With my 10 audio tracks (and nothing else) playing, all plug-ins bypassed and ASIO Guard disabled, I recorded a four percent CPU load as my benchmark. You can toggle this on/off via the VST Audio System section of the Device Setup panel. I also ran my tests both with and without ASIO Guard (Steinberg’s ‘squeeze more out of your CPU’ technology) enabled. For Roomworks, I also repeated all the tests at the default Efficiency setting of 10 and at what I supposed would be a less CPU-intensive 50. Reverence, a convolution reverb with bundled impulse library, is capable of some very realistic results.I repeated the tests using two different reverb presets a ‘small room’ (short decay) setting and a ‘cathedral’ (long decay) setting. It’s these figures I’ll quote here, but note that Cubase’s own ‘average load’ meter in the VST Performance display suggested very similar values. I then simply enabled/bypassed each set of 10 plug-ins in turn and noted the ‘user processes’ CPU load in Activity Monitor. I focused on stereo use and used 10 tracks/instances to (hopefully) obtain more reliable data.
#Cubase 8 comparison pro#
The figures produced are bound to be system-specific but, with a bit of care, you can draw some general conclusions about the relative loads each plug-in generates.įor my own tests, I set up a Cubase Pro 8 project with 10 audio tracks, each with an instance of all four reverb plug-ins as insert effects. For example, both Task Manager (under Windows) or Activity Monitor (under OS X, and what I used here) can give you process-level CPU usage data. Testing this kind of thing is fairly easy and you could easily compare these reverbs with any third-party ones you have if you wish. Given the different generations of plug-in and the different processing types (algorithmic and convolution), you might expect that the CPU load of these four reverb plug-ins would run down from Reverence (highest), via Revelation and then Roomworks, down to Roomworks SE - but my tests show that this isn’t actually the case! So, I’ll look at CPU load and sound quality here, and in that order. A particularly CPU-hungry reverb plug-in might not always be the best option - it’s not as if you can ‘freeze’ an effects channel in the way you can an audio or instrument track.
The second factor is how efficient a reverb you require, which depends on the complexity of your project and the processing ‘grunt’ of your computer. You might require realism, you might prefer classic sheen, you might want to focus only on early reflections, or you may yearn for a lo-fi sound, and so on. First, the sound, pure and simple: in different circumstances, you may be after different end results. We may be spoiled for choice, then, but do you know which is the best reverb to opt for in your project? Two obvious factors might influence that decision.
Finally, Cubase 7.5 brought with it a new stereo-only algorithmic reverb called Revelation. In Cubase 5 Steinberg upped their game further by introducing Reverence, a convolution-based reverb capable of both stereo and surround-sound operation. Roomworks is an algorithmic reverb which supports both stereo and surround formats, and the SE version is a streamlined version which places a lower strain on your computer’s CPU. Two, Roomworks and Roomworks SE, were first introduced with Cubase 4. It’s not that many years since Cubase’s reverb plug-ins seemed to be the butt of a fair few forum jokes, but Steinberg have made considerable progress on this front in recent years and Cubase 8 Pro boasts four decent reverbs. Revelation, Cubase’s ‘upmarket’ algorithmic reverb, isn’t the resource hog that you might expect.Ĭubase Pro 8 gives you four different reverb plug-ins to choose from, but which one should you be using?
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