Been on Cubase for many years, and I tried spending about 4 months on Live and Studio One

Cubase
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Before you respond, read every word and don’t take anything out of context please. There’s not a single reason to get pissy for any reason whatsoever. This is my own experience, and yours may vary, and that’s fine. I’m staying on Cubase for now.

Here’s a brief summary after spending 4 months trying both Live and Studio One (about 2 months separately on each), in depth. I already knew them a bit from using them sometimes over the years (especially Live) but I wanted to see for the hell of it whether I might switch after having been on Cubase for so long. I still used Cubase for some of my existing work but had more of time freedom this year so I bit the bullet and went for it. I do both producing songs and full-on scoring.

The only takeaways that matter, because I don’t have time to go into detail:

Cubase has the most features overall and is why I’m staying for now. The others are fantastic in their own rights, but for score work especially they just aren’t at the level of Cubase IMO. Cubase does have a lot of things to keep improving of course (like both Live and StudioOne do!!).

What I was impressed most by Live and StudioOne is their speed and fluidity. I don’t know either as deeply as Cubase, but within a week I was flying around on both in ways that I can’t on Cubase. This is, IMO, because Cubase is an older DAW and has older ways of doing a lot of things, the audio engine, etc. And it isn’t 100%: in some ways Cubase is faster, but I mean the overall feel and experience of the other two. Cubase in general requires more keystrokes/mouse movements to do a lot of things, and also just feels slow, though some of this is improving with every update.

After this experience I feel the best foot forward for Cubase is to focus on making things as fast, smooth, and intuitive as the other two. There’s a notable difference for me, but the features and depth of Cubase is unmatched overall IMO. It does have things it needs that the others have, like ripple edit, folders as groups, etc., but I mean overall. All the toys each DAW has didn’t matter to me nearly as much, but the smoothness and intuitiveness did. I’m not moving to either at this point though, and will keep an eye out as time goes on.

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I’ve used Live for 10+ years and I honestly would use Studio One if I hadn’t already purchased Nuendo. What you’re pointing out is 100% correct. Both those softwares provide better User Experiences. Here are my thoughts on that.

  • Cubase is older
  • Software developement a few decades ago had less understanding of the topic known as “User Experience” or UX (link)
  • Modern software is designed with UX in mind from the ground up
  • Changing old software to fit modern UX expectations requires time and money (and vision!)

Why is it difficult? Here are my thoughts (partly from experience)

  • You have to address an old codebase
  • Customers don’t know what UX is so they don’t demand that companies improve it. They feel the impact but they can’t articulate it.
  • Some older customers have a knee jerk reaction against any change because they’ve established familiarity with the old way of doing things

So I suspect that’s where we are with Cubase/Nuendo.

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I do this every other year. I switch to some other DAW and love it for a few weeks of honeymoon and then I return to Cubase again. Very much for the reasons you give.

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Live does feel smoother and more integrated to me than Cubase - it has a single UI design while Cubase still has a mixture of UI designs from different points in time.

However, the UI of Cubase is improving over time.

I think personally I’m stuck with Cubase as I have such a library of projects in progress, and a large number of released tracks, that I think the downsides would be greater than the upsides from changing DAW.

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Your points are very accurate unfortunately, I feel.

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I consider this to be the largest problem. Users would rather request more features! rather than request an improved experience with current features. So companies like Steinberg feel compelled to create new things in order to sell updates.

In case Steinberg is reading this, I would definitely pay for an update that only focused on improving the experience of existing features. There are so many there already.

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Same here. Things like the refined Expression Mapping, Volume & Pan in the track controls, graphic UI enhancements/clarity, refinement and additions to the Modulation function, etc. in C15 are wonderful and massively more welcome to me than anything else. Applying this same thing to things like editing multiple automation lanes on different tracks at the same time, faster arrangement/deleting of CC lanes in the piano roll, etc., etc. are where it’s at for me.

As far as new features, to me the useful ones at this point would be things like ripple edit, folders as groups, etc. I don’t need any new plugins, synths, or sounds.

I also understand there’s a wide base of users and they can’t possibly satisfy everyone with new features. But UX benefits everyone, whether they realize it or not, and it’s the biggest win over Cubase with DAWs like Ableton and StudioOne.

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I´m not happy with some Cubase stuff mainly the CPU load and the lack of sandboxing but as I use stream deck (in fact Touch Portal) with many macros and PLE + worksaces I dont feel any problem with fluidity.

Can you provide an example on “smoothness and intuitiveness” on the other DAWS to know what we are missing? I know I might regret this lol…

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I used Live for over 10 years after I started on Cubase SX3. I love Live’s GUI and it is fast and snappy. I definitely feel faster editing vocals and enjoy many aspects of it… BUT… Live chokes after enough 3rd party plugins are used, especially Channel Strips like the SSL U series. I found that after sets started gettIng closer to finished, the CPU meter in Live was often about to have a heart attack. It doesn’t handle multiple cores well, especially with higher track counts. I had kept my Cubase license up to date to keep access to old projects. So I switched back about 2 years ago. Cubase has managed to handle everything I throw at it - including several songs we were working on in Live (choking) where I exported stems to Cubase and rebuilt them. The ability to not choke is important to me. I still use Live to make beats, but at some point I export to Cubase. If all you use is Live’s stock plugins, then it runs great… but that’s not enough for me these days. YRMV

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It’s a big topic. Here are some of the big ones from either one or both. But you have to use the DAWs in depth to really experience the difference and see how you feel:

Drag‑and‑drop everything in Studio One: instruments, samples, effects, presets, track/FX/group setups, and patterns can be dropped from the browser directly into tracks or the arrangement; that single action both creates the track and inserts devices, eliminating multiple steps in Cubase. This is a big one.

Immediate audio take comping: Studio One’s drag‑select comping feel faster than Cubase’s granular, heavier comp workflow.

Device chaining: Live’s device chains/Studio One’s macros let you prototype multi‑effect routings quickly. And they’re designed to be manipulated in real time, not through deep routing matrices.

Searchable, contextual browsers: Studio One’s browser/Live’s browser gives you devices, samples, and presets with auditioning and drag‑drop, and is notably faster and more intuitive

Audio Effect Racks: Live’s Racks have nested effects and parallel processing that are easy to create and save, letting you create complex sound design and mixing moves in a way that is less fiddly than creating and routing multiple Group/FX tracks in Cubase.

The way they can handle folder tracks as groups is a big one, too. And ripple editing on Studio One is as well.

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For sure yes, I experienced that as well. The things I mention here are mostly UX and speed/intuitive-related.

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One of the things where Studio One is superior to Cubase is their Chord Track. You can use it to drive a whole arrangement with it, which is not possible with Cubase’s, which seems to be just a track where you can pick chords to use in the song with extra work required to make this chords into melody or bass lines.

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I agree that Live is way faster/smoother in a lot of ways. One thing about the Cubase 15 update, at least on macOS, is the pinch to zoom functionality. This feature closes the gap for me and speeds up the worst part (on the Cubase side) of going between the 2 DAWs

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I am under the impression I can drag’n’drop these items in Cubase as well.

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Oh, in S1 I can add a few chords onto the chord track and it will create a track with a melody and a bass line track? Is there a video available demonstrating this?

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Yeah I’m not really getting it either. Cubase has had drag and drop for decades.

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ok, I get why I dont feel Cubase isnt smooth: I use a template so regarding tracks I just use one from the template or duplicate one of them (without data), 2 clicks!

Regarding drag n drop you have the media center right tab where can drag almost everything to the project window, though I dont use it.

Regarding chaining I dont use complex routing, justo tracks to groups and some VCA so it´s easy and many routings I have them already in my template.

“searchable things” that one is really poor in Cubase I agree. Again, my template and my shortcuts come to the rescue, I almost never have to expand menus.

Folder tracks as groups is a good one too.

Regarding ripple editing with grid, event and shuffle modes I can do whatever I want but as I never used ripple maybe I´m missing something.

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You just have to use Studio One to understand what I’m talking about. The way the whole thing is done feels faster and more intuitive to me.

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I use a templates too but many times it’s not enough and I’m always experimenting and doing new things, so for me it made a difference.

Re: Drag and drop. You just have to use Studio One and get to know it to see what I’m talking about, it just felt faster and more intuitive to me. Might not to some others, but it did to me.

Ripple Edit is a faster and efficient way to do what you’re referring to (which I do as well). Look it up to see how it works.

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yeah, I´ve seen videos about ripple cause I heard Cubase users requesting for that function but is pretty similar to Shuffle snap mode to me…