This is based more on logic than it is popularity. Specifically looking at foundation components of the software that need to be improved which will relay to everything else.
-Is it going to significantly speed up workflow and help people stay organized?
-Is it going to significantly assist in improving audio/production quality?
-Is it going to significantly contribute or help deliver creative output?
-Is it going to significantly help Steinberg obtain pro/commercial studio market users (important marketing foundation)?
-Is it going to significantly better integrate Cubase to modern technologies and equipment and communication protocols/techniques?
-Is it going to significantly improve or decrease performance?
1.) Audio Connections revamping
a.) It’s still the old GUI, so it needs an update regardless.
b.) While the industry swung hard into being mostly ITB away from analog, it swung back and leveled out between the two in which a lot of people are moving back to or are aspiring to work with analog equipment and gear.
Eurorack exploded, 500 series exploded, Behringer is releasing affordable knockoffs, lots of guitar pedal makers as always, DIY pro audio community exploded, used Synth market exploded, pro audio external hardware effects are returning such as the new Neve AMS RMX16 500 and the Eventide H9000. All of Steinbergs new marketing has eurorack and synths in it.
Steinberg has not facilitated this change, in which people have more gear than they do AD/DA and that is a big problem. Audio Connections can’t be shared, they get stolen, they break from project to project and don’t recall properly sometimes. External Audio Connections to make it worse, doesn’t have a full-recall presets only individual connection presets. If you are running a studio with only 16ad/da which you are using sometimes 16 channels for recording inputs, and then 12 of those are being switched to analog gear for mixing, and then you’re having to switch back to full recording set up, and then you’re doing a combination of synth recording and external mixing, etc, etc and you have a hard drive of projects saved with different settings - - It’s an incredibly non-viable way of working.
Now the vast majority of people who have Cubase, probably have no gear, perhaps not even AD/DA and just use their laptops headphone out. But this is important for Steinberg to facilitate professional studios and high-end hobbiests. Steinberg is at a critical point to break a bigger chunk off of that market for themselves, and improving this aspect of Cubase is essential to that.
-Is it going to significantly speed up workflow and help people stay organized? YES
Having to not reset inputs/outputs 1by1 every other project, which is tedious, annoying, mentally straining, confusing, brain focus stealing when that brain power should be put in the art is significant.
-Is it going to significantly assist in improving audio/production quality? YES
If this process is made easier, it will make using analog equipment more viable in a session setting, quicker workflow yields better results, analog gear can be used more and experimented with more frequently.
-Is it going to significantly contribute or help deliver creative output? YES
See above.
-Is it going to significantly help Steinberg obtain pro/commercial studio market users (important marketing foundation) YES
Seeing as most these studios have a plethora of nice gear, if Steinberg creates a modern integration concept that allows people to use their investments quicker, better, more creatively, save them time, and they do it better than ProTools, StudioOne, people will be intrigued.
-Is it going to significantly better integrate Cubase to modern technologies and equipment and communication protocols/techniques? YES
-Is it going to significantly improve or decrease performance? NA/YES
Offloading process onto real gear or digital FX units
2.) Multiple Track Freezing/Unfreezing
This would make production a ton easier. Sometimes you finish working, immediately start on a mix, get the project loaded with all sorts of mixing plugins and processing but then realize some stuff needs to be recorded. You want to be able to reduce latency and stabilize the CPU/RAM usage - being able to select all the tracks and Freeze them and go make a pot of coffee while the rendering happens would be fantastic.
-Is it going to significantly speed up workflow and help people stay organized? YES
I can stabilize a project and go set up mics, clean up, make coffee, while the tracks freeze render. I can continually and easily stabilize the projects CPU/RAM usage as the project progresses.
-Is it going to significantly assist in improving audio/production quality? YES
People will be more inclined to use as intense of a process as they need. They don’t need to always freeze tracks, they can wait until their CPU starts acting up and then freeze a bunch of tracks all at once. stacked processing can be done easier and quicker. More processing intense experiments and techniques can be done quicker. Processing can be organized and adjusted quicker.
-Is it going to significantly contribute or help deliver creative output? YES
the ease of use will open up new processing and mixing ideas for people. Parallel processing stacks, etc.
-Is it going to significantly help Steinberg obtain pro/commercial studio market users (important marketing foundation)? YES
Studios have big processing demands, high number of tracks counts, high number of simultaneous AD/DA, CPU intensive plugins and techniques and have a lot of work and back to back projects to deal with. Clients moving rapidly from one track to the next and back and forward and all over the place. This is a big project and studio management feature.
-Is it going to significantly better integrate Cubase to modern technologies and equipment and communication protocols/techniques? YES
Nearly an entire DAW digital mix/edit can be froze in one or two clicks (could set this up as a PLE Command if included in PLE) before being sent out the box for a console/hardware mix. Less playback latency.
-Is it going to significantly improve or decrease performance? YES
significantly improve as user can quickly freeze tracks and get their performance stabilized and reduce buffer latency.
3.) Improved - MIDI Routing, CC/Controller Lane UI, Quick Controls,
keeping this one short.
-Need to be able to rename CC Lanes/MIDI controller General Names to match the parameters of what they are actually controlling on a synth - ie CC Maps (Like Drum Maps)
-One MIDI CC should be able to control multiple Quick Controls or parameters (Multi-Quick Controls)
-revamp of Drum maps - easier to edit multiple at once
-improving midi plugins, fixing bugs like StepDesigner not properly saving/recalling CC Controller presets per project
edit
-improved MIDI plugins / opening up 3rd party MIDI plugin development
not ideal but time is worth way more than the cost of the hardware. even still I’d like to know if I change a single session for some reason it doesn’t bork all my other session setups. This would be a major big deal to fix ! I don’t want to go back to installing a patch bay in this day and age. I sold them off years ago now and don’t want them back.