I am really wondering if I need to start all over with another program. I’ve had Cubase since early version 3, and what I liked about it was that it was very good at scoring my ideas. hen I got C14, I saw how it was screwing all my scores up and especially the drum scores. I hoped C15 would be an improvement but no. More money, I wasn’t that interested in taking other people’s samples, drum rhythms and used external synths, so composing from scratch, making my own drum parts and being able to communicate with good scores was prime. Now I have to redo every score and the drum scoring has gotten even worse. Now the AI is suggesting the note values and on what was supposed to be drum rolls has made these screwy septuplets. And while I was able to reassign some of the drums, I had wanted a bass drum on D3, as I have 2 and one was to be on F3. But there was a cymbal sound that got on the same space, moved to G4, and the BD went with it and so I can’t change the head of one nor move the other to the right position as it seems they became linked. Every project requires redoing the drum map and after hours, I still seem to always find a couple of obstinate drums or cymbals that won’t go where I want, because AI makes some other decision. Previously, I couldn’t seem to display rolls well, though sometimes a trill variation was closer. After another hour, I managed to separate the 2, though I couldn’t get the splash cymbal with a circle
x. And then further down I find another tom on the same line, different sound, but says splash. When you click on a score note, it will show in the drum editor, but then you may have to search in the drum map for the right input note or output note, because it doesn’t always agree. How much simpler if you clicked on the note and it showed in the drum map. Or if you could change the head clicking on it. Too simple. I also have a 2 crash cymbals with the same sound but one has a normal x and the other is an outlined one, neither is circled as desired, or as in the drum map for that.
Thought after a couple of hours I had all right but now found that one of the bass drums is a cowbell (AI’s original assignment). So it’s pitch is B0, I see in the drum editor. They took away the ability to show all the possible drum sounds, and there is no B0 in the truncated version. What I have to do, is open another map, GM that shows all the notes and search for B0. There it is and says cowbell on the left, but kick on the right so I change that as I go back to the gm map (not GM). As soon as I change anything like the display or note head, it reverts to truncated and doesn’t show. I go through the process again and get the head and position right. Unbelievable how they made this harder by not being able to see all the notes, just the ones AI thinks you are already using. And they could have made the window to see the actual noteheads to choose wider, instead of hiding them. Maybe they just hate drummers. Found another Ride cymbal displayed as highhat, and have to use detective work again.
And now I find in the new manual, the organization is awful. How to find voices in score settings. Used to be a separate document. Now you get a little window, put your search in and maybe over 50 results or none, depending on where you are.
I hear you!
Until C13 I was a heavy user of the score editor, for composing and printing out sheets. I rarely went into a situation, where I couldn´t get what I was trying to achieve.
Now, after trying to get used to the new score editor for many months, my final solution is: do not open it!
I wasted way too much time already only to be stuck with no way out again and again. Details can be found in many of my previous posts.
Being a Cubase user for 30 years, right now I´m just frustrated.
For the sake of clarification, It’s not AI that is used in the Score Editor, just algorithms. There is no LLM or generative function, no machine learning, etc afaik.
Have you ever used Dorico? Because Cubase’s new scoring editor is based off Dorico, a piece of software that was basically created by all the Sibelius developers Avid gave the boot a few years ago along with closing their offices. And yes, Dorico can be frustrating to use as well because it’s very strict from a composing standpoint.
For ignoramuses such as myself, this represents quite the challenge. Which, despite owning Dorico Elements, is why I still use Cubase 13 when I need to use a score editor.
(I know all the reasons for the changes, doesn’t mean I have to like 'em!)
No I haven’t used Dorico. I have used Cubase for decades, since version 3 on a disc. I used it because it did a good job on my scores, that often used polyrhythms and odd time signatures. I’m not sure how many hundreds of dollars I had spent updating versions all the way up to C13. But C14 was a total waste, as I discovered it ruined all my scores, and my hopes that C15 would improve this was not realized. I’d just spent hundreds more for ruining my projects. I have to be very careful to not open and save a project with a clean score in C15 and make and change as then the score will be ruined in C13. I need to have separately named projects for c13 that can never be updated in C15. The idea that I should have to spend hundreds of dollars on Dorico to do something that worked for decades in Cubase is repellent to me. It is almost comparable to the situation with Adobe, where for decades, I was able to use their Bridge program to edit photos and show and play videos. And then they decided to no longer support the video on newer cameras, and make more money on another program that would support the videos. Free programs like Nikon studio will show the thumnails and Window media will also play the videos but the added metadata is not compatible, as there is no comparable MIDI standard as in music gear. So here the corporate greed has also made it a subscription process and raised the monthly fee while removing capabilities, yet one is stuck because of thousands of images or videos, shot over decades and invested with metadata that won’t be visible in some other program.
With Cubase, time for developing new projects and being creative is now spent just trying to salvage and complete all those ruined by the latest versions.
Steve, if it is not AI in the latest sense, it is then machine language, where others programmed it then, deciding that they should remove control from the creator because they think they know better, when they don’t and their preference makes a horrible mess. Either way, the trending view is that most people are ignorant or stupid, so we will make it easy for those who have little skill or knowledge, and assume that few cubase users or musicians in general even read or have any interest in scores.
Cubase’s score editor is based off Dorico. It doesn’t require Dorico to work. There’s no sync feature between Cubase and Dorico. You’re not gonna get more features out of Cubase’s score editor with a Dorico license as they’re two separate pieces of software.
The reason I’m mentioning ProTools is, unlike Cubase, it doesn’t have a built in score editor. It does have native integration with Sibelius so you can do your scores that way, which means for ProTools, you have to also have Sibelius to have that feature.
