There’s a lot of misinformation in this thread about Studio One, I won’t bother to correct it, people can do the research and make more accurate comparisons for themselves, and then decide what matters for their own unique preferences and needs. Opinions are opinions of course, I just wish people would get their facts straight.
Bottom line, both Studio One and Cubase are world-class DAWs, and you can do amazing things with both of them. They are both filled with many deep features, and overlap in many of their features, but of course there are things that each of them has that are unique. Both Steinberg and Presonus can learn much from each other, and I know for a fact that the developers of both are very much aware of their competition. And honestly, competition is good for all of us. I’m glad both exist, and I use both (and many other DAWs too).
Just use the one that helps you get your music done, the one that suits your needs and preferences the best! Or use both! And by all means, LEARN your DAW(s) of choice, you might be surprised how deep they are. Studio One has some great features that I wish Cubase had, and vice-versa, Cubase has some great features that I wish Studio One had. We are all very lucky to have such amazing tools to bring our music to life.
I also want to give my two cents on this, I also find the new GUI suboptimal. In times of high-resolution displays and almost “unlimited” computing power, it should be possible to visually separate channels, plugins, tracks, etc. and make fonts readable. I like 3D, organic look, scalability, recognition (I love the look of the T-RackS plugins).
After the last update of Nuendo, I was also shocked when I saw the new GUI. Somehow the GUI reminded me of Excel spreadsheets…
What has bothered me for years is drawing in automations and turning buttons. Although I no longer have any Waves plugins, I can remember that when setting the values using the rotary knobs, the mouse pointer was hidden, larger values could be set when quickly dragging the mouse, and finer values could be set with small movements of the mouse without putting the mouse down. Very intuitive. I always dread clicking on an automation point with the fat pen in Nuendo to adjust it or to operate a small knob in the EQ, Chanelstrip, etc.
And while I’m complaining I also miss the unlimited mixer snapshot function from Cubase VST32. I worked through the song part by part and took a snapshot at the beginning of each part. Was much more intuitive for me than automating with a pen …
I just went back to Cubase 12 and will stay there. I paid the £80 to get Cubase 13 but the eyes can’t stand the fonts etc the OP mentions. C12 will do me now.
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Cubase for 20+ years. I’d even got to the point of auditioning other programs but I always seem to end up back on Cubase.
I think I wrote in another thread a while ago about Digital Performer 6 coming out (1923?) and a lot of people (including me) bailing on the program because the GUI was eye-socket melting in its brightness.
Some of us started hacking the program and putting our own graphics & tweaks in wherever it was possible.
When MOTU put out DP 7, they introduced “skins” where users could select the theme of their choice. In other words, our complaints and tweaking had an affect on the company’s decision making process. That skins feature still exists today. I didn’t upgrade till version 10 and it still wasn’t the best looking DAW out there, but it was better than before.
My reason for mentioning this is that I’m sure the Steinies are probably hatching plans for things like a more useful color palette and trying to find the right balance between the new look and the old CB 12 “coolness” that I also still admire — they seemed to get the contrasts right in that version.
Studio One Pro 6.5 standalone (no subscription, no extra vsti/vst stuff) is $150 at the moment for me. One time fee.
Yes, I had to log in to see the price…but most of that was because their system then showed what I currently own…which in my case…is a faderport16 …which I’ve never yet had out of its box but did register :)…which then meant I owned a 2022 version of Artist…which I’ve never yet installed…which then means I can click the little upgrade tab in my account and buy the standalone Pro 6.5.
Presonus did show subscription options…but I didn’t look at them as…not interested in that approach…and I don’t want/need all the extra bazillions of gb of vsti/vst in the subscrip…I don’t even download all that extra stuff for my Cubase/Nuendo.
However…due to this thread…I may buy the $150 thing in a minute at the no-brainer price…just to maybe eventually try it with the faderport…as I’ve not yet even used that yet with Cubendo.
In general…my visual look-sees at Studio One over the years turn me off. It seems…to me…only me..that it’s trying to appeal to somewhat newbie daw users …yeah…I know that’s not the case..I know.
But it just doesn’t hit me right at casual glances. At least the $150 enticement will give me a casual reason to occasionally look a little deeper I guess.
At any rate, I LOVE Nuendo 13…Cubase 13…LOVE the current, new gui.
I don’t see here a problem with Cubase. As you said between the lines, cluttered programmed VSTs are the problem. Delete them.
Which fiasco?
Here C13 is rock solid without any chrashes an I like the new GUI very much, but new GUI? Not at all, a little tweak here another there and the old fans of Cubase are irritated, I don’t know why
It should be stated, that sandbox mode is where the stability comes from. Cubase is not the only DAW that suffers from instability without this feature, and the stability of Bitwig in regard to third party plugins would be like any other without it. This stability is not an intrinsic quality of the DAW itself.
The plugin that causes Cubase (and Bitwig) the most trouble is Kontakt 7, at least for me that is true. I have zero plans to remove and stop using that plugin. The solution to stop using plugins that sometimes cause problems is over simplistic. Not all DAWs crash because a plugin crashes, Cubase almost always does. You can’t be suggesting this isn’t true?
As for the fiasco that you missed… Go back in the Cubase forum to the week of C13’s release and see for yourself. It was hardly smooth. On the contrary it reeked heavily of a small, homogeneous testing group. The GUI issues were related to NVidia video cards, hardly some obscure hardware. And that C13 was released to the public at version 13.0.10 means that a patch was already in there. If it were just a few users who had a problem that would be one thing, but it was a bunch.
I like the Cubase GUI and the recent changes to the mixer and new left side bar. Cubase has character and I dig the old school vibe. I also like the sound of the audio engine. Lots of good things about it. But the functional aspects have regressed and are keeping me away at the moment. But I’ll be back at some point, hopefully.
Don’t want to split hairs on this topic but the choice to include a sandbox environment for plugins is the DAW maker’s. A sandbox is not a new idea. Bitwig gives me the choice of running plugins with no sandbox, a complete sandbox, or selected plugins can be sandboxed while the rest are not sandboxed. Given that our work can be lost and it takes a long time for Cubase to restart keeping the application up and running should be paramount. It feels like the auto-backup feature is the only answer Steinberg has for this problem. If it is widely known and accepted that plugins are to blame then why not protect against them?
Cool screen setup!
Is it touch screen too?
What computer / OS and graphic cards is needed for this setup ?
Btw, what you re saying makes sence, and I hope that Steinberg will listen!
Hi @olof.sanner
I do have a touch screen but I took it off as its fatiguing reaching over to it…driving by the control surface is much better tbh
Nvidia 1650…nothing much and an extra from the onboard graphics for the 2k
I just have a custom w10 but its good enough for me. i7127k does more than enough but also have uad and powercore card (yeah its still works but I need a new adapter card for pci)
I have written a lot of work to drive mostly by tartarus keypad for general work then on tactile control surface so I can close my eyes. It takes a while but all the commands are grouped and run by gestures so there are 4 gestures per key…takes a while to learn but wow…muscle memory is so cool and it covers probably 80% of need. without lifting your hand from the keypad
This is the learning sheet.
I rarely have crashes…i use jbridge as well. The only plug I cant live without in cubase is and old tube DCVV plug…physical modelled tube. It doesnt crash but if I drag onto another track, occassionally makes the old track go overload meters
I use komplete, korg and about 20 plugs either from waves sonible and a couple of others but I very very rarely crash out like that. Older project (from VST/SX) can sometimes be flaky
EDIT: I also completely debloated and optimised this machine which took a while…although Im sure you all already do that. I have quite varied jobs from prob 1-200 tracks at most (I organise first when I get a mix and reduces at least by 50%)
I also miss the unlimited mixer snapshot function from Cubase VST32. I worked through the song part by part and took a snapshot at the beginning of each part. Was much more intuitive for me than automating with a pen …
