin has absolutely no time to process what is throwing at it. That would assume the processor can calculate it at infinite speed wich in fact it can’t. Zero Latency is a marketing thing among many other things.

And that the dropouts are related to the delay compensation can also be perfectly shown with the Standard Compressor. Make an new project with one Audiotrack and add an audioloop of your choise. Now insert the standard compressor with live mode on and while playing back move it around in the 8 insert slots. Memories the time it takes before audio comes back. Now turn on live mode and do the same. You will hear that the gaps are noticeably shorter.

Some plugins may indroduce so little latency that you wouldn’t notice the tiny gap it creates before the rest kicks in again.


No one believes it. Don’t confuse I/O Latency caused by the driver and on the other hand plugin latency. They are two different things. Plugin latency can usually not be changed. Some pluings allow settings for their internal Buffers but its not affected by the drivers latency settings.

First. Don’t twist my words arround. I never said someone is lying

As you stated that all plugs have latency and others have stated they can add plugs without interruption I was looking for an explanation as to how that could be possible. Perhaps I could have phrased that better and I apologise if that has caused offense!

Some plugins may introduce so little latency that you wouldn’t notice the tiny gap it creates before the rest kicks in again.

This doesn’t ring true in my case as every plug in causes a VERY noticeable drop.

Others here are saying they can have uninterrupted playback with some plugs and regardless of whether that’s truly uninterrupted or your notion of gaps that are too small to notice, I’m still no nearer to understanding why some systems (like my own) are not capable of that.

I also have small interruptions on low latency plugins and never have it completely uninterrupted. But these interruptions are sometimes so small that i could imagine that a more capable system architecture would handle it without you noticing it.

Yours and also my rig is not the most capable anymore. :stuck_out_tongue:

But actually i can’t say why some don’t have any noticable gap and some like you and me does

But at least the delay compensation in Cubase works, that’s more than you can say about Most other DAWs. The hiccups are something we have to live with, unless Steinberg decides to rewrite the audio engine.

No one believes it. Don’t confuse I/O Latency caused by the driver and on the other hand plugin latency.

I’m not, you misread what I was trying to say (badly admittedly)

Which was the main point

So once you realise that cubase always has some delay then 0 latency plugins become apparent.
They would merely have to be plugins that work within the programs inherent latency

No dog in this fight but there are more than a few daws that can load any plugins, large instruments, tracks, new busses or anything else, without ever interrupting audio playback.

Not saying Cubase has to do that, more just saying the comments about latency compensation preventing it from happening appear to be false, if other products are doing it.

But they do not doing it, most daw’s will not compensate latency while running and adding or removing plugins. When you stop playback and start again they are in sync again. That the price for recalculating on the fly, or only at start of playback. Of cause I’m not up to speed with every Daw that exists, so let’s say that is the way it used to be :slight_smile:

I’m glad someone has started to talk about this because it quite often bugs me! I like to work fast and I hate the glitching of the audio when doing operations, and it can even be a stutter rather than just one drop-out. I’d love it if it faded the audio nicely or just didn’t drop out at all, or crossfaded between the two latency differences :slight_smile:

The other things which accompanies this is that the red overload light goes on, which is just a pain because that means it ends up on most of the time during production and mixing! Even the 8.5 demo videos have the overload light going on throughout them, which indicates to me that its normal operation. But, I say that it makes the warning light a bit useless for really seeing if you’re pushing your machine too hard or if its healthy…

Mike.

But they are doing it. I do it all the time and nobody has ever said… “Hey, the bass timing sounds off now, after you dropped that plugin on it.” :slight_smile: My guess would be that it happens just like track delay happens in real time, if you apply track delay to a track while it’s playing, that it maybe plays x fraction of a millesecond earlier at the first opportunity to compensate, and you never actually hear it move.

I really don’t care how they do it, I just care that it happens, that I can add a plugin without glitching the music. I’ll leave the tech stuff to the guys in white coats. :slight_smile:

Don’t just focus on the plugins, try adding some tracks to a folder or deleting some tracks that don’t even have plugins on them and it still will interrupt playback . That is proof enough that this problem is deeper than just plugins with latency.

See what I wrote on the first page.

I’m not really sure if I’d call the dropout behaviour a problem (audio engine designed to keep everything in sync can be considered a solution instead) and doubt the issue can be solved without a complete rewrite. The audio engine has got several overhauls for sure, its core might date back to 2002 though (release of Cubase SX1).

Don’t get me wrong, I’d definately enjoy uninterrupted adding/removing of tracks, plugins, instruments. Just doubt it’s likely we’ll get that in the near future.

Trip outs? ))
I complained about it many times, i was just so happy to see in abelton demo when inserting plugins (their own plugins didn’t try 3 party) it just kept playing without any glitches :bulb:

in cubase even adding send FX to track with fx track that is already existing in the project it glitches :smiling_imp:

lot of times i record artist and want to add and remove things while recording/playback and mixing… its one of the things that most bothers me and the clients( of coarse i dont do any changes while recording right now)

hope steinberg sometime will change/improve the audio engine for better “live” performance

I love Cubase but I agree that since other DAWs have found a way to prevent drop-outs, Steinberg should be able to address the issue at some point.

On a side note, I was hoping to hear some feedback from the feature request survey that they did a while back. The survey post said that they would let us know once it was evaluated. Has anyone heard any updates on it?

from the Open Letter To Our Customers Thread (General - Announcements section):
The second step will have our engineers assess feasibility of the prioritised list to see which points can be delivered up until the next major update. These will then be shared with you.

finally yamaha got the way to have smooth transition from sound to sound without cutting in the middle in their new montage keyboards.
well it’s a different world but maybe steinberg also on it ?

Yes, yes…

And indeed the results were exactly as promised shared with us all…
Top 5 - survey results..! - Cubase - Steinberg Forums (includes link to original announcement from Steinberg).

The thread I started was active for over a couple of weeks, through to the middle of March. I guess I’m a hardcore ‘lurker’ who quickly scans the forums for any news/hints/tips/‘gotchas-I-can-help-with’, probably at least once a day; so, I picked up on this soon after Steinberg’s Tim Grunwald posted.

I don’t know why they didn’t make it (their results announcement) a ‘sticky’. :wink:

Continue to post there, if you have some thoughts on it. Now, back to your original topic.!

This is a minor annoyance for me. But I remember when this wasn’t the case. Someone else mentioned that early Nuendo (Version 1.???) didn’t exhibit this behavior. That is true.
But I started using UAD stuff immediately when it came out so I got use to the drop outs when adding plugins a long time ago. The only time it really bothers me is if I’m using midi triggered loops in Groove Agent. Otherwise I just add the plugin and roll right on through the drop out.

Adding midi tracks never causes a drop out here.

Agreed! I just finished a good sized song in logic with not a single glitch or drop out. Adding audio loops, instrument tracks and effects both logics and third party while looping the song! I was blown away. No sync issues at all! I love cubase for other reasons but I sure enjoyed the uninterupted flow in Logic X!

whats worse is that I am scared to add effects or instruments as the project might crash…

“Cubase has stopped working” or

“Synsopos server bla bla”

great!

Another thing that’s a little ridiculous is just connecting an existing send to an audio or instrument channel creates a glitch. Seriously…not a problem at all in Logic. 50 track count looping and no glitches. Cubase just one simple audio file looping…add anything. …glitch.