We definitely need a solution.  It seems the midi idea is not going to work as the VE PRO 5  plug would be working in a very large buffer ....that is the benefit of ASIO GUARD 2.  The medium setting in Cubase is 1024.  Multiply that by the number of VE PRO buffers and you can see that will not work.

 

-Danny

@paaltio said:

Yes this performance regression has been a constant in my tests, and a similar difference was already present in C6 -> C7.

Would it be possible to have a "set the number of buffers for all VE Pro plugins" button like we have for decouple all? Would make it a little easier to at least manage our own extra buffers in large sessions if we can't use AG.

Thanks,
Panu Aaltio

Hi Martin

I would also be interested to know what the latency implications are for having the VE Pro plugin run asynchronously.  As things stand it seems that the new VST SDK and proposed VE Pro implimentation does not resolve the situation in any way - we are still left with either audio dropouts (if AG2 is enabled) or increased CPU load (if it's not). 

I would really like to kow how bad the additional latency would need to be, in order to run VE Pro with AG2 enabled but also accomodating Cubendo's need to rebuffer.  One way or another we're going to need to find a workaround, if not a solution, because remaining on legacy versions of Steinberg software is only going to be possible for so long.

Would some kind of external MIDI workaround resolve the situation, such that instead of selecting the VE Pro plugin when you select a track in Cubendo, you're actually selecting a virtual MIDI port, which is then in turn routed to a VE Pro server instance?  Would this mean that Cubendo does not need to reset it's audio engine every time a track is selected?   Just trying to come up with ideas ...

Thanks for any more info.

Jules

So would it be possible to have a preference that could switch the plugin to asynchronous mode?  If it is a bit higher in latency then so be it but please give us the option as the benefits of ASIO GUARD 2 are HUGE especially on the slave machines.

 

-Danny

I don't have the dropout during lane switching anymore. AG2 enabled, not sure if I have done this also in the plugin manager. Only other thing I changed was using rack instruments instead of instrument tracks. I do experience increasing latency during the build of a project. I do not mind, I also use high latency (1024) on my asio drivers to max out vst performance. Is the increasing latency an effect of disabeling AG in the plugin manager?

@10us said:

I don't have the dropout during lane switching anymore. AG2 enabled, not sure if I have done this also in the plugin manager. Only other thing I changed was using rack instruments instead of instrument tracks. I do experience increasing latency during the build of a project. I do not mind, I also use high latency (1024) on my asio drivers to max out vst performance. Is the increasing latency an effect of disabeling AG in the plugin manager?

 

ASIO GUARD 2 set to MEDIUM is the same thing as 1024 buffer.  From my understanding of how it works .....if you are at 1024 buffer and ASIO GUARD 2 is set to MEDIUM then ASIO GAURD 2 is doing nothing additional for you and that is why there is no delay in switching tracks as it has no effect in your situation.  The same would be true if someone used a 512 buffer and  the "SMALL"setting in ASIO GUARD 2 as that defaults to 512.

 

If you dropped your buffer to say 512 and tried it with ASIO GUARD 2 on MEDIUM you would indeed have the delay in switching tracks.

 

-Danny

@10us said:

I don't have the dropout during lane switching anymore. AG2 enabled, not sure if I have done this also in the plugin manager. Only other thing I changed was using rack instruments instead of instrument tracks. I do experience increasing latency during the build of a project. I do not mind, I also use high latency (1024) on my asio drivers to max out vst performance. Is the increasing latency an effect of disabeling AG in the plugin manager?

 

ASIO GUARD 2 set to MEDIUM is the same thing as 1024 buffer.  From my understanding of how it works .....if you are at 1024 buffer and ASIO GUARD 2 is set to MEDIUM then ASIO GAURD 2 is doing nothing additional for you and that is why there is no delay in switching tracks as it has no effect in your situation.  The same would be true if someone used a 512 buffer and  the "SMALL"setting in ASIO GUARD 2 as that defaults to 512.

 

If you dropped your buffer to say 512 and tried it with ASIO GUARD 2 on MEDIUM you would indeed have the delay in switching tracks.

 

-Danny

 

So I checked:

• CB8pro AG2 in preferences: High
• VEP VST3 in CB8 plugin manager: Active (enabled)
• ASIO driver buffer: 1024 samples (21.3ms)

So is it normal that 1) I don't have delay switching tracks and 2) does AG2 improves my ASIO performance in Cubase and/or VEP in your opinon?

Regards,

Martijn

Hi Martijn

What version of Cubase 8 (there's an update just out or due out soon I think)?  It's possible there's been a fix on Steinberg's side, as I know they've fixed some MIDI issues.

Have you got Asio Guard manually disabled for the VE Pro plugin individually perhaps (Devices->Plugin Manager->VST Instruments->Vienna Ensemble Pro->show info and check if ASIO GUARD button shows active or not)?

Can you perhaps test with a buffer size of 512 samples and see if you still get no audio dropouts?

Fingers crossed there's been an unreported fix somewhere down the line, but I suspect it's something else.

Thanks for your help.

Jules

It worked for me in C8.0.20 and after upgrading to 8.0.30 it's still working. I have checked the plugin status in the plugin manager: It's set to active. What I did found out is that I used the VST2 version of the Vienna plugin. I changed all to VST3 version of the plugin last nigth.

I will check if things changed with VST3 plugin and test what lowering the ASIO buffers of the audio driver will do.

Regards,

 

Martijn

Again....it is far from fixed.

You are running a buffer of 1024 which is the same result as ASIO GUARD 2 set to MEDIUM.  ASIO GUARD 2 will do nothing good or bad for you if you have it set to MEDIUM and you run a buffer of 1024.  The buffer setting and ASIO GUARD 2 have to be at different settings to cause the audio drop outs when switching tracks.  Your buffer is not different so you have no issue.  For the majority of us that want to run smaller buffers like 128 it is a HUGE issue that Vienna needs to address by at least giving us preference options to run asynchronous.

Best,

Danny

@10us said:

It worked for me in C8.0.20 and after upgrading to 8.0.30 it's still working. I have checked the plugin status in the plugin manager: It's set to active. What I did found out is that I used the VST2 version of the Vienna plugin. I changed all to VST3 version of the plugin last nigth.

I will check if things changed with VST3 plugin and test what lowering the ASIO buffers of the audio driver will do.

Regards,

 

Martijn

Thanks for the clarification. Seems that I need to read more about AG2. Like to know why the buffer needs to be different. If these problems are solved, would their be a noticable performance increase? specificly for insert amounts? Gr. Martijn

Martin,

 

Can you explain to us what the downside is of having a "preference" to turn asynchronous mode on.  I know you said latency would increase.  Can you elaborate on what the increase in latency would be and by how much?

 

Thanks,
Danny

It would certainly be helpful to have a little more feedback from the developers on this issue. I realise this situation may be technically challenging, but one way or another I can't help feeling some kind of accommodation is going to need to be found. Jules

@dlpmusic said:

Martin,

 

Can you explain to us what the downside is of having a "preference" to turn asynchronous mode on.  I know you said latency would increase.  Can you elaborate on what the increase in latency would be and by how much?

 

Thanks,
Danny

Hi Danny,

I don't know what asynchronous mode on is. At the moment I haven't any downsides I know of. Because I knew about problems with dropouts midi tracks I was wondering why I didn't experience any.

The discussion gets more technical then I can Google. There seems to be not much low level documentation. For example: I realy don't understand how it's possible to pull channels in and out  AG? This should change the overall perceived latency? It seems that Cubase hosted VSTi's don't have this issues or am I wrong?

Would indeed be nice if developement could shine some l light on this matter. Can it be fexed?

Regards,

Martijn

I think the question was directed towards Martin (as in MS), not Martijn.   😉

DG

@dlpmusic said:

Can you explain to us what the downside is of having a "preference" to turn asynchronous mode on.  I know you said latency would increase.  Can you elaborate on what the increase in latency would be and by how much?

The latency would have to be fixed, regardless if track was in playback or recording mode. I would expect a latency of 3072 samples, which is not very pleasant for recording. The best solution would of course be for Steinberg to implement a PDC reconfiguration scheme similar to the one used by Logic, which I have written about earlier.

@DG said:

I think the question was directed towards Martin (as in MS), not Martijn. DG

Oops.... 😄

Can somebody explain what asychronic mode does or point me to a link? Martijn

Martin,

 

Agreed that latency would not work for obvious reasons.

Have you been in direct communication with Steinberg about this recently to try and convince them to look back into this matter?  On their forum they state that the fix on their end was implemented in 8.0.20 and the ball is in your court.

 

Rather then have us keep going back and forth it would be good to know if you currently are still discussing this with them.

 

Thanks,

Danny

 

@dlpmusic said:

Can you explain to us what the downside is of having a "preference" to turn asynchronous mode on.  I know you said latency would increase.  Can you elaborate on what the increase in latency would be and by how much?

The latency would have to be fixed, regardless if track was in playback or recording mode. I would expect a latency of 3072 samples, which is not very pleasant for recording. The best solution would of course be for Steinberg to implement a PDC reconfiguration scheme similar to the one used by Logic, which I have written about earlier.

This is a little worrying.

Clearly those kind of latency figures are not going to be workable, which leaves us back with the audio dropout issue, which for me personally is also unworkable.    Turning off AG2  for VE Pro is not really a fix - for bigger sessions I saw CPU overloads which I did not have with Cubase 7.x / Nuendo 6.x.

For now staying with older versions of Cubase and Nuendo is fine (this is where I've ended up), but can only really be an interim solution.   Unless VSL are now drawing a line and saying that VE Pro is no longer fully supported in current iterations of Cubendo, I can't help feeling that the onous to find a way forward lies on this side of the fence.  Certainly there's no public sign of Steinberg being willing to update it's PDC implementation for the sake of 1 plugin, much as we might wish they would.

It would be extremely sad if Steinberg DAW users no longer enjoyed full compatibility with VE Pro, because the combination is exceptionally powerful.   Reading between the lines though, it seems the issue is not going to be resolved any time soon, and judging by the fairly low numbers of contributors to this thread, I can only assume there are relatively few users affected.  That being the case, I don't see it getting a lot of attention in the near future.

It looks like Nuendo 6.5 isn't going to be uninstalled any time soon, but here's hoping.

@Trailerman said:

Clearly those kind of latency figures are not going to be workable, which leaves us back with the audio dropout issue, which for me personally is also unworkable.    Turning off AG2  for VE Pro is not really a fix - for bigger sessions I saw CPU overloads which I did not have with Cubase 7.x / Nuendo 6.x.

I hear you.

I am still in touch with Steinberg, trying to get them to update their PDC implementation to queue audio-engine reconfigurations until next stop/start cycle (just as Logic/ProTools does). Meanwhile, we are reverting the prefetch disabling for the upcoming VEP release, so if you want to have AG2 disabled, you will still have to do it manually.

 

Thanks,

Martin

Thanks Martin Good luck in your discussions with Steinberg. Hopefully they'll do the right thing.