The Problem

I’ve been having issues with Cubase ASIO-Guard for a while. It didn’t seem to take very much to start having clicks, pops and dropouts despite my overall system performance being very good, and when I was having issues the system was pretty much idling. One factor that seems to have played a big part is the fact that certain plugins don’t seem to play well with ASIO-Guard. For example, I found UAD 1176 and UAD LA-2A compressors both caused issues.

The Solution – Disable ASIO-Guard for problematic plugins

Some third-party plug-ins (especially older ones, complex mastering tools, or those with their own internal buffering) may conflict with ASIO-Guard, causing spikes. I identified some problematic plugins simply by disabling them on a track and seeing ASIO-Guard improvements (i.e. no dropouts), which was confirmed in the Audio Performance Monitor.

So, how do you disable ASIO-Guard for specific plugins? Simply disable the feature in the VST Plugin Manager:

• Navigate to Studio > VST Plug-in Manager.

• Click the “i” icon top-right (if it’s not already active) to Show VST Plugin-Information.

• Find the problematic plug-in in the list. Disable the ASIO-Guard option for it in the information section. This forces that specific plug-in to run on the real-time path, often stabilizing the ASIO-Guard path.

Background information

Disabling ASIO-Guard for specific plug-ins is a critical optimization step because certain plug-ins can directly conflict with Cubase’s audio pre-calculation system, leading to severe audio dropouts or ASIO-Guard meter spikes.

This feature forces the problematic plug-in to operate exclusively on the real-time processing path, bypassing the ASIO-Guard buffer entirely.

ASIO-Guard is a feature designed to optimize CPU usage by splitting the workload into two paths:

• Real-Time Path (Low Latency): Used for tracks that require immediate input/output (e.g., tracks that are record-enabled, monitored, or use external effects). This uses your small audio interface buffer (e.g., 128 samples).
• ASIO-Guard Path (High Stability): Used for non-active playback tracks. It processes the audio ahead of time using a much larger buffer (the ASIO-Guard buffer), freeing up the real-time path.

As I understand it, the conflict arises when a specific plug-in is placed on a non-active track, causing it to run on the ASIO-Guard path, but it fundamentally cannot tolerate the large ASIO-Guard buffer or the nature of pre-calculation.