Leaving Logic for Cubase

Cubase
#1

Hi all - I’m a newcomer to the Cubase family, having used Logic for 13 years. Our business has decided to cease using Apple hardware. We’ve moved all of our Pro Tools rigs to Windows machines, and today is my first day with Cubase. (I bought it and the full HALion 4, and am running it on a i7 with 24GB of RAM).

So far I like it a LOT, but having used another platform for so long there are some shocks. Has anyone ever created a preferences file that mimics the Logic key commands? (Yes, I am THAT lazy).

Also, as I’ve bought the full Cubase 6.5, I don’t have to worry about this bizarre “MP3 Encoder Trial License” thing do I?

Anyway, hello to everyone and glad to have joined the family.

#2

Welcome. Your thread title reminds me of a song.

Leaving Las Logic for Cubegas

For Logic key commands in Cubase:
Go to File > Key Commands…
Click the “Presets” dropdown
Choose the “Logic KeyCommands” preset

There you go. Have fun.

#3

No you don´t. You´ve got a full unrestricted version onboard.

#4

You’d be surprised how much MP3 encoding I’ll do. The reason is I use Cubase exclusively for preproduction, and hence I’m forever doing a quick email of a bouncedown to a client. MP3 is great for this sort of “sketchpad” stuff, particularly as they usually don’t have a FLAC player on their phone. The finished product gets exported to WAV and imported into Pro Tools (where my engineer takes over).

OK, so I’m just starting my 2nd day of Cubase, and frankly it rocks. At first it was all a bit unsettling - the unfamiliarity and all - but now that I’ve (sort of) figured out the editing and the workspaces I’m really loving it.

I’m now figuring out how to use MIDI transforms. I can already say they are much more sensible than Logic with its “select”, “select and operate” mysteriousness.

And HALion! Man that is a rocking piece of software. So well laid out. I’m looking forward to playing with this “articulation by note” thing I’ve read about.

So Day 2 after the Logic divorce and my doubts have all pretty much evaporated. I’m yet to do any audio or bouncing, but it’s all going well so far.

#5

Good to hear a positive post and actual appreciation of just how good Cubase is :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

Just so amazing how different lives can be!

I’m not very familiar with logic but have been using Cubase for more than 2 decades…

#7

Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say. If anyone is complaining, force them to go use Logic for a few weeks (without the benefit of my 13 years of experience with its quirks).

So far the ONLY thing I can say I prefer about Logic is the layout of the MIDI event list - it’s a bit more concise in Logic and thus you can have the piano roll and event list side by side on the same screen on a laptop.

After 12 hours, that’s the only thing I can find. (I don’t intend to use a laptop regularly, so it’s actually not really an issue anyway.)

On the other hand, the list of things I like better in Cubase is starting to get very long. “Edit in track” is awesome, as is the way it handles VIs - infinitely superior to how Logic organises them. The MIDI functions are much easier to use - even after 13 years of experience with Logic I was never quite certain of what result I would get.

On the whole I think the workflow will be much smoother (once I get proficient.) I’m really happy I switched.

#8

Voxhumana, just made the same switch from Logic to Cubase after about as long, as well.

I like Cubase better in every way.

I missed the Logic Environment for more advanced real-time MIDI processing , but found I can get a similar setup by using a MIDI track connected to to Reaktor that then outputs back to another MIDI track.

I love how crisp and customizable the Cubase UI is, compared to Logic, too. Everything just looks and feels more precise and polished.

And gone are those awful cpu overload dialog boxes you have to manually dismiss.

It’s sad, to the see the once-great Logic in it’s buggy, neglected, crash-prone state.

The Mac Pro line seem to be dead, so I may be forced to switch to Windows. Even if they don’t kill it off, the next Logic with probably either have iOS app style user interface nonsense (think leather binding, stitching, etc.), be dumbed down and merge with Garage Band or they’ll do a FCP X number on it and kill off the one thing that makes it great – the “Environment.” No matter what, it’s gonna likely suck for what i valued in it.

Onward with Cubase!

Cheers.

#9

Yeah the environment was cool, but to be honest I never used it that much. I stopped using external devices back in 2006 so I never really needed it for that, and the MIDI tricks it could do could usually be achieved from within the VI interface itself (or at least the tricks I needed which were usually basic arpeggiators and the like).

Reasons to love Cubase:

1 - Each track having its own mini VU - how obvious, yet how brilliant.
2 - Not having to go to four different places to find instruments.
3 - Ease of integrating new loops
4 - Automatic colour coding of new tracks
5 - The notepad! How freaking obvious, yet also how brilliant.
6 - Note expression. Can I say brilliant one more time?
7 - Score window. You needed to slaughter a goat and pray to dark gods before attempting to enter notation data in Logic. Entering a n-tuplet required promising your firstborn to Satan.
8 - Saving the audio waveforms as an image file. Genius.
9 - All the channel parameters in collapsible boxes. More genius.

Why didn’t I switch years ago? Oh well.

#10

vox,


things I like,


give the project logical editor a look,the PLE for those suitably inclined is an incredibly powerful tool.

find and audio track thats a bit sloppy timing wise, select it then open the quantise window, check the audio warp button and then hit quantise…Bam…audio quantised like midi in the arrange window,perfectly.

Export audio mixdown: when you’ve finished working with your VI’s just open the export audio menu and just check the instruments you want to bounce, they;ll all be rendered as audio in one go. I do it in two stages 1: all my tracks I want mono (snare,Kick etc) then 2: all my stereo tracks…simples…


media bay, Track presets;

Track presets don’t work for multi timbral VI’s so I’ve started using instrument tracks instead.

so I now have for example individual orchestral sections saved as separate instrument tracks eg one instance of play holding EWQLSO violins with expression and the same for violas/cellos/basses and then the whole lot saved as full string section. So I have them as track presets accessible in the media bay :slight_smile: I don’t there are any performance hits using separate instances of play/kontact/halion per section rather than multi-timbrally.


The Listen button:

Just select the tracks you want to ’ listen’ to and hit the ‘L’ button and all the other tracks Dim. Very handy as you can check tracks but not in total isolation.I have a key command set up for this.

Midi plugins: don’t forget about those.

Control room : if you’re tracking it’s a piece of genius especially with steinberg hardware as you get zero latency, independent monitor mixes.


Have fun.


MC

#11

Welcome Vox!
It’s refreshing, as Split said, to read something else than the usual moaning :slight_smile:

#12

Well I’m bouncing around in joy because I just put a Trillian bass line to a free rhythm guitar recording.

I just put the two tracks next to each other, zoomed in and opened up Edit In Track and the Event list. Then I tweaked until each MIDI note was in the right place compared to the audio wave form (using the event list to fine tune the placement).

It was so freakin’ easy! The pain of trying to do this in Logic… this would have taken 4-5 times longer, as everything would have had to be done by ear.

Maybe you guys aren’t that excited by this, but I’ve always dreaded this as being one of the most tedious, time-consuming tasks ever, and suddenly it was so easy I finished it while eating my dinner.

(sings “Happy Happy Joy Joy”, with apologies to anyone who missed Ren and Stimpy and hence has no idea what I’m referring to)

#13

There’s an even easier way to do that.

  • Double click the audio event to open the Sample Editor
  • Click on the Hitpoints tab in the inspector
  • Drag the Threshold bar until it detects most, if not all, transients
  • Edit the hitpoints if need be
  • Click on Create Groove
  • Close the Sample Editor, double click the MIDI part and you should see a new quantize setting
  • Quantize the notes and you should be good to go
#14

great tip :slight_smile: love threads like this…

I’m still knocked out at the audio quantising from the arrange page in 6.5


MC

#15

No offense but why would you need to do that by ear in Logic? The tip that ilmilto gave is also possible in Logic by creating a ‘groove quantize’ map from the audio file and then applying it to the MIDI track…say idea in both really.

Chris

#16

While you’re on a keyswitched instrument here (Trilian)…did you get a chance to try an expression map?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10661248/Trillian_Expression_Maps.zip
Give it a shot for fun. A bit confusing at first (for me anyway), even with the manual, but once you get it, you’ll never go back. One of the most innovative Steinberg inventions in recent history, for those of us using complex keyswitched instruments where there are a lot of articulations.

For freeform audio with MIDI added later you could try the tempo detection thingy. Haven’t had a chance to myself yet since I usually always begin my process with MIDI. Works best with drums, but might work with a percussive acoustic guitar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4PGHItSDE8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzHYtgMs9gg

#17

Welcome Voxhumana!

Due to the nature of my job (working in different studios, composing, arranging, teaching) I have to use almost any major DAW out there. And due to the fact that I am based in the UK, Logic prevails here.
The reason is most people DON’T know what they are missing. Cubase is by far a more advanced DAW than Logic hands down (not even need to compare it to ProTools). Most die-hard Logic users do not give it a chance because the have never used it. But I have many examples of colleagues who had the attitude of “Oh come on, don’t tell me you even COMPARE Logic to Cubase!”, who sat next to me in a session for a couple of hours while I was using Cubase in my studio and they kept saying “Oh! You can do that! Cool!”. Needless to say many of them ditched Logic for Cubase.
I am not saying that Logic is a terrible program. On the contrary. But as you will be using it, you will see how intuitive Cubase is and how quicker you will do things that in Logic they are nearly impossible.

For the time being let me state the obvious and say:

Enjoy the clear and detailed waveform views that ALLOW you to see phase relationships clearly (compare to Logic…)
Enjoy the superb and NON destructive audio editing
Enjoy the offline audio process history
Enjoy the fast import/conversion of audio files
Enjoy the fabulous Elastique algorithms.


You did a great choice. :wink:

#18

I also think he is making a great choice, but I wonder why the move away from Mac hardware (maybe way to much $$ in AU…and don’t start a this vs that hardware war either :smiling_imp: ). I have a PC for all my PLAY VI’s and everything else is MAC and that’s just the way I choose to run it. Sure ASIO runs better on Windows but when you use slaves (and keep PLAY off the mac) I can still do a ton of work.

Am am surprised you say Logic is so popular in the UK because the folks I know in the game industry over there are all Cubase/Nuendo based. :question:

Anyways, enjoy Cubase!

Chris

#19

I’ll chip in as well.
I’m no power user of either system I have to admit.

I prefer the layout of Logic’s mixer- for me it seems clearer, and it’s easier to see plug-ins etc.
The sounds you get with Logic- the software instruments, loops are IMHO amazing, especially for the price!

BUT, I do use Cubase more!
Don’t know why exactly, but it seems to be easier to compose in Cubase.
Maybe it’s because I’ve used it for much longer than Logic (Pro 24 user too!) but I feel more at home with it when putting tracks together.
The Drum Edit page is one of Cubase’s little secrets, and has been a great tool over the years, even when using hardware drum samplers. I Really missed this when using Logic.

In a perfect world, I’d compose on Cubase and mix in Logic, but for now Cubase is my DAW.

Only my opinion and as usual YMMV!

#20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP0kWqJJZa4

this is my all time fav from them!Log from BLAMMMO!epic…great thread i m just waiting to receive ur824 and iam goin to work first time with asio drivers on mac, is it unstable with EWQL? Gettin nervous here guys…