If you could pick only one thing out of other DAWs you’ve used, that you would want in Cubase what would it be. List in order of priority, highest first.
Logic: Floating Velocity Nodes
It would be great if Cubase had this as a different display option, much easier to see and edit chords.
Studio One: External FX/Send-Return Pipeline plugin
Cubase External FX Plugin definitely needs an update. I find Studio Ones to be a bit too tacky and over-designed for a stock utility plugin, makes its GUI seem dated. Keep it simple, sleek, flat.
-Waveform not necessary
-Studio Ones LED meters suck, make them accurate full range digital.
-Coming up with a dependable auto-gain compensation on the return would be great, see LetiMix GainMatch.
BitWig: MIDI and NoteFX plugins
MIDI effect production is underestimated and underutilized. Cubase needs updated GUIs and new additions.
ProTools: Multitrack Drum Time Correction/Stretching/Editing
I do like the Studio One Pattern Editor, as you can have different time sigs and loop lengths per lane, plus probability factors.
I also like how easy it is to bounce audio for external instruments in S1, you can select a number of external MIDI tracks, hit Ctrl+B and it will solo each track in turn, play back and capture the audio on a ‘per channel’ basis.
Reaper: I love the spectral peaks option on waveform displays, as it gives you an idea of frequencies within the audio clips. Seems a gimmick, but something I miss if using Reaper for a few weeks.
Interesting, do you know of a good video displaying the S1 Pattern Editor capability?
I’d just watched a video on Spectral Peaks, but I’m skeptical to how useful it actually is. Ie, are your ears finding things before your eyes, or does the feature actually help you find things before your ears do?
It’s mainly the different time signatures, loop lengths and probability options that I like about it.
Well it’s like asking how useful colour coding on metering is I guess? Or the waveform view at all.
Setting custom colour ranges just provides a quick overview of where audio tracks sit in the general frequency ranges. Makes it easy to differentiate between low and high frequency tracks within a busy session.
Maybe it’s usefulness isn’t so critical and is more of a ‘would be nice to have’, but I immediately miss it when swapping back and seeing plain waveforms.
Multiples. It’s not really something that is exactly a DAW specific feature. Pro Tools, Cakewalk, REAPER, Digital Performer, and others all have stock light themes. You press a button or select an option and voila.
I can understand a video production app shipping a dark theme by default, or and perhaps not giving an option. But the assumption that someone is going to be working in a dim room by default for music production is nonsensical.
Well to be fair, Cubendo have marketed towards music for film/video and post-production for some time.
But with stock settings, I really don’t find it that dark. But it can be tweaked can it not? You only have to do it once and then save your preference and or user profile and never have to adjust again?
edit
Apart from getting into preferences, it pretty much is a couple clicks to get a lighter colour?
Preferences>User Interface>Color Schemes
Select the top ‘Custom Color Scheme’, select a color, and it does the rest for you.
Simple half speed recording, I think this one is very straight forward in Pro Tools and other DAWs. I think it is possible in Cubase but you have to convert a lot of tracks first, and converting anything is not without pitfall when you already are using a tempo track.
i dont use it and im not in front of cubase now, but dont cubase had the "Shuttle “shuffle” or something like that which speeds or slows the playback ? (there used to be on old cubase versions graphical button for that on the transport bar also )
maybe the function steel there in Cubase 11 with key commands
This was probably already mentioned, but Studio One’s tabbed instrument plugin window is very convenient. You just select the corresponding track in the Arranger track list and the corresponding plugin interface is displayed in the tabbed plugin window.
Freeze tracks in multiple layers with the ability to insert plugins on each frozen pass and recall all those freeze layers and their respective inserts = Reaper.
It also allows you to freeze up to a certain insert plugin in the chain.
I have to say the dark theme suits me perfectly, but I understand people wanting a single button light theme.
Which has made me think, having the color palette on maximum (64?) by default would be a big help. I think it’s better laid out in S1 as far as I’ve seen. Apologies if someone’s already mentioned it here.
