I came here from Studio One v5 after being with them since v1. I left because they abandoned those of us who wanted to own the software rather than perpetually rent it and be left with nothing in the end.
They also had a habit of moving to new versions while leaving old version bugs unfixed. No retroactive fixes, as some companies will do, such as Cockos with Reaper, etc.
And then, there is the strictness; the decorum of the forums that doesn’t allow people to truly express themselves or their opinions without being censored or even banned.
Interestingly, once I started working with Cubase (I first tried it way back in 1993) I realized that Studio One had been copying Cubase features for years and just making them their own. (I know they share a programming lineage via Crystal). But the same depth of features is not there in Studio One. This is not an opinion. It’s a simple matter of comparison.
Also, when Fender bought out the company, the head of the company was quoted as saying that he wanted to dumb down the software so more people would sign up to rent it.
I’m just sayin’… as someone who still uses Digital Performer, Reaper, Reason, Studio One, and now Cubase 13, I may wish that Cubase had an interface that was a little prettier, like that of Studio One. But feature for feature, Cubase totally obliterates Studio One, including in the realm of stock plugins and VSTis.
That’s my opinion. But I’m glad I found Cubase. I also tweaked the colors and brightness of the GUI in prefs to where I have little to complain about.
Purely out of interest, I went to see how much Studio One costs - and found that you have to create an account first! Then, presumably, they’d tell you how much. I suppose, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it!
I think it’s $450 USD or so. But they want you to rent it perpetually for $20 / month or so and then the fear of losing out (FOLO) will keep you on the hook for as long as it takes you to buy a competitor’s latest DAW.
I realize that we’re all just dollar signs to most of these companies. But with Studio One I could really feel that toward the end. And the forum, it’s not what it used to be…which tells me most of the business is new.
Worth a try to dial down the brightness on your monitor, I was ready to toss it in the trash but it’s helped immensely - and probably better for my eyes too. I haven’t noticed a difference outside of Cubase 13 being tamer.
Not really on topic, but…
Crystal has never had anything to do with Steinberg. It was invented and programmed completely by the guy, who is now CTO for Presonus Studio One, before he started to work for Steinberg.
The similarities stem from the fact that quite a few (maybe even all?) of the initial Studio One guys came from Steinberg.
Presonus later bought Crystal, from what I understand, turning it into Studio One. I think the fact that someone was already working on a DAW prior to working on Cubase is motive enough to start applying what one has learned at work to one’s own project at home. And once Presonus had it, there was money in doing it.
I wasn’t there, so I’ll never know. But I read about the Steinberg connection many years ago on the Presonus forum. The company obviously doesn’t talk about it publicly, or much of anything in terms of development and feature comparisons with Steinberg. That is something that I had to learn about for myself. Yet even many of the keyboard shortcuts are shared by both DAWs; far too many to be coincidental.
I often dip in and out of Studio One, and always find it great to come back to Cubase as it makes me more appreciative of it. Sometimes you can get caught up on a few negative aspects and forget all the many positives.
I find the community support is of a much higher level with Cubase too, which is really considerable if you get a problem.
I’ve seen @Roland111 on the presonus for many years as it always seems the same faces on there when I visit nowadays and it’s pretty bland, so good to see them enjoying Cubase.
It’s not my monitor.
All my monitors and TVs are dimmed to the maximum, with blue filters etc.
I have also been using “f.lux” (https://justgetflux.com/) for many years.
It’s about bold white small font - that’s completely pointless.
No other professional program has that.
I can highly recommend the “f.lux” eye protection program mentioned above.
Since then, I can no longer use a “normal” screen.
Take a look at the “Research” tab… This can lead to some astonishment.
I’m with everyone who is complaining about certain aspects of the GUI — I think it could be a bit better. But it’s not so bad that I would switch to another DAW because I would not want to lose access to what I think is a better piece of music making software than most, if not all other choices out there. At least for my style of music (Symphonic Punk Country Disco?)
Agreed, my only complaint about the GUI was the non-contrasting text color on track select, until it was fixed not terribly long after launch. So many other things were cleaned up in the Inspector and Mixconsole that I don’t even want to go back to v12.
I run 4 monitors, 2 of them 4k for project and mix console and 2 offloads in portrait mode; this is for a couple of reasons but also to minimise boundary issues
My eyes arent great but I have never had an issue with the fonts etc although it could be a lot better.
If only they would stop doing new stuff and REALLY finish the potential of whats there…and in terms of useability, actually driving by ears is the diff of pro/experience vs bedroom producers
So IF ONLY the remote editor was fixed OR show some actual studio quality scripts demoing the power of tactile workflows, UI/UX gesturing, multi sequence shortcuts
BUT Mostly making the integration of the hardware controllers actually fully implemented and not half baked
Stop pushing into scripting…Ive coded all my life, I have had enough and just want to make music…which cubase is my preferred platform except for live impro
I wish the GUI design choices were the only problem…
I recently started using Bitwig after the C13 fiasco last November. It isn’t as feature rich as Cubase and I miss a lot of Cubase features but after using Bitwig steadily for about 3 months I went back to Cubase (C12 actually) to finish a project I started there last fall. Returning to Cubase after taking that break has made the flakiness impossible to ignore.
The stability of Cubase is by far the most significant problem. I’ve had plugins crash in Bitwig but the main app stays running and allows me to save my project and reload the plugins. I’ve only had 1 or 2 fatal crashes in Bitwig in a few months of using it. Contrast that with a crash/glitch of some kind every other time I use Cubase. Both Cubase and Bitwig are running on the same computer, they’re loading the exact same plugins, using the same audio interface, etc so it is an apples to apples comparison. In a head to head matchup there is no question which DAW is more stable, it’s not even close.
My sincere hope is that Steinberg has kicked up a lot of dust by taking on and remediating technical debt and soon we will have a more solid Cubase to show for it. Still, it should never have been released in this condition. My fear is that the brain trust behind Cubase is no longer working at Steinberg and those remaining do not have a full understanding of the impacts of their code changes. I dig Cubase and have used it for years but if it were the only DAW I had access to at the moment I might stop making music out of frustration. That would be the worst outcome of all.
Which begs the question: Why is Dom Sigalis always gushing about Cubase?
Are they paying him such exorbitant amounts of money that he can’t help but tell us how much he likes using the app. ? Or, is Cubase actually pretty cool?
As someone who has used quite a few DAWs, there’s something that I dislike about all of them: Reaper’s endless call to customization is distracting, Reason is not a mature recording app.; Digital Performer makes music production overly complicated; Studio One doesn’t have the kind of depth of MIDI that I need to meet my preproduction needs — and some features are slightly broken, etc. And some DAWs seem to not be meant for old school music creation but rather just working with loops and patterned synth tracks, etc.
So at the end of the day, nothing’s really all that perfect.
But when I look back in time, I realize how lucky we are now; I really could have used this kind of software when I was still in my teens. But things have also changed a lot since then. Nowadays, “making it big” means getting your song played on a Coke commercial.
Yep that is it…I agree…and similar to what I was saying previously…nothing does everything well. Thats why I use 2 progs but they are radically diff and I dont mind at all…switching headspace in each one i actually find is good.
As for decent mixing…reaper has some extra simple features I wish like phase invert on sends etc but overall, its serious mixing kit and I use it as a much better alternative to PT…a good balance
I use a global stagespace set up a a 6 channel reverb space then mixed 6>2. The surround pan on the sends is amazing for this and since discovering it, has completely changed the way I do reverb and space…I tried on other packages and its just an outright pain…thats why I dont use Ableton for serious mix…max schmax
As the old DW says, the best DAW is the DAW you know best.
BUT PLEASE fix the remote midi stuff…like asap above any new features.
