My apologies: I posted this in the Lounge but I think maybe it would have been more appropriate to post it here? At any rate, here is a copy of my other post in the Steinberg Lounge:
As those of you who have been patient enough to persevere with my previous posts will know, I am currently using Cubase 5.1r2 with Windows 7 Ultimate. For those of you who have seen all this before, I’ll spare you once again listing my reasons for wanting to remain with Windows 7; however, due to an evidently unfixable audio anomaly, it has become necessary for me to do a fresh re-install of Cubase. Unfortunately, although I have the original installation disc ( from something like 15 years ago ), I can’t for the life of me find the registration key now, which means that that method is, annoyingly, not an option. This being the case, I need to source Cubase elsewhere.
The question of updating my version of Cubase, and my reluctance to do so, has also been discussed at length in other threads. However, since I now find myself at this juncture, a dilemma presents itself. As I understand it, the most modern version of Cubase which will run on Windows 7 is Cubase 9 ( as with everything else, please correct me if I’m mistaken ). The dilemma, then, is whether to keep things as simple as possible and just look for a downloadable version of 5.1r2, or find a downloadable version of Cubase 9 and at least update things to that, albeit modest, extent; or, would there be any more benefit in going for 6, 7 or 8, and if so, why? I would appreciate any thoughts as to the pros and cons of any of the permutations ( I’m working on the assumption, by the way, that the file extensions in 9 are all the same as in 5.1 ).
However, even this still presents something of a problem: where can I go to download any of the above?
Having already purchased a new audio interface which I’m not sure I actually needed, obviously I’ve no wish to spend any more money on this than can be helped; and frankly, beyond a certain point, I don’t have it to spend. That being said, I obviously do need to be certain that whatever I’m downloading is entirely legit, virus-free etc.; and therein lies the problem. To be honest, given that even Cubase 9 is more than eight years old, I hadn’t thought that it or any of the other iterations between 5.1 and 9 would be that hard to come by, but so far that hasn’t seemed to be so. The only paid version of Cubase Artist 9.5 ( is that the best version …? ) that I could find costs an eye-watering £265, which - dinosaur though I admittedly am - seems to me to be extortionate for software that’s already more than eight years out of date. Conversely, I came across a free download of Cubase 5 on a site called software.informer; however, reviews seem to suggest that the ‘informer’ part of their title comes from the fact that they inform all and sundry of your details so that you then get deluged with spam - not to mention one or two reviews which said the reviewers had experienced what seemed to be viruses or malware following downloading from this source. On top of everything else, this is a risk I really can’t afford to take. Assuming they didn’t want to completely scalp me for it, I would have even gone to Steinberg themselves, but of course they no longer sell versions as old as these, at any price.
So, once again I find myself asking for suggestions. This having already dragged on for so long, I would ideally rather download the programme rather than have to wait for an actual installation disc to arrive ( although both would be better still ), but any inspiration is still more than I have now.
