Mixers not thought out well

Cubase
1

While coming up with the new Mixer, it seems the 2nd and 3rd mixer weren’t considered…

One example is you can’t get rid of the tool bar … I stack the three mixers so I have three rows of faders. This was awesome in 6.5 in narrow mode. I could get a poop load of faders on the screen. Doesn’t work for crap in 7. now you can’t even get a proper narrow view. I used to have 40 channels per mixer on my 24" monitor for 120 channels. Now
EDIT: (I had a setting wrong … so it was more channels that I originally said) it’s 36 channels per mixer for a total of 108. The old mixer was very responsive set like this. The new one is sluggish as all get out. Plus you have all of this “junk” in the way. So far this seems two steps back.

2

I don’t have an answer but would like to expand on your concept of additional mixers not thought out well.

I can’t put 3 mixers in one screen but you have a 24 inch so perhaps that is the reason?

Unlike you, I have 3 17 inch monitors. I have 2 mixers stacked in screen 1…one on the top, and one at the bottom. Screen 2 is my project window, and screen 3 is my 3rd mixer which only takes 1/4 of the room at the bottom of screen 3.

My question to you is when opening the top mixer, using the show channel racks button nothing will happen because you have run out of screen real estate. There is no way to make the mixer expand down…only upwards. The only “solution” is to keep the show channel rack button on, and then with your mouse, grab the bottom part of the top mixer and drag down to the bottom of your screen covering up the other 2 mixers. This is a horrible solution, because when I’m done fooling around in the channel racks, I have to remember to drag the bottom part of the mixer back up towards the top…once again showing all 3 or in my case 2 mixers making things just like they were before.

If I forget to drag, and instead click on the show channel racks button, the mixer doesn’t go back to the top, but instead drops close to the bottom covering up the bottom mixer.

Do you or anyone else have any solutions for this?

3

Yes, that’s part of the point. Setting up the mixers is clicky fiddly mess. There is nothing convenient about them at all. For example, the linking function actually is WORSE not better than what it was before. It solves 1 isolated problem by ruining the things you do 99% of time.

4

Here’s how I think linking should work …

  1. multi-select channels … doesn’t matter if it is in the project window or the mixer. Any value I change, happens to all channels. No need to turn “link” on, because I f’n selected them already.

  2. let me use a mod key like CTRL, to change a value on a single track even though it is in the selection. No need to click the active/bypass thingy.

  3. let me save the selection to a list. Now I can call the exact channels back in selected mode (linked) …

  4. Now the agent has an awesome functionality for “selected tracks”

  5. Now you can have the same track in multiple groups without a bunch of shannanigans

This is SOOOOO much more streamlined, user friendly and functional (not to mention it follows standard keyboard usage conventions). All the clicking and mode setting is so unnecessary.

5

I think the way it should be is when you click on the show channel racks button, do whatever you need to do, then click on the show channel racks button again to turn it off, the mixer should go back to the same exact position in the screen, not default to the bottom like it is now.

Wouldn’t this be considered a bug? At the very least a feature request.

Your suggestion of a on/off tool bar would be nice therefore I could fit 3 mixers in one screen.

6

In the Key Editor, multiple notes can be selected and yet a value can be changed for a single note velocity (without any modifier). It would sure be nice to be able to do a similar thing here.

+1 to removing the toolbar for additional mixers.

7

By the way, the dialog to restrict actions in the link could still be there in the method I’m suggesting. But, by default it is set to all, and I can set it before saving if I want to. The point is that the link button is not necessary. The Active/Bypass isn’t necessary.

8

Actually if you highlight multiple items in the key editor you do have to use a mod to not have the action happen to all the selected items. But, the use case is a bit different. However what isn’t/shouldn’t be different is the key commands needed to select/multi-select/range select and over-ride. It should be exactly the same in every editor including the mixer.

9

Not in the controller data area, if we consider that velocity is not really a controller but rather arbitrary data.

10

ah, controller data do have that funky editor. The one that got invented that didn’t need to be invented. So you do group functions using the knobs and individual function on the entry. However, try to perform the action on overlapped controller events and see what happens.

11

sorry, I’m kind of in a funk mood after messing with the mixer. It’s just so non-functional from an ergonomic standpoint, it’s hard to imagine anyone signing off on its design.

12

This is the kind of feedback I believe SB would be interested in.

It’s early days for the new mixer, best to be on the front foot

13

JM Cecil,

I’m curious as it stands now, with your 3 mixers set up the same the way I do, how do you open your top mixer to see the rack? Are you using your mouse and pulling the bottom part of the top mixer down? Or perhaps because you have a 24 inch monitor you don’t need to do that?

Frankly, I’m not much interested in a rack format like this until the time when Cubase allows the user to integrate his choice of tools into the GUI rack itself. ie instead of the Steinberg EQ, compressor, etc having a rack full of Waves tools or a UAD rack. Yes I know, the Cubase EQ, Cubase filters, Cubase compression are all “top notch.” That is not the point. I paid money for Waves and UAD and over the past 15 years I’m very comfortable with these tools and how they work and relate to sound. Steinberg said they are not opposed to doing this. But based on these basic issues I might be in for a long wait. :mrgreen:

14

Today was the first day I tried to actually work with the mixer on a big project. 290 tracks or so. I say or so, because I was adding and subtracting a few. Anyhow, I couldn’t adjust the mixers additional mixers just like you couldn’t, so I went back to 6.5. This mixer is useless for mixing large numbers of tracks. The number mouse clicks and constant re-sizing is not to my liking at all. And to turn anything on or off requires dragging things around and sizing even more things. It’s not thought out well at all.

I can’t imagine someone doing orchestration being happy with it. Unless of course the intention is to only use 1 mixer and just change views constantly. If that is where there headed, I probably won’t like it, but I can see it. It just isn’t functional enough to make it work yet. I can’t wait to hear what the Nuendo users think when it hits them.

15

I would love this, and for the interfaces to come through into the Inspector would be absolutely awesome, even just for stereo only channels to begin would be great.

16

I just want to re-iterate that link is stupid as it exists right now. It is so unnecessary. We need LINK LISTS, which are almost there in that drop down area for links. HOWEVER, they need to be accessible via keyboard and created just by shift selecting ranges and ctrl selecting the tracks to be added. CTRL-S to SAVE (what a novel concept). Then let us name and remove items we want in the list if we want. But just have everything by default so I don’t have to click anything. Now I can tab/highlight the linked list and recover any set of adjustment sets I want. Super simple. Doesn’t require a million clicks. Uses keyboard conventions that have been proven effective since Wordstar in 1979.

17

I would guess that is the intention. Still make Cubase easily work on a single monitor by numerous view changes.

Steinberg has a history of prioritizing Cubase for the new user who I would guess uses 1 monitor.

Prioritizing workflow, core functions, and making sure stuff like the above works like it should, apparently doesn’t bring in the big money. It appears there are plenty of beta testers who paid for the upgrade who will gladly help out. :mrgreen:

Eventually, I’m guessing a lot of this will happen.

18

Hi guys.

First: SB team, Thank you for new features.

But…

Let me introduce a kind of comparison. Something like “What we had” and “What we’ve got”.
I’ve set the smallest size of the mixer channels. So, take a look at this

you see that everything is OK.


But let me show you the “old mixer”

Do you see that “Inserts”, “EQ’s” & “Sends” are bypassed? I do too.

So, what do we have with New Mixer Channel? - A Nice, Big! fader cap; bigger! meter strip and mediocre panner. (as for me - I hate this white, fat dot or line). Can you read channels name at the bottom of the strip? I can’t read too. SB team had to put the channels names to the bottom, to divide “Record” & “Monitor” colors from the channel’s color. And channel’s font is almost unreadable.
Do you need all those numbers in the meter strip area? - I don’t. Because there’s no matter how much you zoom it in, the size of the numbers remains the same.

So, when you lean back in your chair, you won’t be able to read the numbers.

So, let me show how I see it

Well… Numbers of “Volume” and actual peaks are much more bigger and therefore much more better. Fader caps are bigger, than the old ones(scale 1:1). Panners are blue color and it makes them better. The “Instrument button” can be placed over here:

This placement will help us to distinguish Instrument channels…
BTW, this button could be placed on the MIDI channels as well. Because now we have to go to Edit Channel Settings, then “Go to Input” and then click to edit VSTi! :open_mouth:


“L” button can be placed somewhere…

So, anyway… Left hand side located buttons are better, than… the stuff we have now. IMHO

And the panner!!! :cry: …

So, I think that the old mixer view was thought over much better and it was the CUBASE Mixer, and SB team must take the best of it.

19

awesome work! :open_mouth:

and furthermore it sums up pretty closely how I think about the new mixer…I hope Steinberg has the balls to bring back what was obviously perfectly functional and lose some of their new design ideas

20

And moreover - in case of Group track and FX track we’ve got the waste of space: