An open plea to Steinberg

Hmmm…and the previously announced update was to be 8.04 on Dec, 22 :neutral_face: - which causes me to think they are quite overwhelmed, but is also a good example of how better communication could have gone a long way during this episode.

You get me wrong my friend…just British sarcasm there… I agree with you :smiley:

But at the same time If they’re genuinely overwhelmed at the moment let’s give em a bit of time and see what happens over the next few weeks or so… Christmas and new year aside of course.
And I think Vespesian makes a good pont too.

That was actually pretty well put sir;-) a good read, and I agree.

(but again, thanks for the ‘limited’ response so far from Steinberg)

I suspected that. My post was more general in nature rather than addressed specifically to you as if we disagreed… even though I quoted you…

Hmmm…

Yup!

While I appreciate the response from a “marketing director” indicating they listen to their users, I don’t think that adequately addresses the real issue that this thread appears to advance.

Initially, are we supposed to be “grateful” that Steinberg listens to its customers? If they want to stay in business, don’t they have to? I mean, seriously, they release buggy (broken?) “Pro” software and their users complain (instead of boycotting like some of us have finally begun to do). If they ignore the negative response, this propagates everywhere - GS, social media, individual artists’ websites and blogs, etc. - and Steinberg is dead in 1-2 years tops. So a “we hear you” posting from a marketing director - while calculated to be a feel good response - isn’t nearly as encouraging as would be a promise to actually fix the problem; that being their repeatedly releasing buggy software.

Incidentally, I’m inclined to address the pro versus hobbyist component to this thread. I used to be a pro - now I’m a hobbyist - because I went down a different career path. There is no question that people who use software to make a living deserve a working product, especially from a company that markets its product as “Pro.” But so do hobbyists. When I have time (which I must say is unfortunately rare these days) to devote to something I love doing - making music - I deserve the same level of honesty and technical functionality from the company that sells me my software as a pro. People that buy products, software or otherwise, have a right to receive what they are sold. There’s a term for promising one thing and delivering another - false advertising. It doesn’t matter whether the purchaser of a product is a pro user or a hobbyist - the product should work as promised.

Next, even though I have not purchased the .5 release (and won’t until Steinberg explains why we still don’t have working W10 drivers for the MR816s) They want us to be grateful to hear there will be another update next week. Everyone is glad when serious bugs get fixed promptly. But again, isn’t that missing the point? If Steinberg did proper QC on its products, why would this even be necessary. The answer is hidden in plain view. They use their customers as unpaid beta-testers. More troubling - as has been pointed out in this and many other threads - is why aren’t bugs that are more than a year old fixed yet?

Which brings me back to what I believe is the main point of this whole thread. Steinberg needs to stop adding shinny new stuff (that many of us couldn’t care less about) and just sell a product that works as advertised. Period! It seems quite obvious that releasing a paid upgrade at the end of the year - working or not - is Steinberg’s current business model. Steinberg gets to add some revenue to the books for year end close. They know that a significant number of their users will buy it, even if its full of bugs, and we (not me anymore!) keep proving them right. So they have no reason to change this business practice. It’s my opinion, for what its worth, that until enough of their users proclaim “I’m sick and tired, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” - and back it up with a boycott - or until they get hit with a class action lawsuit for false advertising, nothing is going to change.

And to that end, they’re probably would not have been an “official statement”, indirectly communicated, had this thread not existed in the first place (!). I think everyone can agree that, for whatever reason or combination of reasons, this has left kind of a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

+1

I was a bit disappointed about the lack of response from Steinberg as I was reading this thread. But now I see that they have replied. However, they need to follow up with a more detailed explanation or else that reply will be meaningless. As much as I appreciate the new features in Cubase 8.5, especially those focused on workflow, I do hope that Steinberg actually does something about the bugs. They should be priority #1 over ANYTHING else.

BTW, from this date forward, I will refrain from upgrading any longer until most issues are resolved. I’m voting with my wallet from now on.

While I agree with you, I think it’s important to keep perspective. Cubase is also the most “feature-rich” DAW. My conclusion would be it also has the most bugs because of it’s large feature set and overall flexibility. That can be good or bad depending on your use.

There are so many issues and inconsistencies and IMO it’s due to so much emphasis on new features.

It’s like a small home where over time the home owner has added rooms, torn out walls, and changed the roof. It’s a nice big home and overall functional, but you can detect the additions. Some doors are not straight. The carpet is different in each room. The paint doesn’t always match. The steep stairs aren’t quite up to code. One of the toilet leaks a bit. The basement smells musty . But unfortunately the poor homeowner can’t keep up with all these fixes because the wife is demanding a new pasta maker, Presto salad shooter, and custom espresso machine. So the homeowner pleases his wife at Christmas of course…but within a few weeks the salad shooter doesn’t work as advertised, you discover she didn’t even really want a pasta maker, and now the hot wife next door just got a newer espresso machine that makes twice as good espresso.

but within a few weeks the salad shooter doesn’t work as advertised, you discover she didn’t even really want a pasta maker, and now the hot wife next door just got a newer espresso machine that makes twice as good espresso.

:slight_smile:

+1

defenetly need more stability.i’d rather have a lot of major bug fixed than see new feature set for cubase 9

Well put. I would just add my 2 cents. We’re trapped guys - Cubase is the most sophisticated DAW on the market and for this amount of money you can get nothing better. To be fair 8.5 works fine for me probably because I have a very simple setup, of course there are very annoying old bugs here and there but they don’t stop me. And in fact we have no choice because all the rest DAWs are nothing better.

It was pretty funny to hear from the Marketing Director that he is “struggling with the current workload, preparing next week’s Cubase 8.0.35 release”. I can imagine an engineer or a programmer who struggling with the current workload because they’re involved into the bug fixing process, but Marketing Director?! :astonished: . Or Steinberg is that much small company and that bearded man is all-in-one?

+1

+1

I’ve been a Cubase user for a long, long time but usually only lurk on the forums until now.

The update/upgrade model employed here coupled with consistently buggy releases and a failure to implement follow-up fixes has finally made it more painful to keep updating than it is to stay with 7.5 or move to another DAW.

No more Steinberg updates/upgrades/products for me until significant bug fixing takes place. And I mean truly substantive good will and commitment demonstrated by resolving years-old bugs that still persist, and the de-implementation of “features” that break native OS functionality, among other things (tabs that prevent window resizing; seriously, who tested that and though it was acceptable for users to be unable to resize application windows because the hover tabs at the edges prevent it? Absolutely asinine).

Since I’ve already paid several times over for but have yet to receive the full functionality of the software, having the gall to charge me yet again for these fixes is the surest way to lose me as a customer.

As for not having anything better, it’s now less painful to deal with the inadequacies of other DAWs if they stay running while I work, don’t use massive amounts of unnecessary RAM, have lag-free and pleasant GUIs, and won’t stutter through playback on more than sufficient gear. Three of those are core functionality for any application and one is core functionality for any audio application, and for a seemingly significant number of users, Cubase now fails to meet all four.

How many users are taking part on this thread? It hardly constitutes a sizeable percentage of Cubase users. I guessing that most users don’t even visit this site. We probably represent a very, very small pressure group. If this thread becomes too unpleasant towards SB it will be locked and where will that get us?

I think that we need to be measured and patient in the criticism that we make of the present version. We all agree that 8.5 is not ideal and what we need is to be able to persuade SB to start looking at the more historical issues/bugs. Perhaps a list of 5-10 that could be worked through with each update resolving some of them?

Your correct and legit, one post since 2013, , no one can label you as a complainer. this is noticed, and anyone who has worked in a large corporation knows that seeing the marketing department have to make a statement means this is not going unnoticed on the inside, it’s not good for business, were approaching 5,000 views. I believe the course will correct.

The original post is a clear troll as the poster is totally contradicting himself, a rant.
On one hand he want’s lots of new features and the other he saying he doesn’t want more useless crap…
I didn’t really see any one good suggestion i the post that’s even relevant tbh.

However I will point out I am somewhat confused at the roll out of the 8.0 and then 8.5 versions and the confusing GUI direction it seems to have taken. I have seen a couple of really good mockups of a GOOD mixer ‘look’ here on these forums a while back. I would strongly suggest a better GUI design all around which is able to display more information more densely with minimal scrolling required in many GUI aspects including MIXER, Track Channel, Arranger View. The scaleability of the Mixer as well as the Arranger channels are still quite bad, sadly. The text and fonts seems marginally better than some of the worst ones. Racks all suffer with GUI that could look and feel way better. I am still struggling to get used to the new Windows.

At this point, I feel a bit concerned that this is 8.5, already. So next 9.0 more money… I am wondering if Steiny just needs a different strategy or not because graphically Cubase has debatedly gotten worse each version and it seems the whole concept of pushing a major version cycle.

Maybe they should focus their attention on other issues like a Store front for free and commercial plugin developers and try to maintain the VST 2.4 crowd-sourch community? After all I think Cubase+Nuendo owe a lot to all the free plugins out there. Ideally this could make money for SB by charging a small purchase to price in order to support quality legacy 3rd party stuff?

Anyhow there is so much good things in the new version that I won’t be getting to all of them any time soon…:slight_smile:

So anyways I think the real problem right now is 8.5 has some major GUI issues and still can’t get a decent looking Mixer, but it sounds good to me.

I am not happy about this paid update.

Speaking for myself, there are features I wish for, but then there are “features” that make my head shake in unbelief.

There are core function/workflow features long overdue such as mix undo. I suggest focus on DAW core functions, workflow and bugs and NOT features because most often the Steinberg released “features” I see are either replicated by 3rd parties, or just things that make me think why did they do that when they could have added a core function feature such as mix undo?

This time in C8.5 I think they did a little of both. Drum editing enhancements is way over due. Midi note/velocity insert and output routings when adding tracks and the new import tracks are very welcome.

Guys, we’re trying to untangle a fairly complicated issue here with this thread so please, stay on topic.

Everyone please go back to your studio, in my case, my new Moog voyager…RME is waiting. Good night. ! Lol

This is more like it, Voyager, great instrument, have fun with it.

Guys, we’re trying to untangle a fairly complicated issue here with this thread so please, stay on topic.

agreed.