Cubase 12 released

[zvenx]

This may help.
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... le-Wizard-

My guess is of course you can resell Cubase 12.. but I don't imagine why you would have to give the old dongle with it.
rsp

[Blaster]

Yes you can sell Cubase 12 and you don't have to give up your dongle (and/or old versions of Cubase), but you can't upgrade again from Cubase 11 to 12 and would need to buy crossgrade or full version.

[David W]

The question that no one seems to know the answer to, is, can you sale Cubase12 if you want ? - and if you can, do you have to give the old dongle with it?

At the moment you can't because Steinberg has not yet launched the licence transfer system for Steinberg Licensing licences.

Steinberg employees have indicated in Steinberg Forum comments that an eLicenser licence that has been upgraded to Steinberg Licensing must remain with the Steinberg Licensing licence - the two are tied together. The complexities of this might be why licence transfers are not yet available.

If you were allowed to part with eLicenser licences after upgrading, I can see a sizeable market for upgraded Nuendo 11 and Cubase Pro 11 licences from those who are happy with a non-upgradeable licence for the last eLicenser version. This problem will only become more acute when it is possible to migrate content licences to Steinberg Licensing. If I was free to sell my USB eLicenser once I have fully migrated to Steinberg Licensing, I can see someone being very interested in Nuendo 11, Dorico Pro 3.5, WaveLab Pro 11, SpectraLayers Pro 8, VST Connect Pro 5.5, Absolute 5, Iconica Opus and a collection of paid add-ons for HALion, Groove Agent and Padshop.

[_leras]

If you're upgrading; the "prompt" you saw was likely it launching eLicenser (in the background) to change the name of the license, on the dongle, to make it known if that license has already been used to upgrade. I think Steinberg hinted, however, that they may "streamline" this process for future upgrades (likely only requiring to see the dongle once rather than the multi-stage affair of Cubase 12.. )

If the process is not working for someone then it's not enough just to install the latest eLicenser. You must launch eLicenser and allow it to perform a maintenance task. This will check the account and, if your Cubase 11 Pro license was registered during the "grace" period, it will mark it as being upgradable. Hopefully this should then allow the upgrade process to work..

Thanks for your reply on this. Went better when I tried with the dongle plugged in

• Opened elicenser, it automatically updated to say 'grace period'

• faffed about a bit trying to find the Steinberg Activation Manager (and reset password to login on default browser)

• received email from steinberg, activated new code

• prompted to run elicenser again, which changed name to 'upgraded to Cubase 12 with steinberg licensing'

• launched previously installed Cubase 12 and imported most of my plug ins first time

All in all pretty smooth update and install, I'm looking forwards to using it.

I've never cared about the eLicenser though. It's always been completely stable for me.

edit: as part of updating and doing this reply, I stumbled across a KVR Dark Mode. W00t! Pretty much like the old kvr colour scheme! Happy dayz!

[pixel85]

EDIT:
it was a rant about the new Midi API which is still centuries behind DAWs like Live but f*** it. Weekend has just began, no time for a rant

[chk071]

Steinberg just sent out the (free) Cubase AI and LE 12 upgrades here. Thanks Steinberg.

[felis]

Steinberg just sent out the (free) Cubase AI and LE 12 upgrades here. Thanks Steinberg.

Those are the free versions that come with hardware, right? I wonder how the new system will affect them.

[chk071]

Those are the free versions that come with hardware, right?

Yes.

I wonder how the new system will affect them.

As far as I can see, there is no difference to the bigger versions. They show up in the activation manager, and can be activated there.

Still gotta boot up Cubase AI though.

[redtapemusic]

Cubase 12 trial version running fine under Mojave (10.14.6) on a Mid 2012 Mac Pro with Metal compatible graphics here. No installation hiccups at all, the installation went ahead without any queries about the OS or the machine ? S Red Tape Music

[Sampleconstruct]

Improvising with Steinberg's virtual instrument Verve (Felt Piano + Synth), tweaking a few parameters on the fly.

https://youtu.be/v3sJKRB4FKs

[Trensharo]

The question that no one seems to know the answer to, is, can you sale Cubase12 if you want ? - and if you can, do you have to give the old dongle with it?

At the moment you can't because Steinberg has not yet launched the licence transfer system for Steinberg Licensing licences.

Steinberg employees have indicated in Steinberg Forum comments that an eLicenser licence that has been upgraded to Steinberg Licensing must remain with the Steinberg Licensing licence - the two are tied together. The complexities of this might be why licence transfers are not yet available.

If you were allowed to part with eLicenser licences after upgrading, I can see a sizeable market for upgraded Nuendo 11 and Cubase Pro 11 licences from those who are happy with a non-upgradeable licence for the last eLicenser version. This problem will only become more acute when it is possible to migrate content licences to Steinberg Licensing. If I was free to sell my USB eLicenser once I have fully migrated to Steinberg Licensing, I can see someone being very interested in Nuendo 11, Dorico Pro 3.5, WaveLab Pro 11, SpectraLayers Pro 8, VST Connect Pro 5.5, Absolute 5, Iconica Opus and a collection of paid add-ons for HALion, Groove Agent and Padshop.

There is literally nothing they can do to enforce the dongled licenses be transferred. They just have to eat the lost potential profits from people who either:

1. Sell the non-upgradeable dongle and keep the Cubase 12 License, or
2. Sell the Cubase 12 License and just keep the Cubase dongled license.

If you're on Windows, that software is likely to run for the next decade or more without issues. That's the price they will have to pay for being so slow to move off the dongle.

There will probably be a ton of dongles on eBay once they move more of their software off the eLicenser - particularly WaveLab Pro and the Absolute bundle.

I actually do think a dongle with Cubase Pro 11, WaveLab Pro 11, Dorico Elements or Pro 3.5 and Absolute 4/5 is worth a good $3-400 second hand - even if they're not upgradable licenses. Feature-wise, Cubase/WaveLab 11 are still years ahead of some competitors, so the lack of upgrades is almost unimportant as you can get enough value to justify a full purchase during a promotion in 3-5 years after buying this.

The only thing that would suck, is that they're dongled... There is always that.

I don't think the eLicenser servers are going offline any time soon. That would totally screw over legit customers who bought Cubase but don't see a need to upgrade. I don't think they will go offline for at least another few years.

[David W]

There is literally nothing they can do to enforce the dongled licenses be transferred.

There is a pretty good chance that the Steinberg Licensing has a record of which licences were upgraded from eLicenser. Whilst the eLicenser servers are still running, Steinberg could enforce the restriction that upgraded licences must remain on an eLicenser registered to your My Steinberg account. Alternatively, Steinberg could refuse to allow dongles containing upgraded licences to undergo a change in registration.

Whilst you are right that Steinberg could not prevent a dongle from being physically transferred to someone else, an inability to register the licences on the dongle in the recipient's My Steinberg account brings the ongoing value of transferred upgraded licences into doubt. The licences would have no protection against loss or theft, also they would be vulnerable to a Zero Downtime claim by the original owner, which I believe would also lead to the dongle being blacklisted.

[Trensharo]

There is literally nothing they can do to enforce the dongled licenses be transferred.

There is a pretty good chance that the Steinberg Licensing has a record of which licences were upgraded from eLicenser. Whilst the eLicenser servers are still running, Steinberg could enforce the restriction that upgraded licences must remain on an eLicenser registered to your My Steinberg account. Alternatively, Steinberg could refuse to allow dongles containing upgraded licences to undergo a change in registration.

Whilst you are right that Steinberg could not prevent a dongle from being physically transferred to someone else, an inability to register the licences on the dongle in the recipient's My Steinberg account brings the ongoing value of transferred upgraded licences into doubt. The licences would have no protection against loss or theft, also they would be vulnerable to a Zero Downtime claim by the original owner, which I believe would also lead to the dongle being blacklisted.

eLCC only phones home for activation. It does not check license validity beyond activation, since any license activated to eLicenser is already assumed to be valid from the initial activation check. This is why it can be used offline indefinitely.

And no, they wouldn't subject to ZDT claims, because the original owner upgraded and the new license effectively replaces the old license.

You cannot make ZDT claims on that 11 license. You forfeited that when you upgraded to 12. That is what you are licensed to use, and what Steinberg is "contracted to provide support to you for." 12 is not on eLicenser, so you don't get ZDT claim support for it.

The original owner simply cannot do this, as Steinberg does know what licenses were on a dongle and the old licenses are clearly marked as upgraded to Cubase Pro 12. When you upgrade, this change is made in your account. You cannot fake it.

Additionally, dongles have a serial and they can cross reference that as well as Cubase activation codes to weed out fraudulent claims. Pretty trivial, actually, and they likely have a fairly brainless interface to the DB for tech support to check this on the spot (when claims are made)

This is why they do this. That loophole is effectively shut down.

The account registration means nothing. The licenses are unsupported and non-upgradable after the original owner upgrades to Cubase 12. Again, they are clearly marked as Upgraded to Cubase 12 and non-upgradable. What would registering to a MySteinberg account change about that?

The value is in the usefulness of the software and the assumption that it will be usable for years before many people feel a need to move off of it. Anyone buying these licenses expecting 1st party support is an idiot.

[eivind]

My trusty Win7-64 machine is still working very well, so I stopped the upgrades at Cubase 10. In some years when I build a new machine, I will put in Win10..

[eclipxe]

The lack of Mac trackpad pinch to zoom is *really* annoying.