Unforgivable Quirks of the Otherwise Lovable Cubase

What non-standard, akward, tedious, conspicuously absent or otherwise disadvantageous characteristics of this DAW would you change were it in your power?

What’s been bugging me the most recently:

Why the heck are there no custom Tool Modifiers? What I wouldn’t give to add one that would simply make Shift+ Click erase with the Select or Draw tool. What Shift+Click currently does is quite useless by comparison. Why can’t the Shift key on it’s own be used as a Select Tool modifier? (Why are there no Draw tool modifiers at all?? Why is there a Color Tool modifier but no Draw Tool modifier?!? :astonished: ) Or even better, if I could configure the mouse/Tools so that a right click would delete a midi note with the draw tool. Speaking of the mouse and all the things that it COULD do, if only…

The only thing the right mouse button is good for in Cubase is accessing a tool list(which you can access by moving the mouse up a few inches on your screen, lol). Why are there no Key Commands or tool modifiers at all that involve the right mouse button? It’s a handy little button! I type thousands of words a day and have to be all over a keyboard at a shell prompt all day long at work. Sometimes I like to just casually sketch out parts in a DAW’s piano roll(key editor) and don’t want to have to be all over the keyboard just to delete or modify a tool. There’s a whole other button there Cubase really isn’t using(not to mention the many other buttons mice can and do have these days).

Am I crazy or is Cubase woefully inadequate for these fundamental things(Tool Modifier customization, mouse functionality)?

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Wait a few months to a year and see if they’ll implement it. Faster solution - uproot your entire music software life and switch to Reaper.

Note: Reaper isn’t as stable for 500+ track orchestral templates. Source: I already tried it.

I would like to be able to move the channel fader with say a shift key held to allow you to change the level even if volume is automated. It would cause the automation to be trimmed.

Not really…




Hm…

I almost did try Reaper both before I switched to Cubase from Sonar and after switching to Cubase when I realized how painful some of the missing functionality is. I still might considering the low entry cost but my understanding was that Reaper has broken midi implementation. Can you comment on this?

Ohhp, you got me there! You can also click a box to make a right click show a list of extra shortcuts to random stuff. So basically, the only thing right click is good for is accessing a list of functions that already have other means of access. There is no tool functionality with the right mouse button!


Those aren’t custom Tool Modifiers. Those are default Tool Modifiers with fixed actions where you can change the keyboard key used to invoke the Action. There is no ability to create customer Modifiers that perform customized actions. Maybe you’ve never used any other DAW and don’t know what you’re missing. In Sonar for example you can create and modify, utterly, all tools and there are even default templates to emulate all the various possible keyboard+mouse combinations in other DAWs. It’s a sad state of affairs by comparison in Cubase, no denying it.

Also, supposedly we’re supposed to be able to move around the key editor or arrangement view using the middle mouse button. Which would be super handy! (Heard about this while researching my mouse non-utlization woes, for instance see https://www.gearslutz.com/board/cubase-7-nuendo-6/936744-cubase-7-tips-tricks.html) I’ve tried it, both pressing and holding the middle button, and it does nothing.

I searched the Operation Manual(7.5) and could find no reference to anything about the “middle mouse” button or “middle button” or “center button” or “center mouse” button anywhere in it. Anyone else know what I’m talking about here?

The MIDI isn’t broken. IIRC, earlier versions of Reaper had a bad MIDI editor. Beyond that, I don’t know too much else.

Aloha guys

For me even the tho’ price is nice, the prob with reaper is score/notation.
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He’s right, you can only select from a pre-defined (and very limited) palette of choices. I would like to see more customisability here, so you can define an action for Ctrl-Glue, for example.

That is a very good idea. Automation really gets in the way for me and this would be a great help.

But all this stuff belongs in Feature Requests. It won’t get noticed by the right people here.

This. And articulations, i.e. expression maps. For orchestral stuff, which I do a lot of, Cubase isn’t just the best game in town, it’s pretty much the only one. Reaper allows you to type the names of articulations directly on keys in their key editor, but you can’t actually intercept key switches and make them do something useful (and notate-able!). Every day I am selecting things like “Staccatissimo” in the key editor, as opposed to figuring out which MIDI note is functioning as a key switch. The orchestral workflow in Cubase is still top of the list…I do check in with Reaper from time to time to see where they’re at :wink:

I don’t want to hijack the intentions of the OP, but this is one of those functionality things that shouldn’t be underestimated.

Back on topic - for me, when Cubase doesn’t do what I want out of the box, I create a macro, or a Logical Editor preset that does something crazy. For example I have a Logical preset that selects only notes that are on bar lines, or alternatively, on beats - since often I want to create velocity accents that are only in those places. You can’t beat this kind of deep customization - although Reaper is the one to watch due to the scripting ability :wink:

Having the right mouse button do something - like trigger a macro of your creation - would admittedly be fantastic!

At least as far as workflow’ goes it’s too bad a user can’t just completely
re-write the Cubase programme to suite each individual need.

Could a ‘feature’ like this be a future direction for all DAWS?
Perhaps one day.

But if that were to happen, would we then be able to ‘help’ each other
with forums like this one?

Probably not.
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