Native Windows asio drivers, lots of Yamaha/Steinberg/ms projects etc etc etc etc…I suppose news later in the week.
Maybe a link would help us find this info…
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Here’s something I just found – interesting read below. Looks like one of the big headlines is Steinberg Cubase and Nuendo on Arm64:
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And actually, reading more into this, it is pretty big news indeed.
I’m pretty impressed that Steinberg is out in the first wave of ARM64 support with both Cubase and Nuendo. Wow. Well done, Steinberg! That’s some agile development to pull that off and be one of the first out the gate.
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This was recorded and performed on Cubase preview on Snapdragon, with a prototype version of the ASIO driver. Folks here understand the kind of RTL you need to have to support this kind of performance.
Pete
Microsoft
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Great work, Pete! Glad to see your efforts pay off. I’ve been following from a distance, and have enjoyed hearing you from time to time on Vin’s podcast. Impressive you got Steinberg onboard to pull this technical feat off so quickly. You all deserve some kudos. Curious how you twisted Steinberg’s arm on this if you can share anything at all from behind the scenes… some ninja-level persuasion and coding magic to be sure, and no doubt lots of work.
Now if you can get a Snapdragon “air” laptop in Hans Zimmer’s hands and take a few photos, you’ll have a great advertisement!
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Thanks 
I have a decent relationship with Steinberg, so no real arm (lol) twisting required.
As to the details, well, can’t kiss and tell. But I’m super happy with the results of working together.
You may know that Steinberg had been working on an Arm64 version for Windows for a long time (it’s been posted about here before). What you may not know is the ASIO ecosystem on Arm64 was always considered a blocker. It makes sense, really. So we have/had to solve for that for it to make sense for Steinberg to continue. It also really helps that Snapdragon X is a much more capable processor than the version from a year ago.
I don’t speak for Steinberg, so I’m sure they have other factors/reasons as well, but those two (ASIO + better CPU) are the ones I find most important here.
Pete
Microsoft
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Thanks for that response, Pete!
Awesome. That is good to hear!
Yes, I knew about Steinberg working on it, but not how far they had come, so quickly (considering the massive size of the codebase), with such effective results, and with such low latency! That is a BIG deal IMO. Wow!
For Windows on ARM to take off for creatives, you obviously need the big apps, and especially for musicians, you need low latencies, and it looks like you’re accomplishing that. Bravo!
And I also didn’t know the blocking issues of ASIO on ARM, but it makes sense now. Thank you for explaining that.
I can’t overstate how BIG of a deal this whole thing is, and I don’t think a lot of Steinberg users may realize it until after the fact, well into 2025 and probably not until 2026 and beyond.
One side note to all of this, is that I think it shows that Steinberg’s “old bloated codebase” (according to a few serial complainers who love to criticize Steinberg) ain’t so “old” after all… the fact Steinberg has gotten Cubase/Nuendo running so well on Apple Silicon, and now also on Windows ARM, shows they’ve got a modern pipeline and they’ve been working hard behind the scenes. This is a big statement of Steinberg’s development process, and frankly my own confidence in Steinberg just went up two notches. Hats off to Steinberg! They’ve been good at playing their cards close to their chest!
This bodes well for Steinberg, Yamaha, and the other partners you’ve got on board, Pete. I’m not surprised by Reason, and definitely not surprised AT ALL by Justin over at Reaper. He could get Reaper running great on a toaster oven, let alone Linux x86_64 machines, Raspberry Pi, etc…
I expect the Tracktion folks will be able to handle this transition pretty well too – given their business model of DAW engine and history with JUCE, etc… so I’m guessing you’ve had plenty of interactions with Julian Storer, etc… And I’m also guessing Presonus should come on board soon too. They were able to launch an Apple Silicon version pretty quickly, and they’re working on Linux right now, so I expect them to be able to get things going on Windows ARM hopefully soon too. Then add all the major plugin developers are probably thinking about this or already working on it too.
I really appreciate your efforts at Microsoft to make things like this happen. Please don’t leave Microsoft. Your obsession for a long time with MIDI 2.0 and improving performance for DAW users is a really good thing, a lot of normal DAW users do NOT know about you, and I think you’re one of the reasons why MIDI 2.0 has a real chance to thrive, even though it has taken a long time. It looks like you’ve carefully cultivated the relationships inside and out of Microsoft to push this agenda forward. Hats off to you! Much respect! 
The only “negative” thing (depending on one’s perspective!) about this is probably that this huge milestone will suck much of the life out of development resources potentially being channeled into commercial Linux DAW work for now! I’m a huge Linux fan myself (I use all the platforms), and I can see the chess moves here. This was a big milestone. While I am genuinely bummed that my own hopes for a more viable Linux-friendly third DAW platform just got delayed significantly (by a couple more years at least) by this news, I am also very happy about what you’ve accomplished TBH. Linux music production will still go on in its own unique path, but I am certain a lot of attention will now be paid to Windows on ARM.
Again, I can’t overstate the ramifications for getting all these partners on board and for your efforts on low latency performance, MIDI 2.0, and ARM.
I’d say we’ll be looking back at this milestone several years from now as a watershed moment in the DAW market, probably bigger than the transition of x86 to x64, and single/dual-core to many-core, etc. It’s big folks. Trust me.
And again, I’m happy to see Yamaha/Steinberg on the front lines, instead of dragging their feet on this. Before Avid. Before Ableton. And so forth…
Again… wow!
Keep up the great work, Pete! And congrats again to Steinberg! And no hard feelings that you guys just pushed back my Linux dreams a few more years! 
P.S. And seriously consider what I said about getting a Snapdragon machine in Hans Zimmer’s hands for an ad once the betas are all fully baked.
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I don’t see it happening but with Linux I will finally be able to operate from one platform.
What about third party plugins that haven’t yet been ported to Snapdragon? Can Cubase run emulated versions of those plugins?
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When I first started talking to DAW developers about Arm, I encouraged them to compile to Arm64EC. This is 100% native full-speed Arm code, but the stack layout is compatible with Intel/AMD x64. It’s “Emulation Compatible (EC)”
Here’s the post I put in in 2022 explaining how this works.
Arm64EC is a fantastic technology, and something unique to Windows. It’s exactly what DAW developers need.
So, yes, Cubase has been compiled to Arm64EC, which enables loading x64 plugins into Cubase.
Caveats:
- The plugin needs to get on the machine. Many installers work, but some block if they detect Arm64 architecture. You can often work around this.
- If the plugin relies heavily on certain vector instruction sets that aren’t emulated, it may fail or just be slower, like if running on an older processor that doesn’t have that instruction set.
- If the plugin uses iLok, we’ll need to wait until next year for native Arm support.
For plugin developers, I encourage them to release as Arm64X fat binaries. Those binaries contain both Arm64 and Arm64EC versions of the code, so any app running on Arm64 will be able to load them properly.
Hope that helps
Pete
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Really excited to pair Cubase and the dust collecting UR22C on my wonderful Surface Laptop 7 
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Pete - it’s Paul from the surge team (thanks for using surge in your midi2 demo a few weeks ago btw).
Happy to see windows arm progressing both here and on the Microsoft dev blogs, and understand that asio is an important part of the stack.
But if you are chatting with our friends at Steinberg about asio continuing to be the way to get low latency full duplex audio on windows, could you perhaps give them a poke to consider that at least the asio client license (namely how a bit of windows softeware connects to asio drivers) have a more open source friendly license. Ideally an mit variant would be best! Those of us who ship gpl3 projects like surge and audacity can’t include asio support with the current license terms (which require signature and non redistribution) and so windows users wanting full duplex low latency standalone open source tools are kinda left in the cold.
I had asked here before but I figure you are more engaged so thought I would drop this thought in the thread here. (ASIO License and Open Source software)
Exciting stuff. Really looking forward to ump everywhere in 202x (x<7 I hope!)
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Cooper and Dom Sigalas playing live at Snapdragon Summit, both on Cubase on Snapdragon X-based Copilot+ PCs.
Pete
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The videos keep coming. This one is more comprehensive and shows Dom and Cooper jamming together. Starts at about 3:52 in.
Pete
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Best video yet! I started looking at Snapdragon notebooks after this. Probably will buy one in the near future. The battery life and performance per watt are great, battery life even better than Apple Silicon. The marketing is working even on me!
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Don’t mean to be a party-pooper - but this just came out. 
Lawyers will lawyer. It always gets sorted out in the end.
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Famous last words of Captain Francesco Schettino ? 
Why does my mind instantly think “rambus”?