Cubase Pro 10.5.20 is *no longer* the perfect DAW

[andypryce]

Ableton live 11 is most impressive

Although missing a lot of basic features, I agree. They add slowly and carefully. It is not like Cubase which added features feels like randomly filling a bag in the market with lots of fruits and some of them are tasty some are not ripe some taste bad and some are forgotten in the fridge to rotten and then without cleaning up the fridge you go out and buy some more

[Crholdin]

:

(well, actually I know how... )

Your right me too
They all left to make ableton and bitwig

Ableton live 11 is most impressive

*haha* yeah...

no, in all seriousness: it's because they seem to have never been very careful at all when adding features... they just kept adding stuff without apparently caring much about consinstency, workflow and potential redundancy.

A great counter-example imo would be Reason. They always seem to have been super-super careful. It's very very bare in comparison to Cubase but it's totally streamlined and consistent - and thus it aged very well (quite unlike Cubase) - and for me as a consequence an absolutely joy to work with - especially when it comes to audio-recording.

So even though I love shiny new features like the next guy, I think feature-count isn't even half the story when it comes to judging software.

Totally a fair assessment
I liked it and give you credit for that

Reason seems cleaner , like they not just recode but try to streamline with each update ; it’s a great daw

[v1o]

I skipped Cubase 10.5 because it was a lacklustre upgrade over Cubase 10.

[v1o]

:

(well, actually I know how... )

Your right me too
They all left to make ableton and bitwig

Ableton live 11 is most impressive

*haha* yeah...

no, in all seriousness: it's because they seem to have never been very careful at all when adding features... they just kept adding stuff without apparently caring much about consinstency, workflow and potential redundancy.

A great counter-example imo would be Reason. They always seem to have been super-super careful. It's very very bare in comparison to Cubase but it's totally streamlined and consistent - and thus it aged very well (quite unlike Cubase) - and for me as a consequence an absolutely joy to work with - especially when it comes to audio-recording.

So even though I love shiny new features like the next guy, I think feature-count isn't even half the story when it comes to judging software.

Totally a fair assessment
I liked it and give you credit for that

Reason seems cleaner , like they not just recode but try to streamline with each update ; it’s a great daw

Reason is the cleanest most bloat free DAW. The epitome of the less is better approach. Clearly inspired by Scandinavian design philosophy, where form follows function, like Volvo or Ikea. Cubase fits in with the stereotype of German products being of extreme high quality but also over engineered. Like certain expensive luxury vehicles.

[LeVzi]

Reason has the worst midi editor of them all, and that's why I cannot stand it. If it was better id probably use it more.

[jens]

Yes, I am note quite sure, but I seem to remember not being exactly thrilled about using its MIDI editor...
ah, yes, now I remember that somehow I did not manage to tweak the velocity of individual notes that shared the same time... that might have been me, but Reason's behaviour in that regard appeared totally absurd to me.

And also there's STILL no MiDI take-recording....

plus I can't seem to figure out how to read out the name of MIDI files (that are used as clips)... it doesn't seem to be shown anywhere in the entire application. But perhaps that's again just me. So yeah, the handling of MIDI certainly could be better.

[Freaqpeak]

As for mixing and recording, yes Cubase is kind of perfect.
For inspiration, production? No! It will never be. I prefer Bitwig for actually music making nowadays.

[jens]

Tbh I think Cubase is crap for mixing as well.

Just the other day I fired it (10.5) up again just for giggles and ran into the same typical shit again:

an absolute standard scenario for me to start a song/project is by plugging in an electric-guitar and inserting stereo effects on its channel (chorus, delay, reverb and what not). And since last tinkering with Cubase, it appears to have completely slipped my mind again how to get around this - some awkward convoluted workaround, if I am not fully mistaken. A quick Google search didn't yield any useful results.

It has got many other shortcomings too (keep in mind that VST3 added side-chain support because there had been no way to do it in Cubase before) but even right there at the start with a completely standard situation it failed, because of its awkward 90s-style differentiation between mono- and stereo-tracks. Ewww. What a piss-poor mixing environment indeed.

So nope, not even good for mixing - all imo of course.

[Sahul]

The trick in Cubase is not using mono tracks at all. You can record a mono input into a stereo track, and the resulting recording will still be a mono file, so you don't even waste disk space. Also, doing this way will allow you to use stereo insert effects, as the track itself will be stereo.

[jens]

That's how it works in Studio One and of course I tried that - but as soon as I chose Stereo, it set the input to Stereo all by itself. The next time I wanted to add a track it defaulted to stereo input too.

[v1o]

ah, yes, now I remember that somehow I did not manage to tweak the velocity of individual notes that shared the same time... that might have been me, but Reason's behaviour in that regard appeared totally absurd to me.

At first I thought you were talking about editing the velocity of overlapping midi notes (overlapping in both timing and pitch)? But seems you're actually talking about tweaking the velocity of different notes played at the same time like for example a chord. That's quick to do once you familiarise with the program, by using the menu bar in the midi editor.

And also there's STILL no MiDI take-recording....

That should be coming since you can already do that with audio recording. But currently you'd use new note lanes to record different takes.

plus I can't seem to figure out how to read out the name of MIDI files (that are used as clips)... it doesn't seem to be shown anywhere in the entire application. But perhaps that's again just me. So yeah, the handling of MIDI certainly could be better.

Midi file names are not imported. You add labels to individual clips to name them.

[Sahul]

That's how it works in Studio One and of course I tried that - but as soon as I chose Stereo, it set the input to Stereo all by itself. The next time I wanted to add a track it defaulted to stereo input too.

Did you create a mono input bus in Audio Connections first, so it could be selected as the input source for the stereo track?

[jens]

ah, yes, now I remember that somehow I did not manage to tweak the velocity of individual notes that shared the same time... that might have been me, but Reason's behaviour in that regard appeared totally absurd to me.

At first I thought you were talking about editing the velocity of overlapping midi notes (overlapping in both timing and pitch)? But seems you're actually talking about tweaking the velocity of different notes played at the same time like for example a chord. That's quick to do once you familiarise with the program, by using the menu bar in the midi editor.

Sorry, I guess I worded that badly - what I meant is that you can't select a note (or a few of them) in the piano-roll editor and then edit only its velocity at the lower dedicated velocity editor when it starts at the same time as another note, as is the case in other hosts. I have no clue why that wouldn't work - tbh it seems like an actual bug to me.
Btw.: why do I have to manually first select the pencil tool anyway to edit the velocity that way. That's a major nuisance. The pencil tool should appear automatically as soon as I hover over that area of the GUI. Very bad and stupid in a mostly very well-thought out application.

And also there's STILL no MiDI take-recording....

That should be coming since you can already do that with audio recording. But currently you'd use new note lanes to record different takes.

For how many years has multi-take recording been implemented? "Should be coming" does not actually contain any information, you know? Yes, I agree it should be coming and I would also agree if you had said "should have been coming years ago", yet in both cases we are absolutely none the wiser whether it WILL in fact come and IF so then WHEN.

OF course you can use new note lanes - just not for multi-take recoding, unless you use a foot-controller or so to create them manually for each new loop. Which is an extremely cumbersome workaround at best. Again something at which my mind boggles as to what the hell they might (have) be(en) thinking while they seem so clever otherwise.

plus I can't seem to figure out how to read out the name of MIDI files (that are used as clips)... it doesn't seem to be shown anywhere in the entire application. But perhaps that's again just me. So yeah, the handling of MIDI certainly could be better.

Midi file names are not imported. You add labels to individual clips to name them.

Thought so - I was only about 99% sure I didn't overlook something somewhere - again very bad, sorry to say.

[Obsolete462444]

As a longtime Cubase user (2 decades) my view is this:

while Cubase is probably featurewise the most comprehensive DAW, it is falling behind some of its competitors in terms of usability. Studio One, Ableton (I know, a bit different from traditional DAW paradigm) and even Logic feel more straightforward and often require less user action (clicks etcetera) to perform the same operation.

I have to add that I mostly do "in the box" composition, sound design and mixing, less tracking / recording.

Only DAW that is (much) worse in usability is Reaper, at least in my use scenarios. I can compose a musical idea and a rough arrangement in Ableton Live in a matter of 20 minutes, while doing the same in Cubase would take me 3x that amount of time, not to mention that Cubase is still missing basic features for pattern / loop based arrangements (not only Ableton, but also Logic and S1 have it!). Cubase afaik only has Arranger Track, which completely sucks. It seems Steinberg focusses on elderly users who have not embraced modern production methods.

Also, Cubase included effects and instruments are mediocre compared to what Logic offers. Cubase compressors are really nothing to write home about for example, many freeware offerings are miles ahead.

[jens]

That's how it works in Studio One and of course I tried that - but as soon as I chose Stereo, it set the input to Stereo all by itself. The next time I wanted to add a track it defaulted to stereo input too.

Did you create a mono input bus in Audio Connections first, so it could be selected as the input source for the stereo track?

Yes, that was the weird workaround I mentioned before that I could not remember anymore - I am pretty sure I did it before - is that not a global setting but rather a project-specific one?

Either way: talk about being convoluted... my point exactly.