Cubase 8 is out!

[budweiser]

Seems it's for december 3, guys. The wait is almost over !

https://reverb.com/item/365141-schecter ... ing-bunlde

[budweiser]

^^ Helge vogt (or another steinberg rep) said they're working on it, so it's at least a work in progress, i think. Maybe for the next .5 release...

Alright. I must say I love the way the plug-in window handles in Studio One for example. Would be great if they implemented that in Cubase.

Although the daw is unusable for me (crashes & weird things), I hope they'll also have a look at sonar x2/x3 which, in my opinion, is the most elegant & usable dockable windows system on the market. Full drag n' drop (from main view to/from kontakt, to/from desktop), convenient freeze, etc. The ease of use for creating loops & export them (for example) is just unbeatable.

[Compyfox]

Seems it's for december 3, guys. The wait is almost over !

https://reverb.com/item/365141-schecter ... ing-bunlde

In big bold letters, right at the top.

Well, was to be expected. Still not impressed. And as usual, stores and beta testers "leak" before the company itself. Is that the new viral marketing these days? Word of mouth?

I really hope there will be a demo within the first 6 weeks. I'm curious after all. But whether or not I'll update personally, lies on a whole different ballpark. The features have to be "outstanding".


i.e. Wavelab offering Surround AAC export, or proper surround capabilities with WL9 (since it won't be in WL8.5 anymore - and "maybe" for WL9 - amongst other things). Then an update might be interesting.

Else, if we get another VSTi update, and one or two "overhauls" which could have been in .5 already... well... then this proves the .5 = next.0 theory. Though I like to be.... er... positively surprised.

[SJ_Digriz]

Well, was to be expected. Still not impressed. And as usual, stores and beta testers "leak" before the company itself. Is that the new viral marketing these days? Word of mouth?

It's a bit of both. I know as a beta tester of many products, you can accidently post screen shots or explanations about something peripheral, but end up revealing beta info. But, it's hard to believe that someone who is working on patches "accidently" upped a video.. although it is possible.

I really hope there will be a demo within the first 6 weeks. I'm curious after all. But whether or not I'll update personally, lies on a whole different ballpark. The features have to be "outstanding".

I don't believe they have ever had a demo that quickly. And, what constitutes "outstanding" features is a user by user thing.

Else, if we get another VSTi update, and one or two "overhauls" which could have been in .5 already... well... then this proves the .5 = next.0 theory. Though I like to be.... er... positively surprised.

I still maintain the best/least expensive way to do this is to buy C8 in Oct/Nov of next year and activate during the C8.5 grace period. That way you avoid the C8 growing pains and get C8.5 for free. And, you'll know what those "mystery" features are.

[chk071]

Wonder why every update has to be "outstanding", "awesome", or "groundbreaking" these days. They weren't in the past, it usually was a solid update, which fixes some things, and improves some other things. I think the 7 update was already pretty groundbreaking, as far as i saw feature wise. I know it's a lot of money to upgrade, but if you expect something outstanding, you will most likely be disapointed anyway, because it most probably won't be outstanding.

[Cochrane]

I hope three things in Cu8:

- they DON'T remove 32 bit version
- they DON'T remove VST 2.4 plugin support
- they DON'T remove 32 bit (VST2.x/VST3) plugin support

I hope it'll be so.

Cochrane

[lfm]

Wonder why every update has to be "outstanding", "awesome", or "groundbreaking" these days. They weren't in the past, it usually was a solid update, which fixes some things, and improves some other things. I think the 7 update was already pretty groundbreaking, as far as i saw feature wise. I know it's a lot of money to upgrade, but if you expect something outstanding, you will most likely be disapointed anyway, because it most probably won't be outstanding.

As long as it's not

"complete rewrite" = lots of bugs

it's alright to make believe why OK that 50% of new price is leaving your account - again....

They already revealed that ZeroDownTime is there on Syncrosoft - so that was a disappointment not anything bigger than that.

[Compyfox]

But this is the thing... for a "maintenance update", requesting up to 199EUR (and still not fixing everything, or leaving things behind with a .5 version), while at the frontlines insisting that the host is "the best there is" and "another game changer". This is what's not swinging with me.


I'm with Cubase for around 20 years at this point, and I jumped along as I seemed fit. But C7 was a trainwreck that made it into it's rail station after all. And instead of listening to their users, and may it only be a minority, they kept on trucking. And even made (sometimes worse) adjustments during the course of the ride.


C8 has to blow me out of the water.

Meaning:
- bugs need to be fixed once and for all
- drastic improvements and not saying "oh hey, you're on first/second gen of an i7 (Win or Mac)? You're sill on Win7? Well sucks to be you, just upgrade as we stopped support!"
- not pushing the black sheep over to the third party developers if something is not working
- ports of feature requests that are years old at this point (wow - Instrument Track 2.0 - those features were requested since their introduction in... was it C4?!)


Yes, the new mix console was something different - but it ultimately failed due to it's introduced bugs, usability "rethinking" (insert handling comes to mind, grouping comes to mind, I still miss a freeze button!) and what have you. It was in it's baby shoes - it should have been tested longer IMO, maybe in a .5 upgrade for the usual 50EUR in C6.5, or soonest in C7.5 - THEN go from there. Instead it was advertised as "the" game changer with Cubase 7. Big mistake IMO.

Then the new chord track - yes, this is actually a really cool feature. But the documentation is pretty much nonexistent (other tools like Synleor blow this feature out of the water), most of the available tutorials only show how it's working "from the start" and not from the middle of a production. If you change something in the middle - your results can be devastating. I had it several times that I only wanted to fix something in a very minimal way, it funked up the whole production. Glad that I had backups. So this function is pretty much unusable to me as well.

On that behalf, if you want to use the chord track for harmonies, VariAudio also jumps back to the "oldest" time stretching and pitch shifting modes. We will have to see if the new Celemony ARA technology SDK will be implemented into C8 or not.

Then the new ASIO Guard - yes, this can be seen as an improvement. But it's not fine tuned, the readouts are really hard to understand (due to missing markings), and if there is are unknown high loads on the meter - it's the third party developer that is at fault.

Thankfully, VST3 "somewhat" works in C7 - but since we're on VST SDK v3.7 already - I have a feeling that C8 might go a certain route, that a lot(!) of developers may not like (SDK 4 for example - will it be backwards compatible? Maybe a drop of 32bit like Logic? Nothing is known yet - in one week soonest).

Also - let's introduce the new EBU R-128 metering, and new overhauled meters in general. As AE, I do appreciate that, but you can't set reference levels (digital meter, or offline "statistics"), you can't set color codes (EBU R-128 meter) - the customization is missing (read: were cut in a lot of sections from C6 to C7). Something that is to be expected right at the start if you offer metering tools. Not only for tinkerers like me.

And while we're at new features... Instrument Track 2.0 - does that mean the old "instrument rack" is obsolete now? I'm still using it our of mere habit. Also, skin customizing for the Instrument Track 2.0 would be nice, if this is the definite future.



Of course Cubase is usable. Actually, I do prefer Cubase over Wavelab these days if it comes to montages or my current experiments in the surround realm. But there are just too many issues with it. Too many workarounds to be tackled.

But apparently, a lot of users seem to be fine with it. So the majority drowns out those that have legitimate objective/adjusted criticism. We're not enough people for Steinberg to actually take a closer look how to improve things. Our ideas/comments/reports have the lowest priority. I was told that several times. Even through Steinberg representatives (of all places!).




So... in order for me to show them my agreement and support (with positive comments, and my hard earned money), I need to be blown out of the water. Though it's kind of useless to guess on what's coming until 3rd December. Unless there is a Steinberg beta tester in here, that is allowed to breach his/her NDA. Then we can hell break loose.

Until then, it's the usual-usual. Two camps - one being happy with whatever is being thrown at them, one being disappointed and sitting on the fence.

[theoryzero]

I still maintain the best/least expensive way to do this is to buy C8 in Oct/Nov of next year and activate during the C8.5 grace period. That way you avoid the C8 growing pains and get C8.5 for free. And, you'll know what those "mystery" features are.

I guess I try to do this the absolute cheapest way, but I can see that getting the x.5 update when it comes out is probably the most solid approach as far as avoiding growing pains. I just buy the $50 upgrade to x.5 and sit and wait for the next x.0 announcement. $50 every two years to keep my Cubase license up to date. I've had my 7.5 upgrade sitting in shrink wrap since January.

[Compyfox]

How? I thought there wasn't a .5 upgrade sold boxed?
At least not here in Germany.


I always have the fear, that once I buy it through the online shop, it's automatically activated. Else I'd do that with WL8.5, as I have the suspicion that WL9 is on front doors as well. 50EUR compared to 150-200EUR is a significant difference.

[SJ_Digriz]

I still maintain the best/least expensive way to do this is to buy C8 in Oct/Nov of next year and activate during the C8.5 grace period. That way you avoid the C8 growing pains and get C8.5 for free. And, you'll know what those "mystery" features are.

I guess I try to do this the absolute cheapest way, but I can see that getting the x.5 update when it comes out is probably the most solid approach as far as avoiding growing pains. I just buy the $50 upgrade to x.5 and sit and wait for the next x.0 announcement. $50 every two years to keep my Cubase license up to date. I've had my 7.5 upgrade sitting in shrink wrap since January.

You can't skip the major release and just buy the upgrade.

[SJ_Digriz]

How? I thought there wasn't a .5 upgrade sold boxed?
At least not here in Germany.


I always have the fear, that once I buy it through the online shop, it's automatically activated. Else I'd do that with WL8.5, as I have the suspicion that WL9 is on front doors as well. 50EUR compared to 150-200EUR is a significant difference.

The activation date is the date you type the code into the dongle and tell it to go forth and synch with the intertubes.

[Compyfox]

Still hesitant about that.
Last time I bought an online key, it was already in the account and considered "activated". Granted, that was a smaller Cubase, but still.


The only hope we have, is that the "grace period thing" will actually work for a long time to come. If Steinberg locks us out, since we openly talk about "saving money" - game over.

[valerian_777]

Reading this is must say i love my free for life updates with FL Studio.

[Keith99]

I sympathise with what you say Compyfox especially with respect to the first 7.0 release as it had a lot of bugs but I do think today Cubase 7 is awesome, for me anyway. It never crashes for me and the new mixer is superb and I have not had the problems you have had with the Chord track - I find it invaluable. I think it may depend on how you use it, I may just be lucky in not using the features that cause problems but I do use it many hours every day and I am very productive with it, far more so than previous versions.

BUT I really really hope 8 has been tested more than the initial 7 release was