Steinberg & Cubase, the master of dodgy business practices

[Functional]

After I saw 9.5 update notes, I was finally excited for once. Offline editing improvements? YES!

Then taking a closer look at the feature, I realized, it's not useful for me at all. It's useful for many of those who want to do non-destructive editing and that's understandable (although you can just duplicate & use lanes for that purpose, but still).

It's half-baked in a way that isn't logical. You can't have presets. You can't define fades in respect to bpm-related measures, just ms. These are extremely important features for it to be worth anything else than the non-destructive editing purpose it has. Using it in personal workflow would actually slow me down, thanks to setting up keybinds which allow me to specifically select the plugins I want to use for the purpose (+ defining region & using fade for a reverb, for example).

That got me thinking: how on earth did anyone code that and not think "gee, wouldn't it be cool to have presets in this thing?" That's not possible. Just like it's not possible to not think that undo on faders wouldn't have been crucial features from the get-go. Or how DCA's wouldn't have been important.

I'm suspecting Steinberg does it on purpose with Cubase. They release half-assed features so that they have justification for next 50-100$ update that will deal with those issues. Or when they're out of ideas, they're going to implement features that were requested for a long time, like the bezier curves that now got added. But of course, instead of actually rethinking automation and introducing automation clips, we just have now bezier curves (which do something for sure, but clips > lanes).

I'm actually going to hold off on this update and possibly the rest of them until I see Steinberg actually releasing new updates that are worth it. Not just some "we changed the UI of the following plugins", but some "we thought how to streamline the automation process and we figured that following changes were needed". Until that, I find little evidence that Steinberg cares that much about quality of Cubase as it cares about profits that can be made by releasing extremely expensive breadcrumb updates that have maybe 1-3 important features in them.

Sorry Steinberg. You win in the sense that you got me hooked into Cubase when I didn't know any better (tsk tsk Reaper) and you win in the sense that it would take me way too long to switch over and learn how to work as efficiently with Reaper as I can currently work in Cubase. But you lose in the sense that I've gotten used to how bad Cubase is after all, so I'll manage just fine.

[chk071]

Nice clickbait topic title.

[Functional]

Nice clickbait topic title.

It's honestly how I feel about Cubase. These sort of breadcrumb updates are equivalent to DLC's in games. It's dodgy and among all DAW's that I can think of, Cubase probably stands out in there. Maybe Pro-Tools has similar problems?

[chk071]

I don't fully disagree, but, it's obviously something which is quite a trend these days. The Windows 10 updates are more about new features, than fixing things now too. BUT, what is quite essential to see is that that's how the people want it nowadays. And Steinberg delivers. TBH, i'm also rather prone to update, when there is an update, and, if it brings several new things on the table, then, all the better. I decided that it's not worth it for me though, being a hobbyist, and not willing to upgrade for 50 € every year (i mean, i can't really see the difference to a subscription model, except that you're able to still use the software, when you don't upgrade), so i switched to S1 as my main host. Maybe i'll reconsider one day, but, for now, i rather stick to some "less quick" development.

[Functional]

BUT, what is quite essential to see is that that's how the people want it nowadays.

I don't think it is though. Steinberg can get away with it because switching to other daws would take so much effort at this point for anyone who has been using Cubase for years now. I tried to "get into Reaper" for few months and that didn't work, like, at all. I wasted a lot of time that could have been spent on producing music even if it was with a half-assed software.

Furthermore, I don't think it's really a thing about introducing features rather than fixing. It's introducing features that are on purpose half-baked so that you can release a new update that "introduces more features" which actually fix the half-baked features.

I'm personally going to disencourage any young producers from going into Cubase. They might ask me why I use it and I'll explain them how I'm trapped into it, but recommend them Ableton, Reaper or even Studio One (based on plenty of reviews and comparisons I've read).

(i mean, i can't really see the difference to a subscription model, except that you're able to still use the software, when you don't upgrade)

Except this model encourages the business to actually do things properly instead of holding them off as future updates. Same goes for single-pay model. What Cubase does is worse than subscription model and that's actually pretty sad.

[murnau]

Left that ship at 6.5 & never looked back.

[chk071]

I don't see this "trapped" point at all though. If you really feel like you're trapped, i'd question my own willingness of doing things slightly different. E.g., i don't really see much of a difference in the basic things in most DAW's. Especially Studio One is quite similar to Cubase in many things, while even refining some of those. Also, noone is forced to upgrade. And, i highly doubt the implementation of "half-assed features" with so many professionals working with the DAW.

[Functional]

I don't see this "trapped" point at all though. If you really feel like you're trapped, i'd question my own willingness of doing things slightly different. E.g., i don't really see much of a difference in the basic things in most DAW's.

Well, workflow-wise there's lots of differences especially if you use lot of keybindings like I do, basically my workflow is just flying around in Cubase and a bystander would have hard times following that. Achieving that in Reaper would have taken looong time. With that being said, I haven't yet considered Studio One... which I might actually have to demo and see if it's similar enough.

Thing is, I work with people and I can't necessarily afford the time spent into learning new workflow when I also need to be productive for people I work with

And, i highly doubt the implementation of "half-assed features" with so many professionals working with the DAW.

So how do you explain that they release offline processing features in 9.5 without the ability to have presets even though it was that obvious? Either they're not professionals or they are and they knew very well, but didn't include the trivial feature because they can do that in future instead.

[zvenx]

So you know Nuendo has DOP presets/favourites and I am sure at some point they will make it to Cubase.
rsp

[Functional]

So you know Nuendo has DOP presets/favourites and I am sure at some point they will make it to Cubase.
rsp

Or even better, it's going to be a feature exclusive only for Nuendo. At this point I can't actually figure out any other reason. But I'll be happy if its that way, all the less reasons to actually upgrade.

[zvenx]

I think Steinberg's bottom line will suffer extensively from you not upgrading.
Please reconsider.
rsp

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I don't fully disagree, but, it's obviously something which is quite a trend these days. The Windows 10 updates are more about new features, than fixing things now too. BUT, what is quite essential to see is that that's how the people want it nowadays.

The important distinction is that Windows updates are all now free, whereas Cubase updates cost money. I'm new to Cubase, but have followed it's development for a while and it's clear to me that Steinberg just figured instead of charging $150 for major upgrades every two years, they will charge $100 for the X upgrade and $50 for the X.5 update a year later. If they slowed things down people might feel like they're getting more with each major release, but it would take longer and cost more while Steinberg loses out on annual revenue in off years. If you look at it this way, the current approach isn't a bad compromise at all IMO.

[Romantique Tp]

Yes, x.5 updates are basically WIPs of the next version and tend to focus on feature requests. You update if you want to use these features right away instead of waiting.

OP is failing to consider that some features have to be implemented in steps. A lot of the new features after Cubase 7 couldn't be implemented elegantly using the old UI and mixer for example, such as the highly requested mixer undo. He mentioned automation clips, but Steinberg is obviously going to revamp the automation system and add bezier curves before any other enhancements because that's what the majority was asking for, on top of just making sense technically. Maybe automation clips will be coming in the future, but the number of people asking for that is relatively minuscule compared to how many people were imploring for curved automation.

[c0nan]

https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=252

[Romantique Tp]

And yes, he should have just made a feature request instead of wasting his time regurgitating all of that cynical junk.