Feelings about Cubase - Leaving?

Steinberg Lounge
1

Hi guys,

I would like to share with you my feelings about Cubase but I would also be pleased to hear your feedback too.

For some time now and despite all it’s qualities, I feel that Cubase might be not a DAW made for me anymore. And this for many reason.
But before this I would just like to clarify that I use Cubase for years now and I make music, mostly EDM and film scoring like, as a hobby, I guess like many. I am not a pro and I don’t work in a Studio.

So, in fact, what is boring me so much with Cubase is, of course, it’s slow (to not say endless) start-up and shutting down time. The worst being the shut down of a project and then the shut down of Cubase it self. So, I know that for some, Cubase runs like a charm and its quite fast at starting/shutting down. But I also know that for many others, the situation is just like mine… and I don’t believe that we can say that the fault is about computer performances as, in comparision, with other DAWs the process if must faster in the same conditions.

Also the constant bugs… I rencently made the experience of the “Invalid project file” issue, which pissed me of quite a lot.

People could arrgue that I don’t know how to use Cubase and that is were my frustration comes from but that’s not what I believe.

More generally, I have that feeling that Cubase is too cumbersome, that it works on the basis of an old system, that is too fragile and that it is not intuitive enough.
The way of adding tracks with all its distinctions, the coloring system, the quantize, the right tools and the routing system, where you can now simply drag and drop things into tracks in other DAWs… The eLicenser which is gone but I still have licenses that I can’t move from the dongle to the virtual eLicenser! The systematic crash at startup one time out of five…
That been said, I don’t want to offend people that feel all the opposite using Cubase, that’s not my goal. Moving from another DAW is not my first choice, I don’t want, in my today’s life, start it all again by learning from the begining.

Another thing that is annoying me is, I have noticed that, more and more nowadays, the majority of the tutorials and profesionnal courses/training that I watch are made using Ableton Live or Logic. Some uses Fruity loop but I can’t count the one using Cubase… Ableton Live is coming in the first place almost every time.

About Ableton, I am wondering if that would not be the DAW I need at the end (I don’t have a MAC so I can’t use Logic). I have seen so many tutorials using Live for which I always struggle to apply the technique in Cubase and when I manage to do it, it is clearly not as smooth and quick as in Live… It seems so smooth, like you do things in an instant, even if I know that it can’t be as easy as this but that is what it looks like.

I have seen so many people moving to Ableton Live and saying that they should have done it way before.

I am also using Reaper for many years too so I have a good idea of how fast and smooth can be another DAW and, in the case of Reaper, for 10x less the price…

So, what are your feeling? Have you tried to switch? If so, did you go back to Cubase and why?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences

2

The workflow in Live is made for live music production in the EDM world. And I really hate the workflow. I never got used to it.
Cubase has a more generic approach, to fulfill many needs, but some not very well.

Take a look at Bitwig. Could be what you require. It’s much more like LIve.

3

This has always been the case , depends on which side of the ocean you are on but Cubase or Steinberg has always been stigmatised and treated like they don’t exist , why ? the drive from Mac for Logic and Protools to be the leaders , people complain it’s to expensive but for features ? there’s no comparison .
Cubase is fragile ,you are correct and this is where you either want to use Cubase and have it running as it should be or don’t use it . 70% of problems are user errors because there’s alot of happy customers out here .
If your system isn’t a standard configuration recommendation and you use it for gaming , internet and so then you will have issues .
Anyway . sorry to here Cubase isn’t for you . Hope you find what you are looking for else where

4

Hi Vendimion,

I do recognize the Cubase experience you describe. I got a ‘pretty stable Cubase’ at present but nonetheless …
Are other DAW’s rock solid stable?
I noticed Cubase 12 is around for almost 2 years now. I hope (wish) the main effort for the next iteration will be stability.

Since you asked: I am staying with Cubase.

Cheers!

5

At the release of C7, I was actually pondering switching DAWs and demoed several of them (Live, S1, Reaper, Cakewalk).
I noticed quite quickly that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and other DAWs had each their own problems, be it UI/UX related (Reaper) or just wrong workflow for me (live), plus I would really need to invest a lot of time to re-learn a new DAW. And then there’s the question what to do with all the old Cubase projects, in case you want/need to revisit them….
Nah. Cubase is annoying at times and Steinberg really need to up their game regarding bug fixing and quality control, but unless something really foes in the wrong direction, switching to another DAW is way too much hassle. If so, it’d probably be S1, because it is somewhat similar to Cubase

6

Indeed it’s probably made for live experiences. I don’t neither like this kind of window made for live loop play or something like that, I don’t remember but is it also very suited for music production.
I tried Live years ago too and at that time I didn’t liked the design, I guess I could deal with it today.
I knew Bitwig but I never tried, I hear a long time ago that it has been created by people that left Ableton which had disagreement inside the compagny.

7

Ok, probably. But what about the 30% among which some are very annoying and persistent for long time?

It’s build for homestudio and works flawlessly with other DAWs so why not with Cubase?

I haven’t said that I will quit but I am just very bored about things that do not get improved for long time now…

8

May be not but, honestly, from my experience, Cubase is the worst

I hope too… but I do for so long now…

9

Regarding the time and effort that is why I am not leaving without thinking…
And yes, what about Cubase projects… blanck page…
I understand your point about Live workflow. That is also why I didn’t switched at that time.

I am aware the they all have their lack and I can only speak about what I know, meaning Reaper which I use for years too. Reaper is very powerful, you can do almost anything you want as you can run scripts or modifiy pretty much everything.
On the other side this may be a weakness too because you have to dig but there is an awesome community to help too.
The program to me is, yes, strong like a rock and very stable and kinda protected in case of something goes wrong. I never lost one single thing since I use it.
The biggest down side with Reaper, to say, is that it comes with pretty much 0 pro plugins, even if some cockos built in are very good but not as good as the operators in Live in my opinion

10

I myself have been with since logic 5.5.1, I think it was before they switched to mac. then I started with cubase and then reason 1 came out, which was completely outstanding, as it was a completely new concept and that it had rewire to cubase.
I myself have thought many times that I should change the DAW. have tested most of them and all have their good and bad qualities.

but I held on even though I felt more like a programmer than a creative soul. it has clearly gotten better. and you have to consider as others say in this thread that cubase is a bit like excel, you can make it suit you and how you want your DAW. that’s how many settings there are in cubase. and that may probably be what makes people use other daws instead of spending a little time at the beginning where you build up some templates so you can quickly get started.

but it’s easier said than done, only the operation manual is about 1400 pages hehe and then the VST is not included :slight_smile:

Steinberg has a lot of work left to do to get an even lighter interface. everything is in cubase, it should just be less clicks to get one thing done, I think. in the lower section there should for example be a tab with all your own macros and other things that have been done to simplify it.

it’s not wrong to have a little different daw and Ableton is good and very much less of what you can do, however Ableton as pro tools has things that you want in cubase.

The npgot I’m linking to are buttons in the tracks with different routings. such as when you have an instrument midi track and want to record audio in realtime. and a button that converts the track to mono or stereo. you can do all this now and create macros etc. or create your own templates. but that’s exactly what you don’t want to spend time on. it is ultimately the flow of creation.

but they come forward all the time. and you wish for one
optimized daw controller with full channel strip where everything has a button and high resolution Chroma Cap encoders with pressure.

so the controller only changes color when you are in the mixer, channel strip. and in the vst plugin. and everything must be fully mapped. I myself am tired of all midi controllers and daw controllers where you have to keep mapping yourself. and none are optimized for cubase chanel strip and mixer.

or you can buy NUAGE for a few hundred thousand, may think that they can do something good for us ordinary people who have studios for as much as NUAGE costs.

try some different types like Ableton and reason and you’ll come back later, when steinberg has optimized cubase for the new CPUs

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11

I understand what you are saying but I believe that templates is not a Cubase thing. They all need time at the begining no? Have you tried Reaper ?

Exactly!

Or may be I could stay and they could improve themself in less than a decade (I am jocking)
We are also getting old :slight_smile:

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I wonder how many Cubase crash dump files are sent every day …
And how are these treated?

13

The funny part is that we dont joke about it, we need faster development, everything is in cubase but it is not user friendly for creation. but mixing and mastering is super good in cubase. I think they have to work port everything that means I have to go into menus and program to get something I want in the soundtrack or something like that. we are not programmers. the same applies to midi, should I, having bought midi controllers, program these myself?? sick. what do you pay for. but as you say, we are not getting any younger and many things should have been addressed a long time ago.

They may hire 20 consultants for 1 year so all parts will be in order. because when it does, not many people have beaten cubase.

but as I said it’s good to have different DAWs for different things. I have noticed anyway.

I’m in the mood for reason again, there’s a daw that you really get creative with. reaper is good and easy to work with too. FL has good stick plugins and quick work for 4/4.

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It crash alot now, i think its the new gen, have 13 gen ddr5 and gen 4 ssd ect

20220204_110542000_iOS (1)
20220204_110542000_iOS (1)1668×960 324 KB

IMG_6397
IMG_63972388×1557 1.05 MB

Have alot more stuff, but need to rebuild with a real synth stand hehe

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This will never happen. I don’t think they want to fix everything at the same time. They need to sell new version every year to exist…

16

Nice, you’re quite wired :wink:
I certainly do not want to derive from the main topic but, just, are you happy with your TD3 ??
I personally own a x0xb0x that I built myself a long time ago but I don’t even use it anymore today.
I rather like to use ABL3 and Phoscyon 2 but the last one I still have to dig with it.

17

Tbh, I think the majority of the crashdumps are caused by third party plugins and/or drivers, at least that’s the result of my own crash dump analysis. The crashes that are explicitly caused by Cubase itself usually happen after a new major release and get fixed with the subsequent updates. They are not the problem imho, the problem are the dozens of medium to minor bugs that don’t get fixed.

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18

You’re right but why problems caused by 3rd party plugins in Cubase do not happens in other DAW?
There is, for instance, so many updates/bug fixes/improvements in Reaper, like every weeks

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They happen in other DAWs, too. If you read e.g. plugin release threads in other forums (say gearspace), there are often people reporting crashes in all other DAWS (S1, Logic, Reaper …) too.
But I agree that Cubase could maybe learn from the Reaper development model, like more frequent updates and public beta versions (and especially a more open communication on the forum…).

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I had some wobbles a year or so back, but it’s all good for me right now. I have Reaper and S1 licenses and use them when wanting a change of scenery.

Ableton when paired with a Push is really a truly great experience if you’re into EDM and creating music in the box. It’s expensive as a package, but (imo) blows Cubase out of the water in regards to jamming in real-time to come up with ideas.

I’m not into that genre so much tho, and actively seek to pull myself out of looped based compositions. For me elements like VariAudio, the chord track, Comping and the new MIDI Remote features have become the cornerstones of why I use Cubase over other DAWs.

I know it’s got it’s faults and I know there’s many parts that need to be updated… But I have always worked well with it, and the mixer and channel strips just work very well for me.

That said, I’ve only suffered with minor issues over the years, rarely does it crash or slow down when opening or closing. I’d probably have a far different opinion were that my experience.