I suspect there may be many users like me who ran Cubase 13 (and earlier) on a Windows 10 PC without major issues. Then after buying a new PC with Windows 11, they encounter Cubase audio dropouts when playing back a Cubase project on the new PC.
In my case this doesn’t appear Cubase related, but I thought I would post here for others to understand. After much frustration with audio dropouts with Cubase playback, I just tried to play an audio file with Media Player and encountered the same issues.
I originally had issues with Steinberg UR44c interface, so I swapped out and had same issues with Motu M4 interface. Yes, all updated drivers. NOTE: From another post on the forum, they suggested disconnecting the Ethernet cable and it seemed to lessen the number of dropouts, but still there.
If I power off the audio interface and just play an audio file back using the basic 1/8" headphone jack on PC, I have no dropouts. So, in my case and probably many others, my Steinberg and Motu audio interfaces are not supported very well on my new Dell PC.
I may need to return the new PC, but maybe some users out here have been down this road and can provide a solution. I am also going to contact Dell and see what they say.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have!
Problem is, the reasons can be manifold…
One thing you could do is try LatencyMon:
Just to check if your system is generally able to do realtime audio.
You could also search this forum, there are several threads about the topic, maybe some will help.
There is also Pete Brown’s blog on how to set up a DAW PC, and what not to do…
Thanks, LatencyMon not indicating any issues. Would be nice to have a good Windows 11 ‘tweak guide’. I have a tech support phone call with Dell tomorrow morning, and will let everyone know if they resolve the issue.
Actually both Windows and Cubase are responsible for this. Look for debloat script for Windows on github to reduce the amount of processing power wasted by OS. It would help but not fully. After some tweaks in Windows I have still peaking asio in Cubase while none of CPU cores is performing higher than 70%. When I use different vst host I have no issues. All of this on the smallest buffer size. If I set it a bit higher Cubase is usable but latency goes around 5ms.
I am currently running tests with a 1 kHz sine wave file playing through Media Player. My tests are pointing to Ethernet activity monitored through Task Manager causing audio dropouts.
I was hoping that disabling power management setting for the Network Adapter would solve the issue, but no luck.
I eagerly await my tech support phone call with Dell tomorrow morning and hoping they can solve the issue. If not, PC will be returned to BestBuy…
10ms I feel without doubt so for me this value seems to be around 8ms. 5ms is fine for most of my work but for tracking heavy rhythm guitars on multiple tracks, the lower latency, the better results.
I have to use Reaper to track in the lowest latency my system can handle.
Power management is a good hint. I had audio dropouts in Cubase on Windows 11, too. I noticed they mainly occur when the CPU cores haven’t much to do and their clock speed gets reduced. Choosing the power plan “Performance” solved the issue for me. However, I switch back to “Balanced” or even “Power Saving” when not using Cubase to not waste so much energy.
In its default settings, Cubase actually has its own Power Plan that it activates on launch (configure in “Studio Setup->Audio System->Advanced Settings”), which should work for most cases, although there are people that claim that customized power plans work better for them.
As always with such things:
don’t tweak unless you have a problem
if you have a problem, test your tweaks systematically, before and after, and be sure that you are able to go back to “before” if the results are not satisfying).
I am also experiencing audio drop outs. For me (using cubase 13 pro and windows 11 newest build) they started early january this year, and i guess they are related to newest updates for windows 11.
When drop outs happen (both for recording which aborts any recording, and also for playback) i notice some action in the system tray, which seems related to the microphone rights settings which have been implemented some weeks ago. The right for accessing to microphone seems to be “re-evaluated” every 6-8 seconds, and this also needs then 1-2 seconds, which leads to frequently events in the system to get the microphone rights for cubase (i can see this in the windows system log, where those events are listed. the list counts 4xxx tries some times, depending on how long cubase is running). Usually i would expect these requests to happen once, when cubase is started, and maybe another once when it is shut town to “loose” these rights.
I already tried a lot with microsoft support, and installed newest drivers again, setup a lot of stuff again, installed also cubase drivers for my interface twice again, i changed the hardware (in means of using other USB ports and avoiding use of an USB Hub), installed onboard sound drivers again, i even did windows 11 inPlace re-installment 3 times. Sometimes the problems got solved for few minutes. But at least on next startup they reappeared.
This is quite anoying and makes cubase and all its recording or playing power completely unusable to me. All that problems seem to be related to USB-usage, because they do not appear, when trying the internal microphone (which surely is no option at all, i need the interface!). They also seems to disappear, when i use the microsoft “AudioRecorder”. With this (windows built-in) tool there is no drop out … this is really strang!)
Does anyone know a solution for this, beside waiting for MAYBE next windows patches with the little hope for a wonder there? I have never had such problems before in over 30 years of using cubase …
Really sucks to hear you are going through this nightmare also. I had hoped that I could save a little money and buy a PC at BestBuy and tune it for Audio Production. I bought A Dell and installed Windows only from scratch (no Dell Bloatware) but had the issues discussed. I returned the Dell, and bought an HP. Brought it home and saw very similar issues. Just returned the HP today.
For now, I am going to stay with my Sweetwater CS250 running Windows 10 and try an upgrade of RAM from 8 GB to 32 GB.
Interesting to hear that for you it was working fine and then went downhill. I would be interested to understand what type of PC you have. Did you get something off the shelf at BestBuy or somewhere similar? Or did you have a PC built and/or fined tuned for Audio Production like Sweetwater?
And can you duplicate issues just playing an audio file with Media Player? My issues seemed to point to Ethernet and dropouts went away almost entirely when Ethernet cable was disconnected. But maybe actually related to microphone rights like you suspect.
Hoping an update comes your way soon! I’m going to monitor this issue for awhile before trying to upgrade to a new PC w/ Windows 11.
