Feelings about Cubase - Leaving?

Steinberg Lounge
41

Agree with mbira. @Vendimion, if something’s eating you, you don’t have the confidence to proceed. There are always second thoughts and little little pangs of regret for what may have been.

So, the healthy thing to do, in my opinion always, and IF you can afford it of course both in money and time, is to try stuff out. Even if they are not the ultimate solution for you, you gain experience and get all those reservations out of your head. You try, and find out. And then, you can choose with more confidence, because you’ve seen the grass on every side of the fence.

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42

You are both right guys, I guess that what scares me the most is probably the time…

I am not using only one DAW as I use Reaper and may be, in fact, more than Cubase to avoid all those down side that we all know.
Each time you use one or another you have to think different, other shortcuts, other mouse behaviours… It is a bit tiring.

For what I have seen, among all the tutorials using Live I have watched, Live has its own philosophy

You know, recently I had a crash drive… it was awful, I had to reinstall “Everything” on a new drive. I was so lucky that I could still access to the old drive and all the files.
The job was huge, but now I am ok.
With Reaper, I could re-open any project in progress without ANY problems. Then yesterday I had this very bad surprise when I opened a project in progress in Cubase. All my tracks using AudioRealism Bass Line 3 (ABL3) where like reset… All the patterns inside the plug where gone…

Should I mention that all the projects I opened in Reaper which had instances of ABL3 had all their patterns inside and the setup as it was before…

Hopefully I took the habbit to work on Reaper for EDM projects, I just decided to take a try with Cubase which ultimately leaves me with a bitter taste.

43

Cubase has become an absolute mess. Problem for me is, I’ve tried many others and I just find the workflow too difficult or too buggy on other DAWs. I always end up coming back, simply because I can work so much faster in Cubase - and contrary to popular opinion (it seems), I find it the most intuitive of all of them.

If they’d do away with, or massively improve, the moronic title bar and its associated problems, also prevent crashes from wiping out the license checks, then I could probably suffer the rest of the bad design.

44

A bit late to the party.

I was in the same place about 2 years ago.

I had a PC with an i7 Extreme Edition and a 24 Giga Ram, which lasted me for about 11 years.

When I bought it, it was state of the art and Cubase (I think it was 6 back then) run reasonably well.
But what I didn’t figure out was that the more I use Cubase, the more problems started to happen, Error codes, corruptions of Cubase files, etc.

Also, things were becoming heavier and heavier. Libraries, plugins, and so on, my computer started lagging very badly.

Add to that, good old Cubase would stop at MIDI in the starting phase, would crash, would take forever to close, and the whole thing became a nightmare.

The final nail in the coffin was when I lost files due to the unique privilege by Steinberg to have created a program, that when it feels like it, it just invalidates your files. Awesome huh??

Seeing red is a gross understatement.

I was determined to switch.

I tried Reaper and Studio One, and to my disappointment, they were both extremely alien to me.

I finally managed to get a very powerful computer. Updated to the latest windows 10 service pack and what-have-you, had a look at the power settings and I am happy to say that Cubase (11) works really well for me.

Does it crash? Of course, it does. All programs do, but the frustrating thing is that I had to spend £2500+ pounds to get a computer that Cubase seems to be happy with.

And that’s not cool.

But, here is the thing. I am a professional film music composer. That’s all I do.

Firstly, the stuff that Steinberg has thrown in there, such as plugins that some rival 3rd party plugins, exporting ease (render in place, Good God, thank you!!!), and many, many other functions, are imperative to me and cannot find in other DAWs.

Secondly, even if these functions can be found in other DAWs, I simply don’t have the time to re-learn a new program from scratch. As I said, S1 and Reaper were so, so very alien to me, I was astounded when I first opened the DAWs to have a look.

In addition, and so sorry to say that, but I also have experienced Logic & Digital Performer, and guess what, they both crashed, burned, and died…On a Mac too.

I took a look on the Bug Reporting page for Reaper, out of morbid curiosity, and guess what, it’s pages, and pages, and pages of topics…

There is no perfect DAW and granted, some may suit you best, I can’t quit Cubase for the reasons I mentioned,

However,

I agree with you about Cubase, it can become so very frustratingly horrific, it’s beyond belief.

I think I stated this many times. I wish they would stop releasing stuff, and concentrate on stability.

Nowadays, I make sure all updates are in place, power schemes are set to suit Cubase, and I ‘Save As New’ RELIGIOUSLY. In addition, I have cloned Windows with everything ready to go, and when things go downhill, I wipe the main disk, and clone again to my main disk, and for some reason, problems are gone. What can I say, is this the right way to do things? Surely not, but, it is what it is for me.

But, all power to you, try them all and see which one works for you.

Good luck man,

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45

Well, I must be the proverbial exception to the apparent norm around here: disclosure: I use Nuendo 12, but for all matters in this context it is the same. I still use an old i7 8700k, duly overclocked, massaged and kept silent, windows 10, and - and this may be pertinent - a PCI interface, that in this ancient machine allows me vsti and audio recording without experience latency (of course it has, but is low enough to not get noticed) through N12.
The most I use the software - and I’ve been a user since 1998 of various Steinberg products, mainly Cubase, the more I spend a little time experimenting different and more enhanced workflows, the more I just love this thing. The sheer amount of features means that I certainly won’t ever used them all (I’m not rendering to Atmos, at the moment, for example), but the huge amount I do use I find them just perfected to a point where they not only don’t hinder the creative process but in fact enhance it. I’m both a composer and an arranger/producer, so my needs span a lot of Nuendo’s functionality, and the latest improvements, wich one can only truly appreciate if one’s a seasoned user, are really life-improving. Example: with a key stroke I can automatically invoke Variaudio in a selected track and start to apply processing; with other key I can instantly open two windows superimposed, one with key editor the other with score editor; with a button press on my midi remote I can choose all tracks, enable Cue Sends on them and apply a preset level… I could go on and on, but you get the picture: this is a very advanced piece of software that, as any other DAW, needs to be used routinely, and the user must be willing to dive under the surface to get to grips with it. And, as any other DAW, has its fair share of bugs. I read regularly that Reaper is almost bug and crash free, and I believe. But I’ve tried it for one month, just to get a taste, and the GUI was a deal-braker, uninspirational for a program to be used for hours each time - and that’s a big thing in my book.
I’m not in to EDM, neither as a producer nor as a listener, so I really can’t comment on that side of things. But I have friends that, for that, swear Logic or Ableton is the way to go, much more streamlined to that kind of environment. So maybe that’s the one for you, Ableton, but you must be willing to devote some more time and try to cope with its “philosophy”, as you put it :slight_smile:

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46

I agree with you on your points about Cubase. Want to add to these constant crashes and bugs. Why is Steinberg allowed to deliver an unfinished product, no one else is allowed to do it. If the product is bad, you get your money back.
I want to switch to another DAW, but I’m stuck in the Cubase quagmire, trying to find ways around all the problems that come up. This means that you cannot use all the possibilities Cubase has, you are afraid of losing the workflow if several problems arise

47

You’re right on this, 99.9% crash free… but I agree that, as it is stock provided, Reaper can be repulsive. I customised it a lot and it took me time. Honestly I could not work with the default setings, but as I customized it to be more Cubase-like (and I am not joking now) it is so smoooth and fast!

Yes, I definitely should try

48

What I am wondering while reading other user experience is that, is it really a matter of computer performence at the end ?? If so, that would be a pity when the concurrency can run smoothly on lower specs

49

In my opinion ( and a bit of experience) it is a matter of a healthy windows in combination with correct USB drivers for al the devices and a graphics driver without ‘special fx’ installed.

To accomplish this, I do a re-install of Windows ( clean, no ‘repair’) at least once a year. I got laughed at about this ( I think because a lot of people don’t know how to format C: and perform an entirely new installation of Windows and all the software you use) , but every time I perform this operation, it feels like I have a new PC and every time I learn things about the current Windows version …

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50

You re-install all your plugins??? How do you deal with all the licenses? The footprint of your drive remain the same after the format right?
That was a real pain after I re-installed everything on a new drive…

51

I think it’s just keeping your system lean, and elements updated in harmony with each other.

With Cubase I’ve ran from ver 11 on a 4th Gen i7 desktop, a Ryzen 7 desktop, i7 9th Gen laptop, and Apple M1 Pro Macbook.

And none of those systems display any startup or shutdown issues, or unwanted crashes. But I’m very much aware of how to maintain a lean system, and don’t allow third party utilities or scanners to run on any machine unless I have a specific requirement.

The Apple machine is by far the easiest to setup, you just install and all’s good - providing everything is compatible, which lucky for me is.

With my Ryzen and i7 machines I’ve had to tweak due to windows issues such as graphics drivers and disable network adapters which I don’t use but do show on a DPC latency check. I’ve had to exclude my audio folders from malicious scanning tools etc.

From my perspective it’s not normal to suffer with such issues of unreliability and slow startup/close times. It’s most likely to be one or two issues external to Cubase that’s causing this, but the problem comes in finding out what it is.

Also, It’s likely that you could use different DAW and not even have issues on the same system.

I had the same experience with Logic on mac, because it doesn’t bypass certain regulations on AU plugins whereas S1 and Reaper would ignore certain plugin requirements in order to be as compatible as possible. I can’t even remember the plugin now, but it would cause Logic to crash - yet run fine on other DAWs, and it took me hours to work out what it was.

Cubase is similar in that regard, if you’re developing a VST you test it with Cubase, if you’re putting out an AU you test it with Logic, as such these are more picky DAWs and less likely to ignore and bypass non-standard errors encountered.

Other DAWs are different, they put far more emphasis on compatibility. If there’s an issue, they fix it DAW side, they have no interest in forcing the third party developer to adhere to VST/AU standards.

52

Yes, and indeed it is a tedious task

Not a problem. Dongle or Steinberg licensing. iLok account, NI Instruments and Spitfireaudio do have a convenient installer …

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53

Dunno, in the lifetime of my current computer (6 years) I’ve never re-installed windows, and I don’t have any problems (well, apart from windows search/indexing being somewhat broken), and I don’t think it feels slower than a few years ago (can’t really compare of course). And also with the computer before that, no reinstall ever. Don’t fix it unless it’s broken, imho

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54

Hey,

I just tried to switch to Windows 10 and run Cubase 10 there. No chance. I’m - or better said the program is - a victim of those notorious realtime spikes that happen to some users. I tried everything under the sun to find the culprit to no avail so I’m back on Windows 7. That issue is complained about so many times at this place, including all Cubase Versions from 9 to the most recent. Cubase 4 runs rock solid on Windows 10 with a realtime latency to dream of, btw.

I installed the Demo of Studio One - no peaks at all. Reaper - same thing, no peaks.

So there’s that. The support for my controller (SAC 2.2) got cancelled for whatever reason, support says I should use the new MIDI remote feature. But that doesn’t include support for motorized faders, yet. Despite being announced so for a while. As long as that isn’t available it’s not a valid solution. Besides, I’d have to run Cubase 12 on Windows 10 as it’s not compatible with Windows 7 and then the trouble with the realtime spikes starts again.

I thought I’d give Eucon a try a while ago and installed the App on a new bought tablet. During trying out I figured that the version delivered with Cubase 10 is buggy and Steinberg never cared to offer an update. One has to buy Cubase 11 or 12 to get the working version.

I’ve been using Cubase since Version 5 VST/32 came out. That was back in 2000. It had a lot of great features and worked well but with the updates came bugs. It seemed that the hunt for new features was more important than to deliver a stable application.

I see the same thing happening again, but it’s way worse this time. I would appreciate if Cubase would run stable and without realtime peaks out of nowhere. If the Steinberg team would just care about delivering a rock solid and reliable product, I’d happily give up on any update during the next 5 years and yell hooray.

I never thought I’d say this - I really think about changing the DAW. I got used to the workflow and everything but in my book it’s not a great product anymore.

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55

:ok_hand:
I have never known anyone who really deeply knows and uses multiple DAWs. With Cubase, there is just too much under the hood. As a matter of fact, I have read of users who claim they use 3 or 4 DAWs but then a bit embarrassed because they didn’t know about certain features…not to mention the LE and PLE.

I’m in the learn one and stick with it unless there is a good reason to look elsewhere.

This guy knows quite a bit about different DAWs, but he isn’t keeping up these days.

And his interest is in DAWs itself…not so much using any as a tool to create.

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56

The thing is, as far as I remember, I have the feeling that I always known Cubase that slow… I think from Cubase 9…

It’s true that, honestly, my computer is getting old but what hurts me is that it only happens with Cubase…

What should I give a try at to see if I can improve this??

I am running Windows 10 with ASRock Z97M OC Formula motherboard, i7-4790K CPU @ 4GHz, Corsair DDR3L 32Go RAM, Radeon RX-560 GPU, be quiet! Pure Rock fan, and a fresh new Samsung EVO 870 1Tb as main SSD.

57

Yeah, this is nonsense

58

When you say slow, do you mean specifically the starting up or slowing down? … Or perhaps something else?

To me that would suggest that something is upsetting the ability to release or scan data needed. It’s hard to know what to say unless you’re more specific about what is slow.

I’ve got that exact same CPU in my old machine and last time I used it (which was about 12 months ago admittedly) I never had such issues with it. Any slowness came from the HDD which some plugins/libraries were installed on, as it only had a small SDD as the primary.

The most obvious thing to do is to run in safe mode, as it could be an old preference from a previous version that could be causing you an issue. I’ve also known Avid Control software (For their controllers/touch apps) to keep hold of Cubase when closing - do you have anything like that running perhaps?

59

Yes that’s what I mean

I don’t think so, I don’t remember or don’t see any Avid/Eucon software installed.
Is there a way to see what could keep hold of Cubase when closing?

60

I think most people never re-installed Windows …
You don’t have to of course.