Wrote what exactly? That in my opinion (informed by doing strategy work for top tech companies) the vision for Cubase should be the following:
Cubase is the premier compositional tool for serious songwriters and professional composers.
What is so “filthy” about that?
As an aside, your use of the word “filth” really made me laugh. It’s straight out of some fundamentalist preacher’s “You’re all going to hell!” sermon. I just wanted to let you know that you made my evening. 
Trust me, it won’t. A clip launcher (that can compete with the likes of Ableton) will just clutter up the Cubase UI and divert precious development resources away from features and actual workflow enhancements that the majority of Cubase users are requesting.
And if anyone doubts me, conduct a poll to see what percentage of responders think that Steinberg should implement a clip launcher in Cubase. Post it in the Gearspace Cubase/Nuendo sub-forum but run the format of the poll by the users of this forum first to make sure it meets minimum market research standards.
The problem with this approach is that Steinberg will still need to build the clip launching system AND integrate it fully within the program so that launching clips is something that works seamlessly and isn’t some tacked on feature. Implementing a system of this sort (which is equivalent to building the core feature set of Live or Bitwig) will almost certainly require all available Cubase development resources for probably a year or more (based on my software development experience).
More importantly, adding a clip launching system in Cubase is unlikely to convert anyone away from those programs or entice first-time electronic musician buyers to purchase Cubase over Live or Bitwig. Those programs have very tight, focused feature sets that cater primarily to "laptop musicians "doing electronic music. Cubase is much more of a general purpose compositional tool that appeals to musicians with stronger compositional skills (who can, for instance, figure out their song arrangements in their head and don’t need a clip launcher to aid in this process) and whose musicianship is of a higher caliber.
Cubase Professional needs to play to its strengths as the premiere compositional tool for serious songwriters and professional composers. That’s how Steinberg will stay competitive in the market. Not by adding inferior “me too” versions of its competitors’ flagship features. You don’t see Avid adding clip launchers to Pro Tools because they would divert resources away from development of the program’s core features and would not appeal to the majority of its intended audience. Cubase is no different.
That’s a really strong feature, and wish Cubase had that in general, as it makes management of instrument based automation a lot easier. For MIDI you can get around it a little by mapping Midi CC to plugins and storing it within the MIDI Data. Can’t do that with audio clips though, sadly.
There’s plenty of DAWs that have clip based automation now, so I’d expect this to arrive within Cubase at some point. Perhaps clip launching could be the catalyst?! 
Let’s hope so. Do you use the midi device inserts to emulate the modulation options in bitwig to control vst synths in cubase? I find it doesn’t work when a project is reloaded, wondering if anyone else finds this? I’m still on 9.5 btw
Yes I do that alot, but as you say, I don’t trust it a great deal so always render instruments to audio tracks for most tasks. I’ve not noticed routinely losing settings when I reload though, something I should probably check.
I’ve had serious problems with arp generators in the past - especially if playing with chord pads (Trigger from an ableton push), so I just don’t use them now.
In desperate need of attention really, when you consider the sheer amount of VST instruments that could benefit from an improved MIDI Insert/modulation backbone.
Another example of this in upcoming MuLab 9 release, progressing well (if not seen/mentioned already)…
Maybe good for some, if C12 doesn’t include it just yet…
i personally are leaving Cubase an over to Bitwig, manly because of the SENE/ARRANGER workflow/window in Bitwig, i have been asking Steinberg for something like this the last 10 years… im over on Bitwig for Midi/composing/produsing… i only use Cubase for Vocals, because the Varioaudio is amasing
Same. I finally bought Bitwig myself a month ago after years of (different) ignored feature requests.
In my case it was the lack of flexible & easy to assign native modulation options, lack of multi assignable macro controls, lack of multiband containers for any 3rd party FX, continued lack of any native FM synthesis options, lack of clip based automation that were the primary catalysts for my ‘conversion’.
I’ve been requesting they update quick controls to be multi assignable macros, and to replace the beyond dated MIDI inserts with some native flexible mod sources for years now (since macros have been in Ableton), its also a pain in the ass to use 3rd party mod sources like LFOtool in Cubase & your project will get cluttered way too quickly with midi tracks for all the I/O routing.
So far I’m loving Bitwig & have no regrets. The only downside for the majority of my workflow is that Bitwig’s beat slicing needs a lot of work on transient detection. I doubt I will ever pay for further Cubase updates (i am on pro 11) & will only be using it in the future for anything requiring ARA2 (melodyne or spectralayers extensions) & possibly for final mixdowns of rendered bounced audio stems from Bitwig. The mixer snapshots are just too handy to want to do final mixdowns in Bitwig.
I gave Steinberg close to a decade to make good on these requests. Further updates to the score editor / variaudio & new native FX just arent going to cut it in a DAW that is so far behind for basic sound design & modulation features at this point.
Bitwig also seem to be much better about communicating what they are working on for future updates than steinberg ever have been. I’m done waiting around holding my **** for basic features to come to Cubase, that have been implemented in other DAWs for so long, with no communication or roadmap from the Steinberg devs. Literally all they have disclosed about C12 so far is new licensing & M1 support (which as a windows user with no issues with the elicenser dongle are useless to me). They have touted ‘major workflow improvements’, but without disclosing what they are relevant to. ‘Workflow improvements’ in the score editor or variaudio would be useless to me. I dont write scores & have melodyne studio 5. After 10 years of waiting already, I strongly doubt the ‘workflow improvements’ would be what I have been patiently waiting for, so it was time to move on. Done with Steinberg’s utter lack of, or vague AF communication on forthcoming features
the MIDI inserts are complete rubbish & in no way even slightly comparable to Bitwig’s groundbreaking modulation system. It doesnt even have multi assignable macros yet, which have been a mainstay in DAWs like Ableton for like a decade now.
Even using a 3rd party option like LFOtool is far too clunky in Cubase & requires a midi track for I/O routing for each instance & each target. It can also only use MIDI CC as a modulation output in Cubase, which is way less than ideal if you want a slow moving, smooth sine modulation.
In Bitwig its as simple as adding a native modulator to anything (native or 3rd party) & LFOtool can output audio to feed into audio rate mod sources, by way of using a DC offset device to give it a signal to output as audio. This results in much smoother modulation curves at slow rates, where MIDI CC can sound really stepped. Also no need to add numerous midi tracks for routing. You can have multiple instances of LFOtool as MSEGs and your instrument on one track. hell you can even bounce audio, change the modulation shape & keep bouncing new variations on the same hybrid track.
Bitwig is light years ahead of Cubase for sound design & elecronic production workflows. I wouldnt be switching after dedicating 10-15 years (and hundreds in annual update fees) to Cubase otherwise.
And dont even get me started on how amazing Bitwig’s handling of VST plugin hosting is. It could have saved me countless crashes & lost work over the years, if Cubase had handled VST hosting in a similar way.
Sadly, even Studio One has the splitter options (by frequency band), LFO drawing tools and clip/part based automation all grand improvements over Cubase for sound design, and has been there for quite some time.
Presonus stomped heavily into the articulation camp last year too which makes Cubase’s solutions look prehistoric and over-complicated. So this isn’t just EDM focused MIDI features where they’re falling behind.
I understand not keeping pace with Ableton/Bitwig for specific EDM style features, but you’d expect the basics to at least be up to date and current in Cubase - particularly as VST developer.
Most modern DAW’s link and modulate direct to automatable parameters, Cubase is stuck with CC 1-127 values and therefore only applicable to VST’s that support CC mapping - It’s so cumbersome, as is articulation/key switching setups.
The only way you can modulate VST parameters directly (And be free of the 1-127 limit) is via track/timeline automation. When you factor in that Steinberg set the standard for VST plugins it’s incredible that they offer such a basic implementation in their own host.
Not all that frustrated by it as they’re “Would like” features, rather than “Must have” for me. But for anyone who sound design/modulation is an intrinsic part of music production will for sure view Cubase as a very weak option.
I haven’t used studio one. My experience over the years has been early days with fruity & logic on PC. Then nothing but cubase until a month ago when I started learning Bitwig.
It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been a pretty disgruntled Cubase user for some time now. It’s great for working with audio. I’m still stumbling a bit in Bitwig, forgetting that I can’t edit audio directly in the timeline in the conventional way. It has some plus sides to how it handles audio events, but it’s taking some getting used to.
Aside from that everything else fell into place in a couple of weeks. Their help system is genius. The way it shows a fully working UI with descriptions of each parameter, that you can tweak while you read about it, is genius. Best I’ve seen in any software app, not just in pro audio.
For sound design & synthesis resampling purposes in particular though it just destroys. Even Ableton has a bit of catching up to do. The new note repeats & other note fx are awesome for quickly getting a groove going & the clip launcher is a fun new way to come up with arrangement ideas. I didn’t think I’d use it too much but it can be nice for inspirational purposes.
A lot of this stuff simply couldn’t be done in cubase without a massive amount of work. So I get it. But things like multi macro knobs & a multiband solution for inserts surely wouldn’t take too much development. Quick controls & insert slots already exist. They just need updating. The modulation will always be a problem while Cubase’s only option for that is midi cc or hand drawn automation.
That was really my reason for trying Bitwig. I just couldn’t see that sort of flexibility for modulation ever coming to cubase, at least not in such an intuitive way.
Cubase still stomps all over it as a mixing environment & has other tools I will use like ARA2 & handling basic video audio duties. I’m not ditching my license, and still love it for a lot of things, but not as a sound design platform anymore.
TLDR: Steinberg has already coded all of the features, this is really just a UI request.
It isn’t EDM and electronic music only that benefits from a creative non-linear mode of music creation. Just go on the Club Cubase live stream and you will find half the questions are directed at trying to get Cubase to behave non-linearly. Musicians that work alone or without a full band compliment want to Groove. To Jam, where some of what they do is saved and played in real time while they move to a different instrument.
And they want to do this without stopping and editing or staring over. Any time you have to stop and engineer, you have to switch your brain from making music, to engineering. That’s painful and frustrating. I suggest that anyone who doesn’t crave non-linear songwriting tools in Cubase is not a music creator, and solely and engineer. Grooving is jamming by yourself.
I use to set a drum loop and jam over it. Then jam over that, and so on. Then came the irritating work of trying to take all of that and arrange it into a song. Then usually re-record each part. Boring!
Well…I have done it. It was a long hard slog of programming Macros, Project Logical Editors, Generic Device configuration, and a arguably intense naming scheme for tracks.
I have “Kit” folders of instruments and presets exported, I can import and use as they plug right in to the existing template structure. This has to be done because the routing has a lot of nuances.
I had to use Kontakt (scripting language) to quantize the triggers to bars etc.
Clips are Sampler tracks, pre-configured to accept the right midi note for triggers. You still have to drag and drop into the samapler, but it’s all set up to highlight the sampler track you are targeting, and only requires 2 minor mouse clicks after the drag and drop. Maybe the sampler will get a record feature like Groove Agent has, and maybe that will be manageable through a macro.
I don’t use Groove Agent (ironic name), as I never create midi clips, only audio clips, but midi clips can be dragged into Groove Agent, and you get 120 of those to spread across 8 5 octave instruments, or 4 10 Octave instruments. Using it for Audio clips requires too much finagling, as you need a note the same length as the instrument pad to be created separately and dragged into pattern pad. Can be done though, and I use to do it this way. I also didn’t use Groove Agent to prove that it can all be done using tracks alone.
It’s no where near Logic’s Live loops, Ableton or Bitwig. It reduces Cubase to an 8 (actually 7 as I use it) Channel system. You only get 8-12 sessions to work with, but you can trigger sessions, and you can even trigger more than one clip on a channel.
I never go over 7 Channels (instrument kits) while grooving, so it’s not that limiting. Since “Grooving” usually involves much longer clips being limited to 12 clips isn’t that difficult either, and the template only has 8.
I use a tape deck and looper analogy so I am always recording into the “tape” track for a particular channel. A Kit is like a MIDI, MIDI CC, and Audio track for Performance, maybe an Instrument track, and maybe some FX tracks. For Guitar you need the MIDI CC to control the plugin like Neural DSP which lives on an FX track. You might not need the MIDI track or the Audio Track depending on the instrument.
So the workflow is something like “Arm” the deck, jam with whatever has been triggered already, or just Groove Agent playing some drums. Record direct to Tape, (which also records the raw performance, Audio, MIDI, MIDI CC) then if you want, overdub the MIDI or MIDI CC (that’s two modes) Or even overdub the audio. You can stop and edit the Performance while the tape is still playing, and Dub that down to the Tape track after… all live. Then you have to drag and drop your clip into the Clip Track, change the mode to continuous, and click zero crossing. Then you can trigger the clip (and mute the Tape) and it starts say, at the next bar.
The looper analogy includes the ability to record the triggers for a Channel on a MIDI track, and you can put FX as inserts in and record what you do with that on a looper dedicated MIDI CC track. And you can dub that to the Looper tape track in real time, or in a separate pass where you only worry about the effects.
All of these modes of operation are accessible through a midi pad controller (Novation). And any single mode can be requested of a channel from any other mode. All channels can be active at the same time in different modes.
There are dropouts in some scenarios (overdub audio), but I’ve been able to get rid of most of them.
The point? Other than how much work that is, and how ridiculous, (errr cool )I am to have done it all? Well, take away most the Tape and Looper analogy which is indicative of my workflow, and just done to keep things in order, and it’s all vanilla built in Cubase stuff.
The point is, all of the features those of us who crave a Non-Linear mode in Cubase want, can be done with the features Cubase already has. It can’t be much work for the engineers to code this in to Cubase. (Remember the kontakt script features are in Groove Agent but not scriptable and are also in HALion, but HALion doesn’t have MIDI out!) So Steinberg has written ALL of the code necessary to do this. Add In what they can do with Loop Mash, and it’s clear that this request is mostly a UI task!!! It wouldn’t take away that much from development in other areas.
The other interesting thing here is that MIDI and audio really need to be in every channel. You can’t control your virtual guitar kit without audio, and and midi. And a lot of the time this is the case. Having midi in on an audio track is really where it’s at. And it can be done by just making mixed tracks be both behind the scenes.
Also note that separating CC and Note data in MIDI let’s you change one without changing the other, and also allows a CC performance to be copied and pasted elsewhere such that the automation it controls is decided after the fact. Automation doesn’t work that way. How you move the foot pedal while playing guitar is not something you want to draw in later.
Crikey … over a year of posts to basically come to the conclusion that Cubase isn’t Live.
I’ll admit I stopped reading at about June 2021 … but
I’ll chip in (because I’m nuts) … and arguably bored.
I produce different types of music and principally I use Cubase. I also own Live and and use it sparingly but it does what it does well (which is why I have it). If I’d known about Bitwig properly when I bought LIve I’d probably have bought that because it has features on the sound design front that are pretty cool.
Starting to see the pattern. I buy the right tool (or sometimes the right one that I know about).
In reality how many clip lauching musicians who use that workflow are going to jump to Cubase if it got one. The answer is non-zero but it’s certainly not enough of a non-zero to be a sound spend of resources for the developer.
Resources are better spent doing what Cubase does well.
Finally I have no opinion on the merits of any genre/style/education level. If you make stuff that floats your boat and people want to hear it all power to you. Do what you do.
My 2c.
Agreed - and I think that’s what they’ve done for now…
No ‘clip launcher’ type tool just yet (v12); it will come though, maybe even being worked on this year for v12.5…?
Alternatively there’s the view that Steinberg could take the concept and expand it out into more traditional composition genres. That’s what progression is all about.
For example, who’s taken the clip launch concept and applied it to a linear chord track? There’s many functions within Cubase such as the chord pads and their pattern modes that suggests Steinberg like to offer these compositional tools to it’s users. And Yamaha are very much renowned for their arp layering in hardware.
For orchestral arrangements you could effectively have sections arranged in loops which you can control as a composer on the fly while writing the linear structure using traditional musical theory.
There’s an incredible number of ways it can be employed, everyone goes for the EDM beats and loops approach… It doesn’t ‘just’ have to be about that.
Yes, all great points.
I believe there will be no great shakes to see in v12; most developer time/resource has this past year gone in to getting the new licensing regime right - across their extensive product range. I’m sure it has been a huge amount of work, leaving little time for anything else.
So lets see; now that effort is largely through, maybe this year could bring Cubendo’s most productive/creative updates, in a long while…
Yeah that’s fine. I understand and I’m not against it, but if that’s your workflow then why not gravitate to a mature tool.
Not everyone. I deliberately used the term ‘clip launching musicians’ for that reason,
I get t … it would be a feature … would I use it … maybe. But my point is there is only so much time in an upgrade path and personally I believe there are far more functions to improve/add to its existing workflow. I just really don’t see the stampede to Cubase for the sake a clip launcher. I may be wrong … it’s happened before
From an existing users perspective I agree - but then we’re using this DAW without clip launching so it never was a primary concern for most of us I expect?, however…
Steinberg seem to be making some very progressive decisions at the moment, dropping the dongle, drawing the line under VST2, jumping a release straight to C12, holding a grace period indefinitely until that release, New MIDI API for controller support.
I could be wrong, but it seems that a drive for new users is very much on the menu and they’re doing away with the old where possible. Subscription option looks very much likely in future too.
Clip launching could be seen as a big selling feature for new users- particularly if Cubase does something unique and fresh with it, if you get it right then there’s plenty of positive media outlets that spread the word for free (Potential of a million eyes if a few popular youtubers decide to demo it).
Plus interest current users who’ve been blinkered to how this workflow can be used for traditional compositions also. Or those that would like the feature but are happy sitting dormant currently.
Dropping the dongle is opening the doors to a lot of users who may only be running on two port laptops, who go regularly between machines, or who are put off by the dongle required for a demo and these may be coming from DAW’s that have live/clip launch as part of their established workflow - but prefer the interface, mixing or suite of tools offered by Cubase.
So, no Stampede maybe, but it’s also not good for people to look at the window and walk on past either is it? Particularly when you’ve put a big “Welcome” sign above the door.
That is so important. People keep asking why one would want such a feature in Cubase, why not go use some other DAW for that? It’s simple, because the workflow in those other DAWs is lacking in other ways that are more important than that one feature, but that doesn’t mean that the feature isn’t useful and powerful in ways that… apparently, many Cubase users are unaware of. It feels like mentioning non-linear is tantamount to suggesting “MIDI chord packs”. But I don’t see the same aversion to the chord track, or scales being built in.
The real power isn’t in taking some canned loop, or making 1, 2, 4 bar loops and playing them over and over for 3 minutes while destroying your ears with an air horn, and alternately pointing in the air from side to side and pretending to be having more effect on what is playing, when in actuality you could go grab a cold one and let the whole session play itself for 2 hours.
Do you ever walk around with a whole composition running? You are no where near a way to get it down. Like when you wake up from a dream with a poem in your head, but you try to write it down, and you lose it? Or when you are just noodling and suddenly you realize, it’s from that composition and suddenly it’s back, sort of. So you record it. and you see if you can’t get back some of the other parts, but it isn’t the parallel parts that come, it’s other parts, so you make a fine mess, and after a while it’s all over the tracks, and no where near where it belongs in the timeline? You get most of it out, and before you know it, you are putting down every bit of it you can, in whatever order it comes out in. It’s been stuck in there for days, and it all wants to come out all at once in no particular order.
Maybe that never happens to you, and you think it’s a Tenacious D moment, or that substances were involved, but that’s not it.
That’s the way it works for me. I tried Ableton, Motu, Bitwig, Logic (before LL) But the rest of what needs to happen from that point, and even the workflow and features that make things so easy and intuitive in Cubase, just aren’t there the same in those other DAWs…
I know there is someone reading this, thinking of back before they learned to compose properly, thinking of how it use to be like that for them too. And they are probably thinking that some time put in to a different set of skills would resolve this issue, but the reality for me is, that would take all of the passion out of it. I write software like that, but I don’t want to write music like that, and unlike some, when I do, I never get what could have been. I get something else, that isn’t nearly the same. I took those composition classes too… 30 years ago…
But it goes further than that. Have you tried to convince a 12 year old that they don’t need the clip feature, that if they spend some time to try and learn to get all of that out in a linear fashion that is organized, and maintainable? You get a very frustrated 12 year old or 20 something. They may get a lot of it down, and the arranger track helps, but no where near as much as having a separate arranger track attached to every section, or instrument. That’s what non-linear is.
Say you are recording a guitar part, with that young person who is use to having session view, and you try to explain why the clean channel is important, and you set up all the tracking you need, and again, it doesn’t work like that in those tools, you can’t trigger a lane without messing around with all of the extra tracks you pulled in, and lining up the tracks in the right order so the triggers still work, again, it’s engineering. And once you do get it set up, navigating that mess is problematic. Something you don’t think about when you are use to it all being linear, you just mute those tracks, or mix them in appropriately. The order they are in doesn’t matter to some trigger, so you keep them all together. And don’t get me started on comping (which is just new to Live…but…that’s another topic)
Anything that makes you stop, switch to engineering mode for something they don’t care about right at that moment, but you need for mixing later, to side-chain the gate or whatever, makes the whole thing stop and get’s in the way, every bit as much as not having the clip launcher to begin with.
The desired solution to these scenarios is to have the best of both worlds in Cubase. To have each “clip” available in real time, but also have all the rest, the midi for sheet, or the additional tracks, still there.
What I want is to not have a constant transition between two entirely different ways of having your brain work. So using two separate DAWs at the same time is just as bad.
Maybe your brain doesn’t work like that, and you think that if I do need the feature like that, then I’m lacking. Or maybe this feature isn’t something you need. fair enough. But it sure seems like it’s important enough to enough people that nearly every major DAW manufacturer has added it, or is adding it…