Just my opinion...

suntower · September 17, 2015, 11:32pm

Logic and Ableton have had -plenty- of stability complaints at various points.
All DAWs experience feature bloat. If Ableton has less of that, it’s because their target audience is much more focused. IOW: Cubase tries to be all things to all people. That’s challenging for -any- product.

Look, as I wrote NO ONE complains more about Cubase than me. I write for a living. MIDI orchestrations. Notation. I can’t STAND all the focus on ‘MixConsole’ and audio over recent years at the expense of longstanding issues. And I can’t stand all the doodads like ‘Chord whatever’. And I need another softsynth or guitar ampsim like I need a hole in the head. And Score has been barely usable for -years-. And VST Expression is basically in a coma. And don’t get me started on all the UI weirdness. Those issues -matter- to me.

Guess what? I AM THE MINORITY! Apparently? All those doodads that you (and I) decry? The vast majority of people seem to LIKE THEM! Otherwise, I -assume- that SB wouldn’t keep screwing with 'em. IOW: they’re doing what vox populi desire. I assume SB aren’t stupidly marketing the wrong things. People seem to -want- ‘Chord Tracks’. Why, I have no idea, but they must.

VERY FEW PEOPLE ACTUALLY COMPLAIN ANYMORE. Very few. It’s the same old farts. I can write 1,000 angry posts about ‘Chord Tracks’, but who gives a poopies? The average Cubase user seems to eat that stuff up with a soup ladle.

What can ya do?

My feeling is that there is a ‘silent majority’ of Cubase users who feel as you and I do, but never complain. They hate whiners (like me) and have better things to do with their time. So SB rarely hears the big picture.

The only advice I can give -anyone- here if you don’t like Cubase: Write them a letter. Not a forum post. A real letter. My guess is that almost NO ONE ever does. So they’ll just keep making more and more ‘Groove Whatevers’ and -not- address the core issues that a lot of us care about.

—JC

j0hnglist:

suntower:

There isn’t anyone who has used Cubase to do anything significant who hasn’t had a ‘Wrath Of Khan’ moment… Kirk looks heavenward, arms raised and screams his ultimate contempt, impotence and frustration.

OTOH, a lot of yer post is simply incorrect… it’s coloured by yer frustration. And I’m only telling ya that to give you hope. If I thought you were correct? I’d say ‘pack it in!’. But have hope.

Cubase -has- gone through some -serious- bouts of instability, but one of the MAJOR improvements over the past decade… in fact -the- major one, IMO, is -stability-. It has gotten progressively -more- stable and reliable with each version since SX4. Prior to that? You had to be insane to use 0.0 for real work.

NO ONE complains more about Cubase than moi. My complaints are largely that the company stopped communicating with its customers about the same time it got serious about that stability. But that’s another story.

It’s hard to do, but the thing to do is take a deep breath and go into detective mode as others have said. So the only point of -my- post is this:

CUBASE IS EXTREMELY RELIABLE IF YOU ARE WILLING TO DO WHAT IS NECESSARY.

You have to figure out a reliable configuration… including plugs, other programs, etc. And when you find it? LEAVE IT!

If you want Cubase to be trouble-free, you have to be willing to accept that your machine is a single-purpose device and be absolutely loath to upgrade or change ANYTHING. OS, plugs, hardware. And you should limit yourself to a small number of vendors you know and stay away from trying every goofy plug/app that you read about in the latest fanzine.

And above all? NEVER, EVER CHANGE MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME!

One other thing… When you get a new version of Cubase, if you import a CPR from a prior version, use Backup to save it in a new folder as a brand new CPR. For -whatever- reason, Cubase always seems to far more stable on ‘fresh’ CPRs, than CPRs imported from prior versions. Doing a Backup/Save to the new version seems to get round this.

Finally, you have a laptop. People with laptops want flexibility. That’s tough. If you want Cubase to be reliable? You have to not install other ‘apps’ or use yer machine for homework or photoshop or torrents or instagram or -whatever-. All the things that people with laptops -want- to do. That’s why people buy laptops after all! But they will eventually drive you nuts. -Something- will get changed.

YMMV.

why isn’t this necessary in Logic or Ableton then? Look it says a LOT about the program when i still stick with Cubase. But the stability for some us is absolutely atrocious. And I agree with OP that I would rather have a stable program than one that keeps adding things to it that we already have with 3rd party VSTs