So for those of you who have witnessned my previous mostly hostile attitude towards Cubase and Steinberg this may be a shock. Why buy Cubase now? Some explanation for the sake of anyone interested...
To start with, when I got into music technology a few years back it was principally because I teach music and compose stuff. I used Sibelius right since version 1 for notation, and occasionally dabbled with Cubase. I wanted to go much further. After some research I decided to go for Cubase SX1, Live 2 and Reason 2. These packages seemed to represent different approaches which I could learn from over time.
Cubase SX1 was a disaster for me, and before long I had switched to Tracktion which I totally loved for a time. But as the software became less reliable for me, I became frustrated. At the same time Live was beginning to move towards a full-on host, and I had bought Adobe Audition for editing audio - again a programme with DAW aspirations. I wa fortunate to be given a boxed version of Sonar 5, which could have been the perfect Tracktion replacement... but it really did not fit for me at all. I also tried Reaper and a couple of others.
In recent months I realised that the desire for a full-on DAW is not going away. Within my sphere, PT8, Logic 8 and Cubase 5 are the three most respected/known programmes of their kind, and I narrowed the choice down to those three. After trying out Logic in a school and having some help with it I knew it was definitely not for me. Several pupils a day come into my teaching studio, and I want to convey the message that Music Tech is something anyone can get into. Buying a Mac + Logic sends the message that Music Tech is something rather exclusive for special people who can afford special computers - just not the message I want to give my students. To some extent the same appies to PT M-Powered, although buying an M-Box is not inaccessible. But there are limitations with PT MP that I decided I cannot live with.
So that brought me full circle to Cubase 5...
Then Live 8 was announced. Could my prefered software finally be the dream DAW for me? Well, after a few weeks of beta testing the penny dropped: Live is never going to be that sort of DAW, however much Ableton care to present it that way in their marketing. Their bizarre implementation of crossfades in Arrangement - Note: NOT auto-crossfades - is so odd that even their own developers were unable to answer the question, "why would anyone want this implementation?". I realised that great though Live is, and capable though Arrangment is for finishing off tracks jammed in the Session View, it will never be the right DAW for anyone interested in multitrack audio recording and detailed MIDI editing. The failure to understand ordinary crossfades as used by, well, everyone else, shows to me that Ableton are not actually the people who are going to create the Studio DAW to die for.
So there it is. I decided that for professional reasons and in order to have that full-on Studio DAW the right choice now is Cubase. The features added in the last couple of upgrades are both excellent and even innovative. I get the impression that since YAMAHA bought Steinberg, they have regained their stability and confidence to develop the best DAW around.
I will keep Live 7 (maybe upgrade to 8 at some point) and Reason 4, but just suspect I may be using them far less in future. So far I am loving Cubase, and far more than I thought I would...
Later on I will shamelessly bump this thread by giving a full account of my first impressions of Cubase 5 as an ex-Cubase-hater! Maybe that will be more interesting than this post!! I may have a bunch of newbie questions too (although so far I have been shocked by how easy Cubase now is to use - certainly a transformation from how I experienced SX1).
Peace.
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) but otherwise I'm okay so far. I have been using the Music Tech Magazine Focus Cubase issue alongside the (fairly good) Getting Started Guide that comes in the box. Also... obviously not read yet but it looks like a great (650 page!) manual!