Problems with u-he Plugins in Cubase

[Gadget Fiend]

Hi,

I just upgraded to Cubase 11 after a period of musical inactivity and now all my u-he plugins are "glitching" on playback. This is NOT a CPU issue. Even though I am running Cubase 11 on a late 2015 MacBook Pro (quad core 2.9GHz running MacOS 10.15 Catalina) I never experienced this issue before. It's not that the plugins are "crackling" due to CPU overload drop outs. Rather, the notes get delayed/hung and then played back after a second or two. This doesn't happen all the time but frequently enough that I can't use Diva or Repro (even though I never had a problem running multiple instances of these plugins in the past in Cubase 9.5 and version 10 on the same MacBook).

FYI, the performance meter in Cubase is well below maximum when I am playing single presets from Diva and Repro. And I of course have the multicore setting turned on.

I have tried both the VST2 and VST3 versions of the plugins and that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.

[Gadget Fiend]

Now Diva is hanging every time I play an E5 note. I have tried two different USB controller keyboards and the note sticks/hangs every single time I play that E5.

Thoughts?

[Whywhy]

No problem here with cubase pro 10.5.
I got cubase pro 11 update but always stay at previous working versions, generally, the x.5
My second golden rule.
First rule: never sell any U-He plugins, I will regret it.
Second rule: never use a new version of Cubase, run the last version: n-0.5

More seriously, have you try disable the turbo boost on windows, if you are on windows...
Have you try to disable the Cubase asio guards?
These 2 things could be problematic sometimes with cubase.
For me, the turbo boost was the cause. ( not just with U-He plug, with all plugins. )

[Gadget Fiend]

I just tried playing back a new project in Cubase 10.5 and I am experiencing the same "glitching" problems with u-he plugins. Every so often the audio will drop out and the part that I had just played will be delayed by a second or so.

I originally thought this was and issue with Cubase 11. But it's happening in Cubase 10.5 as well.

I still have Cubase 9.5 installed on my MacBook Pro. I will test Diva in that version of Cubase to rule out that the problem is with a specific version of Cubase.

[middle_color]

Try what Whywhy suggests: disable Cubase's asio guard. I always have dropouts with it, regardless of which plugins are used.

[AnX]

turn off multicore in the plugins

[DuX]

turn off multicore in the plugins

That depends on two things, or more: how strong is your CPU's single core performance, and how strong is your CPU's multi-core performance - how many cores you have. It also depends on how optimised is the DAW's multicore performance. Latest Cubase [10-11] is optimised to work best with up to 8 cores. You just have to test it. Also, ASIO guard on/off can make a big difference.

I also agree about turning off turbo boost and rather finding a nice top frequency that works stably instead. Even turning off Speedstep and speed shifting together is not a bad idea, but turning off speed shifting alone is not.

Cheers!

[zvenx]

Hmmm.
I am not sure you are right with regards to up to 8 cores.... I think that was a limitation before that is no longer. Nuendo 11 for instances specifically mentions:

"Optimized performance

Performance was optimized for large, multi-track recording projects needing intensive, real-time processing and for systems with more than eight cores."

And I strongly believe that Cubase is the exact same.

On Mac I don't' believe you can turn off turbo boost and speedstep etc those are pc bios only things (maybe linux too, have no idea about that).

At the OP.
Do you have Cubase 10 and 9.5 still installed on that computer? If so do they still behave well?

Can you do a screenshot of your Audio System in your System Setup page please?

rsp

[tasmaniandevil]

Just an idea, but have you tried switching the display's colour profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1, to check if this helps?
Your problem sounds unusual, but maybe it's related to the slow graphics issues some users experience. Could be worth a try.

[Weasel-Boy]

This seems like the right thread to mention a recent u-he related CPU overload issue in Cubase 11. Difference is: not a synth...but a Colour Copy issue on the Mac platform.

I discovered this while exporting a mix. During normal playback, instantaneous CPU spikes *may* slip by undetected, depending on the playback material. But when exporting, Cubase will abort the process if any spike is detected. That’s how I bumped into this. I couldn’t complete the export.

I had automated Colour Copy’s Bypass switch in a small project that was averaging 30% CPU usage. Every time the Bypass switch was toggled, it’d throw an OL spike. I re-tested on a blank project. Same issue...Toggling Bypass spikes. Easy work-around, though. I automated a move on the Mix control...which worked fine.

So far, this is the only plug-in I use that exhibits spiking when bypassed. I wonder if this is somehow connected to another Cubase/Insert issue where Uhbik plug-ins don’t respond to bypass clicking in Cubase’s Insert columns. Maybe two separate issues? Seems report-worthy.