Presonus Studio One 5.2 vs Cubase 11

[rardier]

I have cubase 11 pro + maschine, I just download the demo of studio one this morning
What I like on studio one vs cubase right now are:
- no dongle (I know it will change)
- no audio engine interruption when adding a new vst instrument
- virtual knob assignment to more than 1 vst parameter + xy
- splitter for parallel processing inside a track
- note repeat on keyboard
- midi keyswitch declaration
- sketchpad
- master project
- windows plugin management (by default vst windows is, not pin)
- default macro (like disable all fx)

What a like on cubase more:
- the gui
- stereo combine pan
- meter on audio track ,+ hold peak value
- stock cubase plugins (the new dynamic eq with different source for sidechain , the new delay with different fx on each repeat....)
- control room
- midi orchestral articulation


I havent test the fatchannel nor the console shaper to know if the sound is good but I also don t really use cubase channel strip.

But lol now I m bit frustrated, I m not sure if I m going to buy studio one now.

My next moov is to test live11 (merely because push2 is sexy)

I m doing beatmaking, orchestral sketching, recording and mix and sometimes music for video

So I need a "generalist" daw or a good daw combo (but I dont want to import and export track between daw), I am also lazy to do write script or macro command.

[jancivil]

One HUGE thing that Studio One does very well - compared to say Cubase or Reaper - is adding automation when you want to draw it manually.

In those other DAWs you need to either record it (then delete the points and draw from scratch) or manually find the desired parameter(s) in often huge list of all available stuff, add automation lane and edit it.

Meh. VE Pro reports the exact parameters exposed to it, which all appear in a single list per instance, to Cubase. Don't know how other hosts see it.

Not sure how 'and edit it' is undesirable.
What I do isn't going to get nailed in real time, it _is_ editing.

[jancivil]

On the Studio One side, VSL is working with them to make articulation maps more convenient than in anything else. I don't use 'em, pioneered in Cubase but keyswitches don't bother me, I don't score from Cubase. I think it's the drag and drop sorta paradigm as apparently desirable by many.

[rardier]

I m switching to studio one from cubase for the composition/recording virtual instrument part , what made me finally take the decision is that studio one is really really better with virtual instrument on the cpu ( really lower latency + more polyphony + less crash) + all i the stuff i told before (no audio engine interruption when adding a new virtual instrument track + note repeat keyboard fuction - nice for modern music with roll- ) for the midi editing and arrangement i found cubase and studio one being equal, i ll see in the future if i ll still use cubase for mixing because studio one is lacking some default basic metering+ chanel strip (you have to add them as insert ) but maybe that also why studio one is snappier in composition with virtual instruments (studio one is less beautiful/less than cubase for the eyes ,i know most of the graphic is handle by the graphic card but maybe it also has an impact on asio load..), also there are stock plugins on cubase that are dope that doesn t exist as far as i know even in third party plugins (the new dynamic eq with different sidechain source on different band) but i think if studio one is at least as good as cubase on cpu on the mixing part , studio one will cover around 95% of the mixing duties i do in cubase (cause i use a lot of 3rd party plugin)...all of my test have been made on my intel i7 6900k windows 10 workstation, i ll try to make the shoutout on my ryzen 7 4800hs laptop (just to see if cubase and studio handle amd the same way)...
Off topic: i tested ableton live 11 , could be nice but i wasn t inspired by the midi editing and mixing workflow + no control room/listen bus and the price is a bit high with push and i don t know why but i think (with no proof) that one day studio one will add a clip matrix.

[LeVzi]

Very interesting reading, when I tried to demo S1 a few years ago, I couldn't even get it to work at all, so I never got to demo it.

With that level of a broken product , didn't go well for a demo and I never bothered to try again.

But reading S1 is lighter than Cubase for CPU, and my system is currently struggling with 10.5 on heavy projects, I might demo it again, and get it working this time, to compare.

Cubase has become very bloated now, and I don't use a lot of the inbuilt features, I have 99% of it covered 3rd party.

[antic604]

S1 being much newer has some clever coding that I appreciate, like this:

[EnGee]

IMO, Studio One is winning the fight against Cubase on Windows.
I feel more organized in S1. The windows management and the mixer are not above each others! Also, the CPU and the add on mixing/mastering tools are better.

I bought Cubase and I thought there is some integration with Yamaha MODX, or there will be some integrated mappings or editing, but nothing. It's now even easier to just use MODX with other DAWs as one instrument, not a midi and audio separated!

I thought that Steinberg as a part of Yamaha for 15 years or so, it would be much easier to integrate the hardware.

Oh, the latency is also better in S1. I can use buffer 128 or 64 comfortably, while in Cubase I only can use 256! And the ever going problems with nVidia tools and driver.. No man! I'm dropping Cubase. I won't bother anymore

[LeVzi]

I finally got S1 working , it seems to force plugins to require re-authorising, which is odd, but I guess that's DAW specific.

I am going to do an A/B for Cubase 10.5 and S1 because initial tests are showing a LOT less CPU hit in S1 than Cubase. But i've not slept and tbh im not in the right mind to know if im looking at the right meters in S1

[antic604]

I finally got S1 working , it seems to force plugins to require re-authorising, which is odd, but I guess that's DAW specific.

That's weird.

[LeVzi]

I finally got S1 working , it seems to force plugins to require re-authorising, which is odd, but I guess that's DAW specific.

That's weird.

Yeah asked me to re-authorise Valhalla VRoom, which wasn't a problem. But I haven't used many others yet.

I did a quick A/B test using Aether x4 oversampling as an example.

Both DAW's ran 5 instances before hitting the performance meter max.

I dont think there's going to be much of a difference tbh. But that's one quick test, so a longer session with S1 will tell me more.

[antic604]

I did a quick A/B test using Aether x4 oversampling as an example.

Both DAW's ran 5 instances before hitting the performance meter max.

I dont think there's going to be much of a difference tbh. But that's one quick test, so a longer session with S1 will tell me more.

Well, trying one plugin even with multiple instances won't tell you a thing, especially about multi-threaded performance.

Anyway, if DSP performance advantage is what you're looking for then probably it won't be very conclusive as different DAWs might perform differetly depending on a project - in one case Cubase might be better, in other Studio One.

For me S1 > Cubase in terms of workflow, speed (of operation) and much, MUCH less clutter (but not at the expense of features I need, obviously) and I think those are ultimately more important, as you can always bounce out the stuff that's too DSP heavy

[LeVzi]

Yeah true, but a performance decrease of even 10% is massive when you are running projects really full.

I bounce stuff now, just a pain in the arse id like to avoid lol

[chk071]

Performance of Studio One and Cubase is about the same here, doing my unscientific comparisons, with Studio One beginning to crackle a bit earlier. Might be due to differences in the dropout protection thingie.

[antic604]

Might be due to differences in the dropout protection thingie.

Right! That's a very important and often misunderstood - I know from my own experience - feature, that provides separate control over controller latency and DSP available for processing. Some DAWs don't even distinguish between the two - Bitwig, Live, Reason, etc. - and those that do might do it differently, so it's important to understand it:

https://youtu.be/E964SMF6qgs

[chk071]