Logic Pro X or Cubase Pro 10

[jonljacobi]

Only discovered recently Logic doesn't have basic stuff like one-click disabling an entire insert strip...the more i dig the more the price difference makes sense.

Would this be quick enough?

That’s a good one, but kind of obscure for anyone coming from other DAWs. If there’s one DAW you need to read the users guide for, it’s Logic.

Looks very intuitive to me.

How many other DAWs do something similar? I’ve seen this exact feature pointed out to new users many times. I didn’t say it was bad, just unusual. That said, a button would be more obvious and quicker.

[ians]

Just discovered the delights of using Melodyne ARA in both. Never taken much notice before, but it's a real eye opener. Implemented in different ways in Logic & Cubase but equally as good

[Sascha Franck]

How many other DAWs do something similar? I’ve seen this exact feature pointed out to new users many times. I didn’t say it was bad, just unusual. That said, a button would be more obvious and quicker.

I may agree that a channel based "plugin bypass" button might be useful for some folks, but:
1) You can just swipe over some but not all plugin on/off buttons.
2) It's a kind of "unified" approach in Logic that also works in the track list and in the mixer (you can for example swipe over your mute buttons from left to right there), which I really find to be very useful.

[jonljacobi]

I certainly wouldn't want them to remove this methodology, as I could see it being very handy if you have more than a couple of plug-ins. My sole argument is that a plug-in bypass button would be more familiar to most users. Aka, more intuitive. I'm not arguing to put one there or saying it would be better.

[v1o]

Only discovered recently Logic doesn't have basic stuff like one-click disabling an entire insert strip...the more i dig the more the price difference makes sense.

Would this be quick enough?

That’s a good one, but kind of obscure for anyone coming from other DAWs. If there’s one DAW you need to read the users guide for, it’s Logic.

Looks very intuitive to me.

How many other DAWs do something similar? I’ve seen this exact feature pointed out to new users many times. I didn’t say it was bad, just unusual. That said, a button would be more obvious and quicker.

Really you shouldn’t be comparing to other DAWs. That kinda sets you off on the wrong footing. The feature makes sense because of the way the rest of LPX works. If DAW X does it a certain way that doesn’t necessarily make it the most logical way to implement that same feature in LPX.

For example in Logic; mouse clicking with a modifier key on an insert will bypass it and selecting multiple mixer channels allows you to do group edits on channel inserts (such as inserting the same AU plugin to all currently selected channels or group bypassing inserts on a group of selected channels). The way one click disabling of channel inserts is done seems a natural extension of this. The same things can be done in Cubase but in a different way that seems less intuitive to me.

[jonljacobi]

Okay, you got me. If you’ve never seen or used another DAW, it’s perfectly intuitive. People are constantly saying there’s no way to do it because it’s so darn intuitive.

[samsam]

Steinberg got a sale on now so the Cubase folks might find it a good time to go for a paid 0.5 update.

[fastlanephil]

It’s hard to do this as an accurate poll as all those voting would need to own or be pretty familiar with both products some what current versions. Nothing new though.

I’m one of those souped up 5,1 Mac Pro/Logic users who sees the end of their computer’s usefulness coming in a few years. Even if there is a stable hack for Catalina, the CPUs are going to become dinosaurs. Hey! I’ve gotten almost five years out of this eBay frankenMac. I used an early version of Cubase on a Atari ST years ago as part of a college electronic music class in the early nineties. Perhaps it will become my future DAW if I decide it’s time to move to the PC.

[Tronam]

I don't see this with Logic, IMO being more of a niche product for Apple and not getting so much support.

The Logic team is continually optimizing and adding new features or plug-ins on a regular basis, and at no additional cost for over 5 years now. Anything that's not an iPhone could be classified as a "niche product" for Apple, but that doesn't mean their pro app groups are underperforming. Gerhard Lengling (Emagic cofounder) is still there after 17 years and continues to manage the audio division.

[Sascha Franck]

but that doesn't mean their pro app groups are underperforming.

While I may even agree on the rest of your post, the latest Logic update doesn't look like "overperforming", either - in fact it smells like pretty bad testing and/or QA. In the old Emagic days, the current version would've never been released publically (and yes, I pretty much know this for a fact).
Also, regarding improvements - hm, when looking at Cubase 10s feature set, it almost reads like my Logic wishlist. And then there's others such as Bitwig to really keep the innovation ball rolling - Logic however would score pretty bad in any "innovation pace" list. What they have mainly been doing since the event of LPX is adding "content" - and while I love free content as much as everyone else, I'd rather have them work on the core functionality. I mean, if I really need, I can purchase all the content I will ever need from 3rd party companies, but no 3rd party company will fix the zoom, beatmapping and what not issues.

[jonljacobi]

I just send in several reports to the Logic devs. It's not perfect, but it's easily as capable overall as anything else on the market and still being developed. In fact, it seems Apple has taken renewed interest in its pro stuff.

[Tronam]

but that doesn't mean their pro app groups are underperforming.

While I may even agree on the rest of your post, the latest Logic update doesn't look like "overperforming", either - in fact it smells like pretty bad testing and/or QA. In the old Emagic days, the current version would've never been released publically (and yes, I pretty much know this for a fact).
Also, regarding improvements - hm, when looking at Cubase 10s feature set, it almost reads like my Logic wishlist. And then there's others such as Bitwig to really keep the innovation ball rolling - Logic however would score pretty bad in any "innovation pace" list. What they have mainly been doing since the event of LPX is adding "content" - and while I love free content as much as everyone else, I'd rather have them work on the core functionality. I mean, if I really need, I can purchase all the content I will ever need from 3rd party companies, but no 3rd party company will fix the zoom, beatmapping and what not issues.

As someone who has been upgrading Cubase annually since 2002 it most definitely has features I'd like to see imitated, but it is no panacea of stability or timely updates and bug fixes. Their glacial development cycles often result in issues or functionality being unaddressed for years on end and I have never used a more crash prone DAW. I used to think it was an OSX issue, but when I switched back to Windows as my primary platform for about 6 years it was just as likely to randomly crash-to-desktop. I'm inclined to think at least some of them are related to the USB eLicenser key since so many of Cubase's core function calls are routed through it to make dongle emulation more difficult; It's hard to say since they're often mysteriously random, like when moving a note in the key editor or even sitting idle, but they happen just as often when simply loading a plug-in or even just deleting a track. Logic crashes are far less frequent for me, but I've never lost data due to its automatic saving and versioning. I think we've become spoiled by Logic's unconventional update cycles which bury new features and functionality into 10.x.x point releases. As an example, here we are in 10.4.5 and a feature not mentioned in the main overview headlines buried in the patch notes is hugely impactful for those of us running large templates.

Opening Project
"Only load plug-ins needed for project playback"

Track plugin chains will only load when they're activated or have MIDI/audio regions in them. This is a fantastic feature and I'd love to see all DAWs implement something like this (if they haven't already).

[Sascha Franck]

Opening Project
"Only load plug-ins needed for project playback"

Track plugin chains will only load when they're activated or have MIDI/audio regions in them. This is a fantastic feature and I'd love to see all DAWs implement something like this (if they haven't already).

Well, regarding that feature, I can say that I'm not planning to use it for myself - simply because I often walk through my tracklist with the up/down arrows. And once there's an automatically unloaded track, it will start loading plugins as soon as the track gets selected. Experienced this a bunch of times already when I simply didn't need the track.
What I will however use is the prerequisite coming along with this feature, namely the option to completely unload tracks without kicking them out (which can be done by option-clicking the tracks on/off button). Almost as fast as the automatic management (just requiring one more click) and not causing accidental track activations.
This very feature however, from all I know at least, has been part of Cubase and Studio One (and possibly some others, too) for a while already, the only difference being that Logic will do it automatically (which, as said, isn't a huge advantage for myself).

Edit: There's another disadvantage coming along with that feature. When you have, say, a plugin generating it's own playback "triggers" (such as Geist) once you start Logic, it will go silent as soon as you reload a project and there's no regions on that track. Not a big issue once you're aware of (and you can as well place an empty "fake" region onto those tracks), still perhaps mildly annoying here and there.

[jonljacobi]

My projects are nowhere near large enough to require that, but it is pretty well documented. The guy at the keynote was all over it.

[Bombadil]

I'm starting to get used to that feature. My main template opens now in about 15-20 seconds. The equivalent template in Cubase takes a couple of minutes.