Cubase 14 wishlist

Cubase
306

Hahaha. “Rabid PC fanboys” flagged my post as “abusive” for committing the mortal sin of saying that in my experience Macs tend to be more stable for audio production (and only in response to a PC user claiming that more recent versions of Cubase have become less stable).

That’s the way for adults to deal with anything they can’t bear to read! :roll_eyes:

Of course, I never said that all PC users are rabid fanboys. Just like most Mac users aren’t rabid Apple fanboys. I also mentioned that I use both Macs and PCs for audio production. But that apparently doesn’t matter. Perhaps I should have said that I actually prefer Windows 11 to macOS in terms of functionality. Whatever.

At least rabid Apple fanboys seem to have thicker skin. Maybe because they can (literally) afford to. :rofl:

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I keep requesting the following. It’s like shouting in the wind because Steinberg clearly doesn’t care and would prefer to never have to acknowledge that they screwed up by not doing away with Rack Instruments when they implemented the horribly flawed and mostly useless Track Instruments.

Regardless, for the love of God, sort the VST rack alphabetically or by vender or provide the option to sort by either one. I don’t want to keep having to look at 30+ VST instruments listed willy nilly in the VST rack (because I couldn’t “think ahead” while working on my song and load these Rack Instruments in the order in which I would like to see them listed in the rack).

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308

Or have them in the order they appear in the project window?

309

M2Pro/CB 12 - stable here.

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The half-baked design of Track Instruments and Rack Instruments is not only unattractive but also causes significant practical issues.

What I have been desperately concerned about for a long time is that when reopening a project file, the connections of Rack Instruments can get misaligned, sometimes resulting in entirely unrelated MIDI tracks being connected. Doesn’t Cubase manage each slot with a unique ID internally? It seems that the routing numbers shift due to the impact of adding or removing tracks and changes in their positions.

It doesn’t make sense that despite allowing the connection of multiple MIDI tracks to Track Instruments, these connections can break during freezing and unfreezing processes or when reopening a project.
This clearly indicates a lack of consideration in the design phase.

That said, given the legacy assets involved, it’s probably impossible to completely redesign it in Cubase 14. However, isn’t it possible to design it properly so that connections don’t break?

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311

I hope so. I didn’t notice these issues until Cubase 13, but they might have been around in 12 too? Versions 11 and earlier, I never had these problems.

Now on Cubase 13, if I change the end points of a batch of MIDI tracks (select several and use the key combo to attach them all to a new instrument/device endpoint at the same time) from say, a VSTi plugin to a physical MIDI port (or vice verse), they often lose the channel settings I’d applied :frowning: I have to go through every one and fix the channels one by one.

I can’t remember if I had this issue in Cubase 12, but it’s definitely here in 13. Cubase 11.5 and earlier…I never had this issue.

As for the Rack vs Instrument tracks…they both have pros and cons. I use them BOTH, together, frequently, as each track type offers slightly different feature sets and abilities.

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The only practical differences I have noticed between Track and Rack Instruments are:
Rack Instruments cannot be exported/imported. Track Instruments on the other hand can be imported by means of Track Archives or Import Tracks From Project.
When activating additional output channels on a Track Instruments, some commands relating to automation data does not function properly (see here).
The annoyance that the first output channel of an Instrument Track with multiple outputs enabled cannot be renamed independently from the track itself.

I’d be interested in learning of additional “ feature sets and abilities” that differ between Rack and Track Instruments.

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I think Rack Instrument support has to stick around for legacy support. Too many people have projects that rely on that workflow. It’s also pretty common and logical to bring external kit into a project that way (I.E. My Fantom XR).

MIDI tracks offer MIDI AUX Sends. Instrument tracks do NOT.

Of course MIDI tracks can be connected to either Track or Rack instruments, so it’s ‘kind of’ a moot point, but it can have some ‘influence’ for some users going with a rack-based setup (perhaps using fewer instances of an instrument, but taking advantage of multi-channel/timbral qualities of the plugin).

Rack instruments combined with MIDI tracks provide a separate Audio and MIDI fader on the console, whereas Track instruments just have the one VST Automated Audio fader. Again, you can easily use MIDI tracks with a track instrument and get a similar workflow, but out of habit many are used to the old way. Just mount the plugin in the ‘rack’ and then connect MIDI tracks to it as needed…

Instrument tracks have the advantage of being able to save/export as MIDI loops. These preserve the instrument(s) and mixer channel settings along with the track data. MIDI loops can be auditioned in Media Bay directly, without needing to manually load it into a project and connect it to something. If you saved the loop MIDI file correctly, it’ll sound just as it did when you saved it when auditioning in Media Bay, or when imported into any future project.

Yes, multiple instrument and MIDI tracks (if they point to one of the instrument tracks involved) can be saved ‘together’ into a single MIDI loop file.

Personally, I still use rack instruments quite a bit early in a project. Over time I might Consolidate a bunch of stuff into far fewer and more portable instrument tracks. Especially if I’m using fancy stuff like Note Expression, and automating more with VST than with MIDI CCs. In particular, I’ll do this if I want to save track(s) in the loop MIDI format (for the sake of instant audition in Media Bay).

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314

I’m still waiting for external device presets so that I do not have to manually reconfigure all routing when I switch audio interfaces. I have only been requesting this for close to 20 years.

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315

הייתי שמחה שתהיה אפשרות להשוות כמה events ב-variaudio
כמו audio alignment panel רק ב-variaudio

וגם לראות כמה זמן אני עובדת על אותו פרויקט

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Amen!

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Oh yeah - I just remembered one more: a working time stretching tool! So when you bounce the work IT STAYS THE SAME and does not change into sth completely different!!!

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If you mean save/load selected, yes that’s true. And for example, loading a SD3 template that requires a specific number of tracks in order to load.

There are a few Rack vs Instrument threads here to differentiate. Really there isn’t much these days, and as @Brian_Roland said part of that is legacy support. Actually Brians assessment is pretty up to date.

If anyone can offer additional differences, post them.

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Personally I have ditched Rack Instruments a long time ago. I just wish they would fix the few bugs and annoyances with Track Instruments that does not plague their Rack counterparts.

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Can you give a link or list them here? Just curious.

I pretty much only use Track Instruments except for old projects where Track Instruments were not available or over the first few years when Track Instruments were too rudimentary. Today, those situations for me are rare.

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The reason why Rack Instruments are still necessary is simply to connect multiple MIDI tracks to a single VSTi sound source.
It’s often the case that I want to manage separate tracks for Kicks, Snares, Hi-hats, etc., when working with a rhythm machine.
This allows for clear management and arrangement of sequences that are “similar but different.”

It is also possible to complete the work using multi-lane editing, and I currently use both method most of the time, but I think it is more appropriate to use lanes for managing takes.

In the case of string sections, I separate tracks by divisi and playing techniques. However, I use Vienna Ensemble Pro to organize the sound sources by parts on a external PC, such as 1st violins, 2nd violins, etc., which helps to keep the resource load on Cubase lighter.
Therefore, I don’t use the method of placing a large number of Track Instruments in the Cubase project for each playing technique.
But I need to connect a bunch of MIDI tracks to VEP, so I use Rack Instruments.

However, the above issues could be ideally resolved if Track Instruments allowed for multiple MIDI tracks to be connected “reliably” and keep its connections.
Freeze operation is easier, and Disable tracks makes it easier to reduce the load on CPU and memory.

I think it would be ideal if Track Instruments worked as follows:

A single Track Instrument would look the same as before, but in reality, it would be structured like a folder track.
When I click to open it, just like when displaying lanes, there would be an area directly under the tree where I could add as many MIDI tracks as I want (each with individually assignable channels/ports), and below the MIDI tracks, there would be a section for audio output channels, where activating multi-outs would add individual output channels below…

If this could be done, I think it would be fine to clearly state in the manual that “Rack Instruments are retained for compatibility purposes.”

And of course, the name of the first output channel of Track Instruments should be individually changeable. I truly believe that.

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I had the same idea at some point. But then I thought about the orchestral people and their templates. If they use a multi-timbral instrument they usually don’t want to have the tracks sorted by VSTi but rather like “violin goes to string folder, timpani goes to drums folder” and so on.
And then your folder idea doesn’t work anymore.
So, great idea but I think it only works well for half of the user base and for the other half it’d be a catastrophe.

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323

Agreed, so that’s why it should be ‘an option’. Whatever exists now, people have been using it for years, and probably have mounds of projects they’ll someday revisit. So don’t ‘remove it’. Steinberg has always been really good at least making a gallant effort in maintaining ‘legacy support’ for as long as feasibly possible. Hope that continues…

Adding new usability and features is always welcome in my opinion. Even if I personally never touch them, someone out there might ‘live by it’.

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There’s a link in my previous post.

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I never use Track Instruments. I hope Steinberg leave Rack Instruments well alone.

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