Hey Steinberg team and fellow Cubase users,
I converted from Reaper to Cubase last year, and it has been a net positive change for me (especially after the Group Folders track functionality added in the last update). During the conversion I’ve run across a few inconsistencies/issues that I think could/should be fixed in the next version. Hope you guys can agree on this, or let me know if I missed something.
Just so you know where I’m coming from, I’m a producer/mixer for mostly (modern) punk/metal music. I usually work in large multi-song album-length projects with multi-mic drum editing and mixed track types. Lots of editing of instrumental performances, etc.
1) Allow Slice-Quantize for any audio event. The design choice to restrict slice-based editing to Group Folders is unnecessarily limiting.
The Slice option in Quantize menu now only appears for Folders with group editing enabled. This is great for editing multi-mic drums. Slicing and moving audio around is great for editing while preserving transient information. When I use audio warp to edit drums the transients lose a lot of punch (especially kick) even on the drums or plucked algorithms.
While AudioWarp has its place, the design choice to restrict slice-based editing to Group Folders is unnecessarily limiting. Simply allow Slice-Quantize for any audio event.
2) Make Midi-events editable in Group Editing folders
In Cubase group editing in a folder only works for Audio files. Can you make it possible to also include Midi events in the group editing workflow?
Here is my workflow for drum editing.
- Set threshold and manually check all hitpoints (to be phase accurate) for kick, snare and toms.
- Slice → Quantize → Bounce
- Convert quantized hits to midi for gating, sample replacement. The hitpoints are now reset, so I have to recreate all the accurate hitpoints.
In Reaper I would generate midi in the first step, and edit the midi tracks along with the rest of the drums so they stay aligned. This saves me from checking the hitpoints twice! (My current workaround is to export the midi as audio files (spike tracks) and add them to the edit folder. It works, but it takes more time and midi would be more flexible).
3) Make Track Disable/Enable available on Group Tracks
Please make it possible to Disable group tracks.
When working in large sessions (full album project sessions). Freezing tracks is not always possible. For example, the bass for songs 1-3 are done, but not for songs 4-6. So I always use Render in Place → Disable the original tracks to save cpu. It is annoying and inconsistent that Group tracks cannot be disabled. Of course I can take the inserts offline, but it is an inconsistency, and less elegant.
4) Render In Place for Range selections (on all track types).
Render in Place is now only available when you select midi or audio events. What I would love to see, is to be able to make a time selection on a group, audio, (any track). And render the time selection in there.
Now this is possible through two workarounds:
- Mix export a time selection on a group track and re-import it back into the DAW
- Route the output of the group track to an audio track, enable record, and draw in an empty audio Item. Select this audio item and render in place.
This seems needlessly convoluted, and it seems more logical to be able to make a Range selection and render that area in place.
5) Delete Inserts with a mouse modifier in the inspector
In order to remove an insert, I currently need to drag it out of its slot, or select it and select No Insert. Can this just be a mouse modifier + click (like in any other DAW).
6) Fix Range tool Mouse modifier conflict
On Mac, the Range tool’s vertical selection modifier (Opt+Cmd) unintentionally triggers Cmd, which bypasses snapping. This forces me to manually realign selections after creation.
7) Global cut/copy - Paste is terribly clunky
If I want to copy a song section, for example I want a chorus to be twice as long, I first need to disable the Track divider splitting my marker and tempo tracks etc. Then I need to make a time selection with the range tool in order to select the area I want to copy. This only seems to work if I select all tracks (see the mouse modifier conflict in point 6). All these things made this process terribly clunky. This all could be made a lot easier if there were some changes to the Arranger track…
8) Allow Arranger blocks to be duplicated/moved via drag-and-drop (e.g., Opt+drag to duplicate a chorus block). Currently this requires manual selection and copy/paste.
The Arrange track is great for what it is made for, but could be even more useful if it would work a little more flexibly. For example for the simple task of copying a chorus, it would be great if could select an arranger track block and opt+drag it to the time line to add another block.
In Reaper it works like this for the equivalent of Cycle Markers. This would be such a time saver for composition sessions.
9) Allow us to use the Range Tool for automating bypass/un-bypass automation lanes.
Another inconsistency, I can use the range tool to easily automate value based parameters like Volume up and down over sections. But it I want to automate a send on or off on a specific part I need to draw in 3 points and move them up and down. Can’t this just work the same as with volume with the range tool?
10) Better support for album-length projects with multiple songs
- Allow timecode reset at user-defined points in the timeline
- Prevent time signature changes in one song from affecting the click/tempo grid in subsequent songs
- Add visual ‘Song Boundary’ markers that work intuitively with Cycle Markers"
As far as I know, nothing like this has been implemented by any other DAW. This would be great for people like me who often mix an entire album worth of songs in a single project (heavily utilizing cycle markers). Maybe this seems like a strange way of working, but I assure you a lot of Cubase pros work like this (e.g. Dave Otero)
Some issues I run into:
- It would be great if the timecode track could reset per split (e.g. mix notes about something on 1:36, turns out to be 46:43 in the project)
- Currently: if I make a time signature change in a song, I need to compensate for that later in the session. For example if I add one bar of 6/4, the click track for the rest of the songs will be behind a 2/4 bar unless I add a bar of 2/4 in between the songs to compensate. Song splits/resets on the timeline could potentially help with this.
11) Please automatically set sample buffer to max when Offline rendering.
Or let us set the buffer size used in the export window. Offline rendering should always be as fast as possible.
12) Expand Mix Export with more quality-control and workflow features (like Reaper’s Render dialog)
Cubase’s Export Audio Mixdown has a solid job queue system, but Reaper’s render dialog offers several quality-of-life features around the actual rendering process that Cubase lacks:
Live waveform rendering during export — see the waveform drawn in real time, so silent/muted tracks are obvious immediately rather than discovered after the fact.
Real-time clipping indication during the render.
LUFS readout on completion, for a quick loudness sanity check without reimporting.
Dry run / test render — run through the full render without writing a file, to catch clipping or level issues first.
Auto-incrementing filenames on naming conflicts, instead of blocking the export or requiring a manual rename.
These are all things I rely on constantly in Reaper for stem deliveries and album-length export batches, and their absence in Cubase means more manual double-checking and re-entering settings.
Thanks for reading if you got this far. If I missed anything crucial please let me know. Most of these things of course have workarounds. But I really hope these can be fixed one day.
Cheers,
Jeroen, The Netherlands