Yeah, that’s exactly the sort of stuff I was talking in my note above (and going back to the November 2020 thread on the original batch export facility). And also stems, different bit depths and sample rates, unmastered mixes and full mixes (where the boundaries might be different due to heads/tails cuts and fades on the mastered versions), etc.
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That would be great, since I often make music only mixes, that exclude such things as vocals, or include only others such as guitars, drums and basses, while excluding keyboards or orchestral instruments.
This would definitely be something that would be of interest to me as well, especially for MIDI editing. I’m work around it, of course, like probably everyone else who isn’t making fully quantized music, but it certainly does take a fair bit of extra work compared to if there were a degree of “semantic musical intelligence” to help on this front. (I have no clue if other DAWs do this better. I’m pretty sure SONAR didn’t back when I was using that before moving to Cubase – in the 9.5 to 10.5 time frame.)
Another thing on the audio side, there needs to be a way to open up online access, to things such as online (automated) mastering and file sharing, that superscedes what is available Nuendo, as far as project collaboration, goes for the internet.
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FWIW, my general idea on this is to be able to add to add to an export batch, doing whatever we might do now (e.g. muting vocals, instrument groups, etc.), then adding it to the batch, then doing another set of mutes, boundary changes, plugin changes (e.g. bit reduction/dithering), etc. and adding that to the batch, then the next permutation, … Cubase would have to take some sort of snapshot of what the settings in each mix was at the time it was added to the batch, but each could then be rendered later in a single batch, without having to do an export in between with different sets of parameters.
I’m being simplistic (and probably overly complicated under the hood) in this thought, and my recent and 2020 comments mentioned above have some other considerations mentioned. But the general idea is to be able to set up a batch that can be reused, and do all project archival operations in a single batch instead of the typically 10 batches I ended up doing with the current setup. Even just moving bit reduction/dithering/noise shaping to the export, instead of needing a plugin, could cut down the number of batches a fair bit (that is one area where SONAR has an edge over Cubase).
Plus, it’s a feature that virtually everyone can use, no matter what genre they are in….we all have to mix, and very often multiple versions.
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Hello dear colleagues,
Inspired by some thoughts here, the newly released Cubase 15 and Affinity 3 by Canva, I came-up with some ideas about a possible future direction of the Steinberg ecosystem.
In my opinion it’s time we - the Steinberg employees and the devoted user base here, need to have an open discussion about the future development direction of our beloved music applications - Dorico, Cubase/Nuendo, WaveLab, SpectraLayers.
Here is the thread I have started:
Would be nice if more colleagues share their thoughts.
Best regards,
Thurisaz
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An intelligent company knows how to balance staying loyal to its legacy userbase but also not being arrogant and negligent regarding the present and future of audio/music.
Great companies have been and gone making the mistake of not realising where a market is headed.
Kodak film ignored the emergence of digital photography, placing far too much trust in the physical film market, not realising it was going to be replaced.
Blockbuster Video did not realise the massive potential of Netflix and digital streaming.
Old fashioned retail never imagined that the internet would be 80% of your business and not 20% of it.
Steinberg have been committed to making a product that generally catered for people wanting general mixing (rock bands etc…) or composers, also a history of people who used Cubase to have big Dance music hits.
Where is audio in 2025, and where is it going ? What events are going to take place that shift the culture ?
- AI music - its going to get better, and the major labels are going to try to control it and exploit it, to brush it aside and ignore it, is foolish. Its a serious threat to any company that caters to people who are dedicated to making music using DAW’s. If the AI companies begin to offer the average joe a DAW running through a browser, at what point do they chew into the traditional DAW market share ?
- Rock music is 80 years old Hip-Hop is over 50, are there genres on the fringe that are slowly beginning to become the new standards, and if you don’t appeal to the people in those fields, you will struggle against competitors who are ahead of the curve and promoting within them. Hyperpop, Darkwave, Afrohouse, Phonk, Alternative R&B are some of the fringe genres, if i am the Steinberg marketing team, i want my products to be spoken about in the genres coming up, on the fringe as well as in the traditional genres that have been around for 50+ years. I don’t want my rivals to appear more cutting edge than I am, I cant afford to be out of the loop, this is a sign of irrelevance.
I think Cubase is the best, the future is, marketing it so that people in the dark, understand also.
Feature for the “audio recording team”:
- Noise reduction plugin
But the one that works like RX Spectral Noise reduction: you can separate reduction for the random noise and static noise. Everybody is using USB devices and some of them are producing static nasty squeaky noise (same for digital pedals) - reducing it with the “classic” noise reduction plugins is degrading the sound quality. RX can deal with it thanks to a separate static noise reduction.
Having such a tool on board would be cool feature, especially for those of us who don’t want to support iZotope anymore (for variety of reasons).
And no, Spectralayers can’t do that. It’s not even close. The noise reduction in SL is way behind the competition.
Also: AI voice noise reduction. Accentize dxRevive is on another level for the voiceovers and vocals.
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Yep - absolutely…
I was shocked when I saw this video - think what it’s going to be able to do, like in just a year’s time.!
Sit back, watch this; not all, but at least until 8:45 mark…(you are allowed to skip the 80’s power-rock segment if it’s not to your taste - but you must listen to the next example. Remember, a simple audio demo is uploaded, for Suno to listen to and analyse. The prompt entered (by Henning Pauly) asked Suno to just ‘add’ some instrumental parts to you know, flesh it out a bit musically; get some ideas to pursue.
Well, not only did Suno do that, but… hey, why not see what you all think…
Scary “right now” future for professional musicians, singers, songwriters, producers and more
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Those who want Steinberg to be Suno should check how Suno operates and compare it to Steinberg. Two totally different worlds. Steinberg would have to restructure the entire company. They would need to build an infrastructure to accommodate AI music generation. It’s an enormous investment. The money involved in Steinberg are microscopic in comparison to Suno.
If you want Cubase to be Suno, better prepare your 100’s of millions of your pocket money to invest in Steinberg 
I get that sound design and plugins have been something of a focus but I really feel this is not the case in many ways. The introduction of the modulators and pattern events (as well as going further back, ARA) is welcome but Cubase is in many areas playing catch up in the electronic music sphere to the unstoppable Ableton juggernaut.
C15 did not really target this area, not least there is no clip launcher (again). The project synchronisation didn’t receive any improvements (e.g. midi clock latency adjustments). The pattern events introduction is welcome but the current pattern editor is very underpowered… and there is no user framework like max4live implemented.
Don’t get me wrong, Cubase is an amazing environment for tracking, editing and mixing. And for notation and so on it’s ahead of many alternatives. But the direction of travel over many years has not been to focus on electronic / sound design, compared to others.
Hey Matthias, we appreciate having Steinberg employees chime in! There are many goodies in the new release, thank you!
For me, in the kind of basic recording/mixing department the new volume/pan controls on track headers are very welcome, and I would love to see this concept developed further — being able to view and configure the layout of all inserts/sends/modulators etc directly on the track header as is possible with Pro Tools and Reaper remains high on my wishlist. When I’ve worked on those systems, I would almost never open the mix window, because everything I needed to do was possible from the main window. Having the UI scale appropriately and make intelligent use of space when changing track heights goes a long way. Cubase separates “composer brain” and “mixer brain”, but for me there is a lot of overlap between the disciplines and I sometimes feel a bit disoriented moving between mix window and project window to do simple things like copying an insert to another track. For me being able to work this way in a single window feels more modern, like composing, sound design, and mixing are all part of a unified process. Summing folders with automatic routing of child tracks would be another very welcome addition in this area.
Also, a little thing I’d REALLY love to get is to be able to apply track delays to multiple tracks at once (for working with orchestral samples/templates), and to see the track delay parameter addressable via the project logical editor. It would really be an improvement when it comes to working with sample libraries on the fly.
Needless to say fixes for VCA recall, ARA and realtime audio warp glitches, lost sidechain inputs when reordering plugins and rendering instruments, and other longstanding bugs to existing features (documented elsewhere on the forum) would be lovely to see fixed this year.
Thanks for taking the time to read our comments!
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Hi !
Thanks for this update, really like it !
I would like to see :
1-Gapless audio engine : you definitely want to catch a younger public with features you can see in ableton or bitwig (modulator, drum track etc etc) which is very nice, don’t get wrong. But if you really want to catch new people and younger public into the cubase world, you need to fix this audio engine who cuts every time you insert a plugin or something else. This is a big issue for the general workflow. Someone who is into electronic music or hip-hop can’t be interrupted every time you insert a plugin or an instrument track. personnaly, I got use to work with it but in my opinion you really should prioritise this request.
2- record audio from another audio track without routing the signal into a group track. Just have the possibility to choose an audio track in the input routing menu. Time saver.
3- audio to midi : Same as the gapless audio engine, should be already implemented.
4-write the automation from the modulators : I love the modulators but I really would like to write the modulation on the automation line. Just press write and play, and the modulation is recorded.
5-Cut midi clip maintains the articulation : when I copy a part of a midi clip with an expression map, I have to manually recall the articulation for making it appears otherwise it can’t trigger it. Time saver as well and definitely more logical.
6- a big revamp of the note expression / MPE in the midi editor : it is very hard to work with it right now. It feels old and not user friendly at all. Bitwig offers the best way to work on note expression and MPE, I’m sure you are aware of that.
7-add Fx / group to selected track could maintain the output routing of the selecting track , actually it could an option.
Thanks !
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Even if that’s the case - which I think isn’t a fair characterization - what is Cubase really missing for those doing “real” music?
I can’t think of anything.
Hi and thank you for your thoughts. FOr sure I did not intend to be unfair.. was just thinking. As to your question: See my reply to Matthias Q. and the contributions of other posters.
And as a side remark: I would never consider any musical Genre as “no real music” :).
Steinberg is owned by YAMAHA Corporation, who reported total revenue of $3 billion in 2024.
YAMAHA also heavily invest in there own AI, which they run through various projects, this is how Steinberg got the AI in Backbone and now OmniVocal.
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Yamaha will not put all their resources in one sub company like Steinberg. 50 million is nothing. They may at best make a substitute on a small scale. How much of it will go to AI and how much to other startups? They didn’t precise. How much of it will go to Cubase and not to their other products/instruments? Cubase is not getting all the same features their other products get. Not to mention that they’re quite late to “AI race”.
Also those two products you mentioned are not the same as Suno’s generative AI.
People who dream that Cubase will become another Suno DAW may dream together with those who dream (since over a decade) about Cubase becoming Live.
This is where is see it going.
SUNO within a few years will be owned by the major labels, it will hit a limit of investment and it will only be fed the songs on the major labels catalogues, they wont be allowed to scrape random music anymore.
Same thing has happened with Adobe, there AI is not as Good at art as MidJourney Ai, but this is because Midjourney illegally scraped every piece of art online, whereas Adobe can only scrape what artists have created via Adobe software.
SUNO will be a browser based Simple DAW used to remix your fave popstars songs, and you will pay to use it, make no money by releasing your remixes, and the majors will get even wealthier.
The strength of SUNO isn’t feeding it 100 million average songwriters prompts, the strength in SUNO will be A major label corporation allowing 1 million of the most famous songs on its catalogue to be carefully analysed into it legally.
Then charging the average joe $30 a month to remix artists signed to the majors, basically earning $$$ from users, and old music fading out in time by rehashing them.
Then exploiting these remixes by legally letting spotify have them and use them to fraudulently manipulate the playlists making even more $$$ for the majors as all the music being played will belong to them, either signed, old legacy acts or AI rehash remix’s.
The Average Joe will:
- Pay SUNO to remix major label music.
- Pay Spotify to listen to major label rehashes and originals.
- Limit themselves from ever having a chance to beat the amount of AI remix’s being generated by themselves.
It will be a major label cash grab.
If i can remix 50 Michael Jackson songs 1000 times each, you as an indie artist are now competing against 50,000 Michael Jackson records !!! and if I own his publishing I am earning across 50,000 records not just 50
Cubase, the future will be Audiobooks, podcasting audio, film/tv, video game design audio.
Theres more than 1 way to skin a cat.
AI will kill entry level artists, but audio is a wide playing field, it doesnt have to be limited to making 3 minute sing a longs.
I would rather make a 2 hour audiobook including music i make, than waste time making 3 minute pop songs competing against 3 million Ai artists.
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As an attorney, that’s correct.
Suno and others have a tremendous amount of legal exposure….as the multitudes of current lawsuits illustrate.
There’s nothing new here….this goes way back to the Napster lawsuits and earlier…..source rights holders will always prevail in litigation, with the goal of then controlling….or shutting off the source material faucet.
As it should be (as I’m also a rights holder).
Yamaha doesn’t want/need to be involved with those types of messes. Yamaha will always proceed cautiously and in tandem with desires/rights/input of source owners.
The products may not then be exactly like those of a Suno etc…..but Yamaha products will at least have no legal murkiness.
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