I’m not having the same experience you are having. Sorry to hear it’s such a mess for you though, that sucks for you.
I’d be interested to know more details of what is going on for you, specific examples, if you want to share, etc… Just to be clear, I’m not saying that out of skepticism for your situation – I’ve read many of your posts in the past – so I’m not doubting you are having issues. Maybe some of them can be solved or optimized? Maybe it’s just unrealistic expectations? Maybe some issues are related to all the things we’ve been discussing in this thread, from plugins to drivers to hardware to third party licensing systems to OS issues, etc., etc, which to be fair, are out of the control of Steinberg. If you provide details of what is going on, perhaps someone can help.
BTW I’m genuinely impressed by what Steinberg has accomplished with Cubase/Nuendo, more so than almost every other DAW I use. The only DAW that performs somewhat better overall in a practical day-to-day usage in my experience is Reaper, but that’s obviously a completely different DAW in terms of feature set, etc., and with a completely different development process, unique in the DAW world. Reaper also lacks certain features that I need in Cubase. There is no “perfect” DAW to rule them all.
I’m not dismissing people’s issues, though, and everyone has different needs, preferences, plugins, hardware, drivers, etc., so my situation is obviously different than yours.
Whether or not that is true (it’s an interesting discussion for sure!), what other viable, profitable, and realistic business model would you suggest that would give better results? And is there a DAW developer that truly fits your ideal business model with the features and performance you want? If so, why not use that other DAW?
As a user of many DAWs, I’m keenly aware of what’s out there, and I find it amazing how many great tools we have now. But maybe I’m just being an optimist – “glass half full” kind of guy. You make it sound pretty bleak! I just don’t see the negative as much I guess. Sure, things could be better. But “completely broken?” Nahhh.
Perhaps an open source model where you have a direct stake and participation in the open source development process, might be the best model for you, where you could get down into the details of the code if you wanted to. Obviously that requires certain skills and lots of time, so that may not be compatible with you. I’ve been involved with various open source projects and it’s not for everyone for sure. Lots of time, lots of headaches, but lots of potential rewards (or at least satisfaction) if you get involved with the developers (or help development yourself). However, having said that, I don’t know of a single open source DAW that performs better than Cubase overall, and certainly there is nothing that matches the feature set. I’ve tried pretty much every one of them, on Windows, Mac, and Linux (and I’m a big Linux fan).
Of course there’s Reaper, again, which has a different business model, and it does have better overall performance than Cubase, but does it have the features and workflows you want?
I’m all for better performance, stability, consistency with standards, etc… but unless I am willing to sacrifice features or productivity or interoperability with clients, etc., I don’t see a way around dealing with the business models we currently have.
I disagree, but like I mentioned, again, what viable alternatives are there in your opinion? I don’t think there any (I’ve tried or own pretty much all the DAWs on the market), but who knows, maybe I’ve missed something. If there’s a better option, I’d love to try it.
I disagree with this too, but I’m also aware of the limitations of the commercial business model… they need to fund development, and it’s a tough equation every release cycle to balance limited resources. Hard decisions are made, and sometimes their decisions are not what some of us want the most, leading to disappointment sometimes, but they need to balance those decisions so they can stay in business, otherwise we have NO Cubase at all. Business is business after all. Life goes on.
Anyway, not trying to argue with you at all, just I guess wondering what your ideal world would look like, and how you think it would be profitable enough for a DAW developer to maintain long-term? I personally think this model we currently have works pretty well, notwithstanding issues from time to time.
Cheers!