What is wrong with Cubase?

[Obsolete462444]

Have you guys seen the latest Logic update? Just wow!

I feel like Cubase is falling behind it's traditional main competitor (I know, Mac only, but Logic serves as the direct reference for Cubase when it comes to comparing DAW features).

Do you think Steinberg will manage to do what the Logic team did and add features and workflow enhancements that are indispensable for current day music production?

It feels as if Steinberg is stuck in the 1990s / early 2000s with their approach. Cubase Sampler Track is an absolute joke for anyone working creatively with samples, Steinberg need to look at Ableton's Simpler and now Logic's Quick Sampler to see how it's done properly.

I also feel that Steinberg's UI and UX design is not up to date. For example: Groove Agent SE is quite capable, but the user interface sucks. Too many buttons in a that are not immediately self-explanatory to the user, typical 1990s Steinberg interface paradigm.

Not to mention that Logic offers much more bang for the buck (I know: Mac required) in terms of the quality and quantity of the bundled content: a huge, comprehensive sound library, comprehensive EQ with various modes and comprehensive compressor with various modes (rather than Cubase aliasing producing pseudo-vintage emulation compressor which sounds worse than many freebies).

Do you think Steinberg will embrace the modern time and make sure that Cubase remains relevant in the new decade or will Cubase fade away in the light of more innovative competitors?

[4damind]

I don't know the current popularity charts with the DAWs.
Over the years I have paid around 2000€ for updates and upgrades for Cubase. So Cubase is certainly not the cheapest DAW and the copy protection seems to be complex enough that you hear little or nothing about cracked versions. This certainly doesn't make Cubase very interesting for beginners with a very small budget.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Cubase. Cubase is used by many people around the world. Maybe Cubase is even the market leader, at least Cubase will be in the top 3.
Cubase is a very mature DAW with a lot of features (maybe the most features) and there are regular new features and updates.
But Cubase is also not bug-free and sometimes it has a life of its own...

[Bombadil]

It chokes far more easily on a Mac than Logic. I tried it a couple of years ago, and Logic out performed it easily. I have a fairly powerful iMac with 32GB RAM, so that isn't the issue. The issue is with Cubase. I won't sell it in case I ever decide to go to Windows, but I'm not there, yet.

[4damind]

I've heard so much about bugs and crashes in Logic. that even famous artists like Jarre are dissatisfied and moved to Ableton Life for a reason.
But at the end of the day, all DAWs have well-known artists who are successful in producing music.
In Germany we have a saying "das Gras des Nachbarn ist immer grüner", which surely fits best with "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"

[Bombadil]

The only crashes I've ever had with Logic were caused by Sampletank 4's botched sample location installer. I know there are some that happen when some particular key commands are toggled, or when switching something, but these have never happened to me. Once. All DAWs have bugs, Apple is maddening when it comes to not fixing long-term ones in favour of new bells and whistles, but it's fine for me. It's like driving my very own Caddy, ffs.

[Passing Bye]

I've heard so much about bugs and crashes in Logic. that even famous artists like Jarre are dissatisfied and moved to Ableton Life for a reason.
But at the end of the day, all DAWs have well-known artists who are successful in producing music.
In Germany we have a saying "das Gras des Nachbarn ist immer grüner", which surely fits best with "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"

Logic is one of the most stable DAW's out there, much stable and crash prone than Live, so that's not the reason, saw interviews with famous artist's where they talk about Live constant crashing occasions, The Chainsmokers had to redo whole thing because Live crashed on them and so on, at least when Logic crashes it have some backup autosaves you can return to.

[telecode]

I've heard so much about bugs and crashes in Logic. that even famous artists like Jarre are dissatisfied and moved to Ableton Life for a reason.
But at the end of the day, all DAWs have well-known artists who are successful in producing music.
In Germany we have a saying "das Gras des Nachbarn ist immer grüner", which surely fits best with "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"

Logic is one of the most stable DAW's out there, much stable and crash prone than Live, so that's not the reason, saw interviews with famous artist's where they talk about Live constant crashing occasions, The Chainsmokers had to redo whole thing because Live crashed on them and so on, at least when Logic crashes it have some backup autosaves you can return to.

I don't think DAW's crash per se. I think 3rd party plugins crash DAWs. (I may be wrong).

[Passing Bye]

I've heard so much about bugs and crashes in Logic. that even famous artists like Jarre are dissatisfied and moved to Ableton Life for a reason.
But at the end of the day, all DAWs have well-known artists who are successful in producing music.
In Germany we have a saying "das Gras des Nachbarn ist immer grüner", which surely fits best with "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"

Logic is one of the most stable DAW's out there, much stable and crash prone than Live, so that's not the reason, saw interviews with famous artist's where they talk about Live constant crashing occasions, The Chainsmokers had to redo whole thing because Live crashed on them and so on, at least when Logic crashes it have some backup autosaves you can return to.

I don't think DAW's crash per se. I think 3rd party plugins crash DAWs. (I may be wrong).

Both can be culprits, more often 3rd party plugins tho, sometimes some DAW features or combination of actions, Live for example crashes most often when you have demanding projects and you add another instance, that's usually by the end where you have lot off going on.

[Obsolete462444]

Cubase and Logic are both quite stable in my experience - that's not the actual issue here.

The issue is that Cubase is slowly, but surely becoming outdated, while Apple keeps adding features to Logic that keep it relevant for modern production workflows. It seems the Logic team has a far better understanding of what users want today and how they typically work, than the Cubase team.

Not to mention that Logic offers a better UI and UX overall (even if some don't like the latest GUI changes). In direct comparision Logic offers all the features that Cubase has + more + better / more bundled content and a better user experience (cleaner interface, newer devices such as the Sampler and Quick Sampler are designed with the workflow needs of the user taken into consideration, which is not true for most of Cubase built in devices).

Cubase is on the verge of becoming irrelevant if they continue this path.

[Passing Bye]

Cubase is on the verge of becoming irrelevant if they continue this path.

Maybe for new growing market of beat makers, hobbyist and similar, but it's still quite relevant for studios and professionals that rely on his advanced features, which most of the competition isn't carrying about at all.

In direct comparision Logic offers all the features that Cubase has

It doesn't, also some features are better implemented and taught out in Cubase, which led to be de facto in some circles.

[chk071]

Cubase is on the verge of becoming irrelevant if they continue this path.

Maybe for new growing market of beat makers, hobbyist and similar, but it's still quite relevant for studios and professionals that rely on his advanced features, which most of the competition isn't carrying about at all.

Dunno if it even becomes irrelevant for the beat maker and hobbists. Especially those want the "hottest shit", and, Cubase is one of those evergreens, popular softwares, just like Sylenth1, which every produzah who makes the fat beatz wants to have.

I really wonder where some people always pull stuff like that from, when they don't even know. Steinberg is NOT doing badly, and, there's nothing wrong with Cubase either.

[Obsolete462444]

Dunno if it even becomes irrelevant for the beat maker and hobbists. Especially those want the hottest shit, and, Cubase is one of those evergreens, popular softwares, just like Sylenth1, which every produzah who makes the fat beatz wants to have.

I really wonder where some people always pull stuff like that from, when they don't even know. Steinberg is NOT doing badly, and, there's nothing wrong with Cubase either.

Nice cliches you present here about the beatmaker subculture. It seems you have some kind of aversion or jealousy going on here?

Nobody said anything about Steinberg doing badly at this stage. Also, I did not say that there is anything wrong with Cubase either. Cubase has a quite comprehensive feature set and I rate Cubase overall as the top DAW. But prospectively - that's my impression as a 20+ years Cubase user and supporter - Cubase is slowly falling behind the curve, especially compared to it's closest competitors Logic and Studio One. I'm not saying this out of disrespect for Steinberg, on the contrary - I just wish that my main DAW since I started making music to remain relevant, but have realised on multiple ocassions that the Steinberg guys are really a bit anachronistic and out of tune with modern workflows (as mentioned before).

Take Groove Agent 5 SE for example - really capable drum sampler, but the user interface has that typical Steinberg 1998 look with strange buttons and is very clunky to operate.

Totally different experience when working with Simpler and Drum Racks in Ableton. Once you work with other DAWs and see how they implement the same function in a much more straightforward manner, you come to the conclusion that the team behind Cubase does not really grasp how people like to work in a DAW.

They still follow 1990s paradigms regarding operation, which I guess is fine with many of their traditional users beyond the age of 50, who are used to this style of working and consider it a revelation compared to their pre-DAW days, when they still had to cut actual analog tape manually. But my reference for comparing the ability of a DAW are not those days, but the current state of the art!

If you can design an interface that grant direct overview and access to the crucial parameters and doesn't require you to learn the meaning of various obscure buttons to fiddle with dozens of sub-menus than I consider this superior from a UI and UX perspective - which is what matters after all when working with any software.

It probably doesn't matter for you, since you (and many other Cubase users) would not use such features as the one that the recent Logic update implemented anyway, since you are not accustomed to modern compositional workflows* or have no need for them (which is totally fine). But don't try to portray those who wish to see Cubase progress as idiots. I believe it's important that users are not just fanboys, but critical examiner of their tools who report back critical feedback to the developers. Ableton and Logic have implemented a lot of improvements based on critical feedback they received from their user base. Cubase guys can do the same.

*for example: creative and straightforward work with sample material

[chk071]

Dunno if it even becomes irrelevant for the beat maker and hobbists. Especially those want the hottest shit, and, Cubase is one of those evergreens, popular softwares, just like Sylenth1, which every produzah who makes the fat beatz wants to have.

I really wonder where some people always pull stuff like that from, when they don't even know. Steinberg is NOT doing badly, and, there's nothing wrong with Cubase either.

Nice cliches you present here about the beatmaker subculture. It seems you have some kind of aversion or jealousy going on here?

No. I just know how some peeople work out there.

[Passing Bye]

It probably doesn't matter for you, since you (and many other Cubase users) would not use such features as the one that the recent Logic update implemented anyway, since you are not accustomed to modern compositional workflows* or have no need for them (which is totally fine). But don't try to portray those who wish to see Cubase progress as idiots. I believe it's important that users are not just fanboys, but critical examiner of their tools who report back critical feedback to the developers. Ableton and Logic have implemented a lot of improvements based on critical feedback they received from their user base. Cubase guys can do the same.

Agree with you on that, actually made similar comment before in this thread, I think Steinberg started thinking and working in that direction, this move by Apple will for sure inspire them further, I doubt they want to become anything like Pro Tools who is proudly DAW for engineers, seriously doubt they will go all in trying to win over some Live/Bitwig/FL crowd, but I have a good feeling they will stay competitive for long time.

[Googly Smythe]

I've just got to the point where I can no longer put up with 10.5 interface and interface-related bugs. For the umpteenth time, Cubase has forgotten my interface colours. Loading a saved preset has minimal effect. I deleted the User settings several times, but, no good. This morning, when I selected 2 or more items (parts, notes, etc) the info bar was blank, select the one item, the info appears. What with the toolbar changes and the ginormous transport toolbar, I'm going back to 9.5.
11.0 will have to be a stonkingly good update if Steinberg wants my cash.
And I speak as someone who has used Cubase exclusively since 1993.