Okay so this is kind of a biggy, but it’s pretty much top of my wishlist for Cubase and has been since I started using Reason.
For those who aren’t familiar, in Reason automation is contained within parts, just like notes. So you can do things like copy automation parts from one parameter on one track, to another parameter on another track.
You can time stretch or reverse automation.
You can create, essentially, custom LFO shapes and then just duplicate parts to create repetition.
And most importantly, you can set a static/initial value, so when there’s no automation playing it will return to that value. So your patches stay in tact and only change when automation is present (rather than staying at the last received value).
Side note; you can alt+click any parameter to instantly create an automation lane for it. Might be another cool thing to implement.
I don’t know how feasible this is within the Cubase environment? Obviously you could do something similar with MIDI but it’s not perfect. MIDI doesn’t react anywhere near as fast as host automation. And you still have the problem of values “hanging” when the automation stops.
It’s pretty much one of the main things that keeps me using Reason for complex, evolving sound design over and above Cubase. Using those little fiddly automation points (that tend to change value as soon as you click/create them) is…well…fiddly To the extent that I tend not to use it unless I absolutely have to.
These are called Automation clips in FL Studio. Since Cubase made the FL inspired Sample track I could see it being added in the future, maybe when automation is revamped into bezier heaven.
Former Cubase user here, I switched to FL Studio precisely because I needed this feature, which is useful for the kind of music I produce (electronic music). While FL Studio is an amazing product, it’s lacking in the audio recording department, and I’m keeping an eye out for alternatives. Top of my list are Studio One, Cubase and Bitwig. Studio One and Cubase tick most of the boxes for me, except for the lack of automation clips. Whichever gets it first will get my money.
As someone coming from Reason, I would love to see this. I just spent like an hour watching dumb automation vids on YouTube trying to figure out how to do this. Really sucks because I have some pretty complex automation it would be nice to just close it up in a clean neat clip and move it around like any other clip.
As other users said, this is really an important feature to have, especially for using Cubase in electronic music. First, it is so cumbersome to edit the automation in lanes of the track - they are just optimized for a different zoom level usually. Then copying is an issue, having a proper editor with good curve editing is an issue. It’s a main blocker for that whole use case, which I guess many folks have…
I completely agree, and just spent a precious vote on this. Hopefully that will help bump it up a bit in the backlog for Steinberg. Cubase’s current automation implementation still seems stuck in the tape recorder mindset, and the world has moved on quite a bit. Containing automation cleanly within parts/events would elegantly work around a lot of the current clunkiness without completely overhauling the automation system.
To the extent that I tend not to use it unless I absolutely have to.