Cubase SX issues

[Sascha Franck]

try turning the track monitor on then that track will play no matter what you select.

I'll try.

I was exactly the same with logic trying to setup multi out vsti's, DID MY HEAD IN, the most dumb thing I ever saw, even Fruity f**king loops had multiouts when I was using logic.

I'm not exactly happy with multi outs in Logic either, but when you think about it, it's not exactly illogical. Plus, what I really like is the fact that I can have a "multiout prepared" instrument (say, Battery or DR-008) being there as a plain stereo track as long as I don't load it into a multi out slot. Assigning proper aux objects IMO isn't that much of a pain as it first looked like. And the fact that you have to do it manually serves well in terms of keeping your mixer slick.

also the lack of mute per midi note in editors was so crappy.

This is now done brilliantly in Logic (IMO). Or better, it's brilliant since 5.5.

you will get there, there is no host that does it all
im afraid. (yet)

We'll see.
For my own stuff I'm almost sure about getting a Mac more or less soon.
But then, I need to learn SX anyways - maybe one day it will reveal some secret things that will make me love it, but so far just about everything has been WAY more complicated than in Logic.

[vic_france]

Not ideal (again), but why not assign a key command to toggle "Mixer Selection Follows Project"... at least that way you have control over it direct from the keyboard.( I've done so myself, and also for "Enable Record on Selected Track" and "Enable Solo on Selected Track", which also get on my nerves sometimes!;-)

[topaz]

i'd love to have both man.

once im settled in my new house/studio I will look into getting Logic pro and a MAC, plus a laptop with reason, then I can teach and do sessions on anything.

minus protools.

good luck Sasch,

[For my own stuff I'm almost sure about getting a Mac more or less soon.
But then, I need to learn SX anyways - maybe one day it will reveal some secret things that will make me love it, but so far just about everything has been WAY more complicated than in Logic.

[Sascha Franck]

Not ideal (again), but why not assign a key command to toggle "Mixer Selection Follows Project"... at least that way you have control over it direct from the keyboard.( I've done so myself, and also for "Enable Record on Selected Track" and "Enable Solo on Selected Track", which also get on my nerves sometimes!;-)

Yeah, good idea. But for now I'm not even thinking about modifying any key commands as the pretty much basic features (or should I say "dis-features"?) are pretty much getting in my way of workflow...

[auxbuss]

Hey Sascha,

This is amusing the heck out of me. Not that I'm laughing *at* you, just that you are experiencing a lot of things that I've been complaining about for two years now Basically stuff that was removed to make SX/Nuendo into VST.

I was planning to use the "e" button shown under the VST Instruments automation thingy track list, to bring me straight to the audio channel settings. Then I selected always on top, to get rid of at least a bit of all this tiled window madness.

Always on top is a kludge and is buggy as hell. Expect all sorts of strangeness if you use it.

But, I can't play the instrument in question anymore as soon as I press the "e" button.

I can't replicate this.

Ok, no problem (at least that's what I thought), I would just select the MIDI track again to play the instrument. But WHAT THE f**k?!? Now the MIDI channel settings will pop up, greatly replacing my VSTi audio channel window that I just brought up!!! This is SOOO CLUELESS I can't believe it.

Preferences/Editing/Mixer selection follows project. Assign a key command to it if you want to toggle this behaviour often. Oh! I see you found it.

When you turn it off, you can move through tracks in Channel Settings with the left and right cursor keys - beats the crap out of the Inspector

But uhm - isn't that extremely lame? I actually WANT my mixer to follow my arrange selections, but I don't want the audio channel "pop-up" to follow as well.

We're back to the removal of Window Layouts when you could do this sort of thing.

I really don't want to open the mixer for this as I want my arrange to stay opened at the largest size SX is allowing.

Using the Mixer is VST-think, so is becoming SX-think. It's disastrous as far as ergonomics go, but VST-users and Steinberg are wedded to the idea. Ironic considering that studio having been dumping their mixers for years

Also, the fact that this is a global setting, rather than a song only or (which would be even better) a "per popup/editor" setting is lame as well.

This is interesting. The VST crowd disliked the real Window Layouts precisely because they could be edited per project - they wanted them to be global. "I don't want to be setting up things differently in every project", they said. In fact, there are global options as well, by they didn't want to hear that. So, we get this proliferation of global settings. Boo!

Really, I'm having a tough time right now.

Wait until SX3 when you're bound to have your first experience of one of your essential features/functions being removed

also the lack of mute per midi note in editors was so crappy.

Indeed.

[Phaedo]

I'm with auxbuss on this one. Me, I'd be happy if I could press a key to
1) open up the currently selected instrument
2) navigate around the arrange window's audio channel settings.

Now, that ought not be beyond the wit of man...

[Sascha Franck]

Thanks again for your answers, Marc.
To be honest, some of your comments don't look too encouraging...

However, I got another question:
Can you route the metronome to some VSTi somehow?
It doesn't seems like, but I just HATE that audio click. It simply makes me nervous! And as I'm 100% native I really don't want to get out any of my old external MIDI devices just for that purpose.

In Logic I just cable my metronome object to any VSTi I like (I usually use something called "Clicksynth" for it or some DR-008 patch).

A drummer just today told me that if he was supposed to record with such a click he'd immediately leave the studio (after kicking the tech's ass big time of course).

Yes, I know, I could do a click track manually - but who want's to clutter up something allready cluttered even more?

In earlier versions one could allways route almost any MIDI out to "MROS" (some internal MIDI cabling, for those that don't remember) and use that as an input for other things.
Doesn't seem to exist anymore (why? It actually wasn't bad!).

[Sascha Franck]

Forget about my last post!
Someone told me I could just use any VSTi (I just had none activated, so it didn't show up as an option). Great (at least something).

[Sascha Franck]

Another issue:
The zoom function by clicking into the time lineal and dragging up/down is completely useless. The SPP will instantly be placed at the mouse position after doing so, so it makes no sense at all during playback.

Can these folks get ANYTHING ergonomical right?

[Mikael Adle]

Great to read this thread. Just found it.
I´m investigating the behaviour workflow etc. of SX/SL. (now working in Logic 5.5)

My experiences/impressions are about the same as in this thread. But still I havent tested enough to really have an own and fair impression of it.

Keep the questions coming, and I´ll be watching this thread

[cold c]

Another issue:
The zoom function by clicking into the time lineal and dragging up/down is completely useless. The SPP will instantly be placed at the mouse position after doing so, so it makes no sense at all during playback.

Can these folks get ANYTHING ergonomical right?

Try shift - clicking.

[ericj23]

the features that sx is really missing are shortcuts to the inserts sends etc, shortcuts too the currently selected vsti, the ability to open a vst but only have one of its outputs appear full size in the mixer and a currently selected track appears in editors thingie (ie you have an audio track selected and you open the mixer you want to actually see the selected track)

of course these pale into insignificance compared to the lack of delay compensation on sends or multiple outputs of vsti, the setting up of a multiple output vsti, the cludge required to play 2 vstis at the same time without the track running, the lack of midi fx (get this straight the midi processing in logic is very poor - cubase, sonar etc can do so much more), the impossibility of using plug-ins with midi outs and the frequent crashes with difficult vsti (of which cubase has almost none)

i wouldnt go near logic anymore if you paid me - and i certainly wont be paying mr jobs for the privelage

[auxbuss]

The zoom function by clicking into the time lineal and dragging up/down is completely useless. The SPP will instantly be placed at the mouse position after doing so, so it makes no sense at all during playback.

There ain't no SPP - but there is a cursor

Yup, this is badly designed. As cold c says, [Shift] overrides. However, doing it the other way - hold [Shift] to move cursor - is not ideal for a lot of post editing, or others, like myself, who do detailed audio editing with the transport running - it makes a lot of sense when you use a tablet. Thus, providing the option to allow you to do it either way is the way forward. Steinberg are not big on providing options, though, so don't hold your breath.

[christianmusicmaker]

I still use Nuendo 1 mostly, since it is far quicker for most things, until it comes to mixing, when PDC is too good to miss. Crazy, but true.

Hi auxbuss... Surely Nuendo has PDC...? Or have I misunderstood your post?

Rick1114:Coming from Tracktion, I had to adjust to the extra work involved. I assigned mouse buttons to the metronome , mixer, undo & that VST window. I usually bring up the mixer with a mouse click and find the VST's audio channel.

Some things I really miss in Tracktion, but Cubase WILL do just about everything you throw at it and is very stable for me. I really wish it had a "open 1st output only" option for VST's among some other things to make using VST's easier.

Rick1114...Just out of interest...why did you leave Tracktion for Cubase?

[Sascha Franck]

Some more things:
I open a mixer, set it to allways on top, drag it onto my second monitor.
I filter out the expanded view, to have two mixer rows fit on my screen.
Now I may not filter out the expanded view anymore to adjust some settings on a bunch of channels. After adjusting them I'd go back to "collapsed" view => the position on the screen hasn't been kept! UBERLAME!

In Logic I have two sorts of mixers, one "track mixer", actually following the track sorting in my arrange and the "environment" mixer, being freely configurable. In SX I can't configuire any mixer, everything is allways following my arange order. Needless to say: Lame!

Screensets: If they steal something off Emagic, why not just do it right?
The need to save a window layout each time you changed something is as dumb as it could get as it interrupts workflow in a serious way. In Logic I permanently switch between my arrange, mixer, editing and whatnot screensets. I size and configure them to suit my current needs. No need to save anything, things just stay the way I configured them.
In case I want something to be "saved" I just lock the screenset.
Needless to say: SX's implementation is far behind.

Tools: Why cant they just offer a setting allowing me to have a secondary tool on my mouse button, maybe triggered by the use of some modifier key? Once you worked with two tools straighly available in Logic, you will REALLY miss it in any other program not offering these things.
Also, why is there no velocity tool in Key Edit? OK, considering the current tool handling implementation it wouldn't make much sense anyways, but in Logic I allways have the straight pointer tool on my left, the velocity tool on my right mouse button. You won't believe how convenient that is! No need to point your mosue to any info line, you just drag up/down on the note you were just working on anyways and change velocity with that.


Seriously, while there's some nice technical features in SX, it's now the least program that is intuitive to work with.
Or well, maybe it *is* intuitive, but it's not ergonomic at all.

I can easily spot some trend during the last years:
- Steinberg implementing features, more features and even more features while totally losing track on anything regarding efficiency of workflow.
- Emagic catching up only slowly regarding the technical side of things while adding some functions to make working more efficient in each and every subrelease.

I usually prefer Emagics attitude because I'm not exactly after new features but after handling that makes sense. SX lacks gazillions of things regarding that.

Where's my G5?