Is Cubase the most frustrating DAW ever created?

[Widowsky]

Developing good software means making complexity simple and, indeed, making

That was once the case with Cubase. It no longer is. Everything has become unnecessarily complicated, over-engineered, inconsistent, and no choices are being made anymore. Hence threads like this one.

Enshittification affects more than just platforms.

Hmm, I’m not sure how much more simple Steinberg could’ve made things than literally allowing you to change the Toolbar and Transport settings with one click. You can save configs and reload too, meaning you can quickly change things to whatever suits your task.

To simplify further, in that area, would require removing features. If someone’s at that point then Cubase is probably the wrong software for them. Sometimes you click with something, and sometimes you don’t. EG, I’ll use Reaper to test things sometimes, but I just can't gel with it as a host.

Not that Steinberg couldn’t improve anything, and work is required to make Cubase more robust against buggy plugins, and its own bugs for that matter. But catering to the lowest common denominator can just as easily ruin software, and one persons “simplification” is another’s annoying or dumbing down to the point of making things more difficult..

I understand that some people have no idea how to improve software. It’s not their thing and that’s fine. Others have no trouble imagining it. All different, all complementary. Except for some newbies, nobody wants to cater to the lowest common denominator or dumb things down.

Simple and complex are good. Simplistic and complicated are bad.

[PAK]

I understand that some people have no idea how to improve software. It’s not their thing and that’s fine. Others have no trouble imagining it. All different, all complementary. Except for some newbies, nobody wants to cater to the lowest common denominator or dumb things down.

Simple and complex are good. Simplistic and complicated are bad.

But people often disagree, on what those things mean, when it comes to implementation. I find many things easy in Cubase, and more awkward in other hosts. Some of that is, of course, familiarity. But some of it isn’t. Some things just gel with my way of thinking.

For those, who don’t "click" with Cubase, their view will (naturally) be that more extensive changes are required than for those who do. Though, considering the number of options Cubase allows a user to change, some of this is arguably related to whether someone is prepared to spend time configuring for their needs.

I guess the better question to ask would be what sorts of things people find difficult and why? EG Despite being made easier in VST3, I think it’s likely a lot of new users will still have to look up how to activate side-chain routing. Things like that can point towards where improvements might be made. But we're pretty fortunate that there's so much choice for DAW hosts

[syntonica]

I am unable to answer this question. In the three separate attempts to demo Cubase over the years, it has only crashed within a minute or two of me just poking about to see where things were before I started a project. The farthest I ever got was creating a track and watching it explode upon selecting a VST.

Would not recommend. 0 out of 5 stars.

[Gam456]

I am unable to answer this question. In the three separate attempts to demo Cubase over the years, it has only crashed within a minute or two of me just poking about to see where things were before I started a project. The farthest I ever got was creating a track and watching it explode upon selecting a VST.

I have more than 200 plugin, Cubase never crashed

[Widowsky]

I understand that some people have no idea how to improve software. It’s not their thing and that’s fine. Others have no trouble imagining it. All different, all complementary. Except for some newbies, nobody wants to cater to the lowest common denominator or dumb things down.

Simple and complex are good. Simplistic and complicated are bad.

But people often disagree, on what those things mean, when it comes to implementation. I find many things easy in Cubase, and more awkward in other hosts. Some of that is, of course, familiarity. But some of it isn’t. Some things just gel with my way of thinking.

For those, who don’t "click" with Cubase, their view will (naturally) be that more extensive changes are required than for those who do. Though, considering the number of options Cubase allows a user to change, some of this is arguably related to whether someone is prepared to spend time configuring for their needs.

I guess the better question to ask would be what sorts of things people find difficult and why? EG Despite being made easier in VST3, I think it’s likely a lot of new users will still have to look up how to activate side-chain routing. Things like that can point towards where improvements might be made. But we're pretty fortunate that there's so much choice for DAW hosts

Quite the contrary. Interaction design is a specialist field based on science. These people easily agree among themselves and have long since settled the issues raised in this thread.

Unfortunately, coders are notoriously bad at it. Worse, they’re not even interested; they don’t see the point. This is tragic in music computing, where we don't want tools to use but rather musical instruments to play.

As for Cubase, the only thing that could save it would be if a Tantacrul or a Tog went after it. Watch the videos of the former or read the site of the latter; it’s fun and you might learn a thing or two.

[PAK]

Quite the contrary. Interaction design is a specialist field based on science. These people easily agree among themselves and have long since settled the issues raised in this thread.

Unfortunately, coders are notoriously bad at it. Worse, they’re not even interested; they don’t see the point. This is tragic in music computing, where we don't want tools to use but rather musical instruments to play.

As for Cubase, the only thing that could save it would be if a Tantacrul or a Tog went after it. Watch the videos of the former or read the site of the latter; it’s fun and you might learn a thing or two.

There’s rarely a single solution which suits everyone. I prefer configuration control be given to end users so they can decide what works for themselves. I think that’s much better than being done via some committee who all “agree” they know best for others!

Where a user is inclined towards more simplicity we’re also fortunate to have many different choices of music software, so most users should be able to find a balance that works for them.

The goal is usually to remove as many unwanted barriers, as possible, between the idea in your head and what the computer outputs. People often don’t even know what the end destination will be, and there’s not always a clear line between tool and instrument, particularly for electronic music. Many users use mouse input for everything

Also, none of the above is a substitute for physical controls. A dedicated control surface can change the way a lot of people use their software, and I recommend people go down that path if you’ve found something you like. Unfortunately, Steinberg (despite having the resources of Yamaha to hand) have yet to announce a replacement for their (long since discontinued) CC-121 controller. Hopefully they’ll do that soon.

[dellboy]

Cubase 13 Pro has been unusable on all three of my PC machines.It crashes and locks up constantly. I have no idea what the problem is. I have now given up the fight and think the only solution is to buy a Mac,because I have heard that it works fine on one of those.

[PAK]

Cubase 13 Pro has been unusable on all three of my PC machines.It crashes and locks up constantly. I have no idea what the problem is. I have now given up the fight and think the only solution is to buy a Mac,because I have heard that it works fine on one of those.

Hmm, unusable on 3 different machines is unusual, unless there's some common factor between them? (Other than yourself and Cubase ) I know, from my own experience, Cubase 12+ doesn't run very well on my older PC hardware. I don't blame Steinberg too much there as Microsoft have ditched anything prior to 8th gen Intel on Win11, there's new processors, multiple core types, and now Windows 12 likely in the mix next year too.

Cubase does behave better on Apple Silicon Macs IMO. But it's still not a magic answer - various plugins can still bring it down, and that'll remain the case until Steinberg improves the sandboxing between plugins and the host. With M4 just being released the timing has never been better though, if you're inclined to go in that direction

[dellboy]

Cubase 13 Pro has been unusable on all three of my PC machines.It crashes and locks up constantly. I have no idea what the problem is. I have now given up the fight and think the only solution is to buy a Mac,because I have heard that it works fine on one of those.

Hmm, unusable on 3 different machines is unusual, unless there's some common factor between them? (Other than yourself and Cubase ) I know, from my own experience, Cubase 12+ doesn't run very well on my older PC hardware. I don't blame Steinberg too much there as Microsoft have ditched anything prior to 8th gen Intel on Win11, there's new processors, multiple core types, and now Windows 12 likely in the mix next year too.

Cubase does behave better on Apple Silicon Macs IMO. But it's still not a magic answer - various plugins can still bring it down, and that'll remain the case until Steinberg improves the sandboxing between plugins and the host. With M4 just being released the timing has never been better though, if you're inclined to go in that direction

I have disabled all plugins,and it still seizes locks up and crashes. The current machine it is installed on is a new Lenovo Ryzen 7 laptop. On the same laptop I have Studio One Pro - Waveform Pro - and Bitwig Studio running just fine. I have tried using the onboard sound card, and disconnecting all external drives etc. My guess is it’s something to do with the hub,media bay,and licensing checking. The plugin issue is a red herring. Never had any problems with Cubase 10 using the dongle.

[PAK]

I have disabled all plugins,and it still seizes locks up and crashes.

My guess is it’s something to do with the hub,media bay,and licensing checking.

Steinberg force using the Hub (it was optional in Cubase 12). Save a project (cpr file). Quit Cubase. Click the cpr file to open Cubase instead. This will bypass the hub. For Mediabay check “Scan folders only when open” and uncheck as many folders as possible. Then don’t open it.

You’ve now removed / reduced those as factors, if your assumption is correct. You should enable logging (General / Enable usage Logging) to try to catch where the problem is. Either way such an experience, across machines, is not typical. Have you contacted Steinberg directly about this?

[dellboy]

You’ve now removed / reduced those as factors, if your assumption is correct. You should enable logging (General / Enable usage Logging) to try to catch where the problem is. Either way such an experience, across machines, is not typical. Have you contacted Steinberg directly about this?

I have gone back to Cubase 11 which is very stable. Unfortunately the dongle takes up a USB port,but its worth it for the stability.

[dellboy]

An update on my Cubase 13 Pro instability problem on Windows 11.

Cubase kept locking up and crashing and midi became unavailable. This required constantly terminating it using the Windows task manager,and then it kept hold of a lot of Windows memory which required a restart to release it. I decided to reinstall Windows and only install Cubase 13. The problem still persisted. A lot of googling later and I found the answer. Cubase does not like the IK multimedia -iRig midi keyboard. Unplugging it before booting Cubase solves the problem.You can then plug it back in and continue working. Steinberg have known about this for years apparently. Would Cubase 14 solve the problem? Nope - still there. Easy fix though.