No specific reply to any of the above, just to reiterate my point. There are only so many “person” hours in a dev cycle. As a software company you are looking to get the biggest bang for your buck you’re going to look towards features that grow your current eco-system.
For interest, and admitedly it’s a tiny sample set … I asked 4 Live users if they would switch to Cubase if it had a clip launcher … answer was basically “why would I learn an entire new thing to get what I have now”.
Live’s a great tool and its linear mode is really not as bad as its made out to be. It’s a mature tool that does what it does well. As is Cubase.
Anyway as I say, I’m not really that bothered if it gets a clip launcher or not (maybe I’ll use it … maybe not). But if it means that new features and a few annoying long standing quirks/bugs don’t get addressed as a result … that would be a bit of a drag.
I’ve been a Cubase user for 30 years (back in the Atari ST days) so maybe my views are “rusted on”. For reference, I’ve never touched the chord track so I can’t really comment. It it helps someone make their music … awesome.
In the end it’s about development time … it’s not endless … clip launching is a big development … if it takes away from developing core tools or fixing outstanding issues that’s a problem … my 2c.
Seems to me that if creativity is limited in Cubase because it doesn’t have a clip launcher then creativity is limited in Live because it doesn’t have a score editor.
Is there an equivalent thread on the Live forum with complaints of limited creativity for lack of an ability to clearly see the harmonic and melodic relationships afforded by a score editor?
I don’t see the need for a clip launcher in Cubase just as I don’t see a need for a score editor in Live.
I also don’t see the need to have spreadsheet functions in Word or page layout features in Excel.
Would you ask Glary for rolled fretboards, or Fender of locking tuners?
Would you ask Daewoo for seasoned wood, or Steinway for locking casters?
Would you ask Kia for lane assist, or Mercedes for cup holders?
Would you ask Ikea for fine leather, or Roche Bobois for securing brackets?
Would you ask Mane ‘n Tail for a hypoallergenic formula or Kerastase for a snap top lid?
Would you ask Ryobi for precision torque, or Milwaukee for non-slip handles?
Would you ask Matalan for waterproof breathable, or The North Face for a radio pocket?
Would you ask McDonalds for Kobe beef, or Heston Blumenthal for coffee?
Would you ask Ableton for a score editor, or Steinberg for a clip launcher?
“Thus, Cubase becomes the Microsoft Word of the DAW world with hundreds of features that no one ever uses because the Product Managers and Engineers couldn’t commit to a vision for the program to keep it understandable and lean.”
They already reached that point years ago. Cubase… jack of all trades… master of none
Wow really wasn’t expecting Mixbus to get that feature. I find composing with MIDI a real slog with Mixbus. Great for mixing stems though.
I’m a little curious to try it, but I expect it’s going to be really cumbersome, as it is with most compositional tasks (IMO).
Credit to them for putting the feature in though, it’s quite transparent how they’ve achieved it too - Clever idea to use the mixer view. When you apply that concept to Cubase, SB could create an additional view for the mixer in the lower zone to accomodate clip/cue launching.
Wouldn’t affect the general feel of the DAW either.
Going to post this again since there is more attention to this topic.
I was able to get a satisfactory solution for myself using Sampler tracks. I think Steinberg is afraid of releasing a Clip Launcher and then having everyone complain that it isn’t gapless.
Well, that may be, but since there are Groove Agent and Sampler Track solutions, Maybe we will see some movement in this direction eventually.
Let’s be honest, the changes in C12 when it comes to audio warping are headed in the direction that would allow Gapless.
Anyway, here again is one of my standard templates which includes 7 channels of 8 clips built by always having 56 Sampler tracks pre set up and ready to go. It’s not Live, and certainly not Logic, but for my needs it gets the job done. I have made a lot of improvements to it since last posting it, but you can get the general idea. If anyone is interested I would put time and effort into improving the documentation and fixing any defects.
Simplicity, gapless audio engine
Amazing drum machine, Mobile and desktop versions.
All loops imported in Cubase for professional production, vocals recording and mixing
IMHO better than Ableton or Logic clip feature.
Wow, this answer contains something more then I can process after the first reading… I should think about it. It’s about figuring out song arrangements “in the head”, something I really want to learn for a long period of time but I don’t even know what to start with. I don’t have professional music education and I don’t know if I can get one…
Good lord, I had to stop reading your novella-length post after trying to process the particular statement I quoted above. Are you REALLY saying what I think you are? You know, that anyone who doesn’t want to utterly ruin Cubase with useless non-linear EDM “features” like those in Live and Bitwig are not music creators but rather just engineers. For starters, that statement is blatantly insulting to all the incredibly talented engineers without whom most professional recordings would sound terrible. Incidentally, the junk that bedroom, laptop EDM producers (calling them musicians is an insult to everyone who has spent years if not decades honing their musical skills) create is something that even the best engineers in the world can’t make sound any better.
But alas, I’m getting distracted by your patronizing insults hurled at people with some actual talent. Bringing some sense back into the conversation, I would argue just the opposite of what I think you are trying to say: People who mess around all day launching clips and applying LFO-based modulations to these clips aren’t actually musicians. They clearly don’t know how to play an instrument or even properly arrange a song. Otherwise rather than “grooving” they would be, you know, playing an instrument and recording their musical performances. Not screwing around with clip launchers for “inspiration” and wasting endless amounts of time applying EDM-style modulators that the VAST majority of Cubase users could care less about.
So PLEASE, for the love of god, go use Live or Bitwig if that’s the style of “music” production that you want to spend your time on. The rest of us, you know, musicians will be content to just play and record our musical instruments (like this thing called a “piano” that is available for free in whatever version of HALion is included with your edition of Cubase) and use the stellar linear arrangement features in Cubase to assemble our, you know, songs.
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that anyone still uses Sonar (wasn’t that Cakewalk?), Mixbus (what IS this?) Cakewalk (see previous question,) FL Studio (Crack Studio?,) Reaper (Oh man, you simply can’t un-see that hideous interface. I thought it was dead and gone. Great, now I can’t sleep again.) Maschine (SO glad I sold mine. Something tells me Maschine’s Hip Hop-centric user base is not going to pay the subscription fee that NI’s new SaaS-loving CEO is gearing up to impose across all of its product lines,) Performer (as if it wasn’t convoluted enough already and filled to the brim with legacy bloat,) and Ardour (again, what IS this?).
Then there are DAWs that professionals actually use. You know, like Pro Tools. (No clip launcher or program-wide LFO modulators last time I checked. Could be wrong though.) But then to oqion’s point, there ARE a lot of engineers who use Pro Tools. Dirty, uncreative engineers.
Yes, Pro Tools gets accolades due to its mixing and audio engineering ability. I don’t think that’s news to anyone?
Those DAWs which are focused on compositional or song writing features have mainly come onboard with clip launching. Studio One perhaps being the only standout along with Cubase.
But with Studio One there’s clip automation, scratchpad options, pattern editors, and arranger track tools works well with all those. Impact when compared to Groove agent is pretty good at syncing to the beat with samples that you load up.
So, hopefully such features will be added natively to groove agent - it’s an easy foot in the door really, without upsetting too many.
Oh man, no! Groove Agent 5 is already complicated enough without adding clip launchers. All I want is a better version of NI’s Battery. You see, I actually play my drum parts and occasionally if necessary edit them in Cubase’s Drum Editor (which I will admit is in need of a usability update compared to the drum editors in those DAWs that actually feature something similar built in). But certainly no need for clip launchers in Groove Agent (or even 808-style step sequencers for that matter so long as the Drum Editor in Cubase receives an update).
EDIT: What I would actually really like to see included in Groove Agent (and Battery and maybe even HALion Pro) are analog, FM, and physically modeled drum and percussion synthesizers for creating your own Kraftwerk-inspired drum sounds similar to what you can create with the basic drum synthesizers in Maschine and much more powerfully in the Clavia Nord Drum hardware drum module. The Nord Drum sounds freaking awesome for a digital drum synthesizer!
Exactly! It’s over complicated, tiny stupid icons, and still fails to deliver on features. Look how simple Impact is within Studio One, and you have simple loop and quantize options for each pad ‘if’ you want to use it similar to clip launching.
Just route pads out into their own channels in the DAW, no-one wants to be confined working in a small part of their screen mixing drums in Groove Agent, surely?
It needs a rework, but they’re kinda tied to the content library that already exists so not much chance of that happening, I doubt.
Clip launching is not related with ‘how’ you play your parts, it’s how you arrange and audition them in conjunction with bass, pianos, leads, loops… whatever parts you have.
And instead of ending up with the final beat, you could have 4-5 versions of that beat built-up over takes which you can, again, try in conjunctions with other musical elements. Or no matter where in the loop you are, you can punch in and out a new live take and then play with that on the fly.
If I use clip launching I duplicate each clip as I progress the beat. Meaning that you end up with multiple clips of the final beat, all of differing levels of complexity… Almost like a story on how you got there, but available to use too.
That’s the point of it, it’s all about quickly building blocks of ideas up and not getting caught up obstacles where you must create new tracks and mute them, managing track versions, moving clips to the end of the timeline, or worrying about ‘where’ you are in the timeline - you can just jam live.
You mean like what Ableton does with it’s racks, Where you can have a different plugin for the snare vs the kick etc. ? I think that’s a really nice feature too - rather than being baked into a single plugin, to allow you to bring in any plugin and assign it to a range of notes (such as Maschine) is a very nice option to have.
Yamaha like their FM, so maybe it could come to GA in future? I doubt it though, I think they’ll extend Backbone if anything… Which is great, if you haven’t already tried it. You just can’t really bundle it into a complete kit so easily within Cubase.
Hence why it’d be nice to have clip launching to be able to do this kind of workflow, where you could have retrologue as the kick, backbone as the snare, groove agent/sampler for triggers. Because right now, it’s very hard to play all those separate elements as a contiguous ‘live’ kit.
I think we are just going to have to “agree to disagree” regarding the value of clip launching-type features. I’ve already been smug enough in my replies. Thank you, thank you for not taking the bait and engaging in a full blown flame war.
It’s just that I already have my arrangements worked out in my head before I even begin to record my drum and instrument parts. Of course, I don’t always know exactly which sounds I’m going to use. Or more typically, I’m away from my hardware synthesizers and must thus use plugins on my music laptop to temporarily mock up the sounds for various parts (which I will occasionally layer with my hardware synths for an even punchier sound). But I don’t think (maybe?) clip launchers will help me with this.
Drum racks are definitely a cool feature to have. Although I tend to prefer everything consolidated neatly in one drum kit plugin like Battery. But then again, if I could build my own kits from multiple sources like you can in Live, I would probably purchase the latest Nord Drum. That way I could incorporate my Nord Drum (and even Nord Lead 2) drum/percussion sounds in the same “kit” (rack) as my other plugin drum sounds. Or can you even use hardware synthesizers in Live racks?
Sure, and that’s a really positive thing to appreciate different viewpoints. I very much rely on the chord track in Cubase and some people will claim that it’s a crutch - but to me, it’s because I have so much else going in my head that I simply forget ideas so need a better way of documenting them if I go back at a later date.
It’s almost a ‘must have’ feature that anchors me to Cubase. Yet I can compose on guitar, keys and have played out live - so it’s not that I lack the ability, more that work and family life competes with my creative space.
I’ve never been of that type, I hear that people have music come to them, and then recreate it - I very much go to the table open minded musically, but instead carry a feeling, emotion or some kind of theme, and then construct the music around that.
I find that if I respond to ideas in my head they’re generally small chunks or gimmicks - And so they lack soul or reasoning for me to invest in them.
I used to work in an engineering facility and would hear sounds all around me, machines chattering, pipes echo’ing, tools clicking away. And I’d take those ideas through the day, and expand on them in my head and recreate musically - sometimes I’d field record the sounds and turn them into samples or IR’s.
But then I’d end up with this very abstract landscapes of sounds and get lost in it for hours.
Trouble is, I don’t listen or really like that genre of music that I naturally fall into. It’s great fun to make, but I end up with hours of MP3’s that I have no desire to listen to.
I love a straight up song, well constructed with a voice that I can connect to - and have to be incredibly regimented to stay on that track.
That’s really cool. I’m a big fan of earlish Depeche Mode albums where the band members (primarily Alan Wilder) were using samples of industrial and “found” sounds in their very accessible (almost “Pop”) music. Of course, those types of sounds have become pretty dated. (Almost all Depeche Mode albums since the departure of Alan Wilder have relied mostly on modular synthesizers and heavily processed guitars instead of sampled sounds.)
Anyway, enough talk of Depeche Mode. I’m really dating myself. LOL.
