Proper audio engine: Gapless Audio!

+1 - very annoying when “in the mode” and have an element I want to introduce, to have the sound drop out and interrupt my flow.
Not intuitive or well implemented. Various other DAW engines don’t drop out. You’re behind the times on this Steinberg. It’s time to fix it.

2 Likes

+1

Coming from Ableton I was shocked about this behavior. In Ableton I could record vocals while simultaneously previewing samples in the browser in real time (triggering them like an instrument, which is also not possible in Cubase), then adding them to a new track in the project & adding a chain of plugins all without the vocalist even noticing anything at all. Logic Pro, S1 and FL Studio are pretty much the same and now that even the most cumbersome and un-flexible piece of software (Pro Tools) joined in its clear that Steinberg need to get this problem eliminated.

I posted about this in the “Issues” forum. crickets

1 Like

+1

Getting audio drop-outs, “zit” sound that sounds like a short circuit at times when a track is just selected during playback. Clocks lose synch with almost any or every move.

Here are where I’m getting audio drop-out, glitches and clock drop-out problems (system, drivers and hardware working normally):

During Playback:
Solo/Unsolo Track or Tracks (drop out, timing glitch)
Listen Bus enable/disable for Track or Tracks (drop out, timing glitch)
Mute/Unmute Track or Tracks (drop out, timing glitch)
Move Fader on track during playback (drop out, timing glitch)
Enable/Disable channel strip or other plug-ins (drop out, timing glitch) (impossible to A/B Eq band in/out for example)
Select Track during playback (drop out, timing glitch)

Projects have to be started several times before they playback. It seems the VSTs are not loading correctly. It seems each track has to be, more or less, individually initialized, if you will, before it will play. There’s often a “zit” sound first and then the instrument’s patch plays.

Some of these problems are intermittent but the basic repro is: 1) create or load project, 2) add tracks or play existing, 3) observe drop out/timing glitchs in areas mentioned above.

Cubase always struggled to load plug-ins and instruments during playback. I adopted the workflow of not adding such during playback. However, now, even after loading, the above drop-out and timing glitchs are much worse than ever before. (I started with Pro 8 and have move up with each increment to Pro 10).

As it is now Cubase Pro 10 is not a viable platform for Recording, Producing, Mixing or Playing back music.

RED ALERT.

In the Tape Days, if the machine broke down you rented a new machine (or whatever) while the one was being repaired. What are we supposed to do now?

I hate having to post that this is the situation, but it is. :frowning:

1 Like

+1

=1

+1

This is not a “feature request” this is a bug report for the existing version.

Hi Stephen,

Your specific case may have gotten worse over the last several versions, but, to the best of my knowledge, Cubase has never had a gap-less playback engine. So, in that respect it is a feature request.

I can’t say that I have seen this issue get noticeably worse since v.8, but I can definitely say that I notice the issue a lot more now. Especially after using other DAWs that don’t struggle with this issue. It is something that makes Cubase seem extremely dated when comparing to the competition.

Maybe I need to think about a full re-installation. Re-setting Preferences didn’t do anything to correct this. I get drop-outs and glitches with nearly every move – see my bug report in “issues” on this. None of my previous versions were this bad. Something has gone horridly wrong with the audio engine or in some other part of the code. Cubase was never perfect, but it wasn’t unusable. It is now.

I agree.

I think this was suggested a few years ago. Not sure if it was on this forum or another one. I remember someone speculating that the reason this happens is due to how Cubase does it’s plugin delay compensation thing automatically when you insert a plugin. I think the other DAWs like Ableton might do it after you hit the stop button and in Pro Tools it never had automatic plugin delay compensation but it might have it now. This made sense when I read it at the time but I have no idea whether it is true or not.

If this is the reason, a simple menu option to allow the user whether or not this should occur instantly or after the stop button is engaged would be a good option.

If you’re doing mastering and using high latency linear phase EQs, you’d want it to enable plugin delay compensation instantly. Probably as well if you’re mixing live drums and stereo paired mics if you’re not soloing them. If you’re doing EDM, hip-hop and modern genres, it might not matter so much and you might be happier with the plugin delay compensation kicking in once you hit the stop button. This is of course assuming this is the reason.

I would suggest to the OP to rename the topic to ‘continuous playing audio engine’ so that it’s more likely to get noticed.

Huge +1

+1

+1

Using Studio One 4.5 and loving the ‘no audio cuts’

+1

I think it’s neither too easy nor too complicated. I think the audio engine needs to wait for the next buffer cycle to apply the changes, not force the change in the middle of a cycle. Since we currently work with very small buffer sizes, the wait time to apply the modifications would be milliseconds.

+1
It’s the main thing making me think about going back to Pro Tools.

I would imagine some of the dropouts is to do with plugin latency and getting that plugin into the signal path. It may not be possible

Hi all,

To those that think that this is not possible, it is definitely possible because most other modern DAWs do not have this issue. Yes, in some cases, depending on the VST/VSTi that is being loaded there may be a slight delay/mute in playback, but not anything close to the glitchy playback that most users experience in Cubase.

If you compare Cubase and Studio One on the exact same machine, Studio One’s playback is by far much more stable. Many long time Cubase users (myself included) have just become so accustomed to this behavior that we think that this is normal, but when using another DAW it becomes glaringly obvious that it is not.