APPEAL: C7.X Pro Composers: Voice Your Opinion here![POLL]

Agreed. Don’t you wish that there was a place where this information was easily accessible? Like a wiki for Cubase power-users?

Right now, I think that truly useful info can only be found buried within forum posts. Of all the DAWs I’ve used, Cubase is the most challenging to gather ‘lifehack’-type information for.

I’m familiar with the feeling. In 2011, I switched over, fresh from using Logic 9 exclusively for 4 years. It’s an anxious, threatening feeling going up against an arcane/unfamiliar DAW.

The truth is: WHAT OPTIONS DOES THE MODERN COMPOSER HAVE? I’m willing to bet that the majority of working composers are on old versions of Logic/Cubase on an outdated mac/windows OS. This is a joke! It’s 2013 and most of this stuff hasn’t changed radically in nearly 5 years.

Could we all agree that the people require a DAW that’s cutting-edge? E.g. modern/sleek GUI + font, extremely configurable, fast load/save, CPU efficient, frequent user-sourced feature additions, high limit for plugins on channel strips and total bus count, customizeable/intuitive file management, highly organized session folders, flexible importing/exporting of file formats, solid/useful video tools, well-rounded MIDI and audio-editing.

Decent stock plugins would be icing on the cake. :mrgreen:

Best codec i found for now is Avid DnxHD

thank you. do you mean best in terms of what cubase accepts and plays seamlessly? what sw do you yourself use to convert files into it?

thank you for the help.

I voted on the “MARKETING REASONS” but the truth its not as simple as many of you think. :wink:


The real truth are more complex then these poll alternatives. I have both close friends that work as developments, tech-nods, full time professional programmers, game manufactures and these kind of companies is a large boat to navigate. Its not as simple that they don’t want to add all the features. There are tons of meetings “in-house”, fixes and structures that need to be done and are up on “the daily agenda”, before just have the time to think of doing anything else.

And even if you do, its not as simple as just grab a computer at the company and start program some codes and add it to Cubase 7 right away.
Someone else, “teams” working perhaps on other features that need to be approved and “co-sync” so it work with your new code before your new code get implemented to the real system.

So as an example, there are probably more then 1000 of lines of codes that need to be program just to make a simple fix of example “Plugins windows” stay on top, not fall behind the mixer-page in full mode. Its very complex thing to do and they will do it but it will take some time to fix it. In the same time they need to work on fixes to 7.5 they also need to continue program all the new things that will come in Cubase 8.


Think about it!

Best Regards
Freddie

thank you. do you mean best in terms of what cubase accepts and plays seamlessly? what sw do you yourself use to convert files into it?

Both. It gives you gorgeous picture with very reasonable weight while working incredibly smoothly with Cubase (6, 6.5, 7 and 7.5, as far as i know). Don’t forget to copy your quicktimes on another internal hard drive than the one you got your sounds and project on, this way it will read much faster (assuming you got fast reliable drives of course)

I’ve kept using ProRes even on Windows, as it has worked so well with BlackMagic’s Infinity Pro (never tried DNxHD, perhaps it works as well). In case someone’s wondering how to encode ProRes on Windows, I’d suggest ffmpeg. No need for advanced options, just something like ffmpeg -i inputfile.mov -s 1920x1080 -vcodec prores -acodec libmp3lame -aq 3 outputfile.mov works for me.

Right now I find that I can work quicker than ever in Cubase! So in general I think they’re implementing the right things to keep me going. If there was a 5th option which allowed me to say that then I’d vote.

But, yes, there are many fixes left undone and some backward workflow steps (like Iterative vs Hard quantizing, which has been changed to a toggle operation - doesn’t make sense to me after all these years of two different commands, and slows down my workflow because I used to use both via key commands very quickly, now it’s difficult to say which is selected so it slows me down to check!).

On the other hand, I can tune a vocal line in 1/4 of the time it took before. It’s even quicker than melodyne, which was fairly fast, it’s the same quality now, and yet included in software no messing about. I can select plugins by typing the name, so much quicker than looking through my 100 long list (that’s if I can remember the name!). I can add group tracks to selected tracks in one step, great feature. I can time-stretch things to my heart’s content with superb quality.

All of these things I use daily to help me create my productions (e.g. soundtrack audio, albums, songs, mastering) which the public reward me by purchasing. So, there’s not that many things that stop me working as I need to.

But a discussion like this is definitely necessary so that Steinberg can see the shifting opinions.

Mike.

The -broad- generalisation I seem to see from what I’ve read here over the years is this:

It -seems- like ‘recording engineers’ (people who work primarily with pre-recorded audio) like the direction of Cubase more than people like me who are ‘composers’ or ‘orchestrators’ (people who create structures from the ground up -inside- Cubase.) The vast majority of improvements seem to be for people who are taking a ‘song’ or big sections of content and then massaging it into shape. More of a traditional engineer or producer.

But for -me- who -composes- in Cubase and want to very quickly try ideas, jettison them; edit the -structure- itself, the more features Cubase adds, the -slower- the workflow the basic operations of ‘ranges’ and ‘windows’ and ‘key commands’ have not really been improved in a decade. A decade. You might argue ‘Mediabay’ and ‘Presets’ are big changes, but to that I would say: those were actually steps -backwards-. Call me old, but I -still- prefer FXPs. And I just want the options to load and save files where -I- want to… not in some ‘cloud’ like Mediabay. I want to -know- where everything is.

Glad to hear Cubase is working for you.

I believe attention should be paid to the most widely req. features/fixes for this app that don’t get addressed by SB.

The poll addresses this specific situation: content with the app or not, why do the requests remain ignored?

+1
{‘-’}



If I understand your post correctly, you believe that Steinberg’s level of manpower can only do things so fast, based on time it takes change the code and the organization (or lack thereof) within the company. It seems that the ‘Technical Reasons’ option is more applicable than ‘Marketing’, in this case.

In fairness though, none of the old guard DAWs have had pretty much any changes to their MIDI workflows and tools in recent years, and new ones are so far just adding the most basic ones.

In that regard Steinberg has been doing pretty well, adding the CC scaling tools and expression maps within a few major versions back for example. But it seems to be just a fact of life that so much of the revenue for music software these days is coming from the home producer market now that composition-centric workflows will be almost entirely left to rely on the legacy features that kind of just sit there untouched.

This is why I think the matter of scripting support can’t be overemphasized. Even though not everyone could code for something like that, many would, and shared scripts would accumulate to an extensive database of optional workflows that suit separate niches.

Perhaps you’re right. I have no idea about ‘the competition’.

I think Note Expression is -fantastic-. Unfortunately, it’s also frustrating since no other vendors support it.

And I agree scripting would be great for power users. However, since such things are also not sexy, they don’t get done either.

Frustrating. I understand all the marketing reasons, but I see it as ‘income inequality’… seriously. My colleagues who are at the top end of the biz simply hire assistants to cover these deficiencies. While people at my end of the scale more and more are drawn to use ‘construction sets’ and loops rather than actually -writing- because it’s the only way to get 'er done.

IOW: the tools (or the lack thereof) instead of enhancing creativity, have a tendency to lock one into certain styles of music which are easier to produce (pun intended). The more ‘presets’; the more preset music.

—JC


It’s funny - I was bandying about the idea with another composer recently of what it would cost to develop a DAW from the ground up exclusively for film & TV composers. It feels like no DAW really caters to the workflows and needs of professionals while being reliable, flexible and jettisoning much of the fluff. A pipe dream…

You’re right: I feel like the we’re the outcasts taking refuge here. We truly have no home though.

Imagine something as complex as Cubase (as in years of super-specialized highly-paid work by a team of about 20 people, plus all the administration) that you can only sell to about 1,000 people around the world. How much would it cost to buy? My rough estimate: $10,000.

Bottom line: not going to happen.

Couldn’t have said it better … I started setting up my VSL templates in 7.5 as instrument tracks. 290 tracks later … And the mixer is much slower instead of much faster. All the visibility stuff is ruined by having to have focus. The Agents are ruined by the broken and unnecessarily complicated QLink process. I wont’ continue the rant, but the point is simple. There are 1000000000 great “features”, but they are functionally fiddly to get to and use, and they make the actual work process harder, not easier.

If it were really only $10k? I’d do it in a heartbeat.

With each year, I find myself being lured by the siren song of TERABYTES of new samples. Ever nicer orchestral libs. More realistic -whatevers-. I find myself buying less and less. It has nothing to do with the libs themselves, it’s that I’ve come to realise I’m up to my -neck- in ‘sounds’ and ‘plug-ins’ and ‘presets’. I have enough raw ‘data’ to last until I -die-.

More and more I find myself avoiding new -anything- because I’m -exhausted- managing the crap I have now. For example: what’s the point of having 20 compressors if auditioning them is frickin’ tedious? Far better to fall back on 2 or 3 tried and true.

What’s the point of using a product like VSL Dimension Strings when setting up complex sections will take up literally -days- of my life? I look at the screens and I think ‘Crap, if I had real players I could write this on score paper in an hour. But this’ll take 3 days to make work in Cubase.’ So I simply don’t write that complex an idea. I use a simpler string lib. Nobody cares. But -I- care. I didn’t get to do the super fun thing that is the reason I -write- music. Because the tools are sooooooooo tedious.

In short, the slower workflows have altered my -composing- and cut down on my -buying-. I fit my writing to what works in Cubase, rather than the other way round. It’s not -terrible- but I liken it to a pension without a COLA. The requirements keep going up 5% every year, but Cubase workflows stay flat. So after 10 years, I’m starting to feel that ‘gap’.

And there’s simply no hardware I can throw at this kind of problem. As I wrote, Cubase is ‘fast’ enough. It’s just not -fast- enough, if you take my meaning. I’m having the nagging feeling that I did better work in SX4 with far smaller sample libs and far lower res plug-ins. Perhaps this is the digital version of guys like Jack White who are fed up with too much tech. Maybe the problem is too much of the wrong tech. Or maybe my discomfort is Cubase’s way of telling me I’m gettin’ too old for this gig. :smiley:

One last thing and then I promise I’m done. :smiley: The maddening thing for me… I rant… then take a few years off… is that this is what I call the ‘slot machine’ problem: They always get -so- close that I keep thinking ‘next time! It’s gotta pay off next time if I just put in another quarter!’ The things that -really- would help me are NOT huge deals. I really don’t need a whole new ‘window system’. Or a ‘plug-in system’. Or any vast new initiative. They’d be -nice- but that’s -not- the end of the world. I just need the Window On Top bug fixed. I just need the Sends pane to have both the rack -and- the panning together—like it used to be! I just need the Presets and MediaBay to be easier. I need a key command to get to the Info Line. I need a Lock Locators command. I need to be able to split an event inside an editor. I need the range tool to be tweaked a bit. I’d like to be able to chain LE presets together. -Small- things. Cubase already does enough stuff to last me a lifetime. It’s those -little- things that are the holdup.

—JC

A DAW, as much as custom-tailored to our needs could be, would not solve the issues you mentioned. Unless it also came with the mother of all libraries, one that handily bests everything available on the market. Then it becomes $100k… :laughing:

Then I didn’t explain myself properly. I don’t need another ‘library’. I would settle for the exact feature set Cubase has now if it’s UI followed the Windows Developers design guide.

Accelerator keys, default keys, buttons… all the stuff that one does to write a standard app that follows usability guidelines.

Usability in Software Design | Microsoft Learn.

—JC