Cubase 11 Pro or Studio One 5 Pro

[Trensharo]

System Configuration and the Software Environment on your machine is also a component in stability and reliability. A lot of issues people have with DAWs and other professional software has little to do with the software and more to do with the environment in which they're attempting to run it.

This is horse shit. Even Propellerheads recommends not messing with the default Windows settings (power management, registry settings, etc.). It's all voodoo nonsense so that PC "consultants" can come to your house and pretend to tweak a few "settings" and charge you a couple hundred bucks for the privilege.

What are you talking about?

I'm referring got what is installed on the PC. Applications Services, etc.

In my experience, Cubase is MUCH more stable on the Mac simply because the Mac platform is inherently more stable.

Your experience is horse shit.

[Sindikhate]

https://www.thomann.de/intl/cat_rank.ht ... 29&gk=SWSQ

I think you could likely glean more from Google Trends than going by Thomann's chart, unless you also want to believe Ableton ranks 17th in any European country?

Having worked for MI retail for a lot of years I will just say this.. for every 25-30 copies of cubase sold there was a copy of Live being sold. Heck Reason was selling more than Live. Way more.
And I said.. "AT RETAIL LEVEL!". That does not mean that the users are more or less based on retail sales. Also nowadays people buy straight from the developers. Then again that dongle protection might have had something to do with all this. We should always be talking about legit users.
Another reason is a new cubase version comes every year. A new Live version comes every 3-4-5 years since 2009. We had 4 versions of Live the last 12 with 11 coming this year and this will probably stay current for the next 3. When a new Live version comes out of course the sales at retail are getting higher but even then they are still lower than Cubase.

Thomann serves the whole Europe. And yes Ableton ranks 17th. That includes all different versions of other daws though. Taking out all the updates etc etc the ranking shows that most new users buy Cubase.

[Trensharo]

Yea. Live is a DAW designed with a bias for performance. DAWs like Cubase and Samplitude still see decent to great popularity in Europe. Ableton is really popular in North America, though.

In the US, more people use Ableton in other market segments, and a lot of forums have a tendency to have a North American bias.

In Europe, Ableton sits a bit more firmly in its [generally speaking] target market segment.

DAWs like Cubase and Samplitude are more popular there.

The US is big enough that you can sustain a profitable business just in this market alone, if you are able to dominate the right market segment(s).

Also, Ableton Live Suite is really expensive. It's one of the most expensive non-broadcast DAWs on the market. Almost the cost of Nuendo. And many people don't see a point in settling for standard due to how features are SKU'd out.

[wuworld]

I feel like it's a big hole in the DAW market for music production market. Not a DAW that tries to do everything. Ableton has a lane. Reason I thought was going to be it, but they never want to improve the sequencer it seems. Maschine I thought had potential with the software.

Beatmaker 3 is coming to PC, and MAC. Serato Studio meh.... Right now Logic X, Ableton, and FL got the modern production crowd.

[antic604]

...Cubase or Studio One?

I've Cubase Pro 11 for sale, so that one

...and it's sold

Which means I've chosen Studio One. Cubase is insanely deep and powerful and it has many great features, but it's also senile and confused about a lot of things. I'll check around v13/14 and if they're able to refresh it and trim down (or at least hide better) the fat, especially ones that aged ungracefully like controller mapping, MIID effects, mixer console panel, etc...

Studio One is like a younger child, who was raised by parents who learned their mistakes with the 1st child and tried to avoid them this time. It's not perfect, it still misses out on some things, but for my particular needs and workflow it's very close to ideal and probably the best one to pair with Bitwig (2nd child to Ableton Live, coincidently) which scratches my other itch, i.e. crazy sound design.

[Proken]

...Cubase or Studio One?

I've Cubase Pro 11 for sale, so that one

...and it's sold

Which means I've chosen Studio One. Cubase is insanely deep and powerful and it has many great features, but it's also senile and confused about a lot of things. I'll check around v13/14 and if they're able to refresh it and trim down (or at least hide better) the fat, especially ones that aged ungracefully like controller mapping, MIID effects, mixer console panel, etc...

Studio One is like a younger child, who was raised by parents who learned their mistakes with the 1st child and tried to avoid them this time. It's not perfect, it still misses out on some things, but for my particular needs and workflow it's very close to ideal and probably the best one to pair with Bitwig (2nd child to Ableton Live, coincidently) which scratches my other itch, i.e. crazy sound design.

If only Bitwig and Studio One would make a child DAW. That would be the most powerful if created.

[PAK]

Having worked for MI retail for a lot of years I will just say this.. for every 25-30 copies of cubase sold there was a copy of Live being sold. Heck Reason was selling more than Live. Way more.
And I said.. "AT RETAIL LEVEL!". That does not mean that the users are more or less based on retail sales. Also nowadays people buy straight from the developers. Then again that dongle protection might have had something to do with all this. We should always be talking about legit users.
Another reason is a new cubase version comes every year. A new Live version comes every 3-4-5 years since 2009. We had 4 versions of Live the last 12 with 11 coming this year and this will probably stay current for the next 3. When a new Live version comes out of course the sales at retail are getting higher but even then they are still lower than Cubase.

Thomann serves the whole Europe. And yes Ableton ranks 17th. That includes all different versions of other daws though. Taking out all the updates etc etc the ranking shows that most new users buy Cubase.

Ok. I don't disagree with what you're saying overall then. Plus, you correctly identify other factors involved. All I'm implying is the numbers say more about specific retail factors, and the demographics shopping at Thomann, than they do about the current wider state of play in the DAW market. You can even look at other Thomann figures to all but confirm this. EG Can you guess their best-selling DAW controller? (Spoiler - It's the Push 2 ).

Even without piracy, there's also little reason for someone to purchase software at traditional retailers, like Thomann, unless making cost savings. That changes if it's tied to hardware, which could be a sound card, NI Komplete hardware, or a dongle. It's the dongle which creates the need for physical stock with Cubase. Customers, in turn, will go to the places they know hold said physical stock - such as Thomann. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out, at retail level, once that dependence is removed. That's if other online / direct sales haven't made all of it largely irrelevant already. EG None of this stuff takes the likes of Logic Audio into account..

The other big factor is regional / market differences. Even if a retailer sells "Europe wide", you're unlikely to get a proper picture unless they provide break-down numbers by country. EG Magix are more likely to feature, with German retailers, versus some other countries. North America also offers a pretty stark contrast where, even taking the dongle factor into account, it's interesting to see Studio One is still above Cubase, ranked by popularity, at Sweetwater ( www.sweetwater.com/c699--DAW_Software ) Though it depends what they mean by that (Page hits? Actual sales?)

[antic604]

If only Bitwig and Studio One would make a child DAW. That would be the most powerful if created.

I'm not losing hope. I don't even want Clip Launcher or Grid in S1 - some sort of native modulation system even 1/3 as powerful as in Bitwig and ability to insert 3rd party plugins in MIDI FX slot would go a long way.

[dellboy]

If only Bitwig and Studio One would make a child DAW. That would be the most powerful if created.

I'm not losing hope. I don't even want Clip Launcher or Grid in S1 - some sort of native modulation system even 1/3 as powerful as in Bitwig and ability to insert 3rd party plugins in MIDI FX slot would go a long way.

Based on the type of music that you are into why do you even need S1? I would have thought that Bitwig has everything you need.

[antic604]

Based on the type of music that you are into why do you even need S1? I would have thought that Bitwig has everything you need.

Bitwig has too much, actually. I can spend weeks tweaking a bass line. Another week on randomizing drums, etc. At some point it's good to have limitations. Bitwig almost doesn't have any (for my music & workflow). Whereas Studio One seems to strike a nice balance, e.g. Scratch Pads deliver 60-70% of functionality I use Bitwig's clip launcher for, Extended FX Chains with Splitters give 40-60% of features that all the splitters, layers & selectors in Bitwig do; I love the separation of tracks & channels in S1 and folder tracks because they allows for complex routing without cluttering the Arranger, but it's more cumbersome than in Bitwig therefore I need to "give up and move on" sooner than in Bitwig. Even such a mudane thing like multi-track editing gets very unwieldy and confusing in Bitwig for bigger projects, because of the disconnect between what you have selected in Arranger and what you actually can see and edit in Detail Editor. No such problem in S1, where there's direct link between what you select and what you see.

Bitwig's just too good for me

(yes, I'm aware that's a me problem, not Bitwig's problem )

[LeVzi]

This post is linked to my other post on vst to compose Oblivion and Breavhaert style film music.

For composition, mixing, mastering, management of many vst tracks and articulations.

The one that will perfectly manage the cpu load as well.

The most stable and reliable.

The most recommended Daw, Cubase or Studio One?

Cubase, I couldn't even get Studio One to work at all. After all the installation it never worked once, so I never went back to demo it again. Cubase is rock solid atm (touch wood)

In terms of features, as I said I never got it to work so can't comment.

[dellboy]

Based on the type of music that you are into why do you even need S1? I would have thought that Bitwig has everything you need.

Bitwig has too much, actually.

I agree that its very good, I have spent many hours with it of late. There is one area it seems to lack versus S1, and that is when you abandon Bitwigs session view to work exclusively on the linear timeline. The first absolute essential that Bitwig lacks and S1 has, is an audition button. The problem being that if you like to compose on the fly like I do, and stay in recording mode, there is no way to audition in Bitwig without recording stuff. And Bitwig cannot undo on the fly while recording, where S1 can. It means stopping recording and then restarting, and so you lose the flow.

Cubase, by the way, does not have a gapless audio engine, and automatically stops as you add stuff if you are in record mode, which is a huge plus for S1.

[4damind]

I don't know the latest Studio One version but the last time I tested S1 it was clear that we will not be friends
Cubase is clearly the better platform for me. Studio One comes from former Steinberg developers (Wolfgang Kundrus & Matthias Juwan) and of course they have tried to make everything better than in Cubase, which has been achieved in some points. But Cubase has also evolved and is currently probably the most mature DAW with the most features.

Currently Cubase 11 seems to be quite stable, I have at least very rarely crashes and where I had some was almost always a plugin responsible for it. An alternative would be for me only Ableton Life.

[antic604]

...there is no way to audition in Bitwig without recording stuff.

Since v4 you actually can - they've added 3rd monitoring mode in addition to previous Auto & Off. You can now set it to On so it takes MIDI input but doesn't record it (pay attention to blue track).

They really should get that button up to track header, because it's not convenient to have to use Inspector for it.

[dellboy]

I don't know the latest Studio One version but the last time I tested S1 it was clear that we will not be friends
Cubase is clearly the better platform for me. Studio One comes from former Steinberg developers (Wolfgang Kundrus & Matthias Juwan) and of course they have tried to make everything better than in Cubase, which has been achieved in some points. But Cubase has also evolved and is currently probably the most mature DAW with the most features.

Currently Cubase 11 seems to be quite stable, I have at least very rarely crashes and where I had some was almost always a plugin responsible for it. An alternative would be for me only Ableton Life.

I always find it baffling when a Cubase user says they could use Ableton Live instead of Cubase. I tried Abletons arrangement view yesterday and found it almost unusable. The session view is great, but I have never been able to gel with the arrangement view. Is there something I am missing?