The Cubase 13. Pro, user ‘help’ manual is pathetic to say the least.
No explanations of how to do anything really.
Just explanations that the features exist. Ummm …
Now I come to think of it, a close up of the relevant ‘buttons’ might help, Duh…
As a trainer and trainer of trainers, I recognise that Steinberg understand nothing about explaining (or demonstrating the ‘how to do’ ) of doing anything.
And, as the product gets more ‘feature heavy’ the incomprehension gap of Steinberg’s offerings widen, and the failure of the ‘help’ documentation becomes more apparent. (as does the frustration of the user.)
The Steinberg ‘videos’ are even worse! Just showing someone jumping around on his seat and nodding his head to a tedious and very silly ‘groove’ does not explain anything, as far as Cubase accessibility goes.
Example; (Side camera view… ) ‘Öh, you can also do this’ No shots of the screen, or what he’s pressed at all generally. If screenshot, maybe 3 x millisecond frames, and then back to idiotic nodding of the head to the by-now, EXTREMELY tedious ‘groove.’ USELESS!
Wise up Steinberg!. I have paid many thousands of pounds since Cubase Atari ST days to keep my Cubase updates current… You should really have hired someone with some sense to develop and design your manuals (and vids).
Greg Ondo typically has great practical advice in his “Club Cubase” question and answer streams. I think you might like it.
This is a playlist with the streams up until 2023, but his videos go back many years if you search for them on YouTube. And if you catch a stream live, you can ask questions yourself.
The vids you recommended are fine, but given the huge amounts of topics, finding anything out immediately relating to how to do something (while I’m supposed to be working) is like finding a needle in a haystack.
For example, I have been trying to set up a project in 6/8 all morning.
OK, I worked out how to set the metronome and count-in to 6/8…
However, the new project grids only conform to 4 bars not to 3 or any multiple of 3/4. .
Also, I have no vari audio selection in any track inspector, (while trying to pitch-correct vocals) when double clicking the audio image. Yes, I realise I am supposed to segment the audio, but ‘help’ is useless in this regard It just says 'do it '.
If I buy an expensive car, I don’t want to have to go to various garages and mechanics, just to find out where the air filter (for example) is… Stienberg software is like this; The software’s fine, but the 'how to do’s ’ are pathetic.
I suppose complaining is one thing to do, or you could ask the forum a single question about what you want to do. You will get ample responses, given in a style that might work for you.
I can sympathise with this, I often find the Cubase documentation seems to have been written by the person that wrote the code, therefore it is “This is how this function works”, and can be missing a broader context. I have found other documentation styles more along the lines of “If I want to do xxxx, these are the steps I would follow”. But this can be lacking in detail. I find I need both, at different stages in my learning process! YMMV.
Try the youtube vids by MTT. I also invested in his book “The Complete Guide To Music Technology Using Cubase 13”. Both are more hands on for those like me who need a more indepth explanation
Good luck but persevere as Cubase has lots to offer!
Yeah, a lot of people feel that way the manuals often list features but don’t really show the step-by-step of how to use them in practice. For something as deep as Cubase, clearer screen demos and practical examples would make a huge difference for users.
Actually, for help I’ve found Copilot or others to be very helpful from finding preferences to programming Halion patches, or even help selecting plugins for a sound.
They are trained on all SB docs and the decades of forums posts here, and elsewhere.
That would be nice, but I don’t think what you want is ever going to happen. It’s not just Steinberg. The reliance upon 3rd parties, paid or free, is how to obtain information beyond the huge 1,200+ page Cubase user guide. There are too many things left out, and it costs money. If you find errors, do mention them. Maybe a newer DAW with less features can achieve a solid user guide, but something that started back in the Atari days and has evolved to Cubase 15?
If you have run across something you need step-by-step or just additional information, I must ask, are your issues so unique that no one else has ever experienced the same questions?
There are the sources that have already been listed above.
This one is huge.
Greg Ondo
Chris Selim
Dom Sigalas
on line forums for ‘how to do’ stuff
(unless you think it should be simple, but too embarrassed to ask)
Cubase paid tutorials. (I ask myself why they are charging money. What are the paid tutorials doing that can’t be achieved by the above?)
It’s been a while but are these marketing videos or help videos? Are there any links to what you are referring to?
Where is the obligatory “Reaper can do it better” user when you need them? No manual from Cockos, no “how to” videos from Cockos. Everything has to be done by the unpaid community, has it not?
I must admit, YouTube has supercharged my knowledge of Cubase. I religiously watch Greg Ondo every week and comb through the full walkthroughs of new Cubase versions.
Dom Sigalas, Chris Selim, these guys have given me so much information; it’s been very eye-opening.
This guy has also provided me with invaluable information:
True. On of the problems with reference manuals in general is that you (at least typically) need to know the exact term to search for to find what you’re looking for. That was true back when I was using SONAR as my main DAW, too. However, I will say it’s gotten even more challenging with Cubase because Cubase’s terminology is so much different from more typical terminology.
A few basic examples: Almost every other DAW calls the MIDI editor with the dashes for notes a piano roll editor, but Cubase calls it the Key Editor? Wouldn’t that be for editing key signatures??? (Okay a bit of sarcasm and/or humor there.) Then there’s calling the MIDI event editor the List Editor. And the track-level piano roll editor the In-Place Editor, and don’t get me started on calling clips – wait, what does Cubase call them??? I always forget and see the corrections in this forum when people ask questions about MIDI clips and such.
True story: When I switched from SONAR to Cubase (gradually between 9.5 and 10.5, which is when I started using it as my main DAW for new projects), one of my biggest “missing features” in Cubase was its “lack” of a track-level piano roll editor, which SONAR called the Track Piano Roll View (or TPRV for short). I’d read through the entire Cubase reference manual (at V9.5), and don’t recall coming across anything. Of course, there was a lot to read about, and one can only absorb so much via just reading. But I really missed that functionality. It was only a fair bit later, when going back to old Cubase courses on Groove3.com – I think one for Cubase 5 – where I learned about this thing called the In-Place Editor, which was disabled in the track headers by default (no wonder I couldn’t even find it by accident!).
Even now, after a half dozen or more years of using Cubase steadily, when I run into new needs (e.g. due to changed behaviors in newer Cubase versions), or things I’ve done a few times but not regularly, it can be frustrating trying to find something, and it usually comes down to not remembering the proper language to what I’m looking for (and it’s not being located in an intuitive place, for example within preferences menus).
The bottom line for me was taking pretty much every Groove3 course available (I have had their All-Access plan ever since it was initially included in the iZotope Music Production Suite for a couple of years), and doing a lot of Googling when issues arise, and dealing with whatever frustration that might provide.
Unfortunately, Cubase is too complex for meaningful, semi-comprehensive “getting started” courses. It would be nice, though, if there were something of that form of the user manual type (SONAR did have a separate “Getting Started Guide” if I remember correctly), and that manual also included something that helped mapped more standard DAW terminology to Cubase’s terminology.
Back in the day Mark Wherry and someone else whose name I can’t remember used to publish excellent books with each major release of Cubase. The only recent equivalent is by Darren Jones, who is sadly no longer with us. Amazon.co.uk