Well the way I look at it is that first of all there are functionality they now broke with v14 that makes it pretty much unusable for some. The problem is that they had no forewarning of this happening and that means some people do a bunch of work in new version and end up losing hours and hours because of the buts.
The second problem is that they haven’t figured out that it would be good to announce to people that there is a serious problem. The result is that several people discover this crap individually and ask individually. Completely unnecessary.
Thirdly, I think the main competition to Nuendo, Pro Tools, is trading the lead on feature set over the years. One thing that is frustrating is that PT does some things really well, and then Steinberg’s implementation for some reason has to be different yet not better, and when we point out that it could be improved or fixed it’s just left behind as-is. This would include things like linked tracks, VCAs, dialog transcription and more. For post specifically there are things that we have to do before we continue to mix for example, like succeed in importing an AAF (Nuendo fails where PT succeeds) or do a thorough dialog edit where swapping words or syllables is key (see PT transcription), and SB is lagging here. It’s frustrating when we barely get any acknowledgement on the input we give here on the forum.
Avid manages to have several officials participate in their forum, being faaaar more responsive, and they have a section for PT issues. And like it or not, that’s the competition for post.
I’m trying real hard to convince myself to spend more on Nuendo for the upcoming version, but if it’s just to fix something they broke in v14 then that’s a hard sell.
I’ve yet to meet a single PT engineer with Avid shares, and I really don’t know how that would be relevant in reality. I mean, either they would need to have a filter implemented in forum software that screens for owners and then the moderators decide to interact with those posters and not others, or the mods would have to grab the username and check it against an owners list or something. So it doesn’t sound realistic at all, to me.
Right, and I mentioned that they ‘trade’ places when it comes to features. PT didn’t have offline faster-than-realtime bouncing (export) either, or customizable key commands and so on. But they got it.
And of course pricing is completely different, but is that a discussion we want to have? Because to me while it’s great that Nuendo is as affordable as it is, I’m now at a point where I’m feeling it is maybe justifiable to charge more to give us what we need if the alternative is me dropping Nuendo and just using Pro Tools instead. In fact, I already need PT some of the time so from a financial perspective I’m already invested so if I wanted to take finances into account - unless SB changes things - I’m better off just using PT… from a financial perspective.
That is capitalism. Same as always. If it’s not profitable, everyone gets fired, eventually even the CEO.
That’s a somewhat cynical way to look at it, but yes, the product team has to analyze the market. Obviously. They have to make a profit. Yes. They have to satisfy their current users up to a point, AND attract new users up to a point. It’s a tough balancing act, and it means not everyone gets everything they want. If they focus on one market segment, they have calculated that they will go out of business. Perhaps they are wrong in their calculations of the market, but they’re still in business, and we know they are conservative, so they are unlikely to change their plan.
It also means some of those features will be for people other than you or for me. That’s life, as we both know. It’s not bespoke software made just for one target demographic. So there will always be something you and I don’t want or need. Maybe in recent years they have missed the boat for you too often. And I understand if they let you down. In my case, I loved some of the features this time… and BTW I’m pretty sure push-button beat-makers weren’t asking for the new score editor, or the volume curve editing, or the range editing improvements, or other workflow enhancements for starters, etc., etc.
I’m not arguing with you though, I do understand your perspective. And Steinberg would be wise to pay attention to you too. If they lose you and people like you, then that’s not a good thing.
I mean, that is the world we live in, right? As the Stoics would say, this is something we can’t change in this case, so we might as well get along with it… OR, on the other hand, we can control what we can do… which is that we can also switch to some other model, and there is a thriving world of DAW tools on Linux and the open source community, which I love. Unfortunately, there is no DAW of the depth and power of Cubase/Nuendo on Linux yet for me, otherwise I would have switched a long time ago. (Heaven knows I’ve tried several times.) Anyway, I get your frustration, but we’re all in this system together. The system isn’t going away any time soon, unless some major tipping point in global politics or AI or some other transformational event takes place soon… which is always possible I suppose. But until then we have the power of our own pocketbooks and free choice to not participate in the system as it is. We can choose not to upgrade. But then again, we wouldn’t be getting the lovely new features – such as you may or may not consider them – in Cubase 15! In my case, I’ll be upgrading… unless Steinberg jumps the shark and does something insane with v15.
I love stability too. Here’s to hoping Steinberg has added +10% more resources to bugfixes!
That is indeed something I have been asking myself for quite a while now. Other companies would be absolutly thrilled to have customers which show this level of constructive engagement. They would use the opportunity to interact with them not only to tighten the customer relationship but also because this is most valuable feedback.
And yet, Steinberg remains unresponsive to an extent that is mind-boggling. It’s frustrating.
I understand that they play their cards close to their chest and that they can’t reveal their strategies, that’s not the point. Like @MattiasNYC said: it’s the complete lack of any acknowledgement of the input we give.
I hate when this happens, and it has definitely happened to me over the years from almost every developer, including from Steinberg in the past. Fortunately, I haven’t had a show-stopper from Steinberg recently, BUT I totally understand and empathize that other people HAVE had a show-stopper recently. Everyone has a different workflow which will therefore exacerbate shortcomings in different ways for each person. 14.0.40 had some big ones as I can see, but they didn’t blow up my recent work. And of course I would agree that Steinberg needs to allocate resources to get those fixed for you.
Will they actually allocate those resources in the way you (or I) may prefer, depending on the situation? Probably not. That’s just life IMO. I’m not saying it’s okay, but I’m also realistic.
Agreed, this is an area of communication where they could make more improvements. In my decades with Steinberg, I find they HAVE improved in this area, but there is more for them to do. I see progress, but I understand if you don’t, especially due to the things you’ve dealt with. I’ve been around the forum and read your threads for years. I get it.
Agreed.
Yes and no, depends on your perspective. Too long of a discussion to have in this thread, but I see your point, I just don’t agree 100%.
Agreed this should be improved.
And you would be more than justified to not invest any more in Nuendo if Steinberg lets you down again or doesn’t give you something you need. Of course. The power of your pocketbook is the biggest lever you can use with Steinberg, as you know. If enough people are dissatisfied, they will leave Nuendo. Steinberg will notice. Numbers don’t lie. But will they respond quickly enough? I don’t know. For me, Nuendo 14 has been excellent. I love it. But you and I are not hitting the exact same workflows and thus you’re hit in some areas whereas I’m mostly quite happy.
Compared to Avid in the past 10-20 years, though, I find Steinberg to be a more stable partner for my needs. Avid just a few years ago was a nightware. I lost any faith and hope in them, but I’m happy to see they have earned your trust/respect to some degree. You have different requirements/needs, even though we both use Cubase/Nuendo and probably a ton of other overlapping DAWs, apps, plugins, etc.. In this case, Steinberg has been worth it to me, but I know over the years, Steinberg has let you down more often than me in specific scenarios. I get it. You have different workflows that you rely upon for certain kinds of crucial situations/projects, and those have been some of the shakiest for you unfortunately. The VCA stuff would have driven me nuts a long time ago. I just avoid them when possible. And as for DOP, I stopped trying to use DOP for anything complex years ago. So I get it. If you search for my really old posts, you’ll see some very upset posts about DOP many years ago. I never trusted it for complex stuff, sadly. I found so many bugs in the first version of DOP I was blown away, and I contacted Steinberg. It took years, but maybe 60-70% of those bugs were fixed. And so it’s usable for my basic needs, and I stopped complaining. But I eventually came to accept the fact that this is the deal, and I accept how far I could push it.
Perhaps I have a different outlook or maybe it’s just that I try to get the job done with the tools as they are, not as I wish they would be. When I compare to other DAWs, I have experienced equal or worse issues, so I guess at some point I stopped fighting that aspect of my life so much. Maybe I gave up on that kind of fight? Maybe I became more pratical? Maybe I changed my priorities along the way? Sure, I still want each feature to work perfectly, of course, but I understand the market pressures and realities, and I would rather have Steinberg still in business today with their current good-but-flawed business model and current good-but-flawed approach, than Steinberg going out of business, or being bought out over and over again or merged into some distant venture capitalist’s marquee brand portfolio and the product turned into a pile of crap.
Anyway, coming back to the point, I am with you that the bugs should be squashed. I’ve said it many times in this forum. Personally, I see progress in that regard… BUT when a bug is a showstopper like you’ve faced in such crucial areas, I really do understand your frustration. Voting with your pocketbook is the only way IMO. And if Steinberg has to lose you, which would be sad, then maybe they need to lose you in order to understand they need to invest more resources into those kinds of bugs. Respect! Cheers!
@MattiasNYC BTW, another thought I just had – I think one of the reasons I see improvements at Steinberg in terms of interaction with the teams, is that I use pretty much all the Steinberg products, and I’ve noticed some developers/teams in particular really step up and do a great job communicating with their customers. Obviously @PG1 with WaveLab is phenomenal… I’ve had many good interactions with him over specific features and bugs over the years. He’s a total class act, and he will be sorely missed when he eventually retires. Everyone at Steinberg should be looking at him as a good example of how to do things. And anyone who uses Dorico of course knows the Dorico team is often right there with excellent community interaction and a pipeline to the development process in many cases. Personally, I think @dspreadbury is a shining example of this in the upper product management echelons and frankly, his approach should be the future of Steinberg IMO, and I think if Steinberg management pays attention to his approach, we’ll ALL be better off.
As for the Cubase/Nuendo teams, I do agree that there could be more interaction/communication, etc., but from what I can see as I’ve mentioned, there has been good progress. I’ve noticed it does come and go in phases, though, depending perhaps on the release cycle status, from what I’ve observed, but in general, I see improvement over years, and I give them kudos TBH for showing a willingness to evolve. If they don’t evolve, they will stagnate, which will be a bad thing for all of us. But from what I’ve seen, that’s one of the reasons I’ve been excited about Steinberg in general. Coupled with the spirit of the other teams, I sense a forward, healthy momentum with Steinberg in this regard. Crossing fingers this continues.
However, I really do get it that some folks’ needs are not being met to the same standard that we should expect, and it’s an area I really hope Steinberg is reading and paying attention here! This community NEEDS users like you and your feedback is important IMO.
I agree. I think with regards to strategies I can absolutely understand that they wouldn’t share information on anything that is putting them greatly ahead of the competition. Let’s say just as an example that they have worked on a voice-cloning offline-process that allows us to do that, clone a voice and apply to a different voice. That would be a pretty big thing today. I could understand why they wouldn’t talk about that. But if it’s something that other DAWs already have then they’re losing nothing by talking about it.
And that leads the point about silence being frustrating. In my case for example I now have a need to go mobile for a bit and I got a new laptop for that purpose. I asked in the forum about their interfaces and got zero replies, which retroactively was obvious since they apparently had decided to hand hardware over to Yamaha. Ok, fine, but the impression I got before the announcement was that SB doesn’t care about selling hardware with their name on it, so I got a MOTU instead. Lost sale. Then there’s the issue I complained about that has me stuck on v13, again zero response even when I quote Timo to tag him asking about it. Now, the thing is that because AAF import partially sucks in Nuendo compared to Pro Tools I found it financially justifiable to just get PT for one year, and now that I have it what’s my incentive to not set my laptop up mainly for that and just switch over? Is AAF and DOP improvement ever coming? I have no idea. As long as I’m told nothing it is no different from being told nothing about the hardware they stopped selling.
I think they underestimate just how much feedback matters. Maybe it’s a resource issue.
I’m just a very very small fish compared to most here, so Steinberg isn’t going to lose much sleep over the following:
Unless C15:
## Doesn’t break anything that happens to work currently in C14, and
## Fixes at least a few of the things that were broken with earlier updates or never worked well to begin with (VCA, etc. ) - I’m probably going to sit C15 out, for at least a while, if not longer.
Now if C15 comes out with something totally amazing, like voice cloning or sweet sounding vocal pitch shifts of a fifth or more, they might get me to fork out some C15 $$, even if they don’t address broken or poorly-implemented features. But that’s not likely of course …
@MattiasNYC
I’m with you and I noticed how you repeatedly tried to reach out to Steinberg in a non-confrontional, friendly and balanced manner.
Absolutly. We don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes and it adds to this notion of a communication vacuum. Steinberg management should read the room: Every tiny explanation or response we get here goes a long way and is always met with a very positive feedback.
I agree with you. I personally think it’s a holdover from their prior corporate culture TBH, which is slowly changing for the better. Old habits die hard. That’s why I mentioned the Dorico generation, those guys better understand the value that you speak of. And that’s why I think that team’s approach is (hopefully) the future of Steinberg. We’ll see. Like I mentioned, I do see progress. Even their newfound attitude about open source (with the Yamaha/Microsoft driver collab and VST3 standard) bodes well. But yeah, it sucks that you have had to deal with several showstoppers, and you keep bringing a professional attitude here, without as much response as you deserve IMO. Good luck whatever you decide to do!
I mean, I started using Cubase almost 30 years ago and I can’t once remember a time when Steinberg was exactly open and communicative on a routine basis.
It just got released when it got released and you got whatever new features they put in it heh.
Consider the salary for an employee to spend time on a forum. Even if it’s just a couple hours a day.
And this:
So the forum is doing ok for helping out with peoples issues correct? IMO there is Martin plus lots of users going 110% including @reco29…even sometimes to the point of being insulted. I just read a great one from you today on Auto Saves.
What you are asking is why there is a lack of acknowledgement from Steinberg employees?
I think they do read these threads. Or are you perhaps asking for more interaction between users and paid Steinberg employees?
Interaction:
My guess is things can go south very fast if a Steinberg representative isn’t 100% positive with an answer, but gives his best guess. It only takes one time. There is too much going on behind the scenes with too many people and too many changes. And, as mentioned above, the representative must continually monitor what not to say, which may be more important than what to say.
Then the user either complains your not being forthright, or re-phrases the question again hoping for a better answer.
While I have never participated, I doubt this will never be an open forum like Reaper.
How does forum communication work with Studio 1, Logic, PT, FL, Bitwig, Ableton and DP? Is it better than here?
I’ve been reading this thread but haven’t responded – my generic answer to the original question would be, “it’s not just you.” I’m always excited about new releases of my main platform, to see what is new that may help my workflow or general productivity, as well as what surprise “toys” might be included. But I have no clue on expectations. I did go as far as looking at the date of last year’s Cubase 14 release (the first Wednesday of November), but that was the one time I didn’t dive in on day one, and, in fact, not until the first patch came out, specifically because I was trying to finish a set of remixes and remasters for an extremely time-sensitive (i.e. holiday) EP. But I figure I’ll probably dive in on day one this year, unless something urgent comes up to prevent that.
But this note on the 14.0.40 “big bugs” confuses me. I have been following the forums, but I must have missed something important. For my own part, I was working on a very time-sensitive project the day 14.0.40 came out, but I decided to risk upgrading anyway, and there were no problems to impact me. I finished the project before the deadline that afternoon, and proceeded to create project archives by the end of the evening. I’ve used Cubase some beyond that, but I was totally consumed by Adobe MAX today, so maybe I missed something???
Any pointers to posts that talk about these “big bugs”. I’m asking partly out of curiosity, and partly out of wanting to know more details in case there is something that is likely to affect the stuff I’ve done (especially with respect to project archives) in 14.0.40 that snuck under my radar.
Just wanted to lend my voice to some of the thoughtful discussion in this thread. I too am always looking forward to new features and goodies.
But I agree with those here who are frustrated by the poor quality control. For me, non-recallable VCAs, ARA headaches, glitches with realtime audiowarp (and bizarre “touch” automation!) are really frustrating to not see fixed year upon year with paid updates when the problems are clearly documented time and again on this forum. These are basic functionality for a modern DAW, and I really hope more attention is paid to these and other bug fixes and improvements to existing workflows going forward.
duc.avid.com is as far as I see it much, much better. The concerns you voice about interpersonal interaction just don’t really seem to be much of an issue there.
But we users can only do so much, and what I was talking about specifically was even just acknowledging a) that something is broken and b) whether and when a fix is coming. Users can’t do that.
I thought that was obvious; ‘yes’, by “acknowledging” I mean doing that publicly so we know that they know. Right now I feel like 98% of what I’m saying is just talking into a void. Should I even bother?
I’m sorry but that’s hilarious, they can’t even get midi connections sorted out..