I have seen and have read the slogan " Cubase the worlds most popular music software". I believe it and i’m hooked, but with so many prgs. on the market my question is, how are the ratings tabulated and what rating system do they use?
Aloha T
Not sure about how the actual companies do it;
but for us chickens there are several polls out there on this topic.
Here is one on the gearslutz site:
but I’m sure there must be many more as well.
The polls I have seen are ‘all over the map’.
Some have Cubase as most popular and other polls have either Pro Tools or Logic ahead.
Funny thing tho’ from what I have seen, no matter which DAW is leading the poll,
Reaper seems to always find a spot just behind the leaders. Usually third or fourth.
HTH
{‘-’}
Don’t be so naive … the most outrageous marketing claim wins, plain and simple. There is simply no practical scientific way to determine what is the “most popular” of anything. If there are any rating standards for anything, you can be sure the companies with the deepest pockets will always be the “most popular”.
CurtEye, thanks. Soundman, I don’t want to create an argument with you. I was not being naive. The school I come from states if you don’t know, ask. Certainly, the term naive can be used on any inquiry. Lighten up dude. CurtEye responded as a soldier it could have stopped there, sir.
Cubase is the most popular with me although I do flirt with Ableton live.
Cubase has done me proud for 20 years, other programs hve come and gone but cubase has stood the test of time.
Its down to personal taste in the end but as far as im concerned for the features offered cubase is value for money and blows the compition out the water
Personally I think Cubase is amazing!!! I don’t know if its the most popular. It’s really so much professional bang for your buck and with a lot of the previously RTAS only plugs starting to make VST3 versions its about as relevant as it gets…its also the perfect segway to Nuendo which is arguably the best DAW available.
Agreed, apologies. I was a bit OTT. 
MrSoundman, you are a Jedi (Star War hero). Apologies accepted sir. 
Sam500, I 100% agree with you. It is my personal best. 
It depends if ‘popular’ means purchased or admired. There are certainly stats on purchase out there. Marketing aside, there are facts that are demonstrable … even if not forthcoming. Given its cross-platform vitality it would really be surprising were it not the sales leader.
I’d bet Cubase, Reaper, Logic, Sonar and Pro Tools in that order about a lap ahead of everyone else … with Reaper bound to take the lead coming down the stretch. How can you argue with ‘almost as good as anything else at 1/10th the price?’
Then we could get into discussions about which program out of the box has the best ‘included’ instruments and fx. I think most would admit it’s Logic and Sonar running ahead of the pack with Logic by a nose.
I love Cubase except for a few niggles … like only being able to sidechaining in VST2 plugins using the quadro work around … when it seems no problem for upstarts like Ableton or Reaper to incorporate it.
What really keeps me hooked is all the time invested learning it and the depth of it’s midi capabilities.
For audio I could get by just as well with Reaper … and generally recommend to newby friends to start there instead of some dumbed down version of any major DAW.
Como
Cubase has consistently been at the top of the Overall Rating of the Digital Audio Workstation Software Shootout (DigitalMusicDoctor.com is for sale | HugeDomains) for several years, though some cheaper products with lower rating better it in Value Ratio. Which means that if you want the best, it costs more!
For example, Cubase 5 has an Overall Rating of 4.7/5.0 (the hoghest) and FL Studio 9 has 3.0/5/0, but due to price, FL gets a Value Ratio of 1.51 compared to Cubase’s 0.94 (third). But FL has whole categories where it has no functionality, so it may be good value, but unusable for surround (as is PT9 and AL8) and video, as well as having poor file management, MIDI recording and editing.
Generally, Cubase has very few low-scoring areas, and many of those seem to have been addressed by C6. C5’s worst area is Video (3.0), whereas all others are at least 4.3.
The link above goes to the summary page, but there are hundreds of sub-categories by which the products are rated. It is interesting to see how many other packages have big holes in their functionality. For some reason, Reaper has not been rated.