KVR Audio

dtm7272 · Post by **dtm7272** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 6:58 pm

I'm using UHE ACE with a demo of Aether reverb on a new iMac running cubase 7 with a Focusrite audio interface. The CPU meter is red-lining in the daw and I'm hearing dropping and clicking in the audio, but on the activity monitor in OSX my CPU usage is only around 20%! Something must be causing a bottleneck it seems. I'm pretty sure everything is optimized in the plugin and the daw...I have every multicore box checked and everything is 64bit. If I can't get an answer here I'll have to deal with Steinberg.
Any tips??

Thanks!

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:03 pm

It's not a CPU meter, it's a latency/cpu meter.

1) Can you make sure your soundcard buffer length is the highest possible. Or sample size is the highest. This is most likely the issue i think?

2) Long releases on a synth can do it tooo. Sometimes reverb or LOTS of chained FX

fluffy_little_something · Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:05 pm

I had a similar situation yesterday. The sound was all cracked up, but the CPU meter said 27%. Then I opened the system monitor thingy and saw that it was only one core that was at 90% or so, the other 5 cores were almost idle. So the overall CPU load value can deceive.

What caused the high core load was a buggy effect chain in my synth plugin. Maybe it is also the effect in your case...

dtm7272 · Post by **dtm7272** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:09 pm

I did play with settings on buffer but 128 has the same problem as 512 and beyond that there is too much delay to be usable. But how can there be a problem with the buffer if the CPU isn't even working at half it's potential?

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:11 pm

dtm7272 wrote:I did play with settings on buffer but 128 has the same problem as 512 and beyond that there is too much delay to be usable. But how can there be a problem with the buffer if the CPU isn't even working at half it's potential?

Example: If a plugin chain for example has 10 effects, and each one requires a bit more buffer time, the sum of all 10 let's say is 10x the first one. So if that total time is greater than your buffer can handle, it will stutter. That's how I usually understand it.

Of course a plugin could be hogging a single core, thus causing the whole system to stutter.

**EDITED**

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:13 pm

I have never done a project not on the largest buffer size:

And sometimes I switch to ASIO4ALL which gives me an even larger one

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:14 pm

dtm7272 wrote:I did play with settings on buffer but 128 has the same problem as 512 and beyond that there is too much delay to be usable. But how can there be a problem with the buffer if the CPU isn't even working at half it's potential?

So you're doing live playing? Might be best to disable all inserts, and other plugins.

dtm7272 · Post by **dtm7272** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:17 pm

Yeah I was hoping to find a bottleneck to fix but maybe I just have to play notes in draft mode or sequence them and then offline everything at higher quality. Just not as much fun to hear everything at low quality.

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:18 pm

dtm7272 wrote:Yeah I was hoping to find a bottleneck to fix but maybe I just have to play notes in draft mode or sequence them and then offline everything at higher quality. Just not as much fun to hear everything at low quality.

Yup

I know how you feel.

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:19 pm

Can you post a picture of the activity of each CPU core? On windows I can see a graph of my 6 cores, and if one of them is spiked... that is causing the latency.

Not sure with OSX, maybe you know?

dtm7272 · Post by **dtm7272** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:20 pm

Yes I can do that tonight.

gmaddox · Post by **gmaddox** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 8:57 pm

Hey, I was having this same problem using Cubase Elements 7.
every other time I was trying to mix down, I got a CPU Error.

I just started using Cubase 7.5 two days ago. No more CPU problems!
and I can Mixdown 10 times faster. I always thought that it was because i was using Elements version though.

You might want to try upgrading. I was reading that Cubase had tons of memory/cpu hogging fixes in its latest version. Good luck!

dtm7272 · Post by **dtm7272** » Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:12 am

The forum will not allow me to post any attachments:( but basically CPU use is very low across all cores at the time my audio begins to drop out. I don't understand the logic of this at all. If I have CPU power left why can't I use them?

dtm7272 · Post by **dtm7272** » Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:16 am

Also I definitely would not give another dollar to steinberg to fix the problem it should be fixed on the merit that this software is buggy. If this is the culmination of all these ears of cubase and they can't even support 24 frame video (used by like....everybody) then why should I give them another cent?? Ahh.

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:22 am

dtm7272 wrote:The forum will not allow me to post any attachments:( but basically CPU use is very low across all cores at the time my audio begins to drop out. I don't understand the logic of this at all. If I have CPU power left why can't I use them?

Like I said above, sounds like a classic buffer issue, its not all CPU related. Each plugin or part of software in a chain requires a certain amount of ms to do an effect or DSP... if it takes too much your buffer won't handle it

Cubase 7 CPU maxed out but activity monitor only shows 20% usage...help?