Windows 11, Reaper and UAD2 Plugins VST3 mixdown issue

[eldis1981]

I am having an issue when rendering projects into a mixdown using VST3 plugins off of the UAD2 plugins, using Reaper (latest build) and Windows 11.

When I use the VST3 versions of the plugins, I render the mixdown to wav and I am getting gaps and dropouts in the waveforms, it took me awhile to pinpoint it but I was using the Harrison32C EQ as bus eq, and when I removed/disable it, the problem went away. On a whim I tried this with the VST2 original UAD2 version (even copied the settings from the disabled VST3 version) and it worked no problem.

Today I was doing a mastering project, on the master out where I run my chain in Reaper, got the same problem, using UAD2 Ampex ATR-102 VST3- did the exact same thing, copied my plugin settings, added the VST2 pasted those, removed the VST3 version, boom, gaps/dropouts in the waveform are gone.

 

[c3r1c]

Seems like you got to the bottom of the problem. You should open a ticket with UA support and let them know.

 

[eldis1981]

Seems like you got to the bottom of the problem. You should open a ticket with UA support and let them know.

Yeah I was considering that, glad I pinpointed it. I did get the 11.3 update today so I'm gonna see if the issue clears up and/or then I'll contact them if the issue remains

 

[inigokennedy]

Hey @eldis1981 great to find this thread and you are not alone. I use Reaper and a UAD-heavy chain for mastering. Since UAD as VST3 was introduced I've had the exact same experience when rendering in Reaper - thankfully noticed it before trashing too many renders. VST2 no issue. VST3 and glitches and usually in the first few seconds of a render.

I'm going to bet you are using Offline (and probably Full-speed) rendering in Reaper? A pretty strong hunch but does the glitching stop if you try Online rendering?

It bugs the heck out of me, as it's a workaround not a solution, but it definitely seems like an Offline rendering issue. Glitching happens here in *any* Offline mode and Online was the only way I could avoid the glitches. I tried various of the pertinent Reaper preferences to no avail (toggling anticipative FX processing, offline rendering state and so on, even the old UAD-1 synchronous mode option that still sits there).

For the record, UAD 11.3 makes no difference.

Very interested to hear how this progresses with UAD if you contact them.

 

[eldis1981]

Hey @eldis1981 great to find this thread and you are not alone. I use Reaper and a UAD-heavy chain for mastering. Since UAD as VST3 was introduced I've had the exact same experience when rendering in Reaper - thankfully noticed it before trashing too many renders. VST2 no issue. VST3 and glitches and usually in the first few seconds of a render.

I'm going to bet you are using Offline (and probably Full-speed) rendering in Reaper? A pretty strong hunch but does the glitching stop if you try Online rendering?

It bugs the heck out of me, as it's a workaround not a solution, but it definitely seems like an Offline rendering issue. Glitching happens here in *any* Offline mode and Online was the only way I could avoid the glitches. I tried various of the pertinent Reaper preferences to no avail (toggling anticipative FX processing, offline rendering state and so on, even the old UAD-1 synchronous mode option that still sits there).

For the record, UAD 11.3 makes no difference.

Very interested to hear how this progresses with UAD if you contact them.

I actually did try many of the other rendering options too yes. No go! I actually forgot to report to UAD, so I will do that now (I just started using VST2 plugins). Now that I have another guy experiencing the same issue though that bolsters the case. I just reported it to UAD right now, got a Support Ticket open. Stay tuned!

 

[eldis1981]

Alright I've been back and forthing with UAD on this issue and after some troubleshooting steps I seemed to be able to resolve the issue.

I have an ASUS 690Z Hero Motherboard with Thunderbolt integrated so as per their instructions I updated the BIOS (I was on the previous version) and I made sure I changed/made some option changes they instructed on the BIOS:


"Note the BIOS will revert to default settings after update. After updating, please double check these BIOS settings that have helped other users who reported improved performance afterwards.
Please note the settings below might be named differently or may not be available depending on your board.
Re-enable any global Thunderbolt Support setting
Disable IOMMU, Kernel DMA Protection
Disable Thunderbolt Security or set to lowest level
Disable DTBT Go2SX Command
Disable ASPM (Active State Power Management)
Disable PCIe Native Power Management

In Windows Power Options, check to make sure this setting is disabled:




I also did the latest update of UAD to 11.4 that just came out.

So far so good, not getting the audio gap and drop out anymore when using VST3 versions of the Plugins in Reaper.

I will report back if anything changes!

Thanks to UA Support for being diligent!

 

[eldis1981]

Hey @eldis1981 great to find this thread and you are not alone. I use Reaper and a UAD-heavy chain for mastering. Since UAD as VST3 was introduced I've had the exact same experience when rendering in Reaper - thankfully noticed it before trashing too many renders. VST2 no issue. VST3 and glitches and usually in the first few seconds of a render.

I'm going to bet you are using Offline (and probably Full-speed) rendering in Reaper? A pretty strong hunch but does the glitching stop if you try Online rendering?

It bugs the heck out of me, as it's a workaround not a solution, but it definitely seems like an Offline rendering issue. Glitching happens here in *any* Offline mode and Online was the only way I could avoid the glitches. I tried various of the pertinent Reaper preferences to no avail (toggling anticipative FX processing, offline rendering state and so on, even the old UAD-1 synchronous mode option that still sits there).

For the record, UAD 11.3 makes no difference.

Very interested to hear how this progresses with UAD if you contact them.

@inigokennedy I know you were interested in the outcome so refer to my above reply. Hit me up if you have questions or notice anything new

 

[inigokennedy]

@inigokennedy I know you were interested in the outcome so refer to my above reply. Hit me up if you have questions or notice anything new

Interesting @eldis1981 and really appreciate the follow-up here too. Curious how such low level changes *might* alter VST3 vs VST2 results. I suspect we're on different setups as it sounds like you're on Thunderbolt and I'm on PCIe with a couple of UAD-2 cards. That said, we're both running ASUS boards although mine's an older PRIME Z270M-PLUS so BIOS settings are familiar. I've always had it set up with PCIe Native Power Management disabled and ASPM disabled. Sadly, glitches in the first couple of seconds of any offline render still happens here but I've pretty much got used to rendering in online in real-time. No change with UAD 11.4 which I updated to a couple of days ago. Can't blame CrowdStrike either I wish Reaper had a render pre-roll option, that would be super useful and it has come up on the Cockos forums over the years.

 

[eldis1981]

Interesting @eldis1981 and really appreciate the follow-up here too. Curious how such low level changes *might* alter VST3 vs VST2 results. I suspect we're on different setups as it sounds like you're on Thunderbolt and I'm on PCIe with a couple of UAD-2 cards. That said, we're both running ASUS boards although mine's an older PRIME Z270M-PLUS so BIOS settings are familiar. I've always had it set up with PCIe Native Power Management disabled and ASPM disabled. Sadly, glitches in the first couple of seconds of any offline render still happens here but I've pretty much got used to rendering in online in real-time. No change with UAD 11.4 which I updated to a couple of days ago. Can't blame CrowdStrike either I wish Reaper had a render pre-roll option, that would be super useful and it has come up on the Cockos forums over the years.

Indeed, that's correct I am using an integrated Thunderbolt port on my Asus board hooked up directly to my Apollo Twin X.

Still the issue being similar is interesting even more now that our hardware is different plot thickens!

I also found you could disable Anticipative FX Processing PER TRACK on Reaper as well - maybe try turning it off on the tracks you are running UAD2 VST3 plugins on and see if the problem goes away? We had a bit of changes when I was doing that - unfortunately inconsistent until I did the above fix (10 renders in a row that sounded okay no problem!) but I did get some renders without the gaps/dropouts

 

[inigokennedy]

Indeed, that's correct I am using an integrated Thunderbolt port on my Asus board hooked up directly to my Apollo Twin X.

Still the issue being similar is interesting even more now that our hardware is different plot thickens!

I also found you could disable Anticipative FX Processing PER TRACK on Reaper as well - maybe try turning it off on the tracks you are running UAD2 VST3 plugins on and see if the problem goes away? We had a bit of changes when I was doing that - unfortunately inconsistent until I did the above fix (10 renders in a row that sounded okay no problem!) but I did get some renders without the gaps/dropouts

View attachment 19936

No joy with disabling anticipative FX (either globally in Preferences or per track). I did learn of a new Reaper rabbit hole albeit one that also didn't provide any solution; individual plugin compatibility settings via the + in the FX chain window (Hard reset on playback start, Ignore VST3 setDirty calls and so on). I've also played around with those and the FX Chain PDC settings and oversampling settings in the past. Nothing has made any concrete improvement. It seems peculiar that online render is absolutely fine yet even 1x offline render suffers the glitching. It's got to be something in the guts of VST3 and how it handles offline (this is what makes me sceptical about low level BIOS or OS suggestions since online render or regular playback is rock solid).

 

[eldis1981]

No joy with disabling anticipative FX (either globally in Preferences or per track). I did learn of a new Reaper rabbit hole albeit one that also didn't provide any solution; individual plugin compatibility settings via the + in the FX chain window (Hard reset on playback start, Ignore VST3 setDirty calls and so on). I've also played around with those and the FX Chain PDC settings and oversampling settings in the past. Nothing has made any concrete improvement. It seems peculiar that online render is absolutely fine yet even 1x offline render suffers the glitching. It's got to be something in the guts of VST3 and how it handles offline (this is what makes me sceptical about low level BIOS or OS suggestions since online render or regular playback is rock solid).

Might be your turn for a support ticket now hah!

 

[UniversalAudio]

No joy with disabling anticipative FX (either globally in Preferences or per track). I did learn of a new Reaper rabbit hole albeit one that also didn't provide any solution; individual plugin compatibility settings via the + in the FX chain window (Hard reset on playback start, Ignore VST3 setDirty calls and so on). I've also played around with those and the FX Chain PDC settings and oversampling settings in the past. Nothing has made any concrete improvement. It seems peculiar that online render is absolutely fine yet even 1x offline render suffers the glitching. It's got to be something in the guts of VST3 and how it handles offline (this is what makes me sceptical about low level BIOS or OS suggestions since online render or regular playback is rock solid).

Be sure to get a ticket open with Support, they'll have things for you to try. Go to help.uaudio.com, click on the Support bot icon in the lower right corner and type “create ticket”

 

[inigokennedy]

Might be your turn for a support ticket now hah!

Sounds like a plan. Although Reaper and its management of the VST3 suspend feature must be part of the problem. Out of curiosity I tried a similar set up in Bitwig Studio which I haven't done before (I use BWS for production vs Reaper for editing and mastering and for good reason). So, a master chain in BWS holding a bunch of UAD VST3 and then using Export Audio either real-time or offline. Faultless WAV results. I tried Bitwig's individual plugin suspend options too (trust plugin, when silent or never) and no glitches with any of those options either. Interesting. I hope your tweaks have stayed successful and I've much appreciated the interactions here.