Cubase 5: Why I switched (headquest)

[hibidy]

you gotta go way way back for me. The year was 2003, and I made the decision to go with a REAL daw. The choices were cubase or sonar for me at that time, and I fell for the "flash" of sonar with the plug ins and all.

It didn't take long to be disgusted with sonar 3.

a. It was buggy as hell, and if you look closely, it was probably the least updated of the bunch.

b. NO METRONOME! I was told it was impossible, funny, it was introduced in the next version which was PAID.

c. Both sonar and cubase "forums" suck bad, but I just happened to be witness to the WORST thread in history.....the infamous "nuendo sound engine 20-40% better" thread. Now, the thing that REALLY got under my skin was that the cakewalk staff was busier yakking utter crap on that forum than they obviously were at fixing the product or making the hundreds of us who were pissed we paid 500 bucks for this dog!

Anyways, the crap in between that and today is not really relevant, but though I'm sure there are thousands of people who love sonar and have made allot of music with it, I couldn't, so I just stayed away I don't "love" cubase, but I've gotten so much done in the last 18 months. Maybe it was just "my time" ??

I always feel better after rating about my sonar experience

[TeeLangSun]

Sonar has a good featureset, but it really feels like a piece of shareware. Cubase feels like a much more professional effort goes into designing it. And frankly, I believe that Cubase is the most advanced sequencer of them all. It's amazing how Cubase can be so complex and powerful while remaining so intuitive that I can literally guess at how a new feature might work and actually be right about it. That's not to say that Sonar is hard to use because it's not. It's just glitchy and ugly. And it used to have a lot of problems with VST plugins. I don't know if that's still the case.

Cubase also does not have a "glitch free" audio engine, but it's far better than Sonar where it seems that anything you do will cause some disturbance in playback. I think only adding and removing plugins or changing their presets will cause a glitch in playback. Otherwise, you can work during playback in Cubase with playback moving along nice and smooth. And I don't think the full engine stop that Sonar suffers from is possible in Cubase. At least, I've never seen it happen.

[hao nao]

thanks! I do appreciate these comparisons

[searlstudio]

I started with Protools, tried Sonar for a bit, switched to Cbuase and have been here ever since. Just personal preferance but I like the flow, ease of use and MIDI features.

[dgkenney]

I started with Protools, tried Sonar for a bit, switched to Cbuase and have been here ever since. Just personal preferance but I like the flow, ease of use and MIDI features.

If you like or at least are well versed in PT, Cubase is cetainly the most comparable workflow. As others have said, during my many tries to like CW/Sonar throughout the years it always gave me a feeling of being a patchwork. But thats just my .02 - others love it and do quite well with it.

Dan

[susiwong]

Cubase also does not have a "glitch free" audio engine, but it's far better than Sonar where it seems that anything you do will cause some disturbance in playback. I think only adding and removing plugins or changing their presets will cause a glitch in playback. Otherwise, you can work during playback in Cubase with playback moving along nice and smooth.

What you're describing is due to PDC, the automatic latency compensation which arguably is one of Cubase's most wonderful features.
In the beginning I nearly got a heart attack when adding a plugin, but it worked fine. Somewhere along the line it got a lot smoother (with SX3 ? C4?).
I can't imagine those short "dropouts" when inserting a plug to ever disappear, the timing relations of all tracks have to be readjusted after all.
Being a heavy DSP card user I couldn't live without PDC anymore, especially since plugs on audio- and VSTi tracks don't increase Latency at all.
Talk about intelligent ...
Cheers,
susiwong

[Midi_Glider]

Yeah. steiny totally nailed the PDC thing down.

Got UAD, Duende, Virus Ti and some external gear all working in perfect air tight sync here...wonderful!



Best,
midi.

[headquest]

for users who have tried Sonar but prefer Cubase, what tips the balance for you?

I mentioned in my OP about not liking Sonar when I tried it, I think. The things where I think Cubase is way better (but plekase bear in mind the version of Sonar was an earlier one, not the current one) are:

* Cubase seems far more stable. Sonar was a pain in terms of audio driver problems.
* Ease of Use / workflow - far better for me in Cubase
* Sonar seems far less integrated - great features but many of them are added as plugins of tacked on as if in haste. Everything in Cubase seems properly integrated and really well thought through.
* Gui - Cubase is easier looking on the eye.
* MIDI editing and effects seem far better in Cubase too
* Score editing in Sonar is an unuseable waste of space imho. In Cubase it is actually okay

Those are the basic initial things.

[headquest]

You will find this with Cubase, it runs smoother than most other DAWs (especially with complex projects) and the workflow is just awesome! You will most likely not reach for the manual too often, even when starting out since most features are just logical. It is insanely advanced and deep, the more you get into it, the more useful stuff you will find (e.g. Arranger Track, Ruler tracks, Screensets .etc).

All proving true so far

Please ignore the sarcasm in this thread, I personally have had 0 issues with Syncrosoft drivers myself. Issues like the one you saw are most likely due to newer drivers being required or too much USB activity going on. If you find that it continues to play up, then it's probably your motherboard's way of dealing with too many USB devices. In that case I would suggest a PCI(-e) -> USB card to be used for your heaviest bandwidth USB devices.

I think the problem was with the physical USB port most likely. It's the spare one on the laptop, so it has had a lot of use for thumb drivers, plugging in cameras, etc. I think it could be slightly loose is all.

I simply do not comprehend the hostility towards Cubase on this forum, it is quite possibly the best DAW on PC and maybe even on all platforms (Logic doesn't have elastic audio or full vocal correction). Steinberg have lifted their game since Cubase 4 significantly, and the dongle is no hassle for most users (I certainly prefer it to challenge/response protection myself).

Cheers

Having been one of those people in the past, I think that as koolkeys mentioned the lack of demo is part of the issue. I had a rough time with Cubase SX1 as did some schools and friends I know. Since then - without a demo to try - I have continued to dislike it on that basis.

But obviously Cubase has changed and improved immensely. I don't think that happened all of a sudden with version 5 - there was presumably an overlap where the bad things I still thought/said about Cubase were not true of the improved versions 2, 3 and 4. Releasing a demo would be a good thing, and hopefully also fewer people would speak out of ignorance, as I did for so long.

[headquest]

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Finally as promissed, my intial thoughts and experiences as (in effect) a total newbie:

The First Hour

This was probably the most difficult first hour I have experienced with a new piece of music software. The reason is that when you install from scratch and open the programme for the first time, there is no prompt screen that takes you to your audio settings. And finding them is easier said than done. A combination of common sense plus consulting the Getting Started book that ships with Cubase led me to an audio settings panel under devices, although not before I scoured through the main Properties window to no avail. In the audio settings panel it is possible to select the soundcard, but not activate the different outputs and inputs on it. Double clicking etc has no effect here. So next it's time to consult the full 650 page manual and then phone a friend!

Guess what - instead of setting up your audio hardware in the audio hardware section, you set up your audio hardware in a window called "VST Connections". Huh? i hear you say. Sounds to me like the place where you determine where your VST folder is. But no - this is the place to activiate the different input/outputs from your soundcard. And just in case you think you are now done - you also need to visit another tab to select the output for the sample edit window and loop preview, as they are seperate.

After the first hour I was finally able to record the stereo input from my keybaord workstation. An inauspicious start!

After that...

Thankfully everything else has been really plain sailing. Cubase is actually very easy to use, far more intuitive imho than either Sonar or Reaper were, and actually almost as good as Tracktion was. The GUi has so many well-thought out elements too. I love the toolbar at the top - looks classy, is completely configurable, and once you have selected and ordered the tools you want it is a dream to use. Ditto the transport panel.

There a loads of minor refinements in Cubase that would take ages to list, but which are so handy. This is the stuff that would hugely impress any KVR user were they able to demo Cubase. One great time-saver I like is the right click tool selection instead of a huge context menu. So easy to switch from pencil to glue to scissors to mute and back again without moving the cursor up to the toolbar.

The MIDI side of things is awesome. The MIDI Modifiers and large range of MIDI effects are going to be really useful and loads of fun I think. And the editing window is great. In the Arrangement, the inline editing is the best example of this I have seen too - much easier to use than either the Sonar or Tracktion inline editing were.

Drum maps are very well done here as well, and again a lot easier to get into than Sonar I think. The new step sequencer is also very good and lots of fun, and Groove Agent One is a really good drum sampler. Nice to use that withmyh Trigger Finger controller.

Perhaps the biggest happy suprise is that my Yamaha Tyros workstation shows up, and in a MIDI track I can instantly select from its hundreds of patches without any MIDI knowledge. Fantastic! And I think that I will be using the Tyros in conjunction with my software SO MUCH more now. This for me is probably the thing that will most quickly keep me hooked to using Cubase almost exclusively.

So what's not to like?

Nothing much really. I already mentioned the initial learning curve getting stuff set up. Finding out how to do loops in the Arrangment also had me scratching my head for a short while. But is totally logical once you work it out. Also I wish that the Arrangement Window would stay maximised when you open up other panels. But these are small points.

I mentioned the issue I had with the USB key, but I can see that there are also advantagbes to this form of CP. I assume that I can also install Cubase on my son's computer for example, and just use the same key.

More thoughts later...

[fandango]

Sorry for the repost from last page, but if anyone has a yes/no for this I'd be really grateful as I tend to make up drumkits from scratch rather than use presets.

[edit - *sigh*, I'll take that as a no...]

Oh! I meant to ask this but forgot.

One of the reasons I stopped using Cubase was because it didn't support VST Note Names for drum machines like RM IV, etc.

i.e., you add a VSTi that sends note name data and the piano roll actually shows the pad names on the graphical keyboard and updates automatically as you construct a drum set from scratch.

Has this appeared in Cubase 5, or is it still missing? I looked in the product brochure PDF that's available on the C5 product page but it didn't seem to mention anything similar.

[hibidy]

HA! The learning curve get's steeper It's really good to use, yet there are so many "little bitty itsy bitsy" things to learn and store in ye ol' brain cells It's pretty deep. Still hoping to get an explanation why I have so much trouble with audio "straightening up"

@hating on cubase:

I do believe allot of that stems from the company itself. Cubase.net is a disaster mainly because it is highly unfair treatment. Definitely deity issues.....definitely.

But let's face it, the product is tits....it's almost been two years and mostly, I've been glad I made the switch

[ericj23]

I was on cubase.net yesterday and thought to myself "for the first time ever there are less complaint threads than positive ones"

I think the descision to insist on posters owning a copy (by putting their dongle number in) has really helped the place - that and a pretty stable .0 version.

In truth I just wish their was a bit less cubase 5 love - I told myself I would skip this upgrade as I really don't need any of the features. But everyone makes them sound so ... shiny

[fgimian]

headquest: A little tip, you can use the numbers on your keyboard to change tools, the number pad on the right selects markers and acts as transport. I strongly recommend you check out all the key commands, and configure some to suit your needs. I always configure Ctrl+I to Import Audio, so that I can easily import audio into the arrange page without going to the audio pool. I map Alt+E to Export Mixdown to make it easier to render out parts and so on. I personally don't use markers much at all, so I map my numberpad to screenset and mixer features which I commonly used to click for.

I agree that when Cubase starts for the first time, it's confusing where to start, they probably should have a little wizard for first run I think.

I agree completely with the comments about Sonar and REAPER, they are my thoughts also. I find Sonar's workflow confusing and the entire program does seem like a bunch of detached bits being thrown together (just an example of this is the many many GUI styles of the included plugins compared to Cubase' unified interfaces). But to each his own, as long as the music coming out is good, then who cares.

I'm glad you are liking Cubase so far though, if you have any questions, just drop them in this thread and we'll try to answer them for you

[headquest]

Cheers for that