I could have been more specific, I guess I don’t really consider FL or Ableton DAWs because they are more music making focused than they are Audio Work focused.
edit I edited my OP
So Pro-Tools is MEH.
When Hanz Zimmer scores to Dune inside Cubase, its then Run through Pro-Tools, i would say Pro-Tools is and will always be in the future the KING DAW for Multi million $$$ film & TV projects.
There are 2 types of DAW
- The Daw to create music in.
- The DAW you use to mix with before running through an SSL or NEVE console utilising hardware.
Cubase is becoming more like the Music creation DAW’s Ableton, Bitwig, FL Studio. But it will never replace Pro-Tools in the studio for mixing Billboard superstars or Million $$$ movie and TV projects.
If Pro-Tools was Meh Zimmer would be using Nuendo and not Cubase → Pro Tools.
The DAW war is cultural positioning not a technical battle, Pro-Tools is a cultural icon in audio, like Coca-cola, mcdonalds, Nike, Facebook are in there respective fields… It is iconic in association with the biggest and best projects in Audio, Tv and Film.
When your mixing audio for a film thats cost $200 million, your not interested in whether the DAW has a drum machine, your not bothered about Modulators that can make faders jiggle like jelly on a plate, your not excited that you can make channels every color under the sun.
Your interested in whether the DAW can be trusted in a studio with a few million $$$ of hardware to function and get the job done efficiently and quickly.
Pro Tools it appears has been trusted for 3 decades going on 4 !
If I was Steinberg I would be worried. In spite of all their investment and innovation Cubase is no more popular now than it was 5 years ago. So all the good stuff isn’t translating into more people being interested and buying.
Here’s the 5 year global trend for just Cubase:
BTW - if you want to see why this matters - go on Google trends and compare Tesla vs BYD or Canon vs Nikon, Nike vs Adidas etc etc - Search trends show popularity - popularity equates to useage - which equates to revenue - which equates to a solid future.
In regards to Pro-Tools, you’re sort of repeating what I already said no?
Pro-Tools has survived as a commercial standard. It’s not Hans Zimmers choice to put the project into Pro-Tools, it’s what the Post-Production Mixers are using at their studio… But there’s nothing going on there that Cubase couldn’t do, if not better. In fact, if you sent me to all these Post-Production Studios, I could sell them on switching to Cubase if it weren’t for the fact that every stage of audio (field recordists, sound-designers, dialog recorders, etc) up to that point is also in a Pro-Tools session.
Yamaha/Steinberg could employ a marketing and sales approach to push this - that is possible, and while on paper - the number of clients vs profit wouldn’t be of concern over appealing to the general world-wide music making market - there could be a long-play benefit to becoming a top-down standard.
This also depends on business structure and philosophy though… Many most popular companies have crashed a burned because of over-hiring, over-entrenched HR, unattached investors, etc
Ableton Live is great for creating music, awful for mixing. It shocking how it utilises cpu and it has massive delay compensation issues.
Most Ableton users bounce out and mix in something else.
ABleton also slows down the bigger the project.
Go into Cubase and set up 100 channels of audio with 5 vsts on each channel. With 500 plugins going it doesnt slow down.
Ableton literally breaks down, and takes 20 seconds to respond to any click or move made within the system.
Ableton is designed for influencers mainly, 16 bars of generic house or trap 7 channels of splice samples, its not built for massive projects.
I own it !!! so i can knock it, i wish the truth wasnt so, but it is.
Bitwig on the other hand, very good.
and editing. I’d rather be punched in the face than edit in Ableton.
Also, Cubase started as a music making software.
Honestly - tell that to the people who are making Grammy award winning records. It’s just a tool - and it’s very popular for a reason. Me - I prefer Cubase, but that’s not a majority view.
Cubase is way behind Reaper in core handling. Huge room for improvement there.
Best,
Magnus
So, this isn’t about the only measurable metric and more about the thousands of subjective metrics that could essentially boil down to a pissing contest?
There’s a few metrics when it comes to commercial DAWs - speed of work being a primary.
Then add
-Mixing capability
-MIDI Capability
-Professional UI/UX
-Customizability
-Workflow Features
-Quality of Stock Plugins
-Multi-Purpose reach (Post, Sound Design, Audio Editing, Composition, Music Production)
-ARA2 Implementation
Cubase wins.
None of those are measurable and quantifiable without bias due to being subjective. Sales numbers are.
Free updates for life. Period. It’s a good argument for using it, unless you have a Mac and buy Logic… or Audacity meets all your needs.
It’s pretty powerful for entry level folks who have no interest in playing instruments. FL Studio is popular with the beatmakers crowd. You can start making beats immediately, no audio interface required. With Cubase, Ableton, and other more traditional DAWs, it’s way leas straight forward for a beginner to install and have “music” in less that 30 mins. In FL it’s ready when the installer finishes running
Speed isn’t measurable?
Something implemented or not isn’t measurable? it’s either a 1, or a 0.
Most of these are measurable, if not logically analyzed even if “subjective” in philosophy.
Speed to accomplish a specific task is. “Speed Of Work” isn’t due to workflow differences between examples and experience with the software.
I mean, I could break down every element of every DAW in comparison to Cubase for you in a metrical way, but I don’t really have the time and you’d likely still say “subjective” at the end of it.
Just take Export Window as one example, which touches pretty well every aspect and work application.
And all of that would boil down to your opinion based on your preferences and experience with Cubase. That doesn’t make it better or worse compared to the competition. It just makes it better for you.
We can say everything under the sun is an opinion and subjective… which it is, but that’s also not really how human ingenuity evolved, and if anything, logic is utility developed to counter that so we can come to conclusive agreeable shared realities whether or not they are actually real or not we may never know in the context of the universe and all existence.
But when it comes to building a bridge across a valley, I’m assuming you’d rather your family not plumet.
Would love to have
No playback interruption when adding tracks, sends, inserts, deleting stuff or whatnot. Playback should never be interrupted. I hate that.
Move busses. It’s an absolute pita, that they are not moveable.
Script integration like reaper.
AI driven intelligent item cutting (“cut out all parts, that don’t contain a saxophone for at least 1 sec”).
Well, Google Trends proves nobody even uses MOTU Digital Performer, or PreSonus now to Fender Studio One.