Cubase configuration

Cubase configuration

Note that I have copied part of the information below from other websites (e.g., Steinberg, Intel, GearSpace, etc). I fully acknowledge all contributors to these very useful sources. Putting parts of this information together in this post might be helpful to some of you. Let me know in the comments.

The configuration below is, in part, specific for Windows and for the new Intel CPU architecture (Alder Lake) with P/E cores, which I now have in my studio computer. Note that Cubase 12 and below did not support these Alder Lake processors. Cubase 13 does support these new processors (see [here]).

There is more to say about Cubase configuration, but I hope this will give you some starting points.

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1. UEFI configuration

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• Disable Hyper-Threading if ASIO Guard is off. Hyperthreading (Intel) or Simultaneous Multi-Threading (AMD) is found in the UEFI if your CPU supports it and if your UEFI allows you to modify this setting. Note: EUFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is the successor of the BIOS (Basic Input Output System).
  • What is hyperthreading? Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) or as Intel calls it “Hyperthreading” has been introduced to increase performance by a more efficient usage of CPU resources. HyperThreading Technology is a hardware innovation that allows more than one thread to run on each CPU core. More threads means more work can be done in parallel. How does Hyper-Threading work? When hypertreading is active, the CPU exposes two execution contexts per physical core. This means that one physical core now works like two “logical cores” that can handle different software threads. (see Intel [here]).
  • What is the issue? Hyperthreading can lead to performance issues and spikes in the VST performance meter. At very low latencies, even audio dropouts may occur. The reason for this is that other hyperthreading processes on the same physical CPU might interfere with real-time audio threads. We usually recommended to turn off simultaneous multithreading (“Hyperthreading”) whenever performance issues occur.
  • With Cubase 7 the ASIO Guard was introduced. Depending on the project setup, this feature reduces the real-time audio processing load significantly and thus reduces the risk of audio dropouts caused by simultaneous multithreading. See also (see Steinberg [here]). Enabling SMT/”Hyperthreading” while ASIO Guard is active usually has a positive effect on the overall system performance and is the recommended combination. Only in rare cases – e.g. with projects using many “live” tracks – SMT can still lead to performance issues.
  • In my current configuration I have the ASIO Guard turned on and, consequently, did not disable hyperthreading. 

 

• Disable advanced power-saving and dynamic performance options for your CPU if applicable. This usually needs to be done in the UEFI BIOS of your computer and includes C-States,  Enhanced Intel SpeedStep (EIST), Intel Turbo Boost, ‘AMD Cool ‘n’ Quiet’,and ‘AMD Turbo CORE’.
  • What is EIST?  Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology allows the system to dynamically adjust processor voltage and core frequency, which can result in decreased power consumption and heat production. (see Wikipedia [here]).
  • What is Intel Turbo Boost? CPUs don’t always need to run at their maximum frequency. Some programs are more dependent on memory to run smoothly, while others are CPU-intensive. Intel Turbo Boost Technology is an energy-efficient solution to this imbalance: it lets the CPU run at its base clock speed when handling light workloads, then jump to a higher clock speed for heavy workloads. (see Intel [here] and GearSpace [here]).
  • What is Intel C-State?  C-States are used to optimize or reduce power consumption in idle mode (i. e. when no code is executed). C-States allow your CPU to sleep when idle, which may interfere with real-time applications such as audio (see Wiki [here]).
  • What is CPU core parking? CPU Parking is a low-power sleep state (C6) supported by most modern processors and operating systems. It dynamically disables CPU cores in an effort to conserve power when idle. Unfortunately, this power saving comes at a price: Latency when CPUs need unparked to execute code. See [here]. See [here] how to disable CPU core parking.
  • What is the issue? All of the “power saving modes are intertwined but do function separately to a point but is supposed to be about “Green”. “Frankly, if i want to save energy, I will lower my heat and put a sweater on“. The issue is that when a CPU needs to return from a low energy to a high energy state in case more processing power is required (by plugins), this will take some time to realize, which may result in audio dropouts (especially at low latencies). Therefore, For DAWs you would turn all of this off and have 100% access to full power at all times.
  • I disabled ‘Intel C-State’, EIST, Intel Turbo Boost in the UEFI, and CPU Core Parking

 

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2. Configuration onboard audio

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• Not sure if it helps but I disabled the onboard audio devices (Realtek (R) Audio) and the NVIDIA audio devices (NVIDIA High Definition Audio, NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device) in de Windows Device Manager.
• I also disabled all unused Playback and Recording devices in Windows Sound Settings (C:\Windows\System32\mmsys.cpl)
• It is possible to disable the onboard audio device in the  UEFI, which I didn’t do in case I still would like to use the onboard audio.

 

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3. Steinberg/X32 audio settings

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ASIO-Guard
I always have the ASIO-Guard turned on. This allows you to shift as much processing as possible from the ASIO realtime path to the ASIO-Guard processing path. This results in a more stable system. The ASIO-Guard allows you to preprocess all channels as well as VST instruments that do not need to be calculated in realtime. This leads to less dropouts, the ability to process more tracks or plug-ins, and the ability to use smaller buffer sizes. However, High ASIO-Guard levels lead to an increased ASIO-Guard latency. Below you see my current audio settings in Studio Setup (see Steinberg [here]).

X32 buffer size
For mixing, I generally use the largest audio buffer size available for the the X32 X-USB audio interface. I typically use the largest buffer size (2048)  when using Cubase. For WaveLab, during mastering, I use much lower values (e.,g 64).

Note that I may play around with these settings when needed.

 

Activate Multi Processing
Allows to distribute the processing load evenly to all available CPUs. This way, Cubase can make full use of the combined power of multiple processors.

Activate ASIO-Guard
Activates the ASIO-Guard. This is only available if Activate Multi Processing is activated.

ASIO-Guard Level
Allows you to set the ASIO-Guard level. The higher the level, the higher the processing stability and the audio processing performance. However, higher levels also lead to increased ASIO-Guard latency and memory usage.

Audio Priority 
This setting should be set to Normal if you work with audio and MIDI. If you do not use MIDI at all, you can set this to Boost.

Activate Steinberg Audio Power Scheme
If this option is activated, all power safe modes that have an impact on real time processing are deactivated. Note that this is only effective for very low latencies, and that it increases the power consumption.

• This will create a temporary power scheme while Cubase is running. This scheme will mainly prevent your processor (speedstep/c-states) and your video from going into sleep. You can take a peek at the settings while Cubase is running. Just right click on the start button and choose ‘Power Options’. You will see the “Steinberg Audio Power Scheme” and can open it and see it’s settings. After Cubase is closed it will disappear. So if you want you can create your own power scheme for that in Windows or even configure it in your system bios for your processor not to go into these power saving states. Or you can of course stick with enable the “Activate Steinberg Audio Power Scheme” in audio setup.

Disk Preload
Allows you to specify how many seconds of audio are preloaded into RAM prior to starting playback. This allows for smooth playback.

 

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4. Latency Monitoring

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I used LatencyMon to diagnose the latancy of my system. LatencyMon checks if a system running Windows is suitable for processing real-time audio and other tasks. The image below shows the situation when I run LatencyMon directly after booting Windows. It concludes that my system is not suitable for realtime audio (e.g., Cubase). This might be suprising given the specifications of my computer but this has been reported before and is caused by the new CPU architecture (P-cores and E-cores) of Intel in combination the the Thread Director (see below). Future updates of the UEFI and/or Windows 11 will probably improve the situation, but at this moment you might want to disable the E-cores for Cubase as explained below;

 

Report view

The report view displays a conclusion of the suitability of your system for playing real-time audio at the top. If the execution times of all DPC and ISR routines stay below 2000 µs (microseconds), your system is considered suitable for handling real-time audio without dropouts. If some routines have execution times between 2000 µs and 4000 µs, your system is considered doubtful. If ISR or DPC routines are detected to execute for longer than 4000 µs, a system is considered unsuitable for handling real-time audio. Note that these numbers are just chosen arbitrarily. For optimal midi to audio latencies, buffer sizes of a sound card and driver should be set to very low values then only very low execution times of DPCs and ISRs become acceptable.

The report view displays:

• Highest measured DPC execution time
• Yhe driver that was executing the longest executing DPC routine
• Frequency of DPC executions (divided in execution time categories)
• Highest measured ISR execution time
• The driver that was executing the longest executing ISR routine
• Frequency of ISR executions (divided in execution time categories)
• Highest measured hard pagefault resolution time
• The process in which the hard pagefault occurred that took the most time to resolve frequency of hard pagefault hits

For more information about ISR/DPC see [here]. It should be noted that long-duration DPCs have nothing to do with the speed of the CPU, the amount and speed of RAM, or the hard drive. DPCs are a function of the hardware peripheral, how it was integrated into your motherboard, and the quality of the hardware driver.

 

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5. Performance issues on Intel® Core™ 12th gen (or newer) hybrid-architecture CPUs

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Note: these performance issues were a problem for Cubase 12 and lower. However, Cubase 13 seemed to have solved this problem. See [here].

My studio computer has a 13th generation Intel Core (formerly known as Alder Lake) processor with 8 P-cores (performance) and 8 E-cores (efficient). In total 24 threads (Intel Hyper-Threading Technology is only available on P-cores).  The Thread Director optimizes the interaction between the Windows Task Scheduler and the CPU. This Thread Director is built directly into the hardware and provides instructions that make sure the right thread is in the right core at the right time. It assigns tasks to available cores to use as many cores as possible simultaneously. The Thread Director also works with Windows 10 Scheduler, but it is not optimized for it.

This architecture may give problems with Cubase (and DAWs in general). These processors  may lead to audio dropouts and reduced performance in combination with Windows 11. Tests have shown that tasks which are not in focus and run in background, such as rendering jobs, minimized windows or real-time audio tasks, could end up on the much slower E-Cores. Windows 10 doesn’t seem to suffer from this problem but I didn’t test this.

In Windows 11 you can change the Priority and Affinity of a program, which gives a possibility to work arround this problem (see als Steinberg  [here]).

Priority. Process priority is simply the ‘importance’ of each process. Tasks that are essential for the smooth running of your computer (mostly system processes) are accorded a higher priority than an application running on top. This ensures that even under the maximum load, the core capabilities of your PC are not affected. There are six priority levels in Windows. Only five of these are meant to be set by applications (or users, for that matter). The normal and above normal are really the only two priority levels you should use for everyday tasks. Priority levels higher than that should be left to system processes and the lower levels for unimportant background tasks.

• Normal is, well, the ‘normal’ priority level. Most applications run at this level.
• Below normal is the priority level just below normal. Processes on this level are allocated fewer resources than normal applications. Best suited for unimportant tasks with no time constraints.
• Low is the lowest priority level in Windows. Tasks operating at this level are given resources only after all other processes have completed their current tasks.
• Above normal is the next higher priority level after normal. Use this for processes that need a little boost but don’t need to upstage system processes.
• High is a priority level used by important system processes necessary for the smooth functioning of the computer. Not recommended for user applications.
• Realtime is the highest possible priority level in Windows. Basically, tasks on this level run in real-time, at the expense of any and every other process. For this reason, this level is only reserved for hardware interfacing processes. Running applications on this priority level can easily crash your computer.

Affinity. Processor affinity enables the (un)binding of a process (e.g., Cubase) or a thread to a central processing unit (CPU) or a range of CPUs, so that the process or thread will execute only on the designated CPU or CPUs rather than any CPU.

 

Using Priority and/or Affinity there are several possibilities to configure your computer to have Cubase running more smoothly:

• You can turn off all E-cores in the UEFI but this will then also affect the performance of all other applications. Therefore, this is not my prefered solution.
• You can set the priority and affinity of a program (i.e., Cubase) after you have started this program. This is done in the Windows task manager. The drawback of this approach is that you have to do this everytime you start Cubase, since these changes are not stored. Also not prefered by me.  However, your might use AutoHotKey to do this automatically for you. See [here].
• You can start a program with a specified Priority and Affinity using a shortcut file as explained [here], or directly from a StreamDeck if you have one.

 

If you want to set the Priority and Affinity manually then you just open de Task Manager as shown below:

 

If you want to start Cubase with a specific affinity/priority, then you can use the following command:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “” /Realtime /Affinity FFFF “E:\Programs Studio\Steinberg\Cubase 12\Cubase12.exe”

You can make a windows shortcut for this, or execute it from your StreamDeck, which is what I do.  Since I have an Intel® Core™ i7-13700KF with 8 P-cores (16 threads) and 8 E-cores (8 threads), I can set Cubase to run only on the first 16 P-cores and disable the last 8 E-cores. This is indicated by the affinity mask FFFF (you find an online calculater [here])

Note 1: For unknown reason I cannot set the priority to Realtime with this command. Instead, Priority is set to Very High (which is the default if you would start Cubase in the normal way). However, once started, I can manually change to RealTime in the Task Manger.

Note 2: When I do not disable the E-cores then, so far, I don’t experience any problems with audio dropouts etc (even at buffer sizes down to 256 samples). But I need to close all (background) programs that I don’t use (e.g., Dropbox,  Spotify, Email). However, I will keep you up to date once I have done more mixes on the new studio computer.

Note 3: The problems start when using VST instruments.

 

 

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6. CPU Performance vs. Real-Time Performance 

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7. General Performance 

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It happened to me several times that Cubase started very slowly and/or project had very long loading times (or didn’t load). If you search the internet you will find many reports on this. In the cases it happened to me, the cause never became really clear.  However, I noticed when I connect my NAS network storage (Synology DS218) this sometimes causes long loading times of Cubase. Disconnecting this network storage solved the problem. Network storage may also cause problems for the Media Browser which may include it in building its database. Thus, you might want to deselect this in the media browser configuration.

 

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8. Organization of applications, sample libraries and VST3/VST2/VSTi plugins

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I have a large amount of (network) storage in and attached to my studio computer. See also computer configuration and  Backup Strategy

• For OS (Windows 11 OS): SSD M.2 1000GB Samsung 980 PRO (M2_1 slot (CPU); PCI Express 4.0 x4 / Read 7000 MB/s / Write 5100 MB/s).
• For sample libraries: SSD M.2 2000GB Samsung 980 PRO with heatsink (M2_4 slot (Z690 chipset); PCI Express 4.0 x4 /  Read 7000 MB/s / Write 5100 MB/s).
• 4x SATA harddrive (6TB, 2TB, 2 TB, 4 TB). All SATA disks are 7200rpm. I would not go for slower disks.
  • Drive E: Seagate Barracuda; 7200rpm; 2TB. Installed: right-top
  • Drive F: Toshiba Performance X300; 7200rpm; 128MB buffer; 4TB. Installed: right-bottom
  • Drive G: Seagate Barracuda; 7200rpm; 2TB. Installed: inside-top.
  • Drive H: Seagate Skyhawk; 7200rpm; 6TB): Installed: inside-bottom
• For Spitfire sample libraries: external Samsung SSD T7 (Read 1,050 MB/s / Write 1000 MB/s; 1 TB).
• For backup: 2x Synology DS218 (2x 8TB; 2x 3TB)

To give you an idea of how I organized all applications and data, I give a summary of the location of the most important files. In general, you should aim to have your data (sample libraries) and applications (e.g., Cubase) on different disks.

Drive C: — Operating System (Internal SSD M.2; 1TB)

• My operating system (OS; Windows 11; Drive C:\) is installed on its own ultra fast SSD M.2 disk.
• I try to avoid installing any other applications, sample libraries, and data on this disk although some installers, unfortunately, still don’t provide the possibility to install on a different drive.
• VST3 plugins are always located on this disk (see below).

 

Drive D: — Sample libraries (Internal SSD M.2; 2TB)

• BFD3
• East West
• GrooveMonkee – Superior Drummer 3
• Native Instruments

 

Drive E: — SATA Disk (2TB)

• Applications
• (Backup of) program data and settings. E.g.,
  • X32, OBS, StreamDeck profiles
  • Cubase and  WaveLab settings
• Sample libraries not on the Internal SSD M.2 (Drive X:\) to save space for the important/large libraries. E.g.,
  • HALion 6
  • ToonTrack Superior Drummer and EZbass
  • Sibelius
• VST2 plugins
• VSTi plugins

 

Drive F: — SATA Disk (4TB)

• Cloud (Dropbox, HiDrive, SURFdrive)
• Music related stuff (e.g., manuals, synth patches)

 

Drive G: — SATA Disk (2TB)

• Cubase, Wavelab, Dorico, and Band in a Box projects
• Reference tracks

 

Drive H: — SATA Disk (6TB)

• Music (mp3, wav, CDs, etc)
• Photos and videos
• Midi files

 

External Drive X: — Spitfire sample libraries (External SSD T7)

• I installed all Spitfire sample libraries (e.g., BBCSO) on an fast external drive because the SATA disks were too slow and resulted in audio glitches/dropouts. I did not install these libraries on the internal SSD M.2 drive because I didn’t have that at the time I installed BBCSO. Currently, the SSD M.2 would not have sufficient space to also hold BBCSO.

 

VST3, VST2, and VSTi plugins

• You can manage VST effects (VST2 and VST3) and VST instruments in the VST Plug-in Manager Window.
• Cubase supports VST2 and VST3 plugins
• In general, I try to avoid 32-bit plugins since I use a 64-bit computer (see also Using 32-bit plug-ins on 64-bit systems). In addition, Cubase does no longer support 32-bit plugins, which are placed on the blacklist.
• Once a plugin is installed, do not move it manually as it may no longer work without problems (e.g., dependencies with Windows registry).

 

Locations of VST/VSTi plugins

Default locations VST2 and VST3
As part of the official Steinberg VST3 standard, the installation folder/plug-in location is fixed. This is why installers don’t provide an option to change the installation location for VST3s.

• For 64-bit VST3 plug-ins on 64-bit Windows, and for 32-bit VST3 plug-ins on 32-bit Windows, the installation folder is here: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
• For 32-bit VST3 plug-ins on 64-bit Windows, the installation folder is here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3

For the VST2 standard, the plug-in location was never fixed in the VST2 specification, but certain folders became “the unofficial accepted norm” (e.g. C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins). The lack of a folder in the VST2 standard specification is the reason why plug-in installers ask you where you want to install VST2s, and often suggest a location.

For more information see VST plug-in locations on Windows.

Moving VST3 plugins
If you really need to move the VST3 plugins then the correct solution would be to use either junction points, or symbolic links (see [here]). I left the VST3 plugins at their standard locations but have the VST2 plugins on SATA Disk E:\.

Other common directories used by Cubase for VST2 plugins are

• C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins
• C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST2
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg\VST2
• 32-bit plug-ins on 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins (not in use on my system)

 

My organization of VST2 and VSTi plugins
I use the following locations for the VST2 and VSTi plugins:

• X:\VST2 Plugins\Vendor\Plugin name\
• X:\VSTi Plugins\Vendor\Plugin name\
• X:\VST2 Plugins (x86)\Vendor\Plugin name\
• X:\VSTi Plugins (x86)\Vendor\Plugin name\

See also Instructions on how to organise 32- and 64-bit plug-ins separately. Since I use the 64-bit version of Cubase/Wavelab I will only scan the VST2/VSTi plugins in the 64-bit directories (thus, not the x86) directories. This is set in the Cubase Plugin Manager.  The 32-bit plugins may, however, still be used by non-Steinberg applications.

Summary VST2, VST3, and VSTi locations that I use

VST3

• For 64-bit VST3 plug-ins:  C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\
• For 32-bit VST3 plug-ins:C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3\
  • MusicLab guitars (RealStrat, RealGuitar, etc)

Note: since these VST3 paths are fixed as part of its specification in contrast to the VST2/VSTi plugins, I cannot specify \Vender\Plugin names since the installation path are set by the installer. Moving them after installing may render the plugins non-functional (e.g., due to references in the Windows Registry)

VST2

I try to install all VST2 on the E:\ drive, but this cannot always be controlled from the installer

• For 64-bit VST2 plug-ins:  E:\VST2 Plugins\Vendor\Plugin name\
• For 32-bit VST2 plug-ins:  E:\VST2 Plugins (x86)\Vendor\Plugin name\

Exceptions:

• For 64-bit VST2 plug-ins: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST2\
  • NotePerformer
• For 64-bit VST2 plug-ins: C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins
  • Waves
  • Sforzanda (comes with Band in a Box)
• For 64-bit VST2 plug-ins: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg\VST2
  • MusicLab guitars

VSTi

• For 64-bit VST2 plug-ins: E:\VSTi Plugins\Vendor\Plugin name\
• For 32-bit VST2 plug-ins: E:\VSTi Plugins (x86)\Vendor\Plugin name\

Steinberg

• C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins
  • HALion 6 and HALion Sonic

Notes

• The Steinberg Library Manager allows to easily move sample libraries (e.g., HALion) to specific drives. East West, Spitfire, and Native Instruments have similar library managers to manage the locations of the sample libraries.
• The Cubase plugin manager allows you to
  • hide individual (VST2) plugins;
  • switch between Vendor (my preference) and Category view.

 

 

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9. Track color configuration

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I always use a specific color scheme for my tracks (e.g., during mixing or music production). To create a specific color scheme, go to Project Colors Setup and first select the number of colors you want to use. I use the maximum of 32 colors. Next, you can change the names of (a selection of) your colors. Finally, you click on ‘Save color set as default’. Now this color scheme will be available in any of your new Cubase projects. Using the Project Logical Editor you can also automatically color your tracks based on the name they have been given. See Cubase logical editor commands from Dom Sigalas for a few examples.

 

 

 

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10. Tips

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• When using Cubase, alwayss close all other applications that you don’t use (e.g., Dropbox, Outlook, etc).  I have made a simple script with AutoHotKey that closes most of the programs that start during booting. I excute this script from my StreamDeck but you can also make a Windows shortcut for this, or assign a specific key combination. The script below does not terminate all these programs for unknown reasons. All programs that are not terminated, I close manually in the Task Manager.
• You can download my AutoHotKey scripts from my GitHub repository.

;;
;; Close everything that is not needed.
;;
For each, proc in ["Zoom", "Skype", 
                  , "PDFAnnotator", "voicemeeter", 
                  , "SURFdrive", "HiDrive UI", "HiDriveUpdateService", ;; Cloud
                  , "AnalyticsSrv", "concentr", "wfcrun32", "redirector", "SelfServicePlugin","Receiver" ;; Citrix programs
                  , "CoreSync", "Creative Cloud Helper", "Adobe Installer", "AdobeUpdateServe", "Adobe Desktop Service", "CCXProcess"
                  , "Creative Cloud Helper", "CCLibrary"] { ;; Adobe programs
    psScript =
    (
        Stop-Process -name %proc% -Confirm -PassThrue -Force
    )
    RunWait PowerShell.exe -Command &{%psScript%} ;,, hide
}

;;Run, %comspec% /c "taskkill /F /IM PhoneExperienceHost /T"
;;Run, %comspec% /c "taskkill /F /IM CCleaner64 /T"
;;Run, %comspec% /c "taskkill /F /IM bdvpnService /T"

Process, Close, Dropbox.exe
Process, Close, DropboxUpdate.exe
Process, Close, DbxSvc.exe ;;Dropbox Service

Process, Close, BlackTop.exe
Process, Close, SnagitCapture.exe
Process, Close, SnagitEditor.exe
Process, Close, Spotify.exe
Process, Close, CCleaner.exe
Process, Close, bdvpnapp.exe
Process, Close, bdvpnservice.exe

Return

• Check your MediaBay file browser. This tends to include many directories without any relevant content but takes a long time to scan.

 

• Make a backup of my Cubase settings on a regular basis. Also for this I made a simple AutoHotKey script that I excute from my StreamDeck. For Cubase this looks like:

;;
;; First make target directory
;;
FormatTime, TimeString,, yyyy-MMM-dd
TargetDir = E:\Program Data\SettingsBackup\%TimeString%
IfNotExist %TargetDir%
FileCreateDir %TargetDir%
FileAppend, Backup of settings`n%TimeString%`n%TargetDir%`n,%TargetDir%\0_README.txt 

;;
;; Now copy cubase settings
;;
SourceDir = C:\Users\Skippy Studio\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\Cubase 12_64
SplitPath, SourceDir, SourceDirName ; Extract only the folder name from its full path.
FileCopyDir %SourceDir%, %TargetDir%\%SourceDirName%, 1

SourceDir = C:\Users\Skippy Studio\Documents\Steinberg
SplitPath, SourceDir, SourceDirName
FileCopyDir, %SourceDir%, %TargetDir%\%SourceDirName%, 1

FileRemoveDir, %TargetDir%\%SourceDirName%\CrashDumps, 1 ;;1 for recursion (all files and subdirectories)

• Cubase settings are stored in: %appdata%/Steinberg/Cubase 12_64/
  • Audio connections presets are kept in %appdata%/Steinberg/Cubase 12_64/Presets/RAMPresets.xml. This is inconvenient because you would have to edit the xml file if you want to remove specific presets.  To remove Audio Connection presets you have to select the preset from Cubase and then select ‘Remove Preset’. You cannot select multiple presets at once.
  • See also Where are the settings stored? from the Steinberg website.

 

• What else can you look into?
  • Preferences
  • Project setup
  • Pre-defined Project Templates
  • Key commands and macros
  • Project Logical Editor and Logical Editor (for MIDI) to define dedicated functions that can be assigned to key commands.
  • MIDI Remote Control configuration
  • Control Room configuration

 

• With respect to the P/E core architecuture, it can be noted that AMD Ryzen might provide a better alternative. See Cubase Nation on Discord.

 

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11. Diagnostics

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A selection of tools that I use in case I need to solve (Cubase) problems

• Check system with Resplendence software  :
  • WhySoSlow
  • LatencyMon
  • Note: this software is alsoreferred to from the Steinberg website.
  • DPC Latency Checker (see also video below)
• CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system such as processor, motherboard, etc
• WinDirStat is a very useful disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool.
• I used CCleaner to check for driver updates, registry issues, etc. However, there seems to be quite some discussion whether or not drivers should be update through CCleaner or if you should leave this to the Windows Updater. Similar for ‘fixing’ registry issues, which may sometimes do more harm than good. I stopped using CCleaner for this reason.
• To monitor your USB ports use USB Device Tree Viewer.

 

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12. In case of a Cubase crash

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• See [Analyze Cubase Crash]
• Cubase crash dumps are found in “%UserProfile%\Documents\Steinberg\CrashDumps\”. These are binary files but can be loaded into WinDbgX.exe, which can be found in “C:\Users\Studio\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\windbgX.exe“.
• You can also inspect the Windows logs via the Event viewer (eventvwr.msc).
• Perhaps the Windows program ‘WinDbg’ might be of help (see also: [here]).
  The culprit is usually a plugin. But how to find out? In this case, start WinDbg, but Select “File->Attach to Process” and then select Cubase. Do this when you already closed the project and Cubase hangs. Now just type “k” in the command window. You then get a stack trace, which can be really long. In there, search for a plugin name that you used in the project. Most likely, this is the culprit for the hang.
• Check the ‘Events’ of each driver using the Device Manger. Sometimes there might be unnoticed errors that you will have to fix.

 

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13. Useful links

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• Why you don’t need Thunderbolt for professional audio
• How to set-up and optimize a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) (Steinberg)
• Diagnostics with Resplendence tools
• Windows 11 compatibility (Steinberg)
• Performance issues on Intel® Core™ 12th gen (or newer) hybrid-architecture CPUs (Steinberg)
• Microsoft CPU Analysis
• AutoHotKey