I so much agree!
Well that really depend what you wan to do with it!
I think ableton is better for live.
And now with ai i can also do a hit.
This also another opportunity!
It was a time were opportunism was a bad value!
I whish it could have stand!
Allowing a kid with an ai to do a hit as allowing everybody doing art destruct the art itself!
When it was hard to do music , there were few, but great quality!
No it’s full of trash, most of them are never released professionally (physical support) and you finish listening to old track!
Like video game, digital picture and movie, only the old are regarded!
Remember DJ, it’s as the same, before you needed to engage, buy vinyl, hardware, now you open tracker and a 100buck mixer and on youtube, full of trash, by opportunist du to digital, now another dead job!
It’s finally not really better, do you think?
For myself having a sequencer has made me a mediocre player, who care today, in past if i didn’t trained my play skill, i would have ended with nothing!
That why vangelis is an artist, but no the today 99%, who can’t just play without a sequencer!
Again thanks again digital computing, some see opportunity, other just the destruction of the essence of this art, the true sound quality, and a ton of work!
And it’s not just in music in my work for living, i worked the first ai, who ended in 2008 firing a incredible number of people and just releged this work as trash work today paid like nothing, furthermore not existing anymore.
A shame for a computer related work!
At that time i was saying don’t be afraid you will be recycled!
Are you sure???
But what if i don’t want???
That’s was false, but what did i had to say?
Sorry that’s my opportunity, you or me?
Digital maturity is destruction of a domain, sooner or later you’ll understand it, it’s the void in neverending story!
The processor is the most happy, when i has nothing to do, and i will do everything to throw what he has to do the faster, why because a processor by nature is a dead component, that how ia is thinking, you can be sure, it don’t like being awakened, and it show it to you by power cost!
Using it because your poor and ou haven’t the choice Ok! Using it because of laziness and stinginess, that’s not, but this is the 99% where user/professional are in, and they still manage to say i have no money, no time so please give me free update, another opportunity, but again it’s steinberg or you this time!
Absolutely. Most top DAWs has something it does better. Reaper is CPU efficient, has lots of functionality and opens fast. Ableton Live is best for live performance and non linear production. Mixcraft is super easy. Pro Tools… well it must have something as well I suppose. Studio One is well balanced as well.
I just feel that if someone needs to arrange music, send the client notation, edit, mix and master, Cubase feels strong in all areas.
I get your points about an onslaught of noise, the ease of creativity, the fear of AI taking the place of humans, etc…but I see it like this.
Hi level Art involving lots of ‘humans’ still exists and it still sells. In many, if not most countries, it’s still a huge chunk of the GDP contribution of their music industries (Academia and live performing). Traditional, all acoustic music isn’t going away. There is very much a time and place for it. If you’re looking for more organic/acoustical musical experiences, you’re simply in the wrong forum with the wrong thread.
The thread is complaining about a $100 software upgrade. The irony? I own and maintain a very small collection of pianos, guitars, and woodwind instruments. They’re just mediocre quality stuff that I can source common parts and work with myself, or local technicians will throw in a pile and sort for me in a few minutes for a very reasonable fee, and it still cost way more time and money to keep them ‘playable’ than I’ve ever invested in software upgrades. Darn near every time I take one out, there’s nickel and dime problems that add up over the course of a year!
As for Digital Music, AI, The Internet, etc…
Music is a language and a form of artistic expression. Language belongs to everybody to do with they as they please. People are going to do what they’re going to do. I choose to learn from it all and appreciate it when I must, or ignore it, politely escape, and do my own thing if it’s bothering me.
My computers and television sets still have an off button. I can still pick a direction to drive, and within an hour find a school or university that will be happy to allow me to sit in on their concerts, rehearsals, and recital hours. Some will even invite me to play with them if I like! Provided I pay respects to the Institution, communicate with the Dean about my intentions and boundaries as a guest there, and at least sign up for a couple of courses so I am offically ‘one of them’, they’d even be thrilled if I came on campus with a hand-full of scores/compositions and volunteered to sponsor and conduct a ‘reading band/orchestra’ charged with testing out the work of local composers. This is possible even though I live in one of the smallest and most economically/socially challenged areas of the USA.
As individuals, life is what we choose to make of it. We have the capability to find and surround ourselves with likeminded individuals if we so choose.
The internet, nor all the AI on the planet can change this right now. Our never-ending supply of human politicians and their underground networks of terrorists are a much bigger threat.
Since day one, musicians who want an audience have had to build that audience. They have always had to choose from an assortment of social and economic tools at their disposal to carve out a ‘life’. They’ve always had to sort through a series of tool-sets and opportunities to hone their craft, find, and keep an audience.
Every single generation of musicians goes through a process of deciding what previous rules and traditions to embrace and follow, and which ones to challenge or break.
If you want elite peers with elite attitudes, jam packed with gate keepers and lore-masters, there are plenty of them in this world. Master Craftsmen still exist. If you know where to look, plenty of them are still THRIVING. They’re always looking to accept new musicians into the ‘brotherhood/sisterhood’, but it will be on THEIR TERMS, not your own.
Dial in academic, social, and community networks in your area. You might be surprised what you find that’s still out there. If you can’t find one within a reasonable commute, you might be surprised at the resources out there to start up your own chapters and groups locally.
One thing about the technologies of 2025 that musicians before us didn’t enjoy…is that you can do a GLOBAL SWEEP to find collaborators and fans without ever leaving your home. Obviously, at some point you’ll probably want to pack your suit-case and check things out ‘in person’, but at least you can find opportunities and introduce yourself.
It’s ‘the lounge’…many of the threads in the lounge ‘started’ off the rails from the very first post.
Everybody bellying up to the bar and having a shot. Steinberg’s picking up the tab 
Effectively, there ain’t no rails in the lounge aside from not being nasty/abusive to each other.
Well, quite the debate. I got 2 FREE updates from my original CB10 AI that came with my Yamaha AG06 before I paid for 14 and I was quite happy to do so. I could have carried on using 11, but what with the new licensing, if it or my PC funked out, I’d have to purchase a full version. As it stands, I got a free UG to AI 14, (thanks Matthias) then paid for elements. Obviously if I wanted pro, it would have cost a load more but even then it was offered at around £120+ less than full price. The only reason I haven’t paid the nearly £500 for pro is simply lack of funds, but I’d be more than happy to do it otherwise. Like someone else here said, usually upgrading is OPTIONAL so I don’t see what’s to complain about. Love Cubase and will pay again happily in the future. Well worth it.
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Hey , good for you.
I was also on 11 and wasn’t going to upgrade, but, despite the e-licensing issue, Stenberg with 12 and 13 , simply knocked it out of the park. Astonishing upgrades!!
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I’m def, not a big Apple fan or a fan really at all of the company, but I’ve been using the platform and the hardware for 19 yrs now. I just bought an Apple computer for $450 dollars. It’s a new but ‘refurbished’ mini. They don’t have to have a free update for a DAW I don’t use to get me to use their hardware. I just hate Windows that much worse.
Sorry but I guess I should unsubscribe from goofy arguments. As a parting shot, I wonder how well Cubase 14 runs on a 15-year old computer with 4GB running Windows XP (since this is a debate about legacy support now). I’m running Absynth 5 which has been walking dead for years and years on silicon mac, OS 15.
I’m not really so partisan but I’m not a chump and I don’t like shoddy argumentation, like “expensive dongle”. It does one or two other things as well. Rolls eyes
Most mid range and higher 64bit Intel and AMD hardware from the past 20ish years can at least run up to windows 10 out of the box, and with some adjustments during installation can handle Windows 11 too.
If it has at least 2 fast/strong cores, it can still be surprisingly capable if you pick the right VST/VSTi plugins, and take advantage of stuff in modern DAWs like render in place.
I’m doing it alrite on a more than 15 year old computer (Phenom II 1090T HEX/DDR2 memory/etc. This CPU was released around December of 2008…though by the time I got it most of the components had been on the market at least 2 years). It’s been upgraded to Windows 11 and Cubase 14, but the 15+yo 4gb hardware part checks out.
Mind you, I do have mid-range or better, modern SSD storage in the thing, along with some raid striping tricks to get more bandwidth out of the old SATA2 connections.
All this time later, and if I disable a couple things like TPM and UEFI, can run the latest Windows on it, and a pretty good chunk of the world’s existing software runs on it…surprisingly well.
It’s not gonna handle dozens of demanding VSTi plugins, but it can still handle today, about what it could 15 years ago with Cubase 5/6 in terms of number/complexity of plugins/tracks. I believe Cubase 4 was the first 64bit version, though a lot of people were still running it 32bit, on older 32bit single core machines all the way to version 7.
For what it’s worth, the machine I’m talking about never had XP installed on it (XP was more common for hardware more like 20+ years old now). The first OS I had on it was Vista 64x, and only for a few months until it was upgraded to Windows 7 64x…which it ran for years taking Windows 8/10/11 respectively over all this time. Through all of those Windows upgrades, I only had to pay once, to move from Vista to 7. Windows upgrades from then forward have been free for that machine.
No, it’s not my main…but I keep it around for live gigs. It’s fine to connect a MIDI controller and serve up some sounds on stage.
I agree. For home studio before going trough proffesional studio cubase seems the most relevant, combined with ableton for home live. An all in one computing sound combo!
I agree, windows today, i really don’t know how they can sort something with that…
Regarding Xp and cubase 14, just forget, steinberg support microsoft, not hardware, so version are os related!
You want the latest, you need the latest hardware, so disgusting policy, as already mentioned!
That’s why i going off computer, renewing my 48 channel ADC would cost me 12000$, not mentioning, that beside just having support for windows 10>, they have nothing interesting, and need batam patch bay!
For 5 year of use? don’t worth the invest, better buy an analog mixer and a hardware cubase like daw for 1/10 of the price!
Well i don’t think buying a 150$ dongle for cubase 3.0 on an atari STE is a shoddy argumentation, but i may not understood correctly what you wanted to mean!
Good luck doing something decent with windows >xp with 15 years old hardware, just using 12 ADC/DAC channel with 64 insert without any vst, use a i7 3700 at more than 80% at a windows 10 128smp latency (xp 1024smp)
However i admit replacing the studio reverb and studio chorus in channel insert would remove a lot of power, these two consume so much but sound so good!
Something that people have forgotten cubase 7.5 is the last supporting 32 and 64 bit steiberg vst/FX without some cheating VSTVM, and some older one are just so good, like the analog step filter which everyone wanted in newer version but was never ported as it was not 100% from steinberg but a collaboration!
I dont like virtual grouping and all those stuff, if i have to work with someone, it’s physically or nothing! I don’t support the virtual social networking, nor cubase network collaboration, it just not interesting, it’s like working for someone, not with someone!
Tried one time, don’t loved it.
But i can understand you like it, as an opportunist apparently and indeed it can bring easily many ones!
Why would I run XP on 15 yo hardware (If it were 20+ years old, single core sub 1ghz 32bit only hardware maybe)? The hardware of 15 years ago can run every Windows version of Cubase that has ever been released. Most of it should be capable of taking up to 8gb RAM. It runs Windows 10 just fine, and while it’s not officially supported for ‘security reasons’, Windows 11 works just fine as well. Both versions run pretty lean and efficiently, and it’s possible to cut out any garbage tasks that lurk in the background for anything you don’t need/want.
Again, if I’m careful about my choice in plugins and take advantage of instant rendering mid to high range hardware from 15 years ago like my Phenom II build from 2008/2009ish will still get it done. I can also pull out external hardware (effects units, tone generators, synths) from that same era (most folks that were doing music with a PC back then are going to have some kind of external MIDI driven instruments from say, Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Kurzweill, etc), and it still sounds very good.
Also with Windows…I can take the latest and greatest Intel/AMD hardware, and still run DOS 1 software on it if I like. I can still run software, and plug in any peripherals I like that at least came with 32bit Windows drivers (and enterprise solutions exist to get 16bit DOS drivers working as well, or, just make a DOS partition on a thumb drive, plug it in, and boot back to nineteen eighty weird). I can emulate just about any computer/game-console and more ever made by man under the Windows with a modern mid-range or better PC…including Mac OSes (but Mac OSes are among the hardest, because Apple goes out of its way to make sure it’s only supposed to run on Apple hardware).
I don’t know how good ARM versions of Windows are going to be at legacy support, but at least you ‘can’ get it running on ARM. For people needing legacy support, Intel/AMD hardware capable of running 99.9% of the existing code on the planet isn’t going away anytime soon.
Windows will run on just about anything out there, including ARM.
Mac OS will not boot without an expensive dongle (or some hacker concoction intending to rip off the dongle properties of Apple hardware).
The reason for the dongle reference is this…
The Mac OS is very difficult if not impossible to get running on any hardware but that designed, or at least endorsed and licensed by Apple. There have been a few ‘official/licensed’ Mac clones produced by third parties in the history of the company, but not many, and such hardware has always been considerably more expensive than the open/industry standard stuff.
A ‘Hakcintosh’ is possible with some versions of the Mac OS, but at a significant cost in time, money, and stability.
Yes, the Mac OS is pretty nice, and serves a lot of people well, but you can’t run it (well/easily) without very specific (depending on the version of Mac OS you want) official or endorsed Apple hardware (the dongle). There are advantages to entry and mid-level Macs for people who just want to make an off the shelf purchase and not be bothered with choosing and matching up hardware that’s going to be ‘pre-tested’, ‘burned in’, and performing well. It can be convenient, and many people find the UI of the Mac a very good user experience, but that comes at a price. The Apple experience requires a ‘dongle’, which is pretty much a complete Apple PC that’s going to have special ROMS, or secret ‘in-chip’ micro-codes and/or instruction sets littered across the system.
In most cases, it’s always been true that you can find equivalent, or more powerful hardware than the top end Mac Enterprise class stuff for a LOT less money.
Who says musicians who take advantage of social networking and digital tools don’t also work together ‘in person’ and ‘face to face’?
Why would live performers want to deprive potential audiences an opportunity to hear/see their work?
Why wouldn’t composer want people all over the world able to easily demo and purchase their scores, parts, texts, and etude collections or work-books?
If you wrote a music theory text book and workbook combo, would you ONLY want people you’ve met face to face, personally, being able to get a copy? Or would you want it available to anyone in the world, in many different languages?
Is it wrong for a movie producer to use a story board before borrowing millions, hiring hundreds of people, and committing to the production?
Does it matter if the story board is made of cardboard, or presented on a digital tablet or projector? In 2025, producers go through hundreds of scripts, concepts every day. Directors go through thousands of possibilities on everything from casting, to the sound effects they need for the product.
People who submit ‘working demos’ get a clear advantage over people who just present a raw score, or try to ‘describe and pitch it with words’ over a dinner meeting.
The people with money to produce often can’t read scores…or if they can they don’t have much time for it. In 2025, musicians need to be able to present a working demo of some kind. It doesn’t always need to be perfectly polished and ready to master…but it does have to be something that communicates, and establishes a groundwork for collaboration.
That’s definitively a subjective point of view.
15 years old hardware were made for windows xp/7.
I know because i have the latest xp compatible hardware which was available early 2013.
Now i also have windows 10 along side with xp on one of these machine.
Apparently you’re not familiar with xp, because windows 10 on an Hdd with 4go of ram is infamous!
Of course i managed to reduce 50% of services which would allow a loading time which is still infamous to me (1m30), compare to the 30s of xp loading with 6 services.
However loading anything on windows 10 still take a huge time, and interface are slow as hell compared of course to xp!
Adding 16go of ram will actually fasten the things but also xp.
This said if you can support this slow interface it should run software of the time in windows 10.
However regarding cubase i already told you that on xp it’s about 64effects with external hardware.
on windows 10, it didn’t keep the load and overloaded, plus the latency is much slower, setting it at 256/128smp on windows 10 at 192Khz, will definitively get you under 48effect.
This however work, but not sufficiently fast for me, where xp load cubase and session in 10s time and interface is so much responsive as well as the latency!
Secondly the motu hardware i got isn’t compatible 100% windows 10, so 7 or xp make it more stable!
Game or something else would work, but not as fast as on xp, and it is not the subject.
Regarding dos, your wrong, even if there is an emulator included till xp, this is a partial one, if we go under the game repository, then i doubt seriously than you will get any isa sound card working on it , as well as any s3, or video card of the time. Better use dosbox which willl work on both xp and 10 and will provide a greater compatibility system specially about isa sound card and isa video card!
Again the fact that you can install it, don’t mean it would be usable with a descent speed!
Actually windows 10 start to run quiet as good as xp on an i711700k with 32go of ram (16go will do as well), and a more powerfull video card, because i have done the test, but still interface are not as responsive it’s C# again c++!
That’s subjective and definitively depend on what reactivity time you’re able to tolerate!
cubase >7.5 switched to C# interface as well, so not my taste at all on those old hardware!
Plus it consume so much more video power as after 7.5 cubase need the windows aero overlay!
If you want a good cubase experience, xp with 7.5 on those hardware is the best!
The question answer itself, if you’re able to meet physically, you won’t go trought this!
I agree, finished product will definitively go on network, that’s how it works today, i’m also pushing on youtube like all people, who even spread it on all network possible!
Out of subject for me!
Again, digital sharing of finished product is an easy good way of promoting.
But that’s not the subject of collaborating digital making which is more often undirect, and virtual, 90% about sharing virtually a cubase project/tracks!
So that means you have Windows XP Professional 64bit installed? Otherwise the maximum memory for XP was 4GB, that’s it. Can you show a System Info?
How do you know, just curious. What is a C# interface?
Ok, where is the difference between C# and C++, again just curious.
Hmmm, my personal situation was that Cubase 11 would work with Windows 7 but only with the extended updates, Microsoft withdrew the support for Windows 7 and I couldn’t download and install the extended package to accommodate Cubase 11.
My motherboard would not work with Windows 10, as Windows 10 was not supported on said motherboard and I ended up trashing a 2K PC because it became a puzzle to which none of the pieces fitted anymore… 
C# is for simpletons - like me! Kind of like BASIC version of C++, which why I use it.
I’d be astonished if any part of any Steinberg product had a single line of C# code.
My astonishment awaits!
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That’s a way to look at it I have not heard before
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I successfully installed the 10 on win7 but, i heavily doubt of the cubase 11 native support for win7, some reported that you have to install on windows 10, them manually hack the folders and some registery key to win7 for doing it working!
It’s like c7.5 for xp, it’s not natively supported but with with hack!
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