I do not think people trying to shut down anyone who even tangentially disagrees with them makes their case any stronger for integration between the two programs.
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For clarity, and regarding making wrong assumptions about what’s technically possible or desirable:
- Daniel indicated 3 years ago that interoperability between Dorico and Cubase was “a goal” already at the time:
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He likewise said about a year or two later (can’t find this post now) that we should be patient and “watch this space” as interoperability was a goal
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He said in this very thread today that interoperability was by far the most requested functionality in the recent survey
I do not remember him ever specifying that there was a technology issue here, Qt, C++ or whatever else (of course I might be completely wrong!). He’s always brilliant and transparent about that. (“For boring technical reasons…”).
Notion and Studio One exchange note data via a network protocol, and Notion can be loaded into Studio One as a Re-Wire instrument. Steinberg already has its own network protocols and it was one of the inventors of Re-Wire. It would seem the underlying technology has long been available to implement this at the Notion/Studio One level and my bet is the team would aim higher than that. (EDIT: Re-Wire support has been dropped in Cubase as of version 12).
Daniel’s message upthread says “we have good ideas” but not “we are actively working” in this area. Don’t know what to make of it, but I would completely understand if the team continues to prioritize any missing notation capabilities of Dorico at the expense of other features that already work at least on some level, somehow, and, personally, I’ll keep waiting.
But based on all that, it seems the word “assumptions” has been working extra hard in this thread, both as an excuse and a dismissal tactic. IMHO, it’s better to be upfront about the priorities and explain how they fit in the bigger picture and the roadmap, as that only increases the amount of goodwill.
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I don’t use Cubase (yet, anyway) so don’t really have a strong opinion here, but this seems similar to how Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop work together. I can do the overwhelming majority of editing in LR and then pop over to PS directly from LR if I need a more powerful editing tool for some task.
Is that sort of what you are envisioning between Dorico and Cubase? Easily switch from one to another if in need of a tool one program offers, then just as easily switch back?
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I guess the OP should clarify their views, but for me personally something along those lines would be a dream scenario. Using the strengths and highly specialized tools of each program and bringing them together in a seamless and fully integrated workflow that covers the full length of the modern process - from composition, engraving, to performance, production, mastering and publication. Rather than making two notation programs (a good and not so good one), two mixers (likewise), two MIDI editors, etc - or at least giving them a feature scope based on the product version. This way it really becomes an ecosystem and everyone can add modules based on their workflow needs.
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Frankly… all I need from Dorico in order to be efficient at music production is a simple way to import a few audio tracks allng with midi tempo, and the ability to record a few audio tracks along with the midi music from Dorico.
This requires absolutely no special integration with any particular DAW and should be technically possible based on the current state of our beloved software.
We need at this point to aknowledge that Dorico has become a very modern beautiful and powerful music creation software with a bright future… when Cubase is “just” one daw among many others, a bit like a good Swiss knife, but without any special flavour… unlike a far more limited but brilliant mixing software like Luna from UAD, limited… but irreplaceable in its core sonic abilities.
We need special tools to accomplish special tasks… the minimum interoperability should be more than enough (audio files, midi files, XML, and Tempo Tracks + VST3 support) !!
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To jog your memory on the differences in framework:
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Thanks. As I mentioned earlier, it’s completely fair (and advantageous) that Dorico team would use whatever platform they are most experienced with.
But the post you link specifically talks about the need to recreate user interface components between Cubase and Dorico. Do you recall Daniel talking about the platform issue preventing data exchange between them in the way Notion and Studio One does it? If so, I’d appreciate learning more about that.
WaveLab is built on Qt too, and Steinberg confirmed last November that there is active work going on right now to enable full WaveLab integration into Cubase via VST/ARA2.
SpectraLayers 8 is already implemented as ARA2 plugin - it opens as an editor directly within Cubase, which appears to me an even deeper integration than what @FredGUnn referenced with Adobe Photoshop. EDIT: To be clear - I have no idea if something like this is feasible with MIDI. But it sure would be nice to have a clarification.
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I’ve done a bit of searching but I’m afraid I’m struggling to find a source to cite for this:
Cubase is MIDI first. Notation (i.e. five line stave) in Cubase is a graphical representation of the MIDI.
Dorico is notation first. Piano roll is a graphical representation of the notation. MIDI’s kind of built on top of the notation.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff that Dorico can do with its (non-MIDI) model that Cubase can’t: complex tuplets that are understood internally as fractions rather than slightly uneven decimals, all manner of micro tonality, independent time signatures etc.
My supposition is that Studio One and Notion recognise the same type of data as the “truth”.
I don’t know what’s in the pipeline for Cubase or Dorico, though. Hopefully Daniel will return from his Christmas downtime sooner rather than later and chime in!
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I feel like I’ve read a post from Daniel, somewhere on this forum, that there will likely never be a combined Cubase/Dorico program x and the best we can hope for is some sort of better “communication” between the two.
These are my words - not his - and I might have completely misread a post or even just imagined it! I apologise if so!
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Thank you Leo.
I must say, this has been a very education thread for me and if Daniel decides to shed any light on anything here it would be even more so. The examples I’ve learned about today have been educational and inspirational in terms of what’s possible (the SpectraLayers integration is simply amazing!) but they are all audio-data related. I think VST3 includes both audio and MIDI exchange but indeed there is the tuplets, time signatures, fermatas. Dotted quarter time tempo marking is still not possible in Cubase, AFAIK and must be manually converted. Maybe the Dorico-Cubase integration should include some Cubase updates first to get it up to speed.
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Six years ago, they purchased a pre-built, functioning Notion but left the bugs in the program unchanged, making only a few minor adjustments, such as enabling compatibility with CPUs with more threads. Meanwhile, Steinberg started creating a new notation software from scratch. Can you identify two differences? Saying that I have to admit - it would be nice to have this level of integration.
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Yes I agree.
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Just to be clear, what i mean by integration between the two, is that if we were working on a project in Cubase and want to continue it in Dorico or vice versa for whatever reason. There is a way they can sync the changes between each other like a link. Exporting just the changes to the project in the other software. Example, if i change a midi note on the first Violins in Cubase and send the changes to Dorico it will be changed.
It’s sometimes really tricky to get the tone right on this forum: just yesterday there was a discussion in which Daniel made the point that it’s much better for us users to let him know what we’re hoping to be able to do, and let the team figure out how best to do it.
On the flip side, it strikes me that your message here is kind of like saying “it’s easy - you just need to put a button there in Cubase, and another button there in Dorico”, with no regard for how those buttons actually talk to each other.
Let me stop you at
How? When Dorico actually doesn’t think in MIDI, and Cubase doesn’t actually deal natively with Dorico’s low-level model?
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Here’s that source, from Paul rather than Daniel:
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Thank you Leo, very clearly explained.
Some time ago I asked Ulf Stroemer, the developer responsible for the integration of the VST Audio Engine in Dorico, if there is a way to achieve the same low latency when recording MIDI live in Dorico, as in Logic or Cubase, for example.
I’m quoting an excerpt from the conversation here as I think it fits the context well and further helps to understand the differences between the two applications:
Blockquote
The input latency thing, yeah, that’s a little tricky in Dorico because the MIDI handling isn’t as straight forward as it is in Cubase or Logic. The MIDI ports are opened and operated by the VSTAudioEngine. Incoming MIDI data is therefore read and sent to Dorico via IPC, i.e. the first additional latency is already here. Then Dorico also sends them back to the audio engine via IPC, and only then are they made audible.
Blockquote
PS: IPC means „Inter-process communication“
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I never said it is easy. I said its a feature request. Point. That’s it. If you’re stating it’s not possible. That’s it. Just come out officially and say it. This is the transparency that we need. Not keep pushing the idea along with the upgrades and have us think that it’s possible. Honestly i didn’t want this thread to go that technical because frankly what developers can or cant do in what system gives me no thought. Not that I don’t care or am not grateful for their profession. On the contrary. What we want to know is if it’s not possible, just state it officially.
Thank you.
Several years ago, I was one of those calling for deep integration. I wanted it back then because Dorico’s Play and Mixing functionalities were very basic. Without knowing anything about the programming difficulties, the obvious answer (to me) was to position Dorico as the front end and Cubase as the back end.
I don’t think that way now. There’s been a great deal of progress made on the Play and Mixing pages since the introduction of v4 and there’s every indication that progress will continue. Great to see…
When calling for integration, what I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was the extent to which performance, rather than a bells-and-whistles back end, is the real key to bringing music to life in the traditional DAW’s. However well one might notate music, it only ever supplies a guide to performance. Dorico’s notation inside Cubase would, at best, make tiny improvements in terms of performance compared to the current Score Editor. And even the best mastering processes couldn’t change that.
So, rather than looking at Cubase to make everything better, I think the development of NotePerformer within the Dorico setup is a far better solution. I’ve just spent a couple of days playing round with Iconica Sketch and NP 4.4 and I’m blown away. Old scores are finally sounding reasonable (and even alarmingly realistic at times).
Sure, there’s a lot more that can be done- I hope that’s a road Dorico and NP are firmly on - but it leaves me thinking that, combined with more progress on the Play and Mixer pages, in time everything I want can be done inside Dorico.
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I am interested in the technical side of things (to the degree I can comprehend them) because it puts things in perspective and provides context. But I’m afraid I’m more confused today than yesterday. My understanding was that:
- the team has to spend extra time to recreate certain parts of Cubase technology, because the platforms are different
- it takes time for any feature request to get to the top of the list because the team is small
- the work itself takes more or less time depending on complexity of the feature
The cumulative result of those points is what I thought lead to Daniel’s message here, and many similar messages before: it’s simply not the time yet for Cubase-Dorico integration work to start. Be patient and wait your turn. Not perfect, but entirely reasonable for me personally.
But the discussion started to sound like the problems are truly insurmountable, beyond Qt and C++, related to literally everything from MIDI implementation, latency, tuplets and now I don’t know what to think.
So - is it possible for Dorico to get the ease and convenience of Cubase integration that WaveLab and SpectraLayers are getting (whenever the time is deemed right for it) or is it not? Or does “we have ideas” mean Cubase integration will again be the case of cleverly recreating some bits but not the full thing?
This strikes me as a legitimate question for some of the users whose workflow includes both Cubase and Dorico, who bought into the Steinberg “ecosystem” at least in part because of interoperability and for whom it is a genuine concern. I would really appreciate a clarification and transparency on this.
P.S. I agree with Leo that it’s hard to get the tone right in a forum, so I apologize if my posts come across as rude or harsh. That’s not my intent at all.
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