I’m returning to making music after 6 year hiatus. When I stopped, I was using SX2.2. I think that at the time, the most current version was 4.5, but it had no extra features that I particularly wanted. Back then I was doing absolutely everything ITB with plugins, SX2.2 did everything I wanted and I was very happy with it.
Now I’m getting back into music, I want to integrate more external instruments and effects into my setup. SX3 has a few killer features for this, such as the MIDI Device control panels, and the external insert and instrument features. So, I’m pretty sure I want to at least move up to SX3.
However, if I stumbled across a second hand version of 4, 5 or 6, would there be any drawbacks to using these (other than, I assume, a bigger CPU hit)? Did any features (particularly MIDI ones) ever go missing? Did stuff break going forward? Were any versions widely considered to be duff ones?
Curious as to why you need SX3 over SX2 after 6 years of not doing music…
I personally think ‘anyone’ could get by fine with using SX3. If you can find it cheap, I’d say go for it. Use what you’ve got until then. I don’t think you’ll get it from Steinberg …though they have it on their site for those who need to convert Cubase VST 5 .all song files into .cpr files. But I’m pretty sure you can’t get it to work unless you have a version ‘above’ Cubase SX3.
I’ll let a mod or someone answer that one. A long time ago I had downloaded the SX3 from the Steinberg site myself, but couldn’t get it to work…I assumed because I was using Cubase VST 5/32 so that didn’t grant me permission to use it. I’d think that would be the same case for SX2 users.
By the way, I saw Cubase 7 full-retail selling for $399.00 on ebay.
SX3 has a few good features over SX2 for working with external hardware: MIDI Device panels, latency compensated external inserts and instruments. I will be working with hardware so these features are quite a draw.
Hey Thomas, dunno if this will help you in your case, but here’s the link to get Cubase SX3 from Steinberg…
Until someone chimes in, you can just try it. I’m still not sure you can actually use it with your SX2 license, you’ll have to get the word from someone at Steinberg, or a user who’s done it. I just realized that when I had tried the SX3 from the above download a long time ago, I had installed it on another computer with ‘no’ other version of Cubase, and ‘no’ dongle connected even…they were on my actual DAW machine.
Maybe missed it, but the link above doesn’t actually say WHAT license(s) you need to make this SX3 work A mod, or anyone else have that answer? That sure would be really nice of the people at Steinberg to just ‘give’ away SX3 to any Tom, Dick or Harry with ‘any’ Cubase version license…but I’m assuming you probably really need a Cubase version 4 license?
The ability to open MIDI Device Panels by clicking Edit Instrument in Cubase SX3 was discarded in Cubase4 in favor of a dedicated button at the top of the inspector (next to the read and write automation buttons) which seems a little odd to me, but not exactly a major loss of functionality.
A mod, or anyone else have that answer? That sure would be really nice of the people at Steinberg to just ‘give’ away SX3 to any Tom, Dick or Harry with ‘any’ Cubase version license…but I’m assuming you probably really need a Cubase version 4 license?