Perhaps it’s thanks to Logics far cheaper price, or it’s presence at major film schools like Berkelee College of Music, but I no longer meet any composers under 40 who use it for film music. It’s all Logic, Logic, Logic.
While I still love Cubase I’m definitely out of the honeymoon period. For me the updates have been insubstantial, adding new features while ignoring fundamental stability and performance issues. Perhaps it’s inevitable that if you use a daw long enough you get a little jaded, but that’s where I’m at.
The Logic situation is becoming one of practicality. Most other composers I want to collaborate with are on that platform now, and it makes it harder and harder to stay.
All to say - I really hope Cubase 11 brings something “boring” to the table along with whatever new features are planned - things like under the hood fixes, plugin stability, a gapless audio engine, generic remote updates, etc. As a “jaded” professional, those are the updates that excite me. Things that make my day to day easier, my crashes less frequent.
Apple can afford to bring the boring with the exciting in equal measure because Logic is essentially a a loss leader. But regardless of their advantages, Cubase needs to do better.
Cubase isn’t only a film composing program, neither is Logic, but I would say Cubase is more of ‘not only composing program’.
If all you are doing is straight up note by note composition then go ahead use Logic… or just use Cubase? I don’t know. You’d probably go over to Logic and hate it after a month.
For film scoring, Cubase has more features (Actually in general). But it all depends on how those features are presented and how immediate they are. Plus marketing, brand management, general public perception, influences etc.
The DAW Market has arguably never been as competitive now. (Logic 10.5, Studio 1 latest version, Abelton, Harrison, reaper, LUNA etc etc).
Although I want a better Cubase in Cubase 11, I think Cubase needs a massive marketing drive more than anything else. We should hear a lot more about all of the music projects and name mixers and producers who are using Cubase as their DAW. Increasing the professional market userbase will influence the home/project market. It will increase the sales of the software which will drive more money into Steinberg’s kitty to invest into resources to build the software. It would also help it keep its place in a now crowded market as a front runner - a pro choice. My choice to run Cubase as my central DAW in my commercial studio has been often questioned over the years. I’m stubborn I guess!
Hey I thought it was all Pro Tools? Anyway I read somewhere that the price of new Macs are going up?
For film and games if you can live without Orchestral Expression maps or even note expression, even though I read Logic has something similar for Expression Maps, then I guess it levels things out a bit more. With Note Expression, I don’t think there is anything with Logic is there?
For myself, and going back to the early 90s, I have never experienced performance issues ever…or any fundamental stability issues. These days my typical projects are not film, but pop, and usually 100-200 tracks, with 25% stock plugs, 25% 3rd party and 50% UAD totaling anywhere from 50-100 plugs. However I do make sure my custom PC is built by someone who knows DAWs.
Based on threads I have read, I’m convinced PC works better with Cubase.
I have no opinion re Cubase vs Logic. I’ve been on Cubase pretty much since version 1, and have never felt a need to look into moving. But, I wonder whether the “Logic, Logic, Logic” effect is due to Apple’s very effective educational marketing. Many people (like me) just use whatever DAW they started on, and if they have easy cheap/free access to Logic in school - whether HS or university - well, that’s often the whole ball game.
Long ago, Tektronix used to give free oscilloscopes to every college engineering department. Engineers learned on Tek scopes, graduated, and then bought them when they went to work. The result - Tek totally dominated the scope market for many years.
If you are doing straight up MIDI composition as if you are working with a hardware sample player like a Kurzweil or E-Mu Proteus… just straight up MIDI to Sample trigger… by all means, Logic. That’s sort of how I see Logic. Unchanged MIDI composition. And honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not my thing though, I want to get to Mars and Cubase is one of the few DAWs that have that vibe… A program that allows and encourages me to build my rocket lab, do deep experiments, simplify, and launch. It’s as much of a science lab as it a music/composing/sound utility.
ProTools is totally dominating from mixing and onwards. But Cubase and Logic and the all the others are stil very much used in the pre production and music creation parts. I guess Logic is causing more stress in avid that what Cubendo do. It’s fascinating to see that Avid can take 5 times more for their software than what Steinberg can do for cubase. Ok, it is better on what its doing. But 5 times?
Mehhh, not really. Too much going on GUI wise, it’s a combination of FL studio and Ableton. Not a good foundational “science lab” platform imo. Layout and boring organizational utilities like MediaBay are paramount if you’re going to do science and get to mars.
Logic can be pirated and Cubase not. That’s the story behind why all other DAWs are more popular. I think Steinberg fired most of developers and now Cubase is like a subscription without actual subscription. 50 bucks per year, enough to keep few developers and roll out few minor features.
I hopped from Cakewalk old-school to Sonar, to Elements to Artist.
I tried / passed on Reaper (bewildering gui) and Logic (not a Mac person) in between.
I’m still in the honeymoon phase, I put Cubase on a clean Win10 and it has not hiccupped once and so far does everything I need. Finally remembering some of the shortcuts and stuff.
So hopefully morale is high and it sticks around for a while longer.
The Cubase Dongle isn’t any worse than the ILok I have to use with other software. Even UAD you still need their hardware to run the plugins. I have been tempted to purchase Logic just to have another choice. Nuendo is running a deal right now with release of 10.3.
Yeah, I don’t know. All I see are the biggest names in Film Composition using Cubase. Hans Zimmer, Junkie XL, Alan Silvestri just to name a few. Those kinds of endorsements are all I need. And not every one wants to use Apple. Many composers prefer PC because it’s way easier and cheaper to build a composing powerhouse. My PC build combined with Cubase is unstoppable. You’d have to buy a $7-14k Mac Pro in order to achieve that.
It is worse than Ilok because Ilok you can use software only if you want. More and more people want no physical dongle and be able to have software on laptop or in studio and with laptop dongles are especially bad.
I would Like to know what Steinberg’s budget for development has been every year for the last 10 years.
I would like to know how Yamaha buying Steinberg affected that budget.
I would like to know the number of developers employed by Steinberg every year for the last 10 years.
Then I might get a better understanding of this company I am basically reliant upon to fix the software that I use 10 hours a day.
I would like to know if Steinberg are going to stay in the game because then I can go and hit the S1 forum and start feature requesting all the things that for some reason I have thought of and this company that has been around for 31 years hasn’t developed yet.
