Cubase Pro 12 pleasantly surprised

[Necron]

I don't understand people who say Cubase is overloaded and you lose quick the overview. The magic word is build a template

[Trensharo]

You don't even need a template. The UI is fine. Those are exaggerations made by people who can't come up with anything objective to criticize.

[c0nan]

You don't even need a template. The UI is fine. Those are exaggerations made by people who can't come up with anything objective to criticize.

+ you can open/close every section of the GUI via key or midi command. + work spaces incl. 3rd party plugins are saved globally and are switchable via key or midi command. So yeah, nagging about Cubase' looks is so 2015.

[dionenoid]

You don't even need a template. The UI is fine. Those are exaggerations made by people who can't come up with anything objective to criticize.

+ 1

I'm always surprised when ppl are reviewing a daw without even knowing the most basic functionality, like customising or shortcuts.

[dionenoid]

Which is great if you want exactly those effects. OTOH, if you have better effects or only want one or two of them, you still have to put up with all of them. OTOH, you can make a track preset in Studio One that will load exactly what you want every time you create a new track. It's measurably superior to what's in Cubase because you're not stuck with what Steinberg decides you need, you are free to create whatever it is you actually need and get all the same convenince.

Cubase does have track presets. Including preview, drag and drop and whatnot. Has had them since forever. In fact i can recall track presets from when S1 didn't even exist yet.

[skijumptoes]

Cubase does have track presets. Including preview, drag and drop and whatnot. Has had them since forever. In fact i can recall track presets from when S1 didn't even exist yet.

What you're quoting was relatable to the inline channel elements of both hosts. The Presonus approach is to expose native or third party plugins parameters into the mixer view, whereas Cubase is fixed with the stock elements as they've defined.

The reason Presonus track presets was mentioned is because they can be used to define those elements which provides recallable custom options vs the fixed controls in Cubase.

Whether this is "better" or not totally depends on whether you prefer to use Steinberg compressors, limiters, EQ's or third party ones.

[BONES]

What he said.

[Jolaff]

I don't understand people who say Cubase is overloaded and you lose quick the overview. The magic word is build a template

One thing I don't like in the inspector is all those empty slots for inserts/send/etc ...that takes so much space for nothing...

[BONES]

The whole thing takes up space for no reason. I f**king hate it.

I don't understand people who say Cubase is overloaded and you lose quick the overview. The magic word is build a template

The mere fact that you feel you need to build templates tells me straight away that it's overloaded.
That image, for example, shows what? There's no mixer so you can't get any context for the thing you're working on, beyond listening, of course.

In Studio One I can do absolutely everything from the same screen layout. Nothing is more than a single click/menu/hotkey away. And for me that's still too overloaded. The workflow is still more complex than Orion was, for example, for doing the same things (and I can't say I'm a fan of drag'n'drop, either).

+ you can open/close every section of the GUI via key or midi command. + work spaces incl. 3rd party plugins are saved globally and are switchable via key or midi command. So yeah, nagging about Cubase' looks is so 2015.

It sounds like a lot of work setting it up for MIDI and the hotkey thing is de riguer across all hosts, surely? It certainly has been for every host I've used. But the thing is, I want to see as much as possible ALL THE TIME. Having to open and close certain things is a fail as far as I'm concerned. Which is not to say Cubase is much worse than Studio One but it's definitely a little bit worse.

[skijumptoes]

The mere fact that you feel you need to build templates tells me straight away that it's overloaded.
That image, for example, shows what? There's no mixer so you can't get any context for the thing you're working on, beyond listening, of course.

Think that's what the joke was mate, build a template with only one track and no mixer and it's clean.

At least, presuming it was a joke. haha

[Necron]

The mere fact that you feel you need to build templates tells me straight away that it's overloaded.
That image, for example, shows what? There's no mixer so you can't get any context for the thing you're working on, beyond listening, of course.

Think that's what the joke was mate, build a template with only one track and no mixer and it's clean.

At least, presuming it was a joke. haha

For me, the minimal structure is perfect to work on loops, ideas etc. I collect this later and build this out to a full song. Do you find this funny, I don't care.

[Atlatnesiti]

I’ve grew up with Steinberg since the Pro 24 on Atari ST days and still with them
Currently on Cubase 12 Pro and still loving it

[mothra]

I'm always surprised when ppl are reviewing a daw without even knowing the most basic functionality, like customising or shortcuts.

I switched back after 20 or so years with Logic last December when they announced the free update to 12 (I switched to Logic from Cubase VST32). Bought the Crossgrade to 11 and started in. Think I spent the first 3 or 4 days just moving around learning key commands while playing with some VSTis. I never did that when I bought Logic and just fumbled around and 'learned as I went', but now Im making it a habit to embed the key commands in my head from the start and its made things pretty easy, not to mention a lot quicker nowadays.

[kritikon]

Another silly argument to and fro about personal preference, which is mostly what DAWs boil down to. Coming from 10.5, I like what happened to 12. On the plus side, the sampler track is so much better. I see myself using it a lot more now it's a fully-fledged sampler. It's rock solid. I have not had a single stability issue. The media bay has matured nicely with Cubase - it's so much easier nowadays to trawl through files/audio etc. It takes a few seconds to load up? Seriously that bothers anyone? It takes me 3 months to make a track if I'm lucky so a few seconds is utterly irrelevant. And TBH it amazed me how easily 12 loaded up first time. All my old plugins loaded up, all the input/outputs/sound drivers etc loaded without me having to do anything. Didn't used to be like that so that's another tick for C12 IMO. And I started C12 alongside the upgrade to Win11 - all seamless. Quite surprised me TBH.

Templates - meh, I'm with Bones on that one. I've never had a template that works for every track I have. In fact they get in the way because I do radically different styles and templates just aren't the same. It's not difficult to add channels as you go - Project->add track->pick type->pick plugin/FX etc. I don't always use groups, I don't always do 4 on the floor, in fact I don't always even use kicks. If you make the same music over and over again then templates are great no doubt, but they're not essential in any way whatsoever. And anyway - don't all DAWs have them?

Inspector - strangely I'm with Bones again on this one. I don't use it. It takes up space and does stuff that I do in other ways. It's another way of doing it, that's all, but the fact it gives us the choice has to be a good thing?.

Quick controls - same again. I just don't use them. If I'm going to automate I'll use lanes, if I'm going to edit a plugin I'll go into the plugin because I know it's rare I ever just need to edit only one or two parameters. More screen space taken up, though I'm sure some like them. I guess freeze is there, so that can be useful...but I barely ever use freeze, so....

Shortcuts - very useful and personally I think Cubase does them well. I'm still learning some of them and every time I learn new ones it makes things so much easier and quicker and less dicking around with a mouse (which I hate). Just simple ones like that shift P or control P or whatever it is - sets the loop around the selected part so you don't have to manually move locators. I used to know that one, forgot about it for years and rediscovered it - great. I really should put more effort into learning more shortcuts because Cubase has so many good ones.

The mixer - undecided with that one. Some of Cubase 12 mixer is great, some not so much. I still can't customize it quite the way I want but it's flexible enough to get by with. I personally f**king detest the way it activates channel record when I select a channel to tweak. So many times I've diddled around with a channel and it's recorded it or recorded over something by accident. Fooking stupid. Probably there's a way of turning off that dumb feature but I just haven't found it yet.

But...C12 has been stable as a rock for me, started the most easily of any version I ever had, the sampler is a huge improvement, I like some of the new plugins and they don't radically change the way it works with a new version. For $157 - yeah, happy with that. And I got a free clipper with it - which initially I didn't like but actually now I think is a superb addition. The other freebies were pants though (one is iLok, one license went straight to my dongle so I can't use it without the dongle!? seriously Steinberg? another is useless as I don't sing.)

[summer2000]

The mixer - undecided with that one. Some of Cubase 12 mixer is great, some not so much. I still can't customize it quite the way I want but it's flexible enough to get by with. I personally f**king detest the way it activates channel record when I select a channel to tweak. So many times I've diddled around with a channel and it's recorded it or recorded over something by accident. Fooking stupid. Probably there's a way of turning off that dumb feature but I just haven't found it yet.

Select Edit > Preferences. Open the Editing—Project & MixConsole page and activate Enable Record on Selected Audio Track or Enable Record on Selected MIDI Track.

In your case, deactivate those options.