Same metaphorical question: Why is a BMW expensive… I mean Mercedes controls the top of the luxury car market so why cant they sell BMWs for 20 Euro?
Programming DAW software is difficult. It takes thousands of man hours to do so of very skilled people who have to be paid. Cubase is NOT expensive. Its one of the cheapest parts of my entire studio and does the most work
Cubase especially Pro is so advanced and slick. It’s an incredible piece of software. And I would say worth the money. I tried Logic Pro for a while and although equally as good, cubase has the edge for me in terms of innovation, use, plugins, UI and just fun to use. And even though logic is so much cheaper due to being subsidised by Apple to get people to buy its hardware, I still keep coming back to cubase.
It is a matter of perspective. It is expensive. But it is also good value. And also less expensive than some other stuff.
Word. TY for posting.
Nice try troll bot.
Dude, did you steal my old studios? That’s almost exactly my path. Did 3 ADATs / BRC (plus $500 each to replace a faulty out of warranty head stack - on two different ADATs!). I did Mackie 24.8 instead of Soundcraft, but then I bought the D8B. About the only difference is that I avoided the 16 track reel to reel as I went straight from the Tascam PortaStudio 4 track cassette to the ADATs. Beyond that I try really, really hard not to think about how much money I spent on this stuff prior to computer DAW systems.
I have a friend who wants to set up a small podcasting studio in her house. I recommended an NT-1, headphones and a UR-22 because the version of Cubase you get (for free) with it will be way, way more than she’ll ever need. In fact, for simple 24 track recording (i.e. tracking musicians playing real instruments), if you can’t make a great recording with the free version of Cubase then spending more money won’t help. All the basics are there.
By the way, I pay the bills as a professional software developer. Anyone who thinks a few hundred bucks is expensive for software like Cubase has absolutely no idea how much it costs to pay programmers and develop a professional product. For the price of a new license, you wouldn’t even get 8 hours of coding from me.
Other than the venerable SM57s, Cubase is probably the best bang for the buck of anything I have in my studio.
I could start a museum of ancient recording technology.
Things I don’t miss even a tiny bit: endless wires, cables & snakes, not needing to degausing tape heads (much less aligning them), razor blades, mystery hiss & noise, magnetic media storage, pitch bound to a tape’s speed, non-automated mixing (and the regular small errors that ruin an otherwise good mix), and of course wires, intermittent cables, wire, wire, more wire and endless miles of wire all at risk of becoming a huge knot.
And ground loops!
I can’t understand that logic. Something is worth more than something else because a lot of people use it?? So if more people used Cubase the price should go up? I chose Cubase because It works best for me… And when I compare the price to MS office for example - which is kinda in the same ballpark - I feel the price is totally justified, especially if I consider that a music software is somewhat of a niche product compared to an office suite that gets used in every company and many homes around the globe.
Michael
I thought SAW Studio was the most expensive.
Is it an accountants forum?
That’s why ABBA is forever!
I cant stand the “expensive” discussion. People who claim it is expensive simply ignore the arguments that the other people brought to the table.
I have an amateur studio - the remaining equipment costs signiicantly more than the DAW. In effect the DAW costs are relatively neglectable.
BR, Ernst
I think Cubase is worth every penny. I tried other DAWs but none of them ‘‘felt right’’. For the money, nothing comes close to Cubase.
As a Hobbyist ,Cubase is fairly expensive to own,and took some saving to buy But it has a lot of great features,tools,etc
The price is fair, and not a lot ,compared to buying some really expensive 3rd party plugin libraries,as a comparison 
Cubase has a lot to offer for me and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. 
It’s funny to read the few complaints in the face of overwhelming agreement that Cubase is not overpriced and is a good value.
FL Studio is my other DAW after Cubase. In spite of free updates and great features, IL also receives these kinds of unfounded complaints.
Is there a modern cultural condition whereby we’ve become so jaded as to not appreciate what is good or what works?
I begain with Cakewalk Pro 3 back in the 90’s. No audio on a 486SX computer with a friend’s Kawai K4 & Alesis D4.
In all the years of sequencing, recording, & editing software I’ve experienced, we are truly in a golden age. If the few of you complaining here cannot appreciate what Cubase currently brings to the table, I’m afraid you may be making excuses rather than music, or in spite of your music. I’m not sure what you believe is owed to you.
There’s always room for improvement, and the nature of the music industry will always push technology forward. But this attitude of leveraging a company over trifles as a customer, and drama over the tiniest details concerns me. Bring your requests with kindness, humility and appreciation, please.
I know people who spend a lot more on HAM radio setups, hobby weather stations, RC model airplanes, you name it.
And does anybody here know any guitar players who don’t have at least 10 guitars worth a total of $4000 (or a lot more)?
I know more than a few violin players who have paid more than $1000 just for a bow.
Having said that, I bought my Cubase license as a SONAR refugee. Since that time, SONAR has been rescued and is now free. After 2 years of using Cubase more than SONAR, I still think most simple tasks are easier to accomplish in SONAR. Cubase has many more features, so I continue to push myself to use Cubase most of the time. I haven’t begun to scratch the surface of what Cubase can do when used actively every step of the creative process. Most of my projects are mixing audio captured in live environments, which doesn’t really push any DAW very hard.