Beginner - Cubase or Reaper?

[jancivil]

collection of Cubase shortkeys with examples, http://soundpeaks.net/blog/cubase-hotkeys-with-examples, if somebody missed and/or beginner

Brill. t.y.

[greddin]

Thanks for everyone's responses!

Now I'm torn between Cubase Elements and Studio One Artist.

When someone says the MIDI editor in Cubase is better what can it do that the Studio One MIDI editor can't? Also, when someone says the workflow is better in Studio One how is it better?

Thanks!

[e@rs]

Workflow: in Studio One everything is where I expect it to be, in Cubase I have to search for it and usually find it in a strange place.

[Rockatansky]

For me, it's the other way round. I have both Cubase and Studio One, legit licenses, and I never use them, only for compatibility testing or to check on 'how to' something. They're both heavyweight, slow and cludgy to me. Constant worries about track types and routing, constant worries about selected mouse tools and 'does my version support this feature'. Reaper on the other hand opens up in a fragment of the time, doesn't require you to create named projects in folders before it allows you to do anything, and everything is just where I expect it to be. It has all the basic tools you need in sufficient quality, and it just makes sense. People who can't make sense of Reaper are usually (!) either resistant to learning its workflow because they already spent half their productive lives using another DAW, and they just don't feel like putting in the time required to learn the intricacies of a new tool, or they went into the experience expecting something negative and disappointing to start with, and thereby turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The myth of the 'steep learning curve' and 'bad MIDI editing' comes from about a decade ago, when people who had been using other software checked it out and couldn't figure it out. Reaper is used to produce award-winning music, it's used to create sounds and soundtracks for current video games, it will happily let you create anything from voice-overs to hybrid software/real-world instrument projects and even full-blown orchestra recordings with weird microphone constellations and channel counts in the hundreds (if you have the interface for it). Which is not something the affordable versions of Cubase or Studio One let you do. Since MIDI is so often mentioned as a problem: having zero MIDI issues here, never had any, not when sending it out to trigger hardware, not when recording it to trigger software, not when clicking it together in the editor. You'll have a hard time finding an equally useful and flexible DAW - but you'll have to learn to live with its weird looks (even the themes are usually shite) and the incessant flood of disbelief and/or snide remarks by fellow music makers. It's like a pair of shoes, not every pair fits everyone, and not everyone will lose their ability to walk if they wear a pair that doesn't fit them. But if you find that one pair... that ONE pair... you'll wonder how you've every managed to walk in any other pair. Since Reaper has a very permissive demo restriction (you can just keep clicking the nag screen away after it's expired, this is intentional) I would recommend that you give it a try first, and see what about it you don't like, before you pick another pair of shoes that costs a lot more and looks a bit flashier, but maybe doesn't fit you as well after all, just because someone told you they like it more than Reaper. If you find anything about Reaper that doesn't 'work' for you, at least you'll know what you're looking for in a replacement DAW and you won't have lost any money in finding that out.

[jancivil]

"People who can't make sense of Reaper are usually (!) either resistant to learning its workflow because they already spent half their productive lives using another DAW, and they just don't feel like putting in the time required to learn the intricacies of a new tool, or..."

Or... more storytelling. Me, I have better things to do with my time than "make sense of" REAPER, like make music.
I'd rather do a whole lot of things than deal with that. I suggest to you this preference is not necessarily because people *can't*; and one supposes from your very construction there that REAPER needs to be made sense of in a way not everything does, and that you know this.

I don't get why one has to be this patronizing about a choice of DAW. Extreme fanboism, isn't it.

[Trensharo]

Thanks for everyone's responses!

Now I'm torn between Cubase Elements and Studio One Artist.

When someone says the MIDI editor in Cubase is better what can it do that the Studio One MIDI editor can't? Also, when someone says the workflow is better in Studio One how is it better?

Thanks!

Studio One Artist is better package than Cubase Elements. Only get Cubase Elements if you see yourself going to Cubase Artist or Pro alter on.

Otherwise, Studio One Artist is going to serve you well, with fewer limitations and the ability to install on multiple machines (no eLCC or Dongle).

Also consider Cakewalk by BandLab (nee SONAR) if you're on Windows. I don't see a point using a limited SKU of Cubase or Studio One over that, frankly, especially if you aren't being gifted the license for free. Too lazy to read the entire thread to find that information - assuming it exists I'm on a backwards schedule, and very tired

[Trensharo]

For me, it's the other way round. I have both Cubase and Studio One, legit licenses, and I never use them, only for compatibility testing or to check on 'how to' something. They're both heavyweight, slow and cludgy to me. Constant worries about track types and routing, constant worries about selected mouse tools and 'does my version support this feature'. Reaper on the other hand opens up in a fragment of the time, doesn't require you to create named projects in folders before it allows you to do anything, and everything is just where I expect it to be. It has all the basic tools you need in sufficient quality, and it just makes sense. People who can't make sense of Reaper are usually (!) either resistant to learning its workflow because they already spent half their productive lives using another DAW, and they just don't feel like putting in the time required to learn the intricacies of a new tool, or they went into the experience expecting something negative and disappointing to start with, and thereby turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The myth of the 'steep learning curve' and 'bad MIDI editing' comes from about a decade ago, when people who had been using other software checked it out and couldn't figure it out. Reaper is used to produce award-winning music, it's used to create sounds and soundtracks for current video games, it will happily let you create anything from voice-overs to hybrid software/real-world instrument projects and even full-blown orchestra recordings with weird microphone constellations and channel counts in the hundreds (if you have the interface for it). Which is not something the affordable versions of Cubase or Studio One let you do. Since MIDI is so often mentioned as a problem: having zero MIDI issues here, never had any, not when sending it out to trigger hardware, not when recording it to trigger software, not when clicking it together in the editor. You'll have a hard time finding an equally useful and flexible DAW - but you'll have to learn to live with its weird looks (even the themes are usually shite) and the incessant flood of disbelief and/or snide remarks by fellow music makers. It's like a pair of shoes, not every pair fits everyone, and not everyone will lose their ability to walk if they wear a pair that doesn't fit them. But if you find that one pair... that ONE pair... you'll wonder how you've every managed to walk in any other pair. Since Reaper has a very permissive demo restriction (you can just keep clicking the nag screen away after it's expired, this is intentional) I would recommend that you give it a try first, and see what about it you don't like, before you pick another pair of shoes that costs a lot more and looks a bit flashier, but maybe doesn't fit you as well after all, just because someone told you they like it more than Reaper. If you find anything about Reaper that doesn't 'work' for you, at least you'll know what you're looking for in a replacement DAW and you won't have lost any money in finding that out.

Literal wall of text. Do you actually expect people to read that?

And if you find Cubase "slow" and "bloated" then you have to be running on a turtle, because that's just not my experience - on my Desktop or Laptop. I can name some DAWs that absolutely do feel sluggish, like Samplitude Pro X, but Cubase is not one of them.

If you have a turtle PC, then REAPER is definitely the optimal choice for you.

Personally, I find it demotivating software to look at, and use. I used to be a tinnkerer back when I was a ComSci undergrad, but times have changed. I'd rather spend my time doing more productive things than "making my DAW usable."

And I really can't stand looking at REAPER. The most offensive parts of it aren't themeable, so that isn't even a solution (it just makes the UI/UX even MORE inconsistent, which increases the ugly factor).

[Trensharo]

Workflow: in Studio One everything is where I expect it to be, in Cubase I have to search for it and usually find it in a strange place.

Everything is strange when it's new. To people who are well versed in Cubase, it's perfectly intuitive, like driving on the opposite side of the road in other countries

[e@rs]

Everything is strange when it's new.

Not Studio One. After spending 1 hour with the demo of V1, I knew it's the one for me.

And... I was using Cubase and Live before demoing Studio One.

[auron]

The whole discussion about whether Reaper is better or not always reminds the PC nerds, it's exactly the same. The PC nerds and Reaper fanboys simply cannot accept that there are "normal musicians" who do not want to tinker with the DAW or operating system until you bite into the table. The "normal musician" wants to open the DAW where most of it is available to record and edit and then make music and not stand in front of a construction site. And yes, there are people who don't like a DAW with a Windows 98 look just like I don't like the look of different cars, for whatever reason. Even if you can give Reaper different themes, something is not displayed correctly and you return to the standard Cockos theme. I guess the discussion will go on forever whether Reaper yes or no, but I would still name Bandlab as a good free DAW.

[andypryce]

I'd rather do a whole lot of things than deal with that. I suggest to you this preference is not necessarily because people *can't*; and one supposes from your very construction there that REAPER needs to be made sense of in a way not everything does, and that you know this.

I don't get why one has to be this patronizing about a choice of DAW. Extreme fanboism, isn't it.

+1
Aside from professional work, trying out or working in multiple DAWs is my hobby. I more or less get going on in every one of them in a short period of time inc. Logic, Cubase , Bitwig, FL, Live and the fastest being Studio one. Studio One feels like it is reading your mind. Everything makes so much sense.
But Reaper, no way. Just can not pass that first barrier no matter how many times I have tried. Not for me.

[jancivil]

"Reaper on the other hand opens up in a fragment of the time, doesn't require you to create named projects in folders before it allows you to do anything,"

You mentioned Cubase and then said that.
Its default behavior is it will create a default folder in a default kind of a location (eg., "Music" here) and you can just click 'create project' from here. And this is so basic...
Cubase opens in a few seconds here, let me look: yeah so including checking the dongle for the license, 6 seconds. Like the other guy said, REAPER def is a better thing for an older slower machine, it is lighter weight.

Anyway, my real interest there is in this implied argument, which I find strange: Constant worries about track types and routing.
So you and numerous others I've seen like the fact REAPER confounds (initially I wrote 'conflates', but 'confounds' better captures it) all track types into one thing. Here's why this is not a superior thing in a DAW: A MIDI track does not create audio. A MIDI track proper functions to send data to an instrument.
Its consequent instrument channel is an audio track essentially. So treating MIDI as MIDI and using CC7 to send volume to the instrument is sending the amount of energy in its volume data to an instrument where the instrument produces audio, right? If you confound that volume with its consequent volume, if you want the instrument lower in the mix you have less energy going to the instrument. If you want a full dynamic of the instrument, you've limited yourself, in a non-trivial way. IE., you want the full effect of whatever is in the instrument at CC7 = 127 for that sound, but you want it back in the mix. And you can't have both. Logic does the same trick, I'm mystified by people wanting it. (BTW: I know the kludge workaround already (cf., pre-fader), just another part of why people prefer something working like normal to begin with. It's like calling a MIDI port 'Bus'. Who knew? You have to have special knowledge otherwise inapplicable.)

Every time I see this I have to wonder. "Constant worries", yeah sure. How do we ever cope with such complexity? The routing of the DAW tends to follow the paradigm of an actual mixing console, simplifying a couple of things. REAPER is coded by someone with little if any interest in that world (except perhaps to defy it) and it shows. It reminds me of the original approach of Fruity to time signatures, someone that doesn't actually grok it thought his way was better. I would grant in this case how clever the workarounds are, he's clearly brilliant.

[jancivil]

I would say for a beginner there are easier things to start with than either of these two, anyway. Garage Band.
I didn't have trouble with Cubase in the beginning but I had some experience with some of the things coming in.

[NERF_PROTOSS]

I would say for a beginner there are easier things to start with than either of these two, anyway. Garage Band.
I didn't have trouble with Cubase in the beginning but I had some experience with some of the things coming in.

I'm also in the same camp of neither, but I'd lean cubase just because it's probably very helpful for beginners to have a stock sample library and software instruments to mess around with. reaper won't give you that, and even though there's plenty of great free stuff out there, it means sending someone out on a mission to hunt for stuff when they might not really know what it is they want or should be looking for.

I don't follow your complaint above, though - if you want a track sending MIDI to hardware and a different track recieving audio, you can just make two tracks and tell them to do those things. it's the same process, no? no kludge workaround needed.

the main benefit of both DAWs in that regard is having a good track preset/template system, something that makes more or less everything else unusable for me

[pdxindy]

I would say for a beginner there are easier things to start with than either of these two, anyway. Garage Band.
I didn't have trouble with Cubase in the beginning but I had some experience with some of the things coming in.

Yup... Garageband is great for beginners. Good on iPads too.