Just my opinion...

Cubase oh Cubase… Where to start? This is a crazy love hate relationship.

Believe me when I say I’ve tried every major DAW on the market and not one of them come close to what Cubase can do. I don’t want to use any other DAW besides Cubase because I always have to find “work arounds” to get simple things done or sometimes just having to do without a particular function, when i just want to get creative and keep my inspiration flowing. That being said though, Im starting to think the lack of features and having to do work arounds in other DAWs might be better than the constant crashing I get with Cubase. Its like here a crash there a crash everywhere a crash crash. In my opinion Sternberg/Yamaha should easy up on trying to add more and more features and just focus on getting the current features more stabilize. Make Cubase solid instead of being so fragile… I much rather have limited features in a stable DAW than one packed with features that I cannot use. In Cubase I often find myself moving extra slow and making my mouse clicks one at a time and even holding back from doing certain things because Im afraid that if I move as fast as I want to I will get the beach ball and it will just crash on me which it did before, so this major DAW packed with features needs to be pampered else it throws a serious tantrum which to me is very unproductive… And the worst part is these crashes cannot be reported because they don’t happen the same way all the time and if its not a crash that can be recreated then you’re out of luck. Im running Cubase 8.0.30.536 and a beast out MacBook Pro so I know its not my setup plus like I said, other DAWs don’t crash as much if at all. Can anyone name one version of Cubase that came out and was not full of bugs and crashing unpredictably, and please don’t get me wrong, Im not saying Cubase should be perfect but when you look at the type of bugs, it’s almost as if they just make the software then release it without thoroughly testing it. Like how do you not notice sorting by tempo in MediaBay crashes Cubase every time, or stuff that should be saved when you save the project is not being saved, and the list goes on.

C.U.B.A.S.E.
Crashy Unpredictable Buggy Annoying System Every-time

Please please please make Cubase more stable.

Do you have any 3rd party VST’s or VSTI’s? If so by process of elimination you need to assure yourself that the problem resides with Cubase and not a 3rd party.

I sympathize with you but I have been using Cubase since 1997 and stability has never been a problem. I get perhaps 1 crash a month, and I’m using Cubase every day for many hours. I use a PC built for audio meaning quality parts and things my builder knows works well with DAW’s. I’m using it with 4 21-inch video monitors, 4 MidiTimepiece’s and a Qcon Pro.

I do agree that Cubase is the most feature-rich DAW and therefore susceptible to more bugs. There are plenty of DAW’s available that I think are more stable over all, but they aren’t nearly as flexible as Cubase. Choose what works best for yourself.

I’ll have to see if sorting by tempo crashes my system. I didn’t even know the feature existed. :mrgreen:

hi do sympathies - read the post start to finish - which i rarely do.

cubase is very very stable here, until a rogue plug crashes it. i have narrowed down it down to certain plugs and like you tend to go slow and pray when i use these plugs (like EW Play, Rob Papen Raw and ok i use some 32bit plugs i.e Orange vocoder ). i do use cubase everyday and crashes are rare… very rare. hope this helps.
mind u i am using pc.

I must be lucky. I jumped onto Cubase at V6 (now on V8) and have had
a pretty stable ride. Yes, for sure some niggles, but not all the crashing
you unfortunately seem to be suffering

What audio/midi interface are you using?

Thank you all… I do have some third party plugins on my system that I think might be causing the crashing now that you mention it… I will get rid of them imediately and see if I still get crash issues. Thanks again!

also here no crashes, windows pc… but too fast clicking can beat every software program since it is triggering commands. I’ve seen young guys hitting the software in a ak47 way, so yes, you can bring it to it’s knees.
Some bugs are present, but never kept me from doing what i needed to do.
If the workflow is what you are looking for, it is ok i guess.

kind regards,
R.

OP, I enjoyed your post and echo your sentiments. I’ve tried every DAW and none really stack up to Cubase. So I’m forced to deal with Cubase’s idiosyncrasies and hope that every update cycle something gets mended to ease the pain. Because the alternative (other DAWs) makes me shudder even more…

Cubase 7.5.20 was the last solid version on my system.

Cubase Pro 8 is really solid as well however, for me, it’s not so much the stability that frustrates me, it’s the broken functions. Since 7.5.30, Retrospective Record has not worked properly and randomly shrinks the MIDI regions down to a shorter length than what I aimed to capture. It also inserts MIDI CC nodes of a different value into places during the MIDI capture that I never performed. Other broken functions I’ve found include changing the metronome to count-based no longer works, and the Input Command doesn’t go directly to even bar numbers like it used to.

But like others have said, crashes probably occur mostly due to 3rd party plugins. Though, I’ve crashed Cubase a number of times by hitting two key commands accidentally at the same time which wasn’t pretty.

agree with OP. I get crashes constantly on every version of Cubase. its such frustration dealing with this DAW , despite it being my favorite. Also, if 3rd party plugins are the problem, Steinberg needs to find a way for the plugin to crash but not have it impact the rest of the program. I never get these types of crashes with 3rd party plugins in Ableton. So why I be used to this in Cubase?

+1 here. Retrospective Record is a disaster now and I can’t use it any more.

Yup, I’m trying to push the issue because, though it may be used by a small number of people, it’s one of the main features that attracted me to Cubase and why I could never use DAWs such as DP or Pro Tools (or Studio One, or Reaper, etc.). So it’s either Cubase or Logic for me.

Cubase Pro 8 has some really great new features such as Render-In-Place and faster saving times, but without Retrospective Record working like it used to I’ve been using 7.5.20. I feel like I could get by with the Input Command issue, but not Retrospective Record and the Count-Base issues.

The problem with trying to build a crash-less version of Cubase (or any DAW) is that it is a nearly impossible task. The majority of crashes are due not to some intrinsic bug in Cubase but rather to how Cubase interacts with other components of your DAW - device drivers, plug-ins, network activity, motherboard BIOS etc. All these different components might be fine on their own, but a specific combination turns out to be unstable (chocolate & sushi can both taste great on their own, but together yuck). Most programs, like Word for example, don’t have a lot of dependencies on other components in the system - Word could care less about you audio interface’s ASIO driver. But DAWs are a bit like hothouse flowers because they are doing real-time tasks that interact with a huge variety of different system components.

The way that designers deal with this is to test the software against different configurations. But it is pretty much impossible for Steinberg to exhaustively test every possible combination since there literally must be hundreds of thousands. So the OP may have a screaming Mac that combined with an ABC audio interface and an XYZ plug-in along with Cubase that proves to be an unstable combo. Change any of those elements and stability returns.

I guarantee that if you go into the forums for any other DAW you’ll find the exact same complaint about stability. And most folks there will say “my system is stable.” But someone’s won’t be because they have a combination that just doesn’t work.

This is one of the reasons that I get my system from folks who specialize in building DAWs. Yes it costs a bit more. But they take the effort to verify that the components they use generally work with the major music software out there. Doesn’t mean I won’t run into stability problems, it just reduces the odds.

If a large number of Cubase users have stability issues, then it’s a good bet it’s a problem with Cubase. But if most Cubase users do have stable systems then it’s likely that any problems are a result of the technical ecosystem being used.

Finally it is important for anyone who is having a stability problem to submit a support request through My Steinberg. Cubase generates crash dumps which they can analyze. You may have an intractable problem, or the solution might be as simple as rolling back the video driver you are using.

Agreed. We just want our favorite DAW to be better because most of us make our living with it and spend more time with it than with family members even (or out in sunshine, or sleeping… etc.).

I think Bitwig has done something interesting with their approach to sandboxing plugins to improve DAW stability. I think Steinberg could take a cue from that to help minimize the impact of the vast number of differing plug-ins and “configurations” of their userbase.

There isn’t anyone who has used Cubase to do anything significant who hasn’t had a ‘Wrath Of Khan’ moment… Kirk looks heavenward, arms raised and screams his ultimate contempt, impotence and frustration.

OTOH, a lot of yer post is simply incorrect… it’s coloured by yer frustration. And I’m only telling ya that to give you hope. If I thought you were correct? I’d say ‘pack it in!’. But have hope.


Cubase -has- gone through some -serious- bouts of instability, but one of the MAJOR improvements over the past decade… in fact -the- major one, IMO, is -stability-. It has gotten progressively -more- stable and reliable with each version since SX4. Prior to that? You had to be insane to use 0.0 for real work.

NO ONE complains more about Cubase than moi. My complaints are largely that the company stopped communicating with its customers about the same time it got serious about that stability. But that’s another story.

It’s hard to do, but the thing to do is take a deep breath and go into detective mode as others have said. So the only point of -my- post is this:

CUBASE IS EXTREMELY RELIABLE IF YOU ARE WILLING TO DO WHAT IS NECESSARY.

You have to figure out a reliable configuration… including plugs, other programs, etc. And when you find it? LEAVE IT!

If you want Cubase to be trouble-free, you have to be willing to accept that your machine is a single-purpose device and be absolutely loath to upgrade or change ANYTHING. OS, plugs, hardware. And you should limit yourself to a small number of vendors you know and stay away from trying every goofy plug/app that you read about in the latest fanzine.

And above all? NEVER, EVER CHANGE MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME!

One other thing… When you get a new version of Cubase, if you import a CPR from a prior version, use Backup to save it in a new folder as a brand new CPR. For -whatever- reason, Cubase always seems to far more stable on ‘fresh’ CPRs, than CPRs imported from prior versions. Doing a Backup/Save to the new version seems to get round this.

Finally, you have a laptop. People with laptops want flexibility. That’s tough. If you want Cubase to be reliable? You have to not install other ‘apps’ or use yer machine for homework or photoshop or torrents or instagram or -whatever-. All the things that people with laptops -want- to do. That’s why people buy laptops after all! But they will eventually drive you nuts. -Something- will get changed.

YMMV.

I took all third party plugs off and no crash yet. Its feeling a little bit more stable and moving a little faster… I think. LOL! It might be mind over matter but either way no crashing and thats all that matters. I will put the plugs back on one by one and use it for a while to find the culprit. If third party plugins can cause so much trouble imaging what forth and fifth party plugins would do. LOL just some corny humor. Thanks to all for the advice.

this isn’t about other forums. I’ve used Live and Cubase extensively. Live almost never ever crashes. Cubase crashes for me literally every single session. I have to have auto-save set to 5 mins. I’m always afraid of doing multiple sequences of events for fear of more crashes. And my friends’ experiences have been similar.

why isn’t this necessary in Logic or Ableton then? Look it says a LOT about the program when i still stick with Cubase. But the stability for some us is absolutely atrocious. And I agree with OP that I would rather have a stable program than one that keeps adding things to it that we already have with 3rd party VSTs

Cubase is very weak in regard to 3rd party plugins. You never know when it will crash due to 3rd party plugin. Comparing to other DAWs it crashes 10 times more for sure. Which is odd, since Steinberg created VST standard - one would expect that they would be the ones who know VST best and can make the most bullet proof host for VST plugins. But not, turns out that their software is most fragile in this regard.

Bitwig offers great protection against VST crash, very elegant and user friendly.
Even more bullet proof I think is how Reaper deals with this, it offers several options how to deal with crashing plugins, and if set properly you cannot crash DAW with VST at all.
Ableton Live is not as good as previous two, but still much more stable than Cubase, some plugins that crash in Cubase run in Ableton no problem.

I’ve come to a point where in Cubase I use mainly just the built-in plugins, and just few selected 3rd party plugins. In this way it works well. But if I want to play with new and free plugs, be creative with trying this or that, I use Live or Reaper. In both of those you can load 50 or more plugins on one track, if you want. For example, I can load all vintage Waves stuff on one channel, and bypass them all for start. Then I just click on them to enable them, adjust a bit, disable, enable another, automate this and that, come up with something unexpected… it is so quick and easy to be creative with plugins in this way. Needless to say, such approach is impossible in Cubase - even if everything worked and never crashed, you have just 8 insert slots, which is ok for mixing, but not enough for having real fun.

I cannot even imagine why Steinberg doesn’t make it better in this area. At least they could make bulletproof VST wrapper plugin, where you can load unlimited plugins if you want. They could do whatever imaginable. It is their own standard, they created it. Probably they know it best, is it not? How is it possible that others use it better than Steinberg?

Totally agree, I was just thinking this GET RID OF ALL THE BELLS AND WHISTLES AND JUST FOCUS ON MAKING A LIGHT AND STURDY DAW. Seriously, any creativity is gone by the time it takes you to load up Cubase, load all VSTS etc and then dealing with any performance issues.

Not to open up an age old debate, but is Mac still a sturdy option for people? I’ve had the worst luck this year with updating and tweaking my custom built PC, it’s probably the only thing I haven’t tried. I imagine Mac you wouldn’t be able to get under the hood as much to tweak but would be less that can go wrong as a result.

IMO it is good that Steinberg adds things, although you can have 3rd party for that. I welcome their new functions for one simple practical reason - 3rd party doesn’t work too good on Steinberg. Only internal plugs offer real MediaBay integration, quick control integration, good automation via right click on knob and so on. And only internal plugs are stable enough to be reliable for work across all users. Any 3rd party you load up you never know how it will work - for some it works fine, for some it is a disaster, and another update can easily shake things in this or that way, you never really know…