downhillsimian…you make great comments. I’ve been a Cubasis owner since it’s inception and at one point, a tester. Lars has stuck to his guns, so to speak, insisting this situation will not change. My 4th gen iPad has been a staple of my desktop Cubase and it IS time to upgrade. I may just wipe the data on the old iPad and keep it for Cubasis / Cubase use until such time has things can change. Going to the 12.9" …
I do wonder how large the user base is with Cubasis ? Are there 2500 users? 25000 users? Is the cost of coding worth a $10.00 up charge at these numbers? Sorry, it’s a Saturday morning and I can’t get moving yet so my brain starts to play these number games.
As stated earlier, iPad Pro UI support is on our list, but I have no date available for you as of yet.
You’re able to change the height of tracks via swiping over the track list with two fingers. This option allows to customize the number of visible tracks in the arrange window & in my view provides an excellent overview regardless of the number of tracks. Please give it a try if you have not tested it out so far.
I hate to be this guy, but all I’m saying is if this was all that was done, in the short-medium term for 12,9" ipads, I (and I suspect many others) would be super happy . The extra real estate would be amazing especially when panels are open. Zooming / changing track height is not really a substitute.
(the attached file is a 12 sec gif with 4 screens of 3 seconds each comparing a 9.7" screenshot and a 12.9" mockup based on exact resolutions but scaled down for comparison sake)
Ok… I’ll give you that it performs as well as on any iPad and I totally understand that it’s not an easy thing to implement in your situation as a small team of developers. No pressure and to know that it’s coming in the future it’s great. But… to say that “it looks great” it’s pushing a little to far, it looks bad, there’s no way around it, the sharpness issue it’s imposible to overcome. It just doesn’t look as sharp as all other apps on my 12.9 iPad.
Would it be hard to simply support the resolution? I’m not even asking about a customized UI, I don’t care if it doesn’t take advantage of the screen size other than showing a few more tracks, just improve the looks of it.
I’ve been a Cubase user for years (currently Cubase Pro 9), and was really excited to see how easy Cubasis made it to create music on a touchscreen. I just bought a 12.9" iPad Pro, stupidly assuming that of course a prominent music software publisher like Steinberg would have written Cubasis to make good use of the extra screen real estate. I can tell you that I was not pleased when I saw how Cubasis runs on the Pro.
Speaking of “Pro,” I’m a software developer and have written lots of GUI code. It’s just not that hard to write the code so that it uses the screen size and resolution to decide how to display itself.
I imagine I’ll be returning the iPad Pro to Apple, and the rack that holds it to Sweetwater. I sure wish I had seen this thread a few days ago.
Originally I have welcomed the whole Cubasis project enthusiastically. The possibility of mobile recording is just great! And I enjoyed every update, hoping to see a fast and powerful development, supporting Steinberg/Cubasis by buying each and every possible upgrade.
Meanwhile I’m heavily disappointed about the tempo and the quality of the whole Cubasis development:
even in the second iPadPro 12.9 generation, which has the most stunning screen I have ever met on a Tablet (incredibly well working display, resolution, colour management and smooth movement), Cubasis makes no use at all of the great occasion: a HUGE letdown after so much time, while more and more people are using the big iPad.
even heavy bugs get no fast hot fixes, stay unfixed for months until major updates, and even then sometimes stay unfixed in new versions (like the notorious midi out only on channel 1 bug etc.)
the implementation of more advanced functionality happens quite slow, compared to what the competition does
new ideas like the “Classic machines” are implemented half-baked, not allowing 1:1 import with the same sounds on a midi track into Cubase (like with Microsonic and Micrologue).
Steinberg definitely needs to put more resources into running the Cubasis project (which is of immense importance for keeping old and getting new Cubase customers IMHO), if they are serious about it and want to profit from their effort! Doing it half-heartedly, with very limited resources, probably won’t work out as they hope or plan.
If Steinberg is not that serious about continuing the development of Cubasis, they might want to consider open-sourcing the code. I’d be willing to bet that there are many folks out there with software development skills who would be happy to help advance the code.
If Steinberg doesn’t get serious about this, something else is going to come along and Steinberg will lose market share.
Well, yeah - Beatmaker 3 just came along with native resolution support on the 12.9" (and AU automation which is a game changer but I’ll save it for another thread).
I really want to continue with Cubasis as I find the workflow more logical, but once BM3 sorts out the launch bugs and I get my head around the workflow it looks really powerful and I may really get into it. Anyway I won’t hijack the forum with another BM3 thread (there are enough of those over on the audiobus forum). I think it is relevant to say that it looks more and more like the ipad is a serious standalone production tool. I don’t see myself ever using desktop Cubase and would gladly pay considerably more for a more fully featured Cubasis.
To bring this round to the original point, screen resolution support isn’t really a feature, but something that should just work on a platform with more than one resolution (especially after almost 2 years of that size being available).
As a recent owner of the iPad Pro I’d also like to voice my support for better optimization with the larger displays. We’re getting to a point now where all of the buttons and interface elements are almost comically large. I understand the difficulty in juggling feature requests and limited development resources, but for how much longer will the pro level iPads be ignored? The 12.9” has been out for almost 2 years now and those are precisely the types of users most inclined toward content creation apps like Cubasis. I know these comments may come across as harsh, but we only say this because we love the program and want to see its potential better realized.
Thanks for all your comments regarding iPad Pro 12.9" support so far.
Since Cubasis uses its own graphic engine, adapting the UI size to 12.9" comes at very high costs and would collide with other scopes/priorities at this moment. Nevertheless the feature request is on our list and already planned for a bigger update on our Cubasis roadmap, but still will take some time until being ready to be released.
In the meantime, here are some suggestions how to make best use of the iPad size:
Use horizontal and vertical zooming in the arrange window to display the desired number of tracks
Fold in the inspector to the left to give your arrangement maximum space
We hear you, and are sensitive about your dissatisfaction regarding the status.
As stated before, the topic is planned to be included in a bigger update, but still will take some time until being ready to be released.
I’m not that dissatisfied, Lars. Cubasis is coming along nicely. As with all creative software there’s a waiting game as it evolves, but this is nothing new. I look forward to future updates.
I imagine that Cubasis uses its own graphic engine because they wanted to easily be able to port the code to Android or some other OS at some point. That’s a worthy goal, but I looked at a thread around here that said that porting to Android couldn’t work because of a latency problem.
So unfortunately, all that Steinberg is getting out of their graphics engine is an inability to adapt to the size of the iPad Pro.
I will, however, be getting some good use out of Cubasis on my smaller iPads.
And meanwhile, I discovered Duet Display (https://www.duetdisplay.com/) which is allowing me to use my iPad Pro as a second display with my new Surface Pro tablet. So it all worked out, although in nothing like the way I had thought it would.
Proper cubasis Screen resolution for the iPad Pro 12.9 isn’t a feature request. It’s an expected. Or it should be made clear on the App Store that it is not optimised for the 12.9 for full customer transparency.
Like I left Cubase pro 9 due to years of Steinberg promising to but never being able to fix fundamental graphics issues on the mac platform, I too will be leaving cubasis for other excellent daws like aria pro and beatmaker 3. BM3 are a two man team and have delivered an incredible product. Many of the bugs have been squashed and after only two weeks. And fully optimised for the iPad 12.9. I am not changing the amazing iPad 12.9 to compliment the software. I will change the software to compilimwnt the iPad.
UPDATE: didn’t realise you could resize tracks vertically. Like Lars said it’s actually not so bad once you do this. It’s useable.
The only issue is because everything else is scaled up, when you are using the iPad on your lap the UI is just too big being that close up to you. You almost feel like you need to hold it further away from you because the synths are too big. But of course you can’t. It’s like trying to watch TV with your face right in front of the screen. It’s impractical.
In the meanwhile I think the development team are doing a good job. I hope they keep bringing desktop features over as mobile production is the future and the machines are powerful now. They do need to change the resolution for the 12.9 soon its been way too long now.
I’m just getting into music production (Logic + NI Komplete, iPad pro 12.9 + Beatmaker 3 + Cubasis, Machine Studio) and learning everything from music theory to synth construction. On the whole, I am impressed by the level of UI design that has gone into music apps. Cubasis 2 really sticks out on the 12.9 iPad as something that seems to be neglected.
For now my workflow is using Logic as my main DAW (along with AU / VSTs) and using my iPad as a AU3 / IAA host and drum sequencer (BM3) via studiomux. The iPad is a great platform for sketching out ideas on the go, and I just cant bring myself to use Cubasis 2 because on the 12.9 it just feels clunky due to the scaling.
This is a shame as Cubasis 2 gives the initial impression of an app that is the “poor cousin of the family”, yet a quick flick through the version history shows that development effort is being invested in the product. Digging a little deeper, it’s a pretty capable product (i.e. not much I need to do Logic that I cant do in Cubasis!).
I understand the challenges of balancing features on backlogs - prioritisation of technical debt / bug fixing vs. revenue features. However I have also experienced how great products become marginalised over time because essential features that neither bug / debt or revenue falls into the crack between stakeholders. Cubasis offers pretty much everything I want technically, however the initial impression to a new 12.9" user isn’t one of “feature complete and awesomeness”, rather “wow - this looks old… maybe I should have gone with XXX instead?”.
UI update might be one of those “expensive items that no one wants to sponsor” - it may be worth looking what devices Cubasis are being used on. It could well be that the users on flagship and older (i.e. soon in need of an upgrade) devices to be the majority. This isn’t a question of “how much will this feature make for us?”, rather “how much would we lose if we didn’t?”.
Personally, I’ll be sticking to the above workflow for now. When (if) I do feel the absolute need for a mobile “traditional” DAW, I will check to see if Cubasis has been updated, worst case - I cut my losses and go with something else. Although this is my personal experience and view, I doubt this is unique. For the users who are more invested in Cubasis, this clearly bothers some of them sufficiently that it’s affecting their device purchasing choices.
Please make the user experience as awesome as the product technical features!
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Cubasis using a graphics engine means that the software is built in layers: the app layer decides what to draw on the screen and asks the graphics engine to draw it.
If Steinberg was serious about making Cubasis work properly on an iPad Pro, they could hire a whole new team of software engineers to adapt the graphics engine to different screen sizes, keep the original team working on Cubasis, and do the development in parallel. That would cost money, but Yamaha has lots of money.
Investment isn’t always aligned to what the customers wants, rather what is perceived to bring in value.
Even being fairly new to the whole production scene, it’s obvious that “mobile” and “live” performance stuff seems to be growing quickly. I think your comment “…that would cost money, but Yamaha has lots of money” is spot on.
A long time ago I had a Yamaha C3. Due to relocating overseas, we had to let it go - unfortunate as it was much more than just “a piece furniture” to me. I hope Yamaha, if they are indeed in charge of money, appreciates that where as value of instruments grows (at least, sentimentally) software loses value over time, and requires continued investment to remain relevant.
I just got Cubasis after the update to 2.3 and were quite a bit shocked to find that it doesn’t use the full iPad Pro 12.9" screen’s resolution.
I can’t understand, why other developers with way less resources manage to adapt their apps to the big iPad screen while a big company like Steinberg can’t. Isn’t the main reason of a bigger screen to fit more elements on it?
. The extra real estate would be amazing especially when panels are open. Zooming / changing track height is not really a substitute.