Oh...so this is The Cornfield™....

Steinberg Lounge
1

It is apparent Steinberg could give a crap about the Mac community….so I figure this is as good a place as any to start this nonsense up again.

Yes…here in the Lounge, The ultimate Cornfield. The place where anything that offends Steinberg gets sent to die, out of sight from the general public. If anyone is wondering about the meaning of The Cornfield™…I suggest reading this and move on:

Here’s the thing……I keep seeing this over and over. People keep saying “get over it…if you want to post something Mac-specific, type [Mac] into the thread title”.

Some would say: fair enough. I say: get bent.

Mac users should do this because we’re in the minority? The whole point of this little social experiment is that it’s supposed to be about the program not the platform. Well, if it’s supposed to be that democratic, I say: let everyone share the burden. Why not suggest that little nugget to all the PC users? Get them to type [PC] into all their thread titles and see how much traction that gets.

But this is not what I really want to discuss. What I want to talk about is all the stuff the boys in Hamburg have ripped out of the program intentionally or otherwise and unceremoniously buried in The Cornfield™.

MIDI Lane behavior seems a good place to start. I’ve been reading the responses from the Mod (who is obviously the programmer behind this travesty) trying to figure out why the new “feature” is hated by a clear majority of users…and users in both camps, I might add.

To me, the problem really boils down to what people expect to happen when you initially use the scissors tool. Snip a lane….and you expect only that lane to take on the cut….not the whole @#$%& vertical line of lanes. In the world of ergonomic design, it’s called Mapping. A simple example of mapping is the steering wheel in your car. Turn it to the left, the car goes left……not right.

One snip=one lane cut is the way it should have been implemented. Anything else should have been relegated to the scissors tool plus mod keys for additional behaviors. And a detailed explanation should have been included in the manual.

I swear to God…my eyes almost watered reading the Draconian methodology to get this simple primary and expected function to happen. What ever happened to elegance and simplicity in this program? Oh right….it’s over there somewhere in the North 40.

And speaking of cross-platformed Cornfield subjects……has anyone been paying attention to the Midex thread in the Hardware forum? It would appear owners using Windows 7, now find themselves in the same predicament we Mac owners found ourselves in 4 years ago. Now, everyone has been equally screwed over.
Grab a shovel and I’ll show you where you can bury them.

2

Hello Weasel,


Keep it Music related. When this turns out to a Steinberg ranting thing and/or your “own” diary, then this will be closed and removed from the forum without any warning.

Cheers,

Chris

3

I think we need to give Steiny credit for the changes they’ve implemented so far and let them continue to improve the software. As they have stated for a long time, the vast differences in coding of the various features made it hard to make the changes we’ve asked for. They’ve said the reason some features have gone missing is that the “cleaning” of the code requires a complete re-vamp of those features. I’d much rather they keep this course and take the time it requires to do a proper job of it and let Cubase evolve as we’ve desired for so long. Let them get the foundation sound so whatever comes in the future can be that much better.

I honestly feel Steiny’s on the right path for the first time since I began using the software. :sunglasses:

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No… This is Cornfield, John Cornfield:

A Brilliant Engineer, and, I am proud to say, the guy who mastered my upcoming CD

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Weasel - Maybe the changes you are talking about will happen in future versions. I think I read somewhere that they had to start over on this because the code was getting too messy or something.

Interesting to see that the song “Stardust” was used in that 1961 TV show you linked to. I liked Bill Mumy more in “Lost in Space” than I think I would have in “The Cornfield”, too scary for a little kid. Although nowadays, I think Judy would be the center of my attention! I believe a Theremin was used fairly prominently in that show. Maybe that’s where Brian Wilson got the idea for “Good Vibrations”! (Although, that wasn’t a Theremin, it was a homemade keyboard-activated device that sounded similar).

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This is not a Steinberg rant, Chris….nor is it a “stealth blog” . I clearly stated a few paragraphs in as to what I want to discuss with other forum members: things that have either changed or disappeared altogether from Cubase as each revision moves forward. With few exceptions, everyone gets the little joke of the Cornfield reference. I truly hope we can move on.

I took the step to post this specifically in the Lounge….just to keep it out of the general public eye and discuss this stuff with other registered forum members only. It’s a discussion about the functionality of the program that doesn’t fall into the main forum purview. What is wrong with that? Why are you singling this thread out…when there are clearly dozens of other topics posted here that do not fall into the “Music related” category? I thought “everything else” was the point of the Lounge and the fact that only registered users can view it.

As to the subject of things changed or removed from the program, I’d like to talk about this for starts: Lane editing and how it relates to interface design “mapping”.

Steinberg has already implemented some rather nice tool behavior paradigms in the program that have been around for quite some time…and I’m really curious as to why the decision was made as to how basic editing within the new lane structure moved away from the elegance of previously established tool function hierarchy.

Yes, there are a number of threads on this subject…but none of them have bothered to explore the underpinnings of why the change is not well received by a majority of the userbase. It is more than simply: “Hey, you changed it……put it back the way it was”.

Let’s look at the Split Tool mod key behavior outside of the Lane editor.

Normally, the Spilt (and others, like the Erase, Glue, Range, Trim…etc) tool behave in this fashion: one mouseclick=a single Part cut. Add a mod key and you get multiple cuts determined by the lane quant value. The hierarchy is arranged from the simplest expected function to that of one producing a more complex routine as different mod keys are introduced*.

My question is: why veer from what has already been established? Why does cutting lanes start with an unexpected behavior at the lowest level of the Split tool behavior hierarchy? Why has the expected functionality (as set with historically established paradigms throughout the program) been placed farther down the hierarchical behavior chain?

This program has always had great vibe when it comes to ease of operation. I’m not arguing the overall flexibility of the Lane editing structure. I am arguing the hierarchy of tool behavior within it. I firmly believe it is not justifiable to change what is expected in the pursuit of demonstrating a new feature set. That’s what marketing and manuals are for. This kind of thing throws people off and ultimately slows down productivity. It seriously needs to be reviewed….if the user feedback so far is any indication.

*It’s the same thing with various forms of parameter values when multiple Tracks are selected. Example: one Audio Track selected, change the output bus, it and only it changes. Select multiple Tracks, hold SHIFT/OPTION (Mac) and all selected output bussing changes at once. Same behavioral paradigm at play: simplest function to more complex as mod keys are introduced . Simple, elegant, logical and expected.

7

How many of you still occasionally dig up an old Cubase5 VST32 or Atari generated .ALL, .ARR or .PRT file and wish the Importing function had been carried on into the Cubase 4, 5 and 6 series? The feature had been steadily improved throughout the SX1,2 and 3 series to the point of near perfection before it was unceremoniously relegated to a small shady plot in the Cornfield. Pretty disappointing considering the value of the feature.

However, Steinberg did make an effort to keep it going by providing a version of SX-3 on its FTP site for Cubase users who came in late in the game (post SX-3) that still works. I don’t know what the deal is for the PC users, but I can tell you that the Mac version still works on the latest Intel Macs and runs fine in OSX 10.6.7.

Except for one small gotcha. Plug-ins. Apparently many of the later VST2.x plug-ins will prevent SX-3 from fully launching. Chances are high that SX-3 will probably crash on launch. But there’s an easy work-around:

Before launching SX-3, temporarily move your VST folder into another “temp” folder so SX-3 doesn’t “see” the VST folder on launch. That will permit SX-3 to fully launch and be able to Import any uncorrupted legacy ALL, ARR or PRT file. SX-3 appears unconcerned with VST3 plug-ins…so you can leave that folder alone.

And of course, once you have the file showing up in SX-3…save it as a .CPR file, which will open just fine in Cubase 4,5 or 6.

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Aloha Weasel,
and thanks for the info

{‘-’}

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Weasel-as I’m relatively new to C6, what IS the eye watering method to get the scissor tool to act in the expected manner? (I’m sure it’s in another thread somewhere, a link would be just fine) -thanks!

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…what IS the eye watering method to get the scissor tool to act in the expected manner? (I’m sure it’s in another thread somewhere, a link would be just fine) -thanks!

Ah. it’s been awhile since I discussed this…but better late than never. The link below is the response that I found to be…um…“eye watering”. You need to read all of it and watch all the accompanying animated gifs to get the proper tear duct response that I did.

11

I discovered something tonight-although Cubase gives you a virtual ‘switch’ to start up C6 in 64 bit mode, your older Mac, like my 2008 Mac Pro, may not be using the 64 bit kernel. I flipped this over, and it seemed to improve the handling of my orchestral template a little.

To check-go into “About this Mac” in the Apple menu, click on “More info”, highlight “Software” on the left side, and see if your 64 bit kernel is enabled. If it’s not and you want to try it, simply hold down the 6 and 4 keys as you start up next time. To get back to 32 bit kernel, yep, you guessed it, hold down the 3 and 2 keys on start up. That’s it!