What's up with Cubase and automation?

[incubus]

I agree that bezier curves would be really welcome.

(WARNING! This is not directed at cubase, but I cannot NOT comment)

In the year 2017 (close enough) it is shameful that this is not in every-single host.

[LawrenceF]

Is it safe to say that bezier curves is to Cubase what is different time signatures to FL Studio?

Lol. No idea.

Sometimes it's hard to know for sure what people need, and what they just want because they've seen it somewhere else. I think it's safe enough to say that the people without bezier curves for automation aren't having very much trouble making some really good music.

If I were a Cubase user I might be wishing hard for a feature or two, but not that one. If I was a Cubase user I'd take realtime FX inserts (on clips) first (or instead of) every day of the week and twice on Sunday. In the bigger picture the other thing seems much less significant to me.

[Functional]

Is it safe to say that bezier curves is to Cubase what is different time signatures to FL Studio?

Lol. No idea.

Sometimes it's hard to know for sure what people need, and what they just want because they've seen it somewhere else. I think it's safe enough to say that the people without bezier curves for automation aren't having very much trouble making some really good music.

Well, according to the rumours, Burial could make his music in single track DAW. If we assume he wasn't lying (and he has insisted that he did not lie about that), then it could be said that beyond that, we don't need more tracks.

To make "good music", you don't necessarily need even a quarter of what you feel that you need. But I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't want to give up on the tools necessarily, no matter how much someone argued that limiting your options might do wonders to your creativity.

Another thing here is that the use probably will be defined a lot with the music you're working on. If it's acoustic, bezier curves would probably be useless. But if it's electronica, you might be on completely other turf here. It's something good to keep in mind of, because a lot of the "need" part comes from what you make.

[chk071]

If a feature makes working with the DAW, or with automation easier, i'm all for it. Especially as i always found automation to be quite a tedious task, in the hosts i tried. Actually, Reaper wasn't too bad about that, IIRC.

[JonSolo]

This is a thing because it is easier than creating hundreds of points. Even if you allow Cubase to draw a "curve" (which really is just a poly-slope) each time it hits a point it changes direction and that requires fresh calculations and from experience seems to require just a little more of that precious computing power. It will keep changing direction and recalculating and computing until the "curve" is complete. With a nice bezier curve, the computing is already done in advance once till the curve ends. No additional computing required.

While much of my automation consists of directional changes specifically at a point, critical things like opening a filter can sound rather choppy if the curve is not smooth. I would rather have a true curve for those types of things (at least 30-40% of my automation would benefit from a true curve).

[LawrenceF]

Yes. All I'm really saying is that the occasional "uproar" about them seems to be out of line with their actual value comparatively speaking, to me, mmv of course.

They are handy ... but ... imo... DAW's... including Cubase... are missing a lot more useful practical things than that so I often wonder why that one thing rises to the level of being screamed about so often, and not some of the other things.

I mean, honestly, as relates to Cubase specifically, are bezier curves more important than ... say, for example... it maybe one day having unlimited sends and inserts? It wouldn't be to me. It would be way, way, way, down my list.

Otoh, I recall using Cubase 5 years ago and being able to do things that most daws still don't allow, like easily bypassing all EQ or FX automation with a single button, or similar things from it's automation control panel, or it's automation system having things like "automation fills" (range, loop, whatever), which are kinda almost nowhere. Does FL Studio or some others with Beziers do any of that stuff?

No idea. Often people only want what they see, and some other much more potentially useful things kinda go unnoticed because they just haven't seen it or had it before.

I'm actually still trying to wrap my brain around the reality that for the daw I use, which is missing a relative shit ton of potentially useful things, that when the developers ask... "What do you want the most?", the thing that rises to the top is fader undo. Out of all the various possibilities of great things to ask for, that's what users apparently want the most. I'm still wrapping my noggin' around that one.

[Functional]

They are handy ... but ... imo... DAW's... including Cubase... are missing a lot more useful practical things than that so I often wonder why that one thing rises to the level of being screamed about so often, and not some of the other things.

Want the easy explanation? Alright, here it goes.

Pick any feature you consider more useful. Then let's make an assumption that this feature gets all the attention and you get people talking about it just like about bezier curves now. Right?

So, then I come into your thread and tell you my thoughts. "I don't get it. Why is this so important to some people? I mean, yeah, this feature is useful but... I can come up with so many more practical things"

Are you catching on to me with this? Hopefully you are (by the way, I don't have a problem with anything you've said or that you've come to share your skepticism, on the contrary, it's a good thing for discussion!) It's not a very unlikely scenario. See, if you spend, say, 1/10 of the time in doing automation as another person would, you obviously wouldn't feel necessarily the same way as the other person would about features that would help you in that specific area. For these kind of reasons (this is just a very basic illustration), a lot of features are like this when discussed about their usefulness. They can truly mean the world to someone and be just "meh" to someone else.

Let's explain it in another way. I think Cubase 8.5 (version I use) has gotten all of the most crucial functions of a DAW in a very good way. Even the automation for standard stuff. The more "complete" it is, the more niche any additional features will be. I think this is partially the culprit here, because they're in a predicament where they're left in a situation where they can't easily please everyone by introducing a new feature. This time around they seemed to focus a lot on stuff that would be useful for rather fresh producers (who, for example, don't have a proper EQ like Frequency or a sampler like sampler track).

This is why I'm not saying "PLEASE GIVE US BEZIER CURVES NOW". They might as well have very good reasons why they're not implementing them. But for gods sake, let us at least know of them. I'd even accept a bad reason, just as long as it's a reason. It's better than the silence. I feel like a fool watching the "new features" lists on each release only to find out that we, once again, don't get our candy! I'm not even usually this kind of optimist, I should be always cynical about it. But I always fool myself one way or another to think about the possibility and get excited. Then let down once again.

Does FL Studio or some others with Beziers do any of that stuff?

I kind of thought that following statement from me would have made such questions redundant:

Once a DAW offers me the same functions that I like in 8.5 but also has improved automation, I'll leave Cubase behind me

I still love Cubase, from its GUI to god knows how many features that are missing from alternatives. And to me it seems like I don't need to worry anytime soon about switching DAWs.

he thing that rises to the top is fader undo.

When you scroll the mixconsole vertically, you can very easily move just a little bit above and voilá, now you changed your perfectly crafted mix. Happens rarely if ever to me, but I can understand all the noise for this. Though even if it did happen, I wouldn't care all that much. I'd just find another nice position for that fader. I guess I'm an amateur, but I think there's a lot of headroom in terms of what "sounds good". Like literally room in your head, where each of faders don't actually have a perfect position but rather a small area inside which it's gonna be great. I'll never understand some of the mixing engineers and mastering engineers I've met, but what would I know?

[LawrenceF]

Thanks.

Everything you said above makes perfect sense to me, and my comments about Beziers were generic, from seeing people screaming about them (still, threatening to leave a product just because of it actually) on the Cubase forum and in some other places, not about anything you said here.

Let me ask... if the Steinberg developers said they'd promise to give you any one (and only one) feature you wanted in the next update, what would you ask for?

[JonSolo]

Bezier curves. Why? It has almost everything else.

Here is one of my biggest gripes about this aspect. Folks have been requesting this for....wait for it....years.

Yes. Years.

What I am finding hard to grasp is that it has not been done, despite all of the fantastic things they HAVE done, why not add in this tiny detail?

The only other thing I thought Cubase was lacking was Mixer Undo. We have that. Could they not have ALSO included the bezier curves?

I think that is the reason for this discussion. It has been a simple request over MANY years.

[LawrenceF]

Thanks. There is nothing even remotely illogical about that. It makes sense.

Having said that, I haven't used Cubase for a good 5+ years but I could easily rattle of a list of similar really old FR's (like you say, many years old) so given that every product has a list like that and knowing that they always will, I was only wondering why that particular one seems to cause so much ire, that's all.

It doesn't matter though. Thanks man. Sorry for interrupting the discussion.

[jancivil]

I don't know why a 'bezier curve' is in itself a thing. It appears to come from graphics work.
Host Automation is basically where I mix. The decisions I make are not abstract, they all do something actual.

In the end, I think the issue here, so to speak of, is indeed that Cubase seems to be targeting audience such as you, who I guess would not benefit from the bezier curves in most cases. I still find it odd though, because it just doesn't seem like a feature that is truly that hard to implement. If you draw automation, Cubase will already make an estimation of whatever you draw and delete the points it considers unnecessary. This is very much how bezier curves would be implemented.

I have no idea how it would be to implement. I do expect that the PTB at Steiny have the same worldview, if you will, as I do regarding "Bezier curve" as a feature.

Beyond the abstract shapes (which I don't have much use for in CCs, let alone Host Automation), the idea of extremely fine resolution is def. not a Cubase thing, as it resolves it right away to the simplest form.

Oh, I think here is a possible misunderstanding. To elaborate, most of us fanatics who are in love with bezier curves have used FL Studio in the past. Once we switch to another DAW, we notice that automation works a lil' it different than it did in FL Studio. A lot, in fact. So we google about it and we hear the word "bezier curve". So essentially, we start calling that very feature as a "bezier curve".

What the feature is? Well, I'm not sure how high the resolution is in FL Studio, but it's not at all about the resolution. Human ears become rather insensitive to super fine changes as you know, so there's no point in having that super resolution. The actual feature works like this: between each two points in automation "clips" (as they are clips in FL Studio), another dot is automatically created which you can drag up and down. With this point you define the curve. So you want a downwards slope or upwards slope? No need to click at least 2 points or even 5 at worst (in my experience), you just click this one handy point and set it as you like.

What actually is going on the DAW itself is another thing. The bezier curve is just a representation, I highly doubt that FL Studio actually could keep it as accurate within the engine. Could be wrong, but still, that's not what I'm looking for.

So essentially this is the feature we are talking about when we mention "bezier curves".

I looked it up some time ago, it's another one of these things I kept seeing here but never before. That's more of a bezier path, vis a vis the actual maths. Yeah, I can see it reducing click amounts, now that you present it again.

I don't think of the *path* of an automation lane in terms of that level of thought, in shapes, up abstractly above the actual point A to point B discretely.
I think this has taken on a life of its own.

Also you surely realize that Cubase as identity is worlds apart from FL as identity. That could figure into the 'reasoning' of continuing to ignore it as a FR, a little, who knows. Not purely, but the kind of work can tend to be very different.

For example FL fan chk071 doesn't get why people even care about time signature at all, which we see again in this thread. Yeah, linear Musicians vs pattern-based Producers, def. diff. worldviews.

I also do a lot of selecting ranges in the audio editors rather than automate, owing to the Offline Process History (or Cubase's way of basically clip or object editing).

To be honest, I've not tried this feature yet properly despite knowing of its existence. It actually does seem super useful in some ways, but also, it only does dry/wet, which kind of limits its functionality in replacing automation completely. Perhaps I should give it a closer look and try it out on whatever I will be working after this.

I'm not sure you know what I'm talking about. Edit: there's no 'dry'.
(In the audio part editor or project window) you select the area of the piece of audio and apply processing to just that bit. Once done it can be revealed as a region in the sample editor for later visual reference, for one thing. But the Offline Process History is recorded so you can at any stage (after you've quit Cubase and come back whenever, for instance) return to it and edit it, or remove the processing, or replace it with another whole process; in this regard it's an 'object'. & so it's not tied to 'undo/redo', linear, history.
So it's not automation, I do it actually more as a commitment than OPH would seem to indicate, it's just that's so convenient, and in case you did a whole thing that later isn't fitting with the outcomes of yer later decisions.

I brought it up thinking of a number of things (more than I want to cite) I think you don't know about in Cubase that would possibly make you think, well more like a Cubase user (IE: more correctly. ).

[jancivil]

[Functional]

Thanks.

Everything you said above makes perfect sense to me, and my comments about Beziers were generic, from seeing people screaming about them (still, threatening to leave a product just because of it actually) on the Cubase forum and in some other places, not about anything you said here.

Let me ask... if the Steinberg developers said they'd promise to give you any one (and only one) feature you wanted in the next update, what would you ask for?

Some people are like that. Can't be helped.

As for your question, the reality is, that I can't come up with much more than features that have to do with automation. As I implied before, I think Cubase is just in such a good state that there's little else to nitpick about. Before, the lack of render in place utility bothered me. So now we have it and that's not a problem anymore.

Maybe if I thought hard about it, I could come up with some other features. But I doubt they are as pressing to me as this specific thing. You have to remember, my mouse has 8200 DPI. In comparison, a trackball mouse from the nineties would have a DPI of 800 or 1000. This means that my mouse, at best, is 10 times as sensitive as they are. When you turn on mouse acceleration, it becomes even more ridiculous because it kicks in almost instantly. After that you barely have to move your hand even if you had 3 screens. These mouses are sold as "gaming mouses" and there's a bit of irony there, because I doubt a single gamer out there could ever play efficiently any game where precision is needed. It also sometimes is a problem if you're adjusting a parameter and, as luck would have it, you can't use ctrl/shift for fine-adjustments or your scrollwheel. This stuff usually is importantly only with EQ's and filters, though.

Now, when I'm working actually with a lot lower DPI, it's much easier to handle automation. But it comes at the cost that everything else becomes slower. Dunno, maybe I should just get used to switching the DPI when I'm focusing on automation tasks. I just don't usually have that kind of workflow where I'm "just doing one thing". To me, it's actually hard to do so for neurological reasons. I can't use generally lower DPI because that will stress my hands.

I have no idea how it would be to implement.

Well, neither do I honestly because I don't know the specific audio engine of Cubase. Without that information, estimating the actual amount of work is simply impossible. With that knowledge, estimating it would be either hard or still impossible (because you still wouldn't have actual experience programming it). But with that being said, having bezier paths (as you'd describe them) and a function to estimate where the points should be based on the visual path seems like most logical thing to do without actually making changes to the engine otherwise. Even as of right now, you can set up radical changes in automation, so in theory it shouldn't open up more problems than there could already be. But... if doing so (making radical changes) causes problems, then it encourages people to cause more problems than Cubase encourages right now. So I dunno. If I knew more about how plugins respond to automation generally and what kind of problems it specifically can encourage, maybe it would help. But this sort of information is scattered in the obscure parts of internet, which I've not found so far it seems. Based on my DSP knowledge, I am 100 % certain that plugin automation can cause problems.

Also you surely realize that Cubase as identity is worlds apart from FL as identity. That could figure into the 'reasoning' of continuing to ignore it as a FR, a little, who knows. Not purely, but the kind of work can tend to be very different.

I suppose this isn't far fetched. I do indeed love more Cubase in its professional outlook. Not that I try to be that professional, but it's nice to work with tools that look professional, so nobody will mistake who/what is to blame for being unprofessional.

Yeah, linear Musicians vs pattern-based Producers, def. diff. worldviews.

Yeah, I agree. It's actually one thing that I really learned to love about Cubase: no more doing those patterns you do in FL or Ableton. It's not that I still dont utilize patterns; I do. But slowly moving away from the habit and Cubase really forces you to think structurally about your music from the get-go, whereas in terms of patterns such questions needn't to be asked until you're in the arrangement view. And then you're like, "oh, but how to make sense of this?"

So definitively a plus here. But at the same time, I don't think this particular thing is really that much about two worldviews. You seem to imply so, especially with what you said earlier;

I don't think of the *path* of an automation lane in terms of that level of thought, in shapes, up abstractly above the actual point A to point B discretely.

...but I'm not sure what you mean by this. All I honestly think about is just the dots. The less, the more enjoyable it is to me. There is no platonic meaning to the curves at least for me. Only thing where I know that curves ought to be super-useful (high resolution ones) are filters, especially low pass filters. Sometimes I might do that (very rarely, not enough to justify this), but most of the time I don't do anything like that. I just need sometimes (well, quite often) a bit curvature in some parts where I like to build tension or something, so that most of the change is focused on later parts of the measure or something like that.

Aside from such purposes, curves offer very little except in creative domain where you can make.. sigh, patterns of an arpeggio or something. It's really nice to work with sampled material like this too, I think. There are also tools for this, such as FilterShaper by Cableguys. But they're limited because the pattern you have there is the pattern that keeps repeating. But I guess this is exactly where you could use the audio processing instead, now to think of it. Don't like the pattern eventually? Switch it and so on.

I'm not sure you know what I'm talking about.

Oh, sorry if so. I thought you meant this feature: https://i.gyazo.com/00fba238ad8cdbad482 ... 455142.png

And I'm still thinking you mean it! I meant that the only thing you can "automate" is the "wet/dry", due to pre-xfade and post-xfade. But I've never seen that screen on the right with "final oomph". I can however access to processing history by right clicking and accessing the menu on an audio file, which I think that is. It seems useful now to think of it, I just havent ever wrapped my head around it.

[LawrenceF]

As for your question, the reality is, that I can't come up with much more than features that have to do with automation. As I implied before, I think Cubase is just in such a good state that there's little else to nitpick about. Before, the lack of render in place utility bothered me. So now we have it and that's not a problem anymore.

That's cool, thanks. That's a really good place to be in with a workstation where your wants or needs or wishes have been reduced to the level where you're largely happy except for maybe just a couple of things.

I hope they get around to doing that for you at some point. I'm sure they probably will eventually.

[Functional]

So I tried offline processing a bit, it actually was hugely useful for what I wanted to do. i got two parts in the vocals where I had to cut off ~4db just below 200hz to make it more consistent. It's actually very nice versus using EQ on all of it (mb-compressor wouldn't have also done much better there, in fact way too rarely find it useful at all) without automation. So this is nice I suppose. Gotta get used to doing that, especially with the regions (I found them!). Though this is still limited to some extent, as I use kind of weird signal chains with parallel processing + I love sending stuff on sends to keep reverb, delays etc separate and doing stuff with them sometimes possibly too.

Either way, gotta pay attention to this feature a lot more than I have in the past. It's super nice that it even remembers last settings you had.

That's cool, thanks. That's a really good place to be in with a workstation where your wants or needs or wishes have been reduced to the level where you're largely happy except for maybe just a couple of things.

I hope they get around to doing that for you at some point. I'm sure they probably will eventually.

Well, it's a double-edged sword. On the other hand, its hard to get excited over new features and releases because you're not likely going to find much use of them, even if they were good for a lot of people out there. But I guess as time goes on, I'll come with more to nitpick about.

Otherwise I agree though, it is really nice.