I’d like to hear if other users feel like this. Let me know if this discussion is/has been happening elsewhere.
Please let’s not get into a blame game one way or the other about this, I don’t care who should have done what, only what my options for going forward.
I have been using Cubase for a few years both 4 and 5. I was extremely satisfied with 5 so it was only last month I decide to go to 6 to take advantage of the audio quantizing feature for drums . Having installed it I opened a 5 project in 6 and proceeded to lay down some lanes for a guitar part for comping. When I converted the lanes to a part and opened it to edit I got a shock. Nothing worked the same. I couldn’t get on with my work. I spend about half my time in Cubase 5 in the part editor and all the acquired skills that kept me int he warm bath of my right brain enterprise without having to drop into a cold shower of Manuals, tutorials and things that don’t work without friction were gone. So my first response was, export all the lanes to wav files and drag them into C5 so I can get back to work. This is my current workaround: Back to familiar, friendly Cubase 5.
So I have two questions:
Is it reasonable and friendly on the part of Steinberg’s developers to make a key feature like comping work so differently in a new release that users with 1000’s of hours of practice with the old (and very good) way are assumed to be willing and able to drop their work in process and dive into manuals to figure out the new (and no doubt also very good) paradigm? I have work to do. I also HATE manuals and tutorials and am normally willing to go there to learn NEW useful skills. Why isn’t there an option to revert to the C5 style part editor? Much as I like Cubase this makes me start to wonder if some other DAW might suit me better.
Is there a clear definitive tutorial to teach me the new way to comp? Everything I’ve seen to date is the kind of engineering approach that makes things perfectly clear only if you already understand.
Look for JHP’s posts, he has made some long posts about the new system, illustrated with animated gif’s on his workflow. You are not alone though, this was a much heard complaint when 6 was released.
Please let’s not get into a blame game one way or the other about this, I don’t care who should have done what, only what my options for going forward.
So, it’s just a moan huh? OK.
I’ve used Cubase for more than “a few years” and yes, you still have to read the manuals when a new model comes out just like a new car or washing machine.
It’s called system maintenance. Things change. Sometimes it annoys us. Tough. Annoys the wife too.
(and somehow whenever anyone mentions “workflow” it pushes a big switch that makes me think that things aren’t all that they seem.)
Conman? That’s a good handle for a communication oriented forum.
The moan of pain you hear is of a musician being dragged out of his ecstatic right=brain mode of existence into the arctic left brain world of engineers and machine lovers. In Cubase 5 I just work. I’ll have another look at 6 when I have time, whenever that might be.
Well I for one was in a world of pain when it first dawned on me that my old way of working was history.
I just duplicate the track and delete all the parts I don’t want - I still have the original + the new one. I can do multiple versions. It works for me.
Sounds awkward to me. Is there enough of value in C6 to make it worthwhile? All I really want is the drum editing/quantizing thing.
The C5 Part editor is my all-purpose toolkit, not a small thing. Maybe I’ll just process the drums in C6, which is logical, because drums come first. Or maybe I’ll just surrender to Superior Drummer, which I’m pretty close to anyway.
The left brain is part of Cubase territory. Like a lot of other users I’m a musician too.
You can use C5 as well as C6. Use C5 while you digest C6s new features and get used to it. A half-hour a day is plenty time for a busy man who wants to advance. You’ve time to post here.
janpeek? that’s a good name for a janitor who looks through keyholes.
Who wants to advance? It’s more fun trading half witticisms with soi-disant conmen who hide behind animated kitty kats.
But how about this idea of work flow. What a vile corporate/engineering mind trap. A 90’s idea that should long since have gone to join lava-lamps and grunge rock in the great landfill of history.
The witticism trade is one way. And the last para is just rambling.
So who works for corporations then? Answer: Most of the working world. That means us. You included.
And I don’t (half) insult people because they raised a little truth. Insults belie a troubled mind.
It’s ok to have the odd moan now and again but it’s best not to push it for your own sake. Ghost Decoy has given the best advice to approach your problem.
But you can still use C5 if, as you say, you don’t want to advance. And, if you haven’t had C6 too long I’m not sure but I’d look on the Steinberg website to see about return policies (and time limits after purchase) if you’re really that upset with it. At least you’ve half a chance to recoup your money.
Your point is the reason I have not uninstalled C5. For me both versions have their strengths but C6’s comping is the first piece of development from Steinberg I’ve seen that purposely restricts the user. Don’t like that!
It is a shame that they don’t drop in on the odd debate like this to explain their move or clarify it.
I suspect, if it is in fact not designed to be that way, that it was maybe a hurried development and a mistake might have been made there and it’s god’s own job to fix it.
There. I hope that goads them into joining in. The only other thing would be for users to not buy or send the thing back but as no-one ever does…
My tip. I wait as long as possible before upgrading so I can see at least one review or reports from early adopters here so that I’m not too hi-jacked by any unexpected changes.
I have a hunch that the must-have multitrack drum editing features (needed in Cubase & Nuendo to keep up with the competition) are the very reason that the lanes functions had to be simplified.
Possibly there was no way to get multitrack drum editing working reliably, without first re-inventing & simplifying the way lanes worked.
Just my own theory.
I still cannot get on with the way lanes now work. I find C6 great in many other ways … but in my day to day work I’ve stuck with C5.
The reasons it hit me so hard, I think are
I never need multitrack drum comping … all my drums are midi.
I loved the way lanes used to work.
I record many things (midi & audio) that are NOT the same on every lap.
I think my brain somehow evolved along with Cubase (since Atari) and C6 feels uncomfortable to me.
(eg. dangerous … too easy to muck up loads of editing with a single click).
Also I’m a mouse-only man. (apart from transport controls & 3 or 4 of my own shortcuts) - whereas the new way of working seems to demand a more youthful many key commands approach, that I just can’t seem to get comfortable with.
It sort of feels like the old familiar Dave Nicholson bones of Cubase have been kicked out, and some young blood has been brought in, to kick young life into the program.
Think I’ve just got a bit old !!
For the first time ever, when 7 comes along I will not buy it.
(unless, and I have my fingers crossed, they find a way to bring back/invent a form of editing that feels comfortable to old-timers like me !!!)
IMO Yes it is reasonable for SB to make radical changes to the app, I hope they keep on doing so. For practising I use another program called Band in a Box - its hte best out there for throwing together a few chords and getting live sound (Real Tracks) takes less than a minute, but the architecture supporting this feature feels like WIndows 95 and the
service user base seems to like it that way (they are old folks mostly) . Its so full of bugs its like swiss cheese.
If we took the attitude dont change this or that we would still have some kind of Cubase VST which was suffering from “add on program line itus” to coin a clumsy phrase.
Just because you dont wat to read manuals, thats no reason not to develop. The lanes thing is in definite need of development though, as is VST bridge, expression maps, notation, and some of the older editors.
I’ve been using cubase since pro 24 on the ATARI and I love cubase 6 x64. I never really used the lanes as I comped from separate tracks, mainly vocals to be honest. I’m lucky in that I’ve got some of the best musicians in the world at my disposal so don’t really need to comp much hence my not using lanes. I do use the new v6 comping way and for vocal comps it very fast and efficient.
The main thing that I found(still not fully comfortable with) is the whole media bay, I used to keep .fxp presets in my project folders and liked that way of working as all my settings were saved with the relevant project. The whole massive data base idea of the media bay is a bit too right brained for me so i don’t make the most of it.I would love to see track pre sets in the media bay work with multichannel VI’s rather than only single tracks, that would be a great time saver.
what else? I still haven’t got my head round expression maps as I like to play my VI parts using key switches live to get a vibe.The score in cubase doesn’t work as well for me as sibelius so I export midi files out of cubase into sibelius. The project logial editor is another thing that I’m sure in the right hands is immensely powerful but again I haven’t put that to good use yet.
I’m sure, like a lot of people I have only scratched the surface of cubase but it’s working for me and I haven’t found anything else that ticks all the boxes.
I’m going to introduce a controversial note - C6 lanes are great! Get into them!
It would be unfair of me to say that I don’t know what all the fuss is about, though, as I suffered a great deal when going from C5 to 6. The trouble is that the ways of working are so different that anything comped in C5 is going to go haywire in C6 and give you a bad impression of how comping now works.
Give it a proper chance. Take a C5 project, reconstruct the uncomped audio and spend an afternoon with the tutorials. What used to take me hours now takes minutes.
This works just as well for MIDI, which you can run with all lanes playing at once or one at a time, as for audio (you need to mute the events first with the X tool).
These links to topical threads may help/inspire you:
There is quite a bit to re-learn but all well within the capabilities of anyone who’s managed to learn Cubase in the first place. No excuses, ignore the complaints, you won’t regret it.
I’ve been digging into Media Bay lately. I’d pretty much shunned it in the past. I can see some practical applications of its use in the way I work, but I must admit, right-clicking in Reaper and just choosing a track preset is way easier than using MB. Still though, C6 and I are getting along nicely.
Crotchety