CPU Efficieny/Stability Logic 10 vs Cubase 8

[ObsoleteAcc99]

Cubase for me too. I haven't used Logic since 9.1 though.

Cubase 8 is a big improvement over 7, and I'd guess efficiency is much closer to logic now. Though I only used 6.5 briefly, it wasn't very efficient on mac, and the new engine and asio guard 2 seems to work much better than how it did in 7. Also the render in place, dockable racks, improved ui etc make it feel like a more finished product.

Besides the single core overloading, Logic also has a problem with not adjusting the display to compensate for plugins on busses, which can be a problem with automation. Afaik, this is still not fixed. Cubase pdc is second to none. May not be that important to some, but I prefer to not have to worry about something like this impede my workflow or force a particular approach. I've also seen on some setups using Logic X that the GUI tends to get laggy after a while, and because of this the metering becomes pretty useless. This could have been improved with updates, I don't know, and also could be due to their setups. And the metering was never as good compared to Cubase anyway, or for that matter Pro Tools or something like Studio One. Logic probably has more interesting instruments and some nice effects, but for these reasons and also other things like chord tracks, arranger track, midi plugins, control room, drum editor, vst expression etc, it feels like a more complete (at least to me) daw. Logic X does seem to be getting some of these features now, and in all fairness there are things like render in place, which Logic has had for years.

Cubase's general layout and instruments racks etc make more sense to me, and I find that it is more logical, for lack of a better word. But this is purely a workflow thing, and initially felt even a bit confusing since I was coming from Logic.

Logic's problem with busses and pdc is just a visual one, automation still plays 100% in time, so draw it where you want it to strike in other words. Cubase PDC is the best, agreed though, Logic's is very good except for that anomaly. I don't use high latency plugins on busses, therefore, no issues

[jancivil]

Because of the OS and OSes eventually not working on new computers if you can somehow acquire an older one - I downloaded all three later than Snow Leopard to cover my bases - I would advise some consideration before buying a new Mac, instead see about an older one. IME these are VERY robust machines.
Mine is six years old now and I've given it quite some hard use, it's working great.

But this is because I think the newer the OS the slower, generally. I finally moved to 10.8.5 from SL and there are too many days I'm contemplating reverting, via my cloned drive. Dual boot and SL is _much_ snappier, and I've optimized my ML drive about to the extent you can. I can't really feasibly revert, I'm using things which can't work with SL, though.
Yosemite is to my view a crapshoot, I haven't downloaded the installer even. Depends what you use... I'm very conservative about the Mac OS. I believe they peaked with SL and it's downhill from there, frankly.

Another thing to note is DO NOT BUY THE RAM from Apple, do not heavily stock it but buy it from another vendor, they gouge the shit out of the customer here. Get the minimum and populate the MB yourself later.

[machinesworking]

In years past Cubase had huge problems with low latency settings on OSX, they fixed that recently. Logic and really all major DAWs have updates and upgrades that break or hinder multicore support, not surprised the latest version of Logic X fixes that.

I will say that both Steinberg and Apple are haphazard when it comes to bug fix updates, and you'll get these huge gaps with nothing, then a major update that fixes dozens of bugs often followed by a bugfix update, to the update........ then a year before another one. Personally I wouldn't use Cubase simply based on the way they handled acknowledged bugs by releasing a paid upgrade that fixed those bugs a few years back...

IMO anyway MOTU and Ableton tend to fix their bugs before that type of thing happens, even releasing updates to the last version after the new upgrade comes out. That's one of the reasons Live and DP get my money.

[Passing Bye]

On that note, don't miss out on Reaper either, support, reliability and stability is top notch, you get way more than you paid for, if that DAW is your cup of tea and you have time to set it up to your needs, you hit the jackpot.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

On that note, don't miss out on Reaper either, support, reliability and stability is top notch, you get way more than you paid for, if that DAW is your cup of tea and you have time to set it up to your needs, you hit the jackpot.

problem with Creaper is that it's a complete POS to use.

[Passing Bye]

On that note, don't miss out on Reaper either, support, reliability and stability is top notch, you get way more than you paid for, if that DAW is your cup of tea and you have time to set it up to your needs, you hit the jackpot.

problem with Creaper is that it's a complete POS to use.

Again it's your personal highly subjective opinion, as I said earlier, I have even worst opinion about Ableton Live, but yet, tons of people make awesome music and have amazing workflow in it, which is most important thing in the end of the day

[kbaccki]

Another thing to note is DO NOT BUY THE RAM from Apple, do not heavily stock it but buy it from another vendor, they gouge the shit out of the customer here. Get the minimum and populate the MB yourself later.

Good advice in general... unfortunately Apple changed the game on the laptop side with the Retina MBPs. Memory is now soldered to the mobo for all Crapple laptops. Yes, soldered, as in "permanently attached with solder". Want more memory? Sorry. You better have ordered the laptop that way, and pay whatever premium Crapple wants you to pay for the Privilege to Use Apple Products. Hope you didn't make a $2800 mistake. If you have an older MBP the Crucial memory works great. Upgraded three 2011 MBPs to 16GB and 400GB SSDs, no problemo.

If Crapple wants to continue down this path of planned obsolescence, disposable technology, etc. I will have to rethink the Crapple hardware thing. Maybe some generic, low-cost PC parts and a little Hackintoshery in the future, we'll see. I really only need OSX for Xcode. The latest One Port Wonder is not the sort of product direction I like to see from them. Then again, I don't spend 3 hours per day sitting in cafes updating my Facebook page, so maybe I just don't see the value of such a device... esp. one that competes directly with the Air product line, not to mention their very own tablet.

[Gagarin36]

If I would run Cubase and Logic on mac, each with several virtual instruments (e.g. Sylenth1, Spire, Massive, ...), with DAW should behave better?

I am a Cubase user on PC (build for audio production), 6 core with HT - 32 Gb DDR3 RAM - SSD system drive. Recently I've got a MacBook Pro 13' 2015 model (2.7 GHz dual core - 8 Gb RAM).
Because it's a dual core, I know it's not ideal for music production. But I want to make "easy" projects on my mac. In my opinion, Cubase 8 or 9 is pretty heavy as a program.

Is it worth to get Logic?

(The other possibility is to use Fruity Loops when it's official released for mac. To me, as program, it's less CPU demanding).

If anyone knows where to find benchmarks of these DAW's? It would be helpfull.

(I've done some research and used Geekbench in first place, but this doesn't say anything about the difference between several DAW's).

[woodsdenis]

Someone did a test when C8 came out of Mac vs PC and they were virtually the same. Logic is great but has its quirks too.

[chk071]

@ Gagarin36: IMO, you should rather pick efficient plugins, than really worry about the host performance. I don't think any of the big names really perform badly.

[incubus]

Cubase is really heavy, I just bought it. I have no clue if version 8 had the excellent bounce in place yet or not. If so, it's a breeze and will save you much grief.

[Gagarin36]

@ Gagarin36: IMO, you should rather pick efficient plugins, than really worry about the host performance. I don't think any of the big names really perform badly.

Yes, indeed. I try to use less cpu hungry plugins on my mac than on my pc. But I want to figure out if Logics footprint is as large as Cubase.

I found a topic on KVR of someone testing Logic vs Cubase 8 on his mac. They were both fairly the same in cpu-terms.
I've tested my new macbook pro with my external audio card (MOTU). The results were better, but not satisfying.

I know for sure that FL is light to run. I've thought that Logic would handle better on macs because its also made by Apple.

I will investigate this further. Will post it if I find the answer to my topic.

Thank you for your comments.

[Gagarin36]

Cubase is really heavy, I just bought it. I have no clue if version 8 had the excellent bounce in place yet or not. If so, it's a breeze and will save you much grief.

In my opinion Cubase 6 and 8 are the best versions. C8 was totally rewritten, and you can notice it. If I compare it with fruity loops then there's less going on. I can load a full Fruity loops project on my mac (Fruity loops alpha), with +20 instrument tracks. With C9 I can't hold the horses with 10 tracks playing.

If I could compare a DAW program with a backpack, then cubase is a well built inventive backpack to explore the wildest areas. But the weight is the negative result of this.

[incubus]

Well, I love cubase 9. It's very stable here, and anything I run into as far as CPU issues can easily be bounced.