Last month you had the chance to submit your ideas for the feature requests poll. This month I am going to change the modus operandi just slightly. I took 25 of your ideas and mixed them with 25 requests that I have received in the last couple of month. Some are suggestions from the forums that haven’t been included in the last poll and some are all-time favourites from customers, producers, artists or our developers. Most of them are rather bigger concepts than smaller improvements. This doesn’t mean that we are forgetting about the smaller things. They are just not part of this month’s poll. Additionally I have changed the way you can vote for the features: Instead of a budget like last time, you now have the chance to rank your top 10 requests. I would suggest to use a desktop rather than a mobile phone to do the poll, since the list of 50 items is easier to browse on a big screen. Last thing: Please just vote once! I will delete doubles anyway.
Here is the link:
This month I will keep the poll online for 2 weeks! If you have questions, feel free to post them in here. I am looking forward to your feedback.
Thanks. There are lots of good ideas in here. I wish I could have picked more that 10 but I just selected the ones that would be the biggest speed related workflow enhancements even though there were some cooler and more fun ones. As a full time professional daily user of Cubase, speed and time is very important to me. I’m sure the hobbyists will choose the more fun ones anyway.
I noticed that there were a few commonly requested features in there and even some that I have mentioned or talked about in the forums so it’s good to see that Steinberg is listening.
My top 1 from the list though is ‘more controller support’ which I am hoping will be Eucon functions like Track Follow, EQ cycling and Compression Cycling on the artist mix series and other Eucon controllers. My second one is Muti-touch support.
I mentioned a couple of ideas on the forums which I though were pretty cool but they’re both hard to explain in only a few words and I feel like that’s probably why they didn’t catch on and make it into the list or get much attention on here.
The first one I guess you’d call ‘comp between track versions’ or ‘comp tool 2.0’ for it but it’s basically a ‘master comp track’, Pro Tools style comp track. combined with something I guess you’d call ‘comp regions’ that restricts what the Comp Tool slices. It would speed up the process of comping overdubs that have been recorded over a previously comped track and also allows to easily comp between alternate track versions. It’s hard to explain, I wrote about it here Comp Between Track Versions - Cubase - Steinberg Forums
My other hard to explain idea is to have Cubase automatically separate the reverb and delays of VSTis to separate audio outputs. It sounds maybe impossible but might not be since most plugins can be automated and use the same words, ‘reverb’ and ‘delay’ for their internal effects. It would be a big time saver for mixing because you want the dry signal for mixing and compression which means disabling the synths internal effects and either recreating them or bouncing down effect only (reverb only, delay only) versions of the plugins for mixing. It’s obviously more crucial for dance and EDM as the sounds and patches tend to be very reverb heavy and delay heavy. Even if it could just be automated in the exporting stage it would be very handy as I assuming duplicating the plugin 3 times to create separate dry, reverb and delay versions of each would be pretty CPU heavy unless there was a way to make it not CPU heavy. I know that plugin manufactures COULD use multiple outputs and build this function into their plugins but I don’t see any of them doing it. Maybe I should be bugging them to do it, I don’t know but I don’t see them doing it as they could have done it over 10 years ago so maybe it should be done at the DAW level. Also doing it at the DAW level would allow for cool tricks like having EQ and compression settings that are on the first plugin reflected on the reverb and delay plugin versions just like if they were send effects even though they’re not. Maybe it could be a collaboration effort with the major plugin manufacturers to create a new VST format that separated the internal effects into separate audio outputs that were then treated like FX sends in Cubase? Such as thing would shave 30min to an hour or more off mixing synth heavy music like EDM, dance and Trap. That adds up to a lot of hours saved if you’re mixing a song or two a day every day.
Both of those ideas would be big workflow speed enhancements for professional engineers and producers.
In saying that, I’d be very happy with extra Eucon functionality and Multi-touch support and luckily those two were on the list so they go at number 1 and 2 for me on the poll.
It was difficult to limit myself to just 10 items.
Re: Lower 3rd – my biggest ask for more lower 3rd love wasn’t mentioned –
Please add: 1) Routing and perhaps other Racks and/or the Channel Strip to the Lower Zone.
Sends, Returns already present, that’s great, and, now, add Routing. This way the whole patch bay is right there. This would provide a very smooth workflow in the lower 3rd. A lower 3rd channel strip or lower 3rd channel settings window, would also be amazing.
I love the lower 3rd, great feature of Cubase. Make it better.
Lastly. Please make Lower 3rd able to be made very small. It used to be able to be shrunken down to an almost overview size. I found that very helpful as more Project Tracks can be seen, but the meters are still displayed.
External Controller Integration Improvements - particularly for mapping all parameters to a VST/VSTi
Smart Tools for MIDI Editing (EDIT - should be External FX in this slot)
Move Tracks Within Mix Console
Smart Tool Range/Select Tool - assuming this is a Smart Tool for audio
Renaming Plugins in Plugin Manager (Alias)
Open all plugins of one track in window with tabs - as long as this optional
Improved Import Tracks from Project option
Bezier curves in MIDI Editor
Mix Console Snapshots Including automation
Modulators like LFO for parameters (this would’ve been pushed off the top 10 if I saw the External FX option)
Other things I really would’ve voted for (in no particular order)
Scalability of the user interface
Integration of Dorico - if I owned it already (or if integration meant “free”), this would’ve been higher
Gapless audio engine
Plugin sandboxing
Track header with volume, pans, inserts and sends
Ripple Edit
Multiple track freeze on one track
Stereo effects on mono channels
One thing I think was missing from the list (would’ve been #2):
Improve Window Handling on Windows (OS) - No more floating title bar that hangs out over the desktop, no more plugin windows falling to the background when tiled regardless of always on top settings, and no more Cubase windows falling behind plugin windows - just open the most recent window on top of the last and have them all stay there
Damnit, just realized I submitted and missed the “External FX” one. Based on the current list, that would’ve been #2 for me, and pushed everything else down one!
I’d personally love more details on Multi Quick Controls versus External Controller Integration Improvements. If External Controller Integration Improvements is what I think (allow me to map any MIDI controller for use as a remote controller and use that to map any/all parameters of a VST/VSTi) then I don’t need multi-Quick Controls - the need has been negated. If External Controller Integration Improvements is something else, then maybe I do want Multi-Quick Controls.
Basically, what I want from External Controllers and Cubase is the ability to:
Map all my MIDI controllers as new MIDI Devices in Cubase with fast MIDI Learn of CCs (normal and 14-bit)
Use any or all of these MIDI controllers to map any parameter of VST FX and Instruments
Having it work where when the GUI is open and in focus, that controller mapping is now active
Have these mappings automatically get saved on a per-plugin basis behind the scenes with no additional intervention from the user
Have these mappings automatically get recalled the next time the plugin is utilized in that, or any project, without any additional intervention from the user
…so if that would be included in “Improve External Controller Integration” then yeah - want that! Would never need Multi Quick Controls.
Unfortunately Cubase for Linux didn’t make the list, despite it’s massive popularity in the previous poll, at 17 in the top 50, with 47 people giving it 100 points (seriously though, it’s wasn’t me … maybe the Russians?)
thanks Matthias for the care of this forum and improving communication and cubase.
for the " Open all plugins of one track in window with tabs" hope there is an option also for it(on the plugin window checkbox or pin) to follow track selection,so user doesn’t have to open and close every time the plugin window when selecting different tracks.
also would be nice for instrument track and midi track as an option when a vsti GUI is opened to follow the track selection and open its related vsti
Done! Great list! So many useful things on this list. It was quite tricky - even when prioritizing hard to get down to 10, I still got about 15 or so…! Had to prioritize even harder, so some highly desired things had to be left out of the list…
Since there are so many useful things to implement (many have been asked for for years), I think it make very much sense if Steinberg would prioritize features that require low to medium amount of time and resources to implement. Many more useful features could be implemented if the most demanding features are avoided in near time.
[Regarding Video Export, it’s already publicly known that it’s almost implemented and will be in Cubase 10.5 (as stated somewhere), so for that reason I don’t think there’s any point in voting about that…]
I just want to say also that it’s really great to see Matthias’ (and whoever else that may be involved) effort to really find out what the users want most, and giving everyone the chance to express their will.
Looking forward to what I think will be a great Cubase 11 late next year!
It would be nice to see existing features polished up namely MIDI editor/editing. I understand that polishing existing features doesn’t get new customers in the door but if a balance between existing users needs and attracting new users could be reached Cubase could really be something awesome.
There are items for that on the list so if people want to see that compared to some other items, it will be reflected in the results. Some people will think the current state is good enough and focus on other things they’d like to see added, others will prioritize improving existing features.
Whats polyphonic audio editing - is that in regards to Variaudio, or something else?
I ask as i see Audio to chord detection is on there as an item too - are they essentially not the same concept? i.e. if we have chord detection via audio sources then polyphonic audio editing would exist as a product of that.
Great poll though, vastly better than last months, i felt more inclined to think about this one more.
Conspicuous by its absence was the option ‘No new features - fix long standing issues, bugs and half baked elements, and deliver the most stable release this decade’.
