I recently went on a journey to test a load of products to see if Cubase was still the best choice for me prior to purchasing 10.5.
I decided to test Reaper, Cakewalk and Studio One. All very good packages in there own right and some with features I would find extremely useful but in the end Cubase just won hands down. I couldnt get past not having the warping features in Cubase, it was an absolute deal breaker for me.
One feature I found useful in Reaper was when fixing proximity issues for vocals rather than go to a compressor, I really liked the fact that if you used automation to increase/decrease levels within a recording the volume jump/drop was reflected in the audio image. This provided a good visual representation when listening to a mix.
Is there anything inside cubase like this? I can amend the automation it’s just the visual representation I am after.
By the way the update cost was what drove me to evalute other products as it appeared to be a waste of money… It was not, visually looks great with the colours, the mixer now opens on the right screen rather than defaulting to the primary monitor and it just looks better.
In Cubase you can use the Audio Event Volume. Select Draw tool, hold down Alt modifier and draw the volume curve directly to the Audio event. Unfortunately you don’t get the curves and you cannot copy/paste it to other Audio event.
I’ve always disliked that the waveform shrinks according to the event volume curve. That makes it harder to find transients in audio where the volume has been turned down. You can see the curve, there’s no need to shrink the waveform.
Interesting topic. I agree with ShatteredVitreous, an option to have a visual representation of changes to the waveform would be great to have. the Draw tool option isn’t optimal but doable I guess. I think Pro Tools also have visual representation as standard behaviour for volume automation(?). One way to do it is perhaps to split the audio part into several events and perform the volume changes visually that way.
Wether it’s necessary or not is up to the user (maybe I don’t care about the transients but want a good overview of the general volume?). Maybe it could be an option in the Preferences?
Yes it is very user preference and for me I really liked the fact I could see the representation but as it was just a visual I could click a box and see the original wave image.
Martin that sounds like it covers a portion of what I need as it will remove in some instances the requirement for a compressor or at leastbonly require minimal settings.
MikZak
I never actually considered hitpoint then slice to have the events individual. Fantastic idea, I’ll give that a go.