steep learning curve

Cubase
#1

How come Cubase is so damn hard to use? Is it just me being too old or are there others that have problems as well?

I can’t get it to play thru the headphone jack on the laptop sometimes. Half the time I can’t even get to play thru the speakers. it’s like the output buss assignments do not respond. Between that and the fact that the headphone switching is done via the software on this laptop and not by a true mechanical switch at the receptical. sometimes the headphones don’t come on when plugged in. But that’s a hardware issue not a fault of the program.


I wish the program came with a real book instead of the help file. It’s hard to switch back and forth between screens.

don’t get me wrong here, it’s a very powerful DAW. Very Very good effects. Just not what I would call user friendly or intuitive. I guess I just need more practice with it.

#2

Moptop63,

Let me start saying that I feel your pain, as they say. For me, your issue is not that unrealistic. I have been a Cubase user for almost 10 years now and faced events like your describe in so many areas for the first 2 years. It was so frustrating and unproductive that I gave up several times. I literally took a step back every time I went to use it…every time. The intuitive part never showed itself to me either. I’m the first to say I’m not a recording engineer but have used reel to reel decks and other recording equipment in the “old days”.

On the other hand, I had to really take the time to read from the startup manual and that 963 page PDF file in order to trace the steps necessary to get my first tracks recorded. It’s like searching for something on a computer that is just slightly mis-spelled. It will NEVER produce results…

To this day, I credit a user here named Litewave for taking the time to respond to a few questions many years back, on how to get a few things corrected.

Setup has much to do with the results you may get and while I have no suggestions currently to get you started. Maybe a description of what your are using in your setup will help to get some feedback on some specific problems you are having.

In the mean time, good luck.

#3

I’m in the same boat. I am a songwriter and just recently graduated from recording basic midi tracks to doing multi-layered audio and midi compositions. I have Ableton, Logic and Cubase, along with some lesser DAWs. All are very capable and powerful, but the only one where I spend more time writing/recording than scratching my head is Logic. I keep opening Cubase and really want to use it, but I get about one minute of recording for every 20 minutes of cursing.

#4

Aloha guys,

Keep in mind that all top DAW software is the best humans can make on this planet.
This means it ain’t gonna be easy to ride this bucking bronco.
If it were, everyone would be doing it.

This is why there are products like Sequel and Garageband and Band-in-a-Box etc.

I have been using Cubase/Finalé since '93 and even then it was a daunting task to
to really get to ‘know’ these apps.

As knuckle47 posted:

I credit a user here named Litewave for taking the time to respond to a few questions many years back, on how to get a few things corrected.

Similarly I actually payed someone to come to my house for an hour to help.
This was this single best thing I did and it really
opened my eyes as to how to ‘approach’ this product.

Now days there are some excellent video tuts out there that can
‘open mental doors’ to help you get started.

The main thing is:
DON’T STOP!
Take a break if you must but keep coming back;
and one day you will say: OH NOW I GET IT!!!

Good Luck!
{’-’}

#5

Thank you all for the support. I’ve been using CEP2.0 for too many years now and just know it inside and out. I bought this Tascam US-1800 to be able to record my band and was hoping it would …but, no cigar! Cool Edit only sees 2 tracks not all 16. I’ve seen where others use the 1800 with Reaper, Mixcraft, and other so I do have other options. Just might have to go shopping but not before I give 5LE a fair shake. There are things about it that I really do like. I’m just old, not dead. Might take a while. :wink:

Thanks again for the reasuring help. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one out here with the same issues.

#6

I’ve had nothing but trouble myself with software-switching headphone outputs, it seems most ASIO drivers have a lot of trouble with that.

I do wonder though, why don’t you use the headphone outputs on the Tascam? These should always work once set up right.

#7

Strophoid, I’m still learning my way around Cubase and haven’t even begun to tackle the Us-1800 yet… I’m sure I’ll have no problem using the phones out on the tascam like you said. I’m trying to take this one step at a time for now. Don’t want to overload this old man’s brain too much, just might burn it out! :laughing:

#8

I think that the main thing is that Cubase has “its way” and it’s been very familiar since I started using the Steinberg sequencer Pro-12 and subsequently Pro-24 some time in the mid to late 1980’s and eventually they all morphed into Cubase and Windows (I never got into Mac) and so on.

A lot of other DAWs (or sequencers as we used to call them back in the caves) do not have this family tree of baggage and so have a different approaches to various aspects of their DAW. Good or bad, this seem to be the case to me.

Just don’t hesitate to ask for help, mate. You may be castrated, quartered or even slightly humiliated in the forum for asking stupid questions, but at least you’ll get up and running, without dignity, limbs, or a reason. :wink:

#9

Elektrobolt, I can deal with the lost of dignity or reason, it’s the loss of limbs that I fear the most! :laughing:

Cheers!

#10

My sympathies friend. I’ve been working/learning it for a week now and I am getting it but all other work has come to a stop. I seem to struggle for a while and then I get it and then back to another cycle of struggle and solve. I hope I don’t have to relearn the guitar, keyboard and drums. :laughing: I’m beginning to think I should go back to a simpler thing like Garageband or Nanostudio. That way you could get a good basic piece down and then take it to a regular professional studio. It might be simpler. I suspect that if you don’t use Cubase almost everyday you’d be running into stops and starts of relearning that would destroy your creative flow. Maybe things like Cubase are not for the casual user.

#11

Me too! I seriously fear that I might die on the way to mastering Cubase or any other for that matter. All other fun work/playing/composing has stopped while I work on this.

#12

give studio one a try. cubase has a long history to it, which also means it carries over from older versions a lot of baggage that makes the program very complex and unintuitive to 1st time users (however blatantly logical it may seem to long time users). a software more recently built from the ground-up should have the upper hand… maybe S1 is more for you, and when you notice you miss some features Cubase has, you can move back. :slight_smile: