Hello all. I’m new here, a Dorico and Logic user considering migrating to Cubase. My workflow generally consists of: composing (notating) in Dorico, then exporting MIDI to Logic to mockup digital realizations of scores. I use the MIDI tracks mostly as a guide against which I replay everything in realtime, still MIDI stuff, and add additional live audio stuff. I use a breath controller and do a decent amount of adjusting of CC automation to fine tune.
Would this process be easier, more effective, more enjoyable, etc. in Cubase? Especially with Dorico integration, will things feel more unified?
Things I like about Logic are: the included audio plugins like the vintage compressors, EQ, and the good convolution reverb options. I also like some of the stock instruments (the synth stuff—I don’t really use much of the sample instruments). Are there similar options included with Cubase such that I would not need to buy a bunch of third party stuff?
What I don’t enjoy about Logic is the somewhat clunky way in which some MIDI data and interface stuff is handled (the environment window seems disastrous to me). I also find that Logic gets pretty unstable when dealing with lots of tempo and meter changes.
Curious to know if any folks here have made the switch and missed something important. Thanks!
Welcome! Given the subjective nature of those questions, my advice is to download the 60-day trial and for you to perform an exhaustive test to determine both the technical dependancies as well as identifying what you may consider “more enjoyable.” I was a long-time Logic Pro user and now I don’t even have it installed anymore after switching to Cubendo (today I use C14P and N13, but will probably just use N14 going forward).
MIDI capabilities in Cubendo are remarkable, and some would go so far as to say SB leads all other DAWs in that realm. There are free “SE” versions of Halion and Groove Agent to provide you with usable (and capable) synths, drums, etc.
My other advice would be to take it slowly and ensure you do your due diligence in research and training during the trial. Processes will be different and potentially challenging coming from Logic, and you’ll want patience and a “willingness to learn something new” on your side
I’d second Thor.Hog’s comments. The latest update allows Cubase to directly import Dorico projects and pretty well clinches it for anybody looking for a DAW plus notation programme workflow. The trial period is very generous and allow plenty of time to see if Cubase suits.
Whether Cubase is worth switching to from Logic depends on your workflow, I think.
I use Dorico with Noteperformer/NPPE. To my ears, this gives me much better rendering of a score than sample libraries used directly as VST instruments in Dorico.
So for me, the best workflow is to render each instrument as a separate wave file from Dorico and import the wave files into Cubase, with no effects applied in Dorico.
There I can use all the features that Cubase has (and Dorico currently lacks) such as group tracks, automation of anything I like, polarity switching, track delays etc.
However, if you don’t want to keep anything of Dorico’s playback, then importing the Dorico files would be a good approach.
Obviously over time the import from Dorico feature will get better. It currently has a few limitations.
As a former Logic user who Switched to Cubase aroujnd 1.5 years ago (and also a frequent Dorico user), I feel like I could chime in with some relatable insight.
As a caveat, I only started heavily using Dorico around the same time I started using Cubase - so I haven’t actually tried a roundtrip import of midi files from Dorico into Logic. That said, I can say with Cubase once I figured out a good workflow, it’s pretty straightforward and consistent. The integretation isn’t fully there yet, though, as you might expect for two apps developed by the same company (I’m still hoping to see a proper sync / copy/paste type support without need of import/export of files, where you could drag and drop midi regions or flows to and from with ease. I think this can happen one day!).
I like as well that the recent Cubase score editor is basically “Dorico Lite” in that it is now borrowing from Dorico. Therefore, it makes that experience more cohesive. I cannot even express in enough words how much I loathed Logic’s score editor.
So the integration to me doesn’t feel complete, but I am hopeful because they are developed by the same company, and share bits of code and R&D, that the potential is there and the future looks good. I also appreciate that Steinberg as a company has been fairly proactive with updates of all software – something I cannot say regarding Logic where major updates are sometimes years apart.
Regarding Dorico into Cubase, I haven’t tried the brand new import project feature yet. But my workflow which I have dialed in involves importing midi onto new tracks, and then I simply move them up to instruments in my template so they sound right away. Dorico will bring in all the CC automation data (CC1, 11, sustain, perhaps breath controller though I haven’t tried). It works for me well as a starting point, though I will say I sometimes end up scrapping it and re-doing it to make it even smoother (drawing automation in Cubase is a breeze compared to Dorico, which drives me a little crazy). I’d say drawing automation in Cubase is closer to Logic in that way, and in some ways I think it’s better (plus you can do automation shapes which Logic cannot!). For this reason I tend to not over-obsess with automation finesse while in Dorico, knowing that I might want to redo it in Cubase anyway. In Dorico I aim to just get it good enough for previewing.
There are! And I felt the same way when I switched. There were a lot of great Logic plugs I used and thought I would miss. Honestly now I don’t miss any of them. The stock Cubase compressors, EQs, and reverbs are all great, and have received some recent updates too. I like some of the stock synths, though I’ll be honest in saying I don’t use most of the stock instruments, since I already have a massive library of VSTs and Kontakt instruments anyway. But the ones I’ve played with are good.
I also think Cubase’s implementation of stuff like a drag & drop sampler and drum rack among other things are much better than Logic’s versions of the same. They’ve also added modulators in the very last release which is cool if you do synth stuff, or also with audio effects, where you can add LFOs and other modulations to any VST – Logic has yet to add anything like this.
Oh boy, that’s giving me some flashbacks! I cannot stand the environment window. Tempo mapping and meter changes are so clunky in Logic. This was one of the big reasons I ended up switching to Cubase after doing the trial – it’s so much easier and more intuitive. You just have a tempo track and signature track, and using the pen tool (and now key command as of yesterday’s update) – you just draw in your tempo changes and signature using a pencil where you want it on the timeline. I find timing adjustments on the whole to be very easy compared to what I remember in Logic. No issues with stability either.
Other things I have really enjoyed is many advanced and customizable midi tools, macros, filtering, searchable tracks etc. Also no need to remember and set up bus numbers (what’s on bus 13 again?). You just point to tracks and busses by their actual track name.
Grass is always greener - there’s a few nice things from Logic I miss from time to time, but all in all I have found Cubase allows me to work faster and more efficiently and as a Dorico user, I’m looking forward to seeing the integration improve which I believe it will in short order. Give the trial a go - and good luck!
Thanks for all of this, and to the other responders. And yes, Logic’s “score editor” is a complete waste of time. I honestly don’t know what its intended use is. It certainly isn’t useful for any actual music notation.
That’s true if you use the old Beat Mapping feature in Logic. However, Logic also has more recent Smart Tempo feature which is fantastic for automatic tempo detection, contrary to Tempo Detection in Cubase which often fails even on very simple drum patterns. And you can refine Smart Tempo results by giving hints or manually adjusting beats similarly to how Time Warp tool works in Cubase.
Ah, good to hear. I haven’t updated to the new Logic since switching to Cubase. But also, I can’t speak for OP, what I was referring to was a bit less related to beat mapping / drum patterns / tempo detection. Personally speaking I do a lot of film scoring (with or without percussion), where in Logic I would do frequent time signature and tempo changes to adjust to picture as well as create sometimes a sense of rubato so the playing isn’t super stiff at a fixed tempo. Perhaps this has been improved as well but I always found this clunky in Logic, and after I moved over to Cubase I was like “a ha, no wonder a lot of media composers dig this program” – a lot of those time-based tools to me are much easier and faster to use. (this is not to say you can’t draw tempo automation or add meter changes on dedicated tempo and meter tracks – the paradigm is similar there, I just feel like Cubase’s implementation of this is more elegant for my workflow anyway.)
Former Logic Pro/Platinum user that switched back to Cubase at the end of 2020 when they announced the free 12 grace period. It was fairly easy for me to move back over, BUT I wasn’t too fond of Logic’s instruments and have my own, so I just went straight in and got to working with MIDI and Audio. 4 years later, Im a full on Halion and Groove Agent zealot along side my hardware synths and samplers.
Prior to switching to Logic around 2001/2002, I was a Cubase VST user, who didnt like the new look of SX so I jumped to Team Emagic (who then got swiftly bought by Apple shortly after). But that actually had no bearing on use, as Cubase has changed QUITE a bit since then haha.
They will both get you to the same place, but you need to see if the particular workflow of Cubase ‘clicks’ with you. I’ll add another vote to check out the 60 day trial and see. Export some MIDI tracks or bounce out some audio tracks from a Logic Project and import it in and see how it goes (or just start one from scratch).
Logic’s got a lot of synths included, but some of them are also ‘specialty’ jobs like the FM one. You can probably make due with Retrologue (covers all your old school ‘analog’ type subtractive stuff), there’s the sampler tracks for a quick and easy sample instrument, or there’s the ‘lite’ Halion included as well (I bought the full Halion and it blows away the EXS24 or whatever its called now). Halion alone could handle all the synths and samplers that come with Logic easily.
Honestly, either one is good to go, but whether switching is ‘right’ or not depends entirely on you and your reaction to how Cubase looks/feels/works compared to Logic Pro.
I don’t do a lot with beat mapping in Logic, though I have used it from time to time. But like @wing I work with the other tempo/meter issues. My music will sometimes have a different time signature in every bar. Logic does not deal with this well—I get a lot of crashes. I also have many tempo changes along the way, and that’s not super friendly in Logic. And changing a meter in Logic to insert a beat or half-beat here and there is still pretty clunky. It seems Cubase might be more friendly with this stuff.
I recently told a friend I would probably never change from Logic to Cubase, but I am really reconsidering!
I find Cubase generally significantly more ergonomic than Logic (and other DAWs I tried) for composing, arranging, surgical editing (of both MIDI and audio), music transcription and similar tasks that require systematic approach. On the other hand, Logic is more spontaneous and gravitates more towards improvisational approach to music, at least in its current state. Although Steinberg started adding a lot of playful stuff recently…
About Logic’s instruments, the only one that I couldn’t find any replacement for is Sculpture. There are other physical modeling synths around, but Sculpture is sonically very distinct and beautiful.
I can see that in some way – on the whole Logic is fairly user-friendly and easy to just start making music. However prior to Logic I was using Ableton Live for a few years, and I would say that beats both at being a spontaneous and improvisational playground! I still crack it open from time to time when I have no idea but just wanna throw a bunch of toys down and see what happens. It’s very fun for that - but pretty bad when it comes to advanced mixing workflows, audio editing, and scoring to video, which is why I abandoned it. Plus you can’t customize key commands which for me is a dealbreaker. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Cubase is super customizable but that also comes with a level of complexity and learning curve from the outset which I think can make it less approachable when you wanna just play around.
But yeah, I think the new modulators feature is a step in the right direction toward a more playful approach to music. Hoping to see more of that in the future!
‘Ergonomic’ is a great way to describe it haha. I used Logic for so long I knew it like the back of my hand, but it did seem a little ‘klunky’ in some respects, where Cubase just goes and goes, and seems a lot more ‘streamlined’ so to speak. When I bought 11 about 3-4 months before 12 came out, I was holding out for the free update but said screw it and bought a $50 dongle just to get started. I was pretty instantly up and running, but like I said a lot of the conventions you use are the same between the two, it was a matter of finding on what menu this lived, and what section this function was in, etc. I bookedmarked the online manuals right away and got PDF copies, and those were very helpful in getting up to speed. I miss the days when Logic Pro came with an extra 20 pounds of paper manuals with it (still have ALL of those retail boxes in the garage too).
But again, when I moved to Logic Pro, this was right around 4/5 Platinum, still Emagic owned. This was back when you HAD to go into the Environment and set up your entire MIDI studio, and good god I wouldn’t even wish that on my worst enemy. Once you learned it, it was pretty powerful, I even had pages setup so I could edit my Virus A and Microwave XT from inside the Environment. But if you just needed basic MIDI connectivity to write material, it could very well be a nightmare for people. The old Cubase VST just worked right out of the box with all my gear back then.
^this. Ableton is still part of my workflow for the creative, and I’ve written several of my own plugins in Max which really brings it all home for me. It’s a different approach, and it works well for the creative side of me. I’ll still test things in Cubendo but Ableton doesn’t seem to be going anywhere for me. It’s also nice to use my Push 2 “through” Ableton inside of Cubase (I keep them both open).
