We have had a look into the situation with C8 and VEP, and currently there is nothing we can do about it, more than report our findings to Steinberg. When switching tracks in Cubase, the plugin can receive a new buffer size, and since VEPro has an inherent latency which is buffer-dependent, VEPro will have to report its new latency to Cubase. Cubase immediately responds to this by reconfiguring its audio engine - causing a pause in audio.

Logic Pro (and other software which is using variable-sized buffers) do not immediately reconfigure the engine when switching tracks during playback, which allows for uninterrupted playback. We will recommend Steinberg to implement a similar scheme.

I am looking into this together with a Steinberg developer right now, and hopefully we can find a solution.

Until then, I can offer a workaround to disable ASIO Guard for VEPro manually. You can do this by going to:

[Menu] > Devices > Plug-in Manager > VST Instruments > Vienna Ensemble Pro > Click "i" for Plug-in information > Click to set ASIO Guard to Inactive. 

Please perform this operation on ALL VEPro Instrument and Fx plugins. Then also Audio Input plugins will work properly.

@MS said:

I am looking into this together with a Steinberg developer right now, and hopefully we can find a solution.

 

Until then, I can offer a workaround to disable ASIO Guard for VEPro manually. You can do this by going to:

[Menu] > Devices > Plug-in Manager > VST Instruments > Vienna Ensemble Pro > Click "i" for Plug-in information > Click to set ASIO Guard to Inactive. 

Please perform this operation on ALL VEPro Instrument and Fx plugins. Then also Audio Input plugins will work properly.

I have tried your suggestion and it does improve the dropped out audio when switching tracks but the processor drop was so minimal because most of my template involves intances of VE PRO 5. The bigger issue for me is that even with your suggestion with ASIO Guard 2 on with VE PRO 5 I can not export audio with out a serious error and a crash from Cubase.

So I guess there is no benefit if your projects run 90% VE PRO and ASIO guard 2 is turned of for this instruments?

I also guess that Steinberg isn't going to change their audio engine any soon.....

Are their any updates about this issue?

Regards,

Martijn 

Steinberg apparently think they fixed their end in 8.0.20, though its not in the versions history and lots of people seem to think its still an issue.  I can't check for a while - what are others finding, and what do you think at VSL?

Bump for this - what's the word from you, VSL?  Should the latest VE Pro build work ok, or is there another to come?

I'm very curious about this as well. Unfortunately, it's a fairly major bug for those of us on Cubase 8 at the moment.

Hello everybody, 

No changes there, and unfortunately nothing that can be done on our side, as it seems. 

Best, 
Paul

Thanks Paul.  I've asked Steinberg if they'll talk to you direct as they've closed the case and said (effectively) their end is fixed and now it's up to you guys.  It's one of those situations where we end users are caught in the middle, would be grateful if you can both figure out a better solution for us all.

I hope this is not the case since Steinberg is now saying the problem is most likely on Vienna's end as they say they have fixed the issue on their end.

Can you please explain why this only happens with VE PRO 5 and why this can not be fixed?  I get that Cubase has to adjust the additional buffer settings for VE PRO 5 that are not in other plugins, but is that really the issue here?

@Paul said:

Hello everybody, 

No changes there, and unfortunately nothing that can be done on our side, as it seems. 

Best, 
Paul

Posted on Steinberg's forum today...

Guillermo

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Hi, 

Thanks for that info, I wasn´t aware of that at all. 

To speed up the research I can do to prepare this for a deeper investigation by our developers, could you please send some short Cubase 8 songs (as zip files) to support@vsl.co.at and include a description on how to reproduce the problems you are having, with a description of the settings you are using (screenshots will also be fine). 

I´ll work through those with the latest versions of Cubase 8 and VE PRO asap. 

Thanks, 
Paul

Grateful for your attention, Paul - this was first reported back in January and it's pretty debiliating to pro composers.  I'm away from base for specific files, but here's the steps to reproduce I posted in the original Steinberg thread:

SYSTEM

Win 7 64 bit SP1 Aero on, i7 4930, RME Babyface, 64gb RAM, Cubase 8.0.0 64 bit, VEP 5.3.13407

PROBLEM 

VE Pro tracks audio muting when switching between channels in Cubase if asioguard is set to normal or high.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. In Device Settings, enable asioguard, set to nornal or high.
2. Open VE Pro server and create two instances. Insert VIs on first channel of each (I'm using Kontakt 5 and Play for a test, but think the VIs used are irrelevant).
3. Create two VEP rack instruments, and connect to the two VEP instances.
4. Switch between the two VEP tracks in the Cubase project window (or switch monitor enabling between them)
5. Result is that the audio output mutes as they are switched.

Note 1 - length of time that the mute occurs varies according to the general complexity of project, whether or not playing back at the same time, and the asioguard setting. I've experienced up to approx 3 seconds.

Note 2 - problem does not exist when asioguard is set to low. Audio is uninterrupted.

Note 3 - these results on my system at a buffer of 256. Specifics will vary depending on your soundcard and buffers, processor, platform etc.

I believe the Low setting in ASIO GUARD 2 sets everything to a 256 BUFFER.  So that is probably why the problem is not there on the low setting for you as you are already at a 256 BUFFER.  I use a 128 buffer and the problem is there at the LOW setting as well.

-D

@noiseboyuk said:

 

Note 3 - these results on my system at a buffer of 256. Specifics will vary depending on your soundcard and buffers, processor, platform etc.

@dlpmusic said:

VE PRO VST2 does not support ASIO-Guard 2 you have to disable ASIO GUARD, also VSL has to implement a VST-3 interface that supports ASIO- Guard. 

They have been informed about this. 

I will post this in the Steinberg forum.

From various posts by Steinberg and VSL employees on various forums and support posts, here's the situation as I best understand it.

There was an issue internal to Cubase which has been fixed. However this won't do anything until VSL update VE Pro, which they cannot yet do. The VST2 version is incompatible with ASIOguard. The VST3 version VSL cannot update until Steinberg updates the SDK, which has no time frame to be done. So until that unknown time, users are unable to use VE Pro with Cubase 8 without severe side effects.   Its probably best to disable ASIOguard from VE Pro in the plugin manager until this whole issue is resolved.  Unfortunatly it looks like this whole issue won't be fixed any time soon.

This sums it up as far as I can tell.  I am so anxious for this to resolve an Vienna to get this implemented.

@noiseboyuk said:

From various posts by Steinberg and VSL employees on various forums and support posts, here's the situation as I best understand it.

There was an issue internal to Cubase which has been fixed. However this won't do anything until VSL update VE Pro, which they cannot yet do. The VST2 version is incompatible with ASIOguard. The VST3 version VSL cannot update until Steinberg updates the SDK, which has no time frame to be done. So until that unknown time, users are unable to use VE Pro with Cubase 8 without severe side effects.   Its probably best to disable ASIOguard from VE Pro in the plugin manager until this whole issue is resolved.  Unfortunatly it looks like this whole issue won't be fixed any time soon.

This post has been interesting reading. I had never used Ensemble before in previous versions, so v5 is my first experience. I have pretty much been unable to use this (running slave on same machine as DAW, not had opportunity to try via networking but suspect the results will be the same or worse). I found similar advice re disabling asio-guard in plugin manager on the steinberg forum, this hasn't stopped VSL from corrupting any project it's inserted into along with causing other mysterious issues (although I'm still to 100% confirm it's VSL doing it, the first project I've made deliberately not using VSL seems to have solved this issue also). Really hope Vienna & Steinberg can sort this out between them, as it's looking like going back to having to open a new project for anything involving kontakt libraries.

As it seems the answer to when it'll be fixed is "when the new SDK is released ie we do not know", where would be a good place to lurk occasionally to receive updates on this issue? It's disappointing that to use the program I bought to solve my RAM-problem, I have to turn off a feature that then gives me a huge CPU problem :)