Disappointing To See Instruments Removed

Cubase
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Just upgraded to Cubase 14 from 10.5 with the discount to finally ditch that dongle. Shocked to see so many instruments have been removed (Spector, Mystic, and Prologue). Feels like I got robbed of a massive sound palette to explore.

Makes me not want to consider Retrologue, and Padshop, or any stock Instruments that come with Cubase other than Halion Sonic or Groove Agent SE.

I barely got a chance to really dig into Cubase because I use a laptop, and I’ve had bad experiences with peripherals getting ripped out of computers ruining both jack, and socket.

Anyway, not really any request here other than some expectation to get them back, or some sort of reassurance that any other stock instruments aren’t just going to disappear after an update.

Just wanted to express my disappointment constructively.

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You can get them to show up

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This is unacceptable. I’m not paying money for a work around, I have better things to do than patch, and make considerations for “work arounds”, plus “(You might need your Cubase 11 licence to be able to use it.)” which is on the now depreciated licensor dongle.

They are no longer consideration for me until they become conveniently offered again, and even then, why would I trust them after seeing them removed so absolutely; or any new stock offerings.

I want to keep up with updates, however, I don’t want to sacrifice integral components to do it. So, just a hard no to anything that seems similar to these plug-ins coming from stock Cubase.

I went through this with Image Line ripping out the sound font player, Wasp/XT, and TS-404, it set me back years having to adapt to Direct Wave (Sampler) to replace SFPlayer. Then I didn’t notice Direct Wave was stored 100s of megabytes with every project file because Direct Wave didn’t have monolithic preset files at the time, and I was using versions, sometimes going into version 150+. Now I’m carrying 80GB of FLP files. I’ve been spending years to clean up and refine that catalog. My trust level is near zero!

Excuse any perceived harsh or blunt tone. I’m still reeling from the past, and am looking to take the right direction with Cubase.

Thanks for the reply and recommendation.

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The plugins were removed because they were 3rd party plugins (branded as Steinberg) and needed the copy protection scheme to be changed from dongle to Steinberg Licensing. That did not happen and we don’t know whether the owners of the code wanted either too much money or didn’t want to be bothered with this task or whether Steinberg simply tried to remove 3rd party plugins altogether.

You can still use them if you install them to the Cubase 14 folder and keep the dongle attached.

Regarding your trust: As far as I can see the Voxengo Curve EQ is the only 3rd party plugin remaining. As for ARA it is Wavelab and Spectral Layers. Stay away from these three and you’ll be good to go into the future.

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A few personal observations.

Were Spector, Mystic, and Prologue outsourced? Did licensing cost/deadlines exist? Do you have access to any research showing usage of these 3 instruments compared to other Cubase instruments or more importantly 3rd party instruments? What 3rd party instruments replace these stock instruments? I think this is especially important when Steinberg looks at the huge difference of Cubase users, ie composers, sound design, EDM, etc.

You can suggest that the above is irrelevant or unacceptable, but resources are limited, and DAW competition is quite strong. I for one wish more time and money were spent on bugs, and what I consider unfinished features. But that doesn’t attract new buyers.

My take is that we live in a throw-away culture. The less expensive it is, the quicker it’s disregarded. A lot of plugs are $29 and the next step is free. It’s not so much about quality as it is about demand and perception. My feeling, and I wish I was wrong, is most users today still look to more expensive 3rd party instruments for the “best”…whatever that means. Considering Spector, Mystic, and Prologue I’m guessing that demand wasn’t there. If it were, I think Steinberg would have spent the resources maintaining it, probably paying additional license fees etc.

Go hardware for longevity but allow a huge compromise for what it can’t achieve. Very few revered synths have gained value. Most have dropped. Behringer has done a marvelous job of re-creating some old instruments, but I think nostalgia based hardware also has a limited life.

Soon VST2 will vanish only to be supported by 3rd party solutions which may or may not work. Many of us have had expensive hardware that was chained to software that today has become a brick. I have learned it the hard way, and going forward I attempt to be less shackled.

Due to my workflow and my number of Battery 3 kits, I have spent almost a year manually converting Battery 3 kits to Groove Agent. NI (Francisco Partners) isn’t interested in what worked under NI 25 years ago and cares little about abandonment. Just ask the developer of Absynth, Brian Clevinger. I certainly hope Steinberg gives more consideration toward long term musicians and their desires. It’s about building and maintaining long term good will. That takes many years and a lot of money.

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Virsyn developed and owned Mystic etc and licensed those to Steinberg ….and the end user….to use on the exact-only-version of cubendo the end user bought. Completely up to Virsyn what they wanted to do longterm.

Similar to how Hypersonic was a 3rd party dev thing via wizoo…I loved Hypersonic at the time and nooo….there is no substitute imo…so I keep using it on my older slaved cubendos.

I have no worries over vst2 host solutions always being available….but I for sure always expect bundled 3rd party plugins to be a case of plugins with a considerably short lifespan in the larger scheme of things.

This is one reason I don’t get attached to bundled stuff.

I’d rather have direct 3rd party plugs….that I physically buy from the devs….so that I have the installers…so that I have a better peace-of-mind regarding future reinstalls….even if the direct dev goes under.

All I really worry about..in terms of Steinberg itself….is my elicenser breaking :slight_smile:

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Expecting software to be there forever is as realistic as expecting to be able to buy a certain model of car forever. I’m looking at you, Jaguar!
A bit like wondering why you can’t get parts for your 1960s auto-change record player.

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haha …there’s always someone out there able to service a 1959 Zenith Cobramatic record player :slight_smile:.

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I got you covered. Here’s everything you need to get Prologue, Mystic, and Spector working in Cubase 14

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Jaguar didn’t go round all the buyers and take their cars off them when they were of a certain age.

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Thanks for this great work.

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Indeed, but neither has Steinberg. You can still use that software, just not in the latest model.

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If vst2 disappears it will be a big blow as third party instruments are still using vst2.

For example i have Abbey Road 2 strings which cost hundreds of pounds. Do steinberg expect everyone to drop everything for a newer version of cubase.

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You mean after more than 15 years and given that you do not need to resample the library but “only” change the little piece that is the plugin code, which is probably the smallest amount of effort in creating such a product?
And given the technical advantages of VST3 over VST2 like creating additional output channels on the fly or side chaining or support to automatically create expression maps?
Yeah, that’s what I would expect from such an expensive product.
EDIT: Look at that, that is exactly what Spitfire have done.

Elsewise if you want to continue to use old stuff then you can stay on your on your old system.

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Well Abbey Road 2 Strings is a lot more expensive than your average plugin.

I’d expect steinberg to at least ask the customers that want to make music.

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When Apple modernizes macOS people expect Steinberg to follow suite. At the same time people expect Steinberg to enusre that all past versions of Cubase run under all version of macOS.
When Steinberg modernizes VST people expect Steinberg to keep backwards compatibility.

So, basically Steinberg is always to be blamed.

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They did, and they have been. The feedback has been overwhelming in its support for more advanced routing options, expanded automation capabilities, better optimization for modern OSs and processor architectures, and better overall stability and speed.

Steinberg has been prepping its user base for over 3 years for the pending death VST2 support. The question isn’t “why can’t SB continue supporting VST2,” it’s “why can’t you just simply update your plugins to the current version?” It’s trivial.

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JWParenteau,

It’s understandable that the situation can be frustrating, but given its current state, we have to deal with it.

While it’s possible to migrate these three synths to Cubase 14, it’s also possible to keep the latest version of Cubase, which requires the use of a dongle, version 11.0.41, if only for compatibility reasons with files that may not work with version 14. But as long as the operating system allows it, using this version is always an option for using these synths.

Personally, I’ve kept this version installed, but I’m using it less and less, especially since I realize that the three synths I used are becoming less and less useful to me, as I have a good number of VSTs that could easily replace them.

Unless you’re attached to a few presets that are essential to your production, which wasn’t the case for me, migrating these synths to version 14 is definitely a simple and functional option.

Good luck with your upgrades.

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I don’t use this plugin, but checking the docs from Spitfire show that they do support VST3, so there is no problem with it.

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All the replies and consideration are appreciated.

I’m relatively new to this community, I will say it’s refreshing to have more mature, and well constructed responses. Image Line’s forum is quite a different story. I admit I have a few threads there that are juvenile, but I’ve been there for like 20 years!

There is so much to unpack in the responses, and again I appreciate all the consideration. My main purpose was to express my disappointment, as I feel this is important. In my experience, and as the saying goes “Those who cry the longest, and loudest are usually the ones who get what they want.”; unfortunately. This is my optimal recourse. I can recreate them in SynthEdit, however, that’s got so many negative issues, and I’m not interested in making the time when there are a universe of alternatives.

Relating to the core topics, I’ll have to keep an eye on developers names in the credits to build some confidence when selecting Steinberg offered plugins.