I just noticed Cubase 10.5 had dropped, so just went through the feature list.
I couldn’t spot any major differences from Cubase artist 9, certainly none that made me want to actually upgrade (apart from the ability to colour mixer channels perhaps, but which is an omission so heinously overdue being fixed that I’m well past needing it at this point, having managed without for years).
Is there anyone using 10.5 artist who can suggest something I’m missing? There must be some reason for people to consider dropping 75% of the full purchase price for what appears to be essentially the same program?
I upgraded from 9.5 to 10.5 a few days ago - i would say yes its worth the upgrade. It performs better. Iv taken a heavy laden 9.5 project, which was getting nasty cpu spikes into 10.5 and its running really smoothly, no glitches or stutters. havent had a single crash either. It looks better too, everything is easier to see.
I think the best feature added also for the Artist version is Automation Bézier curves, that came with the 9.5 version.
There are other things too of course, but many of the most interesting features in the later versions have been for the Pro version.
The best value for updating from Artist 9 in my opinion would be to upgrade to the Pro version when the summer sale arrive. You would then only pay a tiny bit more for the Pro version than you would pay for the Artist version update at regular price.
Ok, some canny ideas there. Cheers all. I will have a think and keep an eye out for the sales.
The performance point is certainly an interesting one…which I hadn’t considered.
I’ve been a Cubase user since the Cubase VST days, and upgrading repeatedly since then has been quite expensive when you add it all up (I missed the last grace period by 2 days, which didn’t help) so I’m just more cautious about incremental upgrades now. Makes me wonder how FL manage with their lifetime free upgrade policy.
I agree, i missed the grace period for C9, and missed the update, pay. And you have to pay twice for 10 and 10.5. So yes kinda steep.
Anyway the C10 update, what you could say anniversary update, was NOT so impressive…
With DAWs being so feature rich these days, it’s hard to find any Holy Cow additions in a new version. For me, some of the smaller things have made me happy. I have pro so I don’t know if these are in Artist or not.
One is the comparative EQ window (don’t know the Marketing name for it). Bring up channel EQ on track 1, point the second to track 7, and you get a translucent overlay of both EQs. Really, really handy for helping one track to get out of the way of another one. Could I do this with my ears? Sure. But man, it’s quick and easy.
Another small thing is that now when you have multiple projects open and close the active one, it doesn’t automatically activate some other random one (which always turns out to be the wrong one).
I can’t remember if it was 9 or 9.5, but now you can split the top window so that markers, tempo or whatever else you want can stay put in the top while everything below scrolls.
Honestly, it’s often the seemingly small stuff like those things that make me pull the trigger. Cubase already does what I need, so the workflow enhancements are often worth it to me.
Everyone’s needs and preferences are different, so I don’t know if any of this would be worthwhile to you or not, but thought I’d share.
