Re: FYI - Cubase 4 No Longer Supports DirectX Plugins

[Majken]

Alex:
A quick question - Cakewalk has stated that backwards compatibility is important. Some of the new plugins are made by third party developers. Are there any deals with these developers that gives you the source of the plugins or that states that they have to release updates to coming platforms and formats?

I'm curious since Steinberg has run into some problems when it comes to third party developers. The people who made plugins like Magneto and QuadraFuzz ain't around anymore meaning updates will not be possible.

Would this somehow be handled differently by Cakewalk?

/Majken

[mojkarma]

What a childish post!

Yep, that's me rumbled then!

"...refusing to replace damaged dongles?..."
- you cannot make general statements about this. It is handled on a per user basis.

My awareness is of schools in the UK who have had big problems with this and lost a load of their music budgets due to crass customer relations from Steinberg/Arbiter.

"...censoring critical posts on their forum?..."
- thats b..shit! There are a lot of critical posts right now on their forum. They lock posts if the discussion turns into bashing in a inproper way.

I'm thinking there of the whole debacle over whether the dongle sucks up some CPU - whole threads were being pulled down as quickly as people could start them - ... simply disappearing! Now that really was childish!

"...keeping users guessing for an age about the intel mac version?..."
- and where is the intel mac version for sonar? Steinberg said clearly that intel mac versions will come out with the release of cubase4. BTW, NI still doesn't have all their software for intelmacs. Not to mention a lot of other companies which are extremely popular on macs (Take Adobe for example).

That may be a fair point (I don't know) but my main host is Ableton Live. They had intel mac versions out within a matter of weeks, and were very clear in announcing the timescale in advance.

"...two year wait for Cubase 4 without any word from them... etc..."
- what should they say. BTW, they announced cubase 4 to be released in the 4 quartal of the year. What do you expect? A love letter every two months from them? Ask cakewalk, when will they release Sonar7 with finally half of the features cubase has on the midi side.

I imagaine that Sonar 7 will come out around next October, but I haven't bought Sonar 6 yet...! I guess that if Cakewalk break with their current development cycle they will explain why because they have good ongoing relationship with their customers, as Alex's comment in this thread well demonstrate.

My other knowledge is of course with Ableton, who announced in January this year that Live 6 would come out in Q3, which of course it did. They even flagged up some of the stuff they were working on, and have already highlighted some of the stuff going into Live 7 next year. It is certainly useful for users to know where they are headed.

"But they only tell you about all those bugs AFTER you've paid for the product, right?"

- what kind of logic is this. Bugs are getting aknowledged as the number of users rise who can find them. How can they tell you, before they find them. If you didn't buy cubase at this time, you will not what bugs are in there. Where is the difference to Sonar in this aspect?

What is needed imho is:
1) Public beta testing (as done by Ableton, Propellerhead, etc)
2) Open reporting of issues prior to purchase
3) Bug forum with public access that people can read before purchase
4) A proper demo version so that users can test it on their equipment first.

Steinberg simply fail.

To make a long story short.
Maybe the guys at Ableton are very nice and helpful and keep you informed about every single step they make. That's good.
But, on the other side, for me and a lot of other users, Ableton Live is far away from what I need in my host. It is maybe great for doing music in a specific way, but it leaves a lot to be desired if you are working in a more traditional way. I'm sure that Live is nowhere near as powerfull for example in the midiarea as is cubase (BTW, neither sonar is). It also completely lacks notation. I'm also sure that there are a lot of things missing I and a lot of other people need and use daily in our studio.
Again, it may be a great musicproduction tool, but I don't know any single studio which is based arround Live.
I do also remember, that the programmer of Tracktion (have forgotten his name) answered questions here on the forum on a daily basis. Now, those days are gone. And I think that this is true for most companies as they grow.
A few words about cakewalk. It is nice how those guys come here and answer our/your questions. But believe me, they do this every year after a new version is released. In one month, nobody from cakewalk will be here and answer you questions about sonar. Even on the sonar forum, they don't participate a lot within the time. Things of course change when a new version comes out. For me it is a marketing trick. They just learn from Steinbergs errors and try to get some customers who are frustrated with steinbergs errors. However, this is perfectly legal and a normal way how economy works.
A lot of cubase users asked for good sounding plug-ins and instruments as they are in sonar. Steinberg finally turned this into the new cubase4; they have improved the notation (BTW sonars notation is the same for I guess more than 10 years and Live misses it at all). They got what they asked for.
Steinberg made a mistake with the dx and we know it. Something similar happened to sonar6. It doesn't support session drumer 1 (a midi plug-in) anymore, because they updated it to ver.2 which is now a vst instrument. It is not the same and if you have projects with session drummer 1, they will not play in sonar6.
It is maybe a small example, but they obviously also brake things, without telling you.
So, the grass is not always greener on the other side.

[Majken]

I'm thinking there of the whole debacle over whether the dongle sucks up some CPU

Yes it does.. but no it doesn't..

It's a simple USB device meaning that whenever traffic is sent over the usb-bus some cpu cycles are "wasted". But what amount of cpu processing are we talking about here? Well see this is rather simple to test, if the dongle was stealing massive amounts of cpu one would notice it just by monitoring Cubase.

However no cpu spikes are present and when comparing cpu load playing vst-instruments to other hosts you'll find that the cpu load is virtually identical. Give or take 0.x % for the channelstrips in each host.

The whole stealing cpu thing is somewhat of a rumour started by a warez group. They claimed that their dongle emulator was alot more efficent than Cubase's dongle checkup. And it should be, they're doing it internally while Cubase is doing it externally through the usb-bus. But we're likely talking about 0.1% or something like that, it's nothing that actually matters. And you'll notice that there are no tests that actually show the dongle being a cpu hog, so just drop the subject or prove it by doing a proper test.

/Majken

[Alex Westner]

A few words about cakewalk. It is nice how those guys come here and answer our/your questions. But believe me, they do this every year after a new version is released. In one month, nobody from cakewalk will be here and answer you questions about sonar. Even on the sonar forum, they don't participate a lot within the time. Things of course change when a new version comes out. For me it is a marketing trick. They just learn from Steinbergs errors and try to get some customers who are frustrated with steinbergs errors. However, this is perfectly legal and a normal way how economy works.

It's not a conscious decision, it's just how the time goes by. When we're thick in the middle of development, we just don't have as much time to be on the forums. Once we release a product, we can take a breath and start answering questions customers have about the new release.

Steinberg made a mistake with the dx and we know it. Something similar happened to sonar6. It doesn't support session drumer 1 (a midi plug-in) anymore, because they updated it to ver.2 which is now a vst instrument. It is not the same and if you have projects with session drummer 1, they will not play in sonar6.
It is maybe a small example, but they obviously also brake things, without telling you.
So, the grass is not always greener on the other side.

Again, not quite. We discovered the Session Drummer 1 issue after we shipped the software and it's now fixed. You can contact Tech Support and they will send you an updated plug-in.

[headquest]

Maybe the guys at Ableton are very nice and helpful and keep you informed about every single step they make. That's good.

Yes, mostly. No company is perfect of course, but I'm fairly pleased with Ableton's approach...

But, on the other side, for me and a lot of other users, Ableton Live is far away from what I need in my host...

I understand your point, and the rest of your comments about that...

To put it in perspective, I have Sonar 5.2 but use it little. I would be the same with Cubase. Both those programs attempt to cover as many bases as possible, but I have a range of specialist software that for me does most tasks better than those more *general* programmes would.

For example, for notation I use Sibelius. I have a number of publications in print, and liaise with other education composers a lot. For example, I have been heavily involved in a project with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (the graded instrumental examination people) and have been exchanging Sibelius files via email with top composers most days for months now. Notation in Cubase or SONAR is simply lame by comparison, and not the professional tool I need for my work. In the same sense, I use Audition for audio editing, and it enables me to work with samples in ways that a sequencing DAW program will not.

I lkie Live a lot because as a performer I can relate to its real time emphasis. But I certainly could not use it without having Sibelius, Audition, Reason, etc to fulfil various functions. In fact, I guess I would be really stuck if I needed to find just one program that wold do everything I personally need. I guess that in the end we all choose the programs we use for a whole variety of reasons...

...but this thread is not in my view fundamentaly about choice of software. It is I think more to do with how developers communicate with customers (and the dropping of DX support by Steinberg is an object lesson in that). In my experience, Ableton and Cakewalk are both pretty good at communication compared to Steinberg. I guess that is the main point I sought to make, as have others.

There are a pile of other (technical) points that are being addressed, and there are others more qualified than me to comment, so I guess I should leave it there .

Cheers!

[ericj23]

Wow, y'all are sensitive folks, huh?

Just one more clarification from me - as another poster suggested, we're perfectly comfortable talking about bugs and issues found in our software.

• The Readme file included with SONAR 6 does list known issues we've encountered but weren't/aren't able to address.
• When we release updates, we always list all the bugs we addressed.
• Even though we don't offer technical support on our public forums, we constantly engage our customers about potential bugs in our software.

thanks alex - i do understand why people talk about cakewalks postive approach to customer care

can you confirm for me that old songs recorded in 32 bit will transfer over to being used in the 64 bit vista version - i.e all the plug-in settings etc will be read - i just mean your own plugs obviously as how 64 bit vsts work is up to the manufacturer

PS can i also repeat again that the undeniably bullying tactics used by steinberg with the vst protocol pale into insignificance compared to what apple did with AU - it doesnt make it right - but I just get annoyed by the attitude of some posters that steinborg are the worst company ever

they do make mistakes - not warning anyone about direct x removal being a very obvious one - but the notion oft found on k-v-r that they are sensless or that cubase.net is over modded or what ever else is largely baseless. What concerns me is that some people not checking things for themselves might beleive this kind of thing

[derek]

If Cakewalk decided to play Steinberg at their own game, they could withdraw the Sonitus VST effects plugs they sell and only stick to the DX versions, perhaps the same with the rgc:audio synths, etc.

well they tried just that with DXI in the beginning, didnt they?

The fact that they don't play the same game as Steinberg

...they did...

tells me that:
1) They are more interested in shaping their software to their users needs, which are diverse.
2) They believe in supporting multiple formats and being as compatible as possible with everyone else (rather than trying to bully all the other developers)

i think thats pretty naive. cakewalk in the beginning were not exactly famous for standing in line to support VST, on the contrary. they even went as far as introducing a competing standard to VSTIs, at a time when VSTIs already were fully established. they just didnt have any success with that. in short, they tried to establish a competing format, they pokered, and they lost. now sonar supports VST too, and no matter how you put it, it seems like there is some technical thing going on that makes it impossible or unrealisticly difficult to implement support for 32bit DX plugins (which just happens to mean "all DX plugins that currently exist") in a 64bit environment (which happens to be the future, sooner than you think - mark my words)

i dont even blame them, cause of course its a business disadvantage if your direct competitor is more or less "dictating the rules" because hes the one defining the standards. but such is life, and the "DX plugins cannot be made compatible with 64bit vista unless theyre updated while VSTs can" story is, to me at least, the last crippling blow to DX as audio plugin format. thats a major fuckup right there. whos to blame? dunno. surely not cakewalk, but also not steinberg...probably microsoft. yeah, lets blame microsoft, thats always fun, and they can take it ;-)

either way, a company is just a company. they need to pay their employees, and they make the business decisions that make the most sense for their company (which often happens to be stuff thats in the best interest of their customers too, and sometimes not). theyre not the international red cross, companies are all the same in that regard, including sometimes more and sometimes less activity to give the customer that warm and fuzzy "im with a nice company" feeling. but the belief in "nice companies" is naive. you might as well go out and buy an apple then, also SUCH a NICE company and they ONLY care for the customers OF COURSE...even steve said so!

:-)

Perhaps Steinberg/Yamaha want to follow the Digidesign/RTAS business model of taking control and shutting out everyone else :shrug: .

that would be a big mistake. VST has become the almighty standard it is today mostly because it was 1. introduced early on, obviously, 2. easy to manage, as in "not tightly integrated into the OS", which has turned out to be a disadvantage of DX and AU even though marketing claimed the opposite (now thats a surprise!), and most importantly 3. they made it an open format. maybe not open enough for some, but quite obviously open enough for hundreds of developers to start releasing plugins for it. oh, and 4. its the only crossplatform standard (tough luck for AU and DX there...)

if they would go all digi on us with this, im pretty sure they would loose this major advantage pretty quick.

Surely though the popularity of VST (at least up until 2.3) is that it was open, and had an approachable SDK. Since 2.4 that already seems to be changing and the swift move to 3.0 might just make VST less popular...

i doubt thats gonna happen. were talking about a wait for the SDK thats gonna take another 2 months (big deal), not about steinbergs plans to NOT release an SDK at all :-)


about the "whos gonna want 64bit anytime soon anyway" thing: seems to me like its just a question of time, really. what would be your motivation today to switch from XP to vista? fancy graphics? free betatesting for microsoft? lots of fun experimenting with a ton of 1.0 drivers for your hardware?

the biggest competition for a new microsoft OS has always been the previous one, and i doubt thats gonna be different this time. windows XP is doing the job just fine, more so than any MS product ever did before it. right now, for music production, i can only think of one single real life reason to update at some point, and that is true a complete 64bit environment with lots and lots of memory for sample libraries. so, while maybe some will happily update to vista without getting that benefit right away, im sure sooner or later everybody will want to have that benefit. and that means all current DX plugins are doomed and the question is not whether theyre gonna die, but when. sure, you can run 32bit apps in the 64bit OS. but you might as well then just not update to a 64bit OS in the first place. doesnt make any sense. the bottom line is, the next generation of computers (and thats 64bi, yes) will continue to run existing VST plugins, but not existing DX plugins. regardless of which host you use. you can argue "yeah, but before that next generation there will be another 32bit generation in between", but as i said, thats only argueing about when, not if. i already said, it remains steinbergs big mistake to forcing that transition onto its users ahead of time, but we now know that this transition is more or less unavoidable anyway, so we better all start using more VST and less DX plugins in our current projects to ensure future compability ;-)

and if DX plugs "just need to be recompiled", great. where have i heard that before... ;-)
anyway, it means youre going to have to update. you might as well then update to VST then.
its a non issue.

@alex:

why make extra treads - so tell me, whats the advantage of 64bit mixing anyway :-)

[politcat]

can you say "thank you cubase"

bloated co. like cakewalk

[Alex Westner]

Wow, y'all are sensitive folks, huh?

Just one more clarification from me - as another poster suggested, we're perfectly comfortable talking about bugs and issues found in our software.

• The Readme file included with SONAR 6 does list known issues we've encountered but weren't/aren't able to address.
• When we release updates, we always list all the bugs we addressed.
• Even though we don't offer technical support on our public forums, we constantly engage our customers about potential bugs in our software.

thanks alex - i do understand why people talk about cakewalks postive approach to customer care

can you confirm for me that old songs recorded in 32 bit will transfer over to being used in the 64 bit vista version - i.e all the plug-in settings etc will be read - i just mean your own plugs obviously as how 64 bit vsts work is up to the manufacturer

Yep - that should work fine.

[KFW]

when all the cool hardware won't run on XP anymore, everyone will move to 64bit, and the software will follow - as it has since the DOS-Windows transition.

[LoopyFruit]

So will Nuendo 4 support DirectX ……..I suppose it would be a smart move by Steinberg to keep DX in Nuendo it would widen the feature set, and it may attract some of the disillusioned SX user's not willing to upgrade to Cubase 4

[kritikon]

So will Nuendo 4 support DirectX

Unlikely. The target consumer for Nuendo and Cubase are different.

and it may attract some of the disillusioned SX user's not willing to upgrade to Cubase 4

There really won't be that many, so it's not worth their while. Once all the fuss dies down (mostly from non-Steinberg users) you'll find the number upgrading to C4 is likely to be much the same as SX2->SX3 or SX1->SX@ etc etc. There's always hoo-ha every time a new version is released...more so with Steinberg for some odd reason. And every time that same silly hoo-ha dies a death after a handful of weeks and everyone knows it's just business as usual. Every now and then a really bad version is released...everything so far points towards C4 not being one of them. VST5.0 sticks in my mind as being Steinberg's really bad one. I don't know the other hosts that well to know which particular ones they were, but I will bet alot that Logic, Sonar, Samplitude etc ad infinitum all have had one.

DOn't know why there's so much glee still from non-Steinberg users about C4...it's a non-issue and will be dead before long. Your gloating days are strictly limited...until it all starts again in a couple of years' time with C5.