I have uninstalled this latest driver and gone back to the old one which works fine!

Updates are not always worth doing!

You take that back! 🙂

Of course they are, but you must do them properly - nothing is foolproof, however. While it is very true that websites can have incorrect links and down right errors, overall, staying up to date is well worth the effort.

A couple of things:
Hooking music electronics to computers requires attention to detail. Operating system version, firmware versions, etc.,etc. you must be precise and match version numbers to what you have...

First: There is no such thing as a "Steinberg USB driver", perhaps you mean the "Yamaha Steinberg USB driver".
Second: when installed and selected the driver does not use the computer's sound system (in fact, it cannot when selected)

So please let us know the URL where you found that driver, and we'll have some one check it out, it is possible it is incorrect data. How did you enter the download page?

But you say when using it, sound goes to your PC speakers, can you post a screen shot of that selection?

https://usa.yamaha.com/support/updates/index.html?c=music_production&k=montage still doesn't have an active link for the latest driver. This is a website bug that needs to be fixed - it has been brought up in another thread by another user and cross-confirmed. Still broken.

So, instead, I use: https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/downloads_hardware/yamaha_steinberg_usb_driver.html

I ran "setup.exe" - it asked if I trusted it - I answered yes. Then it complained about the old driver being installed and told me to uninstall it.

So (Windows 10) I selected "Add or Remove Programs" from the windows start menu.

Searched for "Yamaha" and picked the Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver to uninstall.

This then requires a reboot so I can't finish this message.

I'm going to stay away from that upgrade. Everything's working fine with the current version.

Maybe I'll decide to upgrade once I see a significant number of reports that people succeeded with it.

I haven't had a chance to finish the process because I reboot infrequently - I'm taking the opportunity to update BIOS and all kinds of things that are waiting in the wings of this reboot. I'll update the rest of the experience when I get back to it. Kind of in limbo information-wise at the moment.

One item I'm fond of is a release note about fixing extraneous noises under certain situations. I'm wondering if some of my pops and crackles (digital distortion) will go away with the driver. I do know the usual suspects of this class of noise - usually the driver is not implicated as much as CPU load (relative to capacity), other resource consumption (memory, OS resources), buffer size, etc. But I can dream. I do generally have a fairly high load in terms of resource/memory and rarely CPU cycles - so I suspect the environment more than the driver.

I did notice the default audio output changed to Montage's line in. Which will send all your beeps and bleeps of the OS out your keyboard and to the connected Main L&R speakers/monitors. It's easy to reconfigure back. Not sure if this is any part of the experience the OP is referencing. Really, I have no real info yet not having loaded Cubase to mill around post-update.

... resuming.

After a reboot or two - I came back and installed the Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver (from YSUSB_V1910-2_Win.zip) this time with no complaints and also no message needing to reboot.

So next I launched Cubase 9 - and selected the "Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO" vs. the "Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver".

I created an empty project.

I added a VST track (HS SE Library, [GM 005] Electric Piano 1). This defaults the input to "All MIDI Inputs" which works fine under this situation.

Mashing down keys on Montage, I heard the sound of the VSTi coming from my Montage-connected monitors, not my PC speakers. So I am not able to replicate your experience off the bat here.

To prevent from hearing the loaded performance from "playing" at the same time as the VSTi - I chose to use the profile "MIDI Rec On DAW" from the [UTILITY] / Quick Setup menu. It's one of a ton of ways to do this. I could have use Mute on the PARTs, or turned off the tone generator, or ...

I also changed the default audio output (in Windows) from "Montage Line" to my audio card in the PC. This is to prevent system beeps and blops and presentation audio from routing out to Montage. I just like to keep this stuff at low res using tiny tin-can speakers.

The virtual instrument is responsive and I haven't heard a glitch from it yet. Takes more than cursory use to iron out if things are better or not.

Under Cubase VST Connections (under the "Devices" menu) - I see under the "Output" tab that the "Audio Device" is properly set to "Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO" and the "Device Port" is set to "Main L" and "Main R" for the stereo out "Left" and "Right", respectively.

Perhaps if you choose to use a different driver (the generic one) your audio will route out your PC speakers. Not sure.

For grins, go to cubase "Devices" -> "Device Setup ..." menu, go to "VST Audio System" and check to see if the ASIO driver (first line on right hand side under "VST Audio System" in big font) is set to the right setting. This would be "Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO".

I noticed I can get latency under 6msec when setting the buffer size to 64. I had set it low before (512 samples) - not sure if this was the min before or now if the min is lower. Or maybe I had problems at low buffer sizes and settled at 512. I've set it to 64 for now for quick response but may revert back to something higher. 192 samples brings me under 10msec. Pretty darn instant. EDIT: right, 64 doesn't cut it. Doing a "mash down as many keys as possible to stress the system" test, I get digital noise (static burst at times). Increase the buffer size to 192 from 64 and it seems like the problem has gone away. This is all expected stuff.

Mill around these settings here and make sure the USB Main L and R (in and out) are active/visible. I have most settings in this area set to default. "Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO" and the "Control Panel" button is the shortcut to change the driver's buffer size. There are other ways to get there using the OS (Control Panel -> Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver).