Has Cubase become king of the hill of the DAW BIG 5?

Cubase
41

Cubase is not missing any technical aspect that will help it become king of the hill, but it lacks cultural positioning to become king of the hill.

Marketing is king, this is why Nike spends over $4 billion annually on advertising, to stay one of the current brands in populist culture.

Nike are no better or worse than Adidas, Puma, Reebok etc… But when you have the best Basketball player of all time, the greatest track and field athletes on earth, the best footballers of a generation wearing your brand in ads, you become part of populist culture’s elite.

The best dont always win, its strategy that wins.

Cubase has always had a lot of respect amongst composers, why?

Because Hanz Zimmer and many other successful composers use it.

In other genres and communities there are already cultural dominators.

Hip-Hop | Akai MPC, Logic, Pro-Tools, Native Instruments
Trap/Drill | FL Studio, Ableton
EDM, Techno | Ableton, Bitwig
Modular Synthesis enthusiasts | Bitwig
Composers, Sound engineers, Mix engineers | Pro-Tools, Logic, Cubase, Reaper

It is more about how you place in the Psychology of a community.

Cubase is technically brilliant, probably the best. But it does not have the strongest cultural position as a brand across multiple music communities.

The question as a marketer is, do you attach to something populist or do you engineer things to become popular using your product ?

You need:

  1. The biggest records in the world being made and mixed in your product.
  2. The biggest artists being associated with your product.
  3. The biggest films and tv shows being associated with your product.

If there was a documentary tomorrow that said ‘Taylor Swifts, new album is mixed in Cubase’ The product would elevate culturally, based on that association.

Cubase itself benefits from its association with YAMAHA, a lot of DAWs are owned by finance groups.

42

I’ve recently tried, coming from Ableton Live 10-12 originally:

  • Bitwig Studio 6
  • Cubase Pro 15
  • Fender Studio Pro 8
  • Reaper 7
  • Reason 14
  • FL Studio 25

I found that I personally rank almost all of them above Cubase because whether I like using them which is, of course, highly subjective.

I found Cubase’s “usability” to be full of legacy (like the right-click behavior) and often hard to gauge what the devs thought when they arranged things, its manual the least helpful, and its “discoverability” next to zero.

These factors have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with its (massive) technical capability, though its amount of features certainly adds complexity everywhere. But you can make complexity manageable and discoverable if you invest into that area. Somehow that seems to be Cubase’s blind spot.

I actually ended up owning Bitwig (crossgrade), Studio Pro (crossgrade), and Reason (just an upgrade) because I enjoyed working in them. I’m considering getting FL Studio on a sale.

I tried loving Cubase but… it was the only one where I never felt like I was getting into it, in spite of some well-designed features actually being fun, like the recently added Drum Machine. But it was like grinding to a halt all the time on things.

Each of the other DAWs has flaws, including Ableton Live, of course, but each of them has considerable strengths that made me choose them over Cubase (except Reaper). I wouldn’t even say the others have usability down, but with each of them I could find a design philosophy that made sense to me and that resulted in me building a workflow with them.

To go to the extremely subjective, Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio, or FL Studio all seem to tickle the “sense of play,” to explore, experiment, play around. This might be due to their “irregular origins.” I like to spontaneously generate ideas out of discovering something.

I would still give Cubase another go at a later time simply because some of its deep features intrigue me, like the logical editor.

43

So, you are on a Cubase Forum, although you don’t like or use Cubase… :man_facepalming:

44

Personally I appreciate this kind of feedback. In my opinion it’s not a cheap rant or venting but a well laid out experience report.

45

At what point is it just an observation of someone’s preferences though, and not really a critical take on Cubase or any shortcomings it might have?

Some folks wont ‘click’ with Cubase’s workflow, while they will jump into Ableton Live and everything just ‘falls into place’. Same with Logic Pro vs Fruity Loops, Pro Tools, etc..

Me personally? Switched from Cubase VST32 to Logic Audio Platinum and stuck with it until Cubase 12 was announced and anyone that bought 11 got a free update to it. I cant find my way around Logic much anymore, a lot of Apple’s dumbing down design choices over the years were a big step backwards, at least for me. Bought Ableton 11 awhile back, really really tried to use it as it had a handful of things it could do that no other DAW does, but ultimately I hated its all mouse clicky ‘workflow’. I’ve also tried using Reaper off and on for over a decade now, and I still can’t feel comfortable with it and its overwhelming amount of customization, along with everything else it does differently.

For every person that can ‘read’ Cubase like a second language, there’s 10 others that can’t. But those 10 others can jump into Studio One, Reaper, etc and have that ‘AHA’ moment there. I don’t think its necessarily a problem wit the DAW, its just people and the way their brain works. Some like it, some don’t.

46

If you go by overall revenue by genre(Sales, Streaming, Concerts) it’s probably Rap, Rock, Pop, HipHop, Country…EDM doesn’t generate a lot of revenue worldwide but because it’s easy to get into without a musical background there’s a lot of program sales to reinforce that. I feel sorry for the Jazz and Classical peeps!

47

I went from Reason to Fruity Loops, to Cubase. I dabbled in Ableton and Bitwig. I could see myself switching to Bitwig permanently in the future as I think they’re the most forward thinking company in the DAW space at the moment. I produce electronic music however, and this is just my personal view.

I’m still on Cubase for now but I personally think that Cubase focuses too much on VST instruments / plugins and sound libraries in the updates. However, the recent Melodic / Drum pattern editor, Drum Machine and Modulators have been a great step forward in my opinion.

48

I’ve used fl studio and ableton and they aren’t even close. Especially fls. I have over a thousand dollars sunk into fls and I don’t even have it installed on my computer anymore.

For fls people say “something something piano roll”. No idea why they think it’s the best piano roll. All the tools it has cubase also has, and those extra esoteric tools, the same people barely use them anyway. Fls is also lacking a whole bunch of piano roll things cubase has. Like the drum editor, midi maps etc. The only thing ableton has on cubase is the push 3 controller, which is probably the best groove machine, currently.

Popularity doesn’t mean something is good. It means a team has convinced more people to choose it. I could get really rrreally mean about the types of people that use fl studio, but I don’t even think that’s necessary. No need for me to go there because a good tree cannot produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. You will know men by their fruits. (Pun wasn’t intended but it works.) ¯\(°_o)/¯

49

I think some people are mixing up two different discussions.

Calling FL Studio, GarageBand or Ableton Live “not DAWs” is simply using the term incorrectly. A DAW is a Digital Audio Workstation, and all of these applications fit that definition. They simply target different workflows, user groups and market segments.

The real discussion here was whether Cubase belongs at the top and, more importantly, what features it is still missing.

and i totally agree on “Popularity doesn’t mean something is good”

Whatever back to the topic…

Cubase is number one

At least for me … Cubase stands out because of the sheer breadth of professional features it combines in a single application. I can build a 500+ track orchestral VST template, work with advanced MIDI editing, edit the score, synchronize everything to video playback or timecode, and finish with a stereo, surround or Dolby Atmos mix — all without leaving Cubase.

Every DAW has its own strengths. Pro Tools remains an industry standard for recording and mixing, Ableton Live excels at live performance, Logic offers fantastic value within the Apple ecosystem, and Reaper is incredibly flexible and customizable.

However, I don’t think any other DAW currently combines as many professional features and production disciplines into a single application while maintaining the same level of stability as Cubase. That’s what makes it unique to me.

Whats missing ?

The only thing I feel Cubase is still missing is a stronger focus on intelligent workflow automation based on logical relationships between user settings, VST instruments, MIDI data and project context.
Cubase already contains most of the required information - it just isn’t logically connected yet.

What I´m talking about are small quality-of-life improvements, such as a global master tuning option for all VST-Instruments, or automatically highlighting the playable note range of the currently selected instrument in the Key Editor. And I´m sure there are many more automatisation possibilities that haven´t even thought of yet.

My goal isn´t to add more individual features, but to make the existing ones feel more connected and reduce the need to constantly open a VST instruments interface just to look up basic information for example.

If you’re interested, feel free to check out my feature request about Instrument Profiles. I think it could provide a standardized instrument database that not only simplifies track setup, but also opens the door to many more intelligent workflow automations in the future.

50

It’s a interesting topic because professional engineering can be done in any DAW. I feel like the list was mainly chosen out of visual appearance of the DAW.

The more interesting question would be, how did Avid ProTools become the industry standard in professional commercial studios to begin with ? That’s a whole story in itself.

In regards to additional Cubase features in relation to the topic, I might say that ripple editing, and quantized slip editing could be a decent choice.

51

Well, in 1991 there wasn’t much else that was doing digital multi track audio aside from Opcode Vision. Folks forget the days of the TDM/Mix systems when it was literally all dedicated hardware that handled the processing outside of the Mac..

Cubase, Logic/Notator, Cakewalk, still had a few years to go before they became audio workstations.

52

I mostly agree.

A skilled engineer can achieve professional results in almost any modern DAW. In the end, the engineer will almost always have a greater impact on the final result than the software itself.

Regarding Pro Tools, I think its success was a combination of excellent timing, high-end hardware, DSP systems, and widespread adoption by major commercial studios.

Once large studios standardized on Pro Tools, compatibility and audio quality became a major advantage. Over time, that momentum was reinforced by the users themselves. Many newcomers naturally associated great mixes with the software that happened to be used, while established studios had already invested years into workflows, hardware, training, and existing projects. At that point, switching to another DAW was no longer just about choosing different software - it meant rebuilding an entire production environment.

Today, I think the differences between professional DAWs are much more subtle. Audio quality is generally no longer the deciding factor since most DAWs are on the same level of quality. Also many hardware manufacturers now offer solutions that rival what was once considered exclusive to large Pro Tools systems.

Instead, the choice often comes down to personal preferences such as workflow, editing philosophy and existing ecosystem. Maybe even the visual design of the software. Speaking of that… a true dark mode for Cubase would be a nice feature. :sweat_smile:

Modern DAWs are already incredibly capable, but I believe there is still plenty of room to improve workflow and integration rather than simply adding more individual features. At the same time, that’s probably also part of the business—every company wants to offer something unique that differentiates its products from the competition.