An open plea to Steinberg

noiseboyuk · December 9, 2015, 9:08am

peakae:

I find it kind of amusing to read, not only in this thread, the impossible demands the users set.
We want bug fixes, workflow enhancement, and new features that are better than in any other daw.
During the Cubase 4-5-6 cycle people would complain endlessly about the toy mixer.
Cubase 7 arrives, and people complain about the new mixer that no one asked for, and that the arranger does not have the right look.
Cubase 8 arrives and people complain about new stuff, we want workflow enhancement.
Cubase 8.5 arrives that primarily has workflow enhancement, and people complain about missing bug fixes, and to many shiny new stuff. ???

And hey I’m not better than anybody else, it’s only human to be carried away when there is something you feel passionate about.
But where is the realism.
Steinberg is a tiny company, even though they are owned by Yamaha that makes little difference when it comes to the actual coding of their products. How are they to satisfy all those contradicting demands, and still make a living ?
IMHO they do a great job balancing the needs of their costumers, all things considered.

I have a lot of sympathy for this. It’s undeniable that as a community of users, people are always clamouring for different things, complaining about whatever has just been changed etc. And of course it’s Steinberg’s job to push through new changes that are ultimately better, and also field and prioritise the vast number of requests and fixes.

But that really is exactly what this thread is about. Do we keep on rolling down the tracks on this runaway train, or do we try and have a period of consolidation? Take the new mixer in 7. From day one I personally thought it was an improvement conceptually, but it needed some time to get to where it is now (still not perfect, I’m not a fan of the new sends / insert display which I can no longer read or understand is everything now says “drr…rb1” or something equally incomprehensible). But of course at this stage I don’t want them to throw it all out and start again or far worse bring back the old one (which, now that the new mixer has matured, everyone seems to have forgotten about), I want them to keep improving it.

And that goes for the whole DAW. Disabled tracks - with each passing day people are realising what a revolutionary concept that is and how it can completely change how we work. But since introduced, it is still way too buggy which really precludes its general use. In practice, that means that the revolution it should have ushered in is greatly stunted. They’ve had the Big Idea (GREAT!), implemented it, and left it hanging. Fix the bugs and improve the workflow (eg just clicking on a disabled track will enable it as a background task as an option) and suddenly it moves from a niche feature to something everyone can easily embrace.

It’s easy to look at the past, shrug and say “it has always been thus”. And of course it has, there’s nothing new in any of this. The issue really is that with every release, it gets more acute - as the program gets bigger and bigger with more and more bolted on to it, the situation keeps getting worse. At some point, one feels, someone has to call “enough”, and take more time and resources than is normally allocated simply to managing all the current issues. The status quo needs to be re-evaluated.