An open plea to Steinberg

  1. Some sort of communication about bug/issue fixing schedule would be very good.

I don’t know to what extent it would be practically, it probably wouldn’t include everything for practical reasons, but to a certain degree about when at least the more important things are scheduled to be fixed, and when the patches are planned to be released (preliminary).

  1. Interesting, can be very good, since it’s difficult to get an overview in the current Feature Request forum with thousands of threads…

  2. Increased communication from Steinberg on the forum would be very welcome. If it comes from the developer team it should be from the manager of the team, not the developers because they should spend their time with the programming, not with the forum… Practically the development team could release information to the forum moderators, since they are following the forum anyway. We don’t want to increase the workload, just that Steinberg could be more open to communicate and inform on the forum.

+1 to OP.

Basically there should be a rebalance between feature development and maintenance/bug fixing.

We must realize that maintenance must take the time, cost and resources it needs. A bit less time and resources spent on shiny new features, means well needed more time and resources spent on maintenance and fixing bugs and issues.

While new features are needed to sell new updates, and there are always room and need for some new stuff to add, Cubase is probably already the most feature rich DAW in the world. What’s really needed now is to get rid of that big backlog of unfixed old and new bugs and issues.

A high quality Pro software is not only strong feature wise, but is also strong regarding stability, reliability and without huge numbers of bugs and issues.

To have that, enough resources (time and man hours) need to be plowed into it. And since resources are limited, that means a bit less resources must be spent on developing new features. And that’s the price the customers will need to pay for this. The major updates will need to be a bit less extensive. That will free up some resources well needed for adding to the maintenance part of the work.

Also, there could be a focus for next version on the less resource demanding feature requests, smaller things like workflow enhancements asked for, and refine what’s already there, rather than many big new additions. Maybe unlock some things from Nuendo (e.g. AAF and Edit Mode)

It would be good if next release was delayed for some months to catch up with maintenance, but most likely the owner Yamaha is requiring the annual releases for financial reasons. Yes, there’s a business reality.

So ok, just rebalancing a bit to transfer some resources into maintenance, with the price of making the major updates a bit less extensive, would improve the situation. Fix as many bugs and issues in 8.5 as reasonably possible, with the cost of having version 9 a bit slimmer, and then do the same and clean out the rest of them in the cycle of version 9.

I do not think there is a reason to worry about that this would mean decreased sales. The latest major updates have been really major, and I use to wonder: how the heck did the programmers manage to put all that in? They must have very strong coffee at the Steinberg office! :wink:

Feature wise Cubase is already incredibly impressive. So a good update doesn’t need to be massive feature wise, just adequate. But that bug list needs to be polished off to have Cubase really strong. And that would, in the end, actually increase sales.

So make it strong. Polish it. Make it shine. Make it Pro.

All best,

As much as people don’t want to believe it this whole thing is almost democratic. There have been hundreds of these threads started over all the years and all the different forums, and the only ones that get noticed are the ones where the community bands together (somewhat) and gets noticed. This is a very popular and very highly rated thread so it is likely to stay at the top with all those nice looking stars under it, so a new users or prospective customer comes in to see what he/she’s getting into, sees this topic, gets scared and Steinberg loses a sale. That’s why it’s getting a positive response from Steinberg.

I’m not saying Steinberg doesn’t care about fixings bugs, I’m convinced it’'s a very high priority, as is creating a top quality piece of software (which Cubase is), but when many of the issues that people have are largely ignored by the community as a whole, or the users (that’s us :wink: ) spend a lot of time arguing amongst themselves (which happens), the developer may not have the clearest picture of what’s a truly big important workflow issue vs what’s just a bunch of nitpicky complaining.

Also I’m very curious as to how many (if any) of these bugs are permanent. I mean there’s no telling how old some of the code in Cubase is, and I very much doubt that it’s been rewritten from the ground up any time recently. Some problems might just be there due to limitations of older features that are being carried over. A full scale rebuild of such a massive piece of software might not be financially possible via upgrade pricing. Maybe someday Steinberg will hold a poll to ask users if they’re willing to pay full price for a completely brand new Cubase built 100% to modern spec. Or they could just purchase C_ockos (you can’t say c * c k on this forum… so great job C_ockos for having the stupidest company name) and make them design a new Cubase that takes up 200mb on disk and is blazing fast. (consider that a full Reaper install is less than 60mb and it’s probably one of the fastest bits of software you’ll ever use)

Anyway, Steinberg is a business and Cubase is a very mature, very massive software package. It’s never going to compete with newer DAWs in terms of performance and footprint because it has 25+ years of features built in. Don’t get me wrong I would love a Cubase version that ran efficiently, had a properly working GUI, loaded quickly and had features that worked as advertised, but even as it is now I still wouldn’t use any other DAW if given the choice. Workflow is king, and no other DAW can touch Cubase in that department (I say that knowing full well it’s because I am used to it and I can easily get this used to another DAW within a few weeks of daily use…).

As a reasponsible software manager i think that the discussed facts are a matter of how the maintenance model is build by steinberg. We get minor patches for free and dont pay for these patches - bug fixes. But the company has to earn money in case to pay their stuff. For that reason they are forced to sell bigger patches which they enrich with a bit functionality.
Another way would be a software maintenance which finances the bug fixing and the support. So the question is: would you pay a maintenace fee i.e. 50 bugs the year for software maintenance. Then only functional enhancements would be offered as new versions.

Agreed. Though, I was thinking they could take all the excellent work they’ve done with Sequel (all clean, fresh code) and put a programme in place to build that out… Maybe sandbox support for VST2.x plugs/VI’s; add good, clean video handling capability, add the notation stuff, increase automation features, external hardware, device control, and on and on…

A lot of what is there is great and clean and light already (smart tool editing, window handling, efficiency of workflow, etc…)

Hello all,

Bellow you can find the detailed reply that we promised:

Best regards,
GN

The answer is NO. Walking down this road vendors will intentionally leave bugs in the software to get extra money for the same cookie.

Thank you Guillermo, sounds like a plan. Are you making up a longlist from the suggestions and bug threads, this thread or all over? I’m guessing a lot of us will want to be sure that our primary concerns make it to the consideration stage.

Thanks again, really appreciate the effort you guys are making here.

Yep!

All we can do really is wait and see and keep up the pressure a little… let’s see eh!

spot on Kotsam…and this is why we see the recent statement from Guillermo. Basically forced to make a statement from the public outcry. If this thread was not garnering the attention it has been then im sure $teinberg would still be sleeping at the wheel and it would be “business as usual”…

congrats Guillermo. now please read all the bugs and workflow problems and unfinished features that are listed over and over and over and do something about it once and for all…would be most impressive.

Cheers,
Blackout

WELL PUT! I actually tried Cubase 8 on Win 7 64bit and decided to stick with Cubase 4.5.2. Too many bugs. I actually would’ve purchased Cubase 8 if it had been as reliable as Cubase 4. So yes, PLEASE no new features, and PLEASE make the software as reliable and fast as a light switch.

-Martin

From a capitalist business’ perspective the above makes total sense.

From the consumer it’s actually incredibly simple: We already paid for no bugs.

The money for a _fully functional_product already changed hands. That’s what everyone paid for. Nobody went to a store to face a Cubase or Nuendo box that said “Partially functional Cubendo version X.X” and paid for that. This whole reasoning that the manufacturer needs to get paid for fixing bugs is a nonsensical line of reasoning that appears to only exist in the software world (well, maybe some consumer electronics). What did VW do when their car didn’t perform as advertised? Did they go to the consumers and say: “Well, we’re sorry about this, but we’re listening to your concerns. Now, if you could just pay us some more to fix the bugs, because, well, you know, it costs money…” Is that what happened? Did the customer say “Oh, yeah, that’s reasonable. I mean, I thought I bought a car that worked the way they said it worked, but it didn’t. So it’s only fair that I pay even more to get it to work.”

Or did something else happen?

Legally, the customer is 100% in the right. The one and only reason this doesn’t end up in the courts more often is because users are complacent.

Lydiot- Comparisons to cars is is always specious. In the recent case, VW actually committed fraud by programming the OBD to say one thing when another was true in order to make things appear as if they were legal when they were not.

The reason SB does not end up in court is because there is no case to be fought. Neither SB nor any other software company promise that software will be bug free.

You pretend you are being censored, and that “the corporation shall not be criticized” when there are a multitude of posts doing just that.

SB is not the government, and your politicized slogans are simply logical errors in your programming that I wish you would correct :wink:

And of course, I love and hate Cubendo as much as the next guy.

Do you promise to have functioning VCAs after having features tested in world-class studios?

At the very best - if we’re being honest and generous - you’re making an argument from a purely legal perspective, completely void of morality. In other words, you’re essentially saying that because you didn’t claim, specifically, that the app was bug free, NO error in it warrants any legal responsibility on your end. A such you’d win in court - maybe - but you most certainly don’t come off as being honest, because we all know what you promote in advertising and online. You say you have features, features which are worthless if they don’t work, yet we pay for them. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t specifically say the software was 100% bug free. You give one impression, then reality is different. From an ethical standpoint that’s a debatable line of action.

That’s the best case scenario as far as your argument above goes. The worst case scenario is that your argument actually doesn’t hold up in court. That would be my bet.

I thought making it personal was frowned upon in this forum. Was I wrong?

And of course, I love and hate Cubendo as much as the next guy.

For real? :laughing: :laughing:

Finally decided to chime in here.

Basically the above summarizes my feelings.

First - for those non-Cubase users reading this thread: Would I recommend Cubase to them?
YES. Read on as to why . . .

Something has happened Twice in the last year that has never happened to me before in my 20 or so years with Cubase as my main DAW: I have seriously considered finding a new DAW.

Others have their Pet Peeves, I know.
For myself, when they broke Mackie Control (as indicated by my posts at the time) I thought about it.
But . . in the end I was OK with 7.5.3, and they did - after quite a while - fix it.
Then I moved to 8. The new features were GREAT. Unfortunately I soon realized PERFOMANCE was not!
I had the nasty spike issue.
That was when I REALLY started looking at other options . . but . .

Nothing out there had the features I needed!

I’m addicted to Expression Maps, the Control Room, the Visibility Pane, etc etc (I’m forgetting a million).

Luckily I found that the Graphics Acceleration Registry Edit fixed my issue.
However, I now have the same issue with 8.5 and that edit definitely does not work (makes Cubase Crash).
So I’m back on 8.0.3.

Is 8.5 broken? Hell, I don’t know.
On this forum you’ll find every combination of issue that exists:
Some could not use 8.0.3 but love 8.5. For some (like me), it’s the opposite.
There are “Bugs” I don’t have and sometimes I’ll have one nobody else does. etc etc.

What I do know is I can’t run 8.5 on a machine that runs everything else (Pro Tools, Vegas, etc) wonderfully.
Is my hardware the problem? YES! I’m sure it is. But it’s not a problem for any other program I have.

Cubase seems to be getting Finicky.
And I have no idea how to fix it. This forum, though sometimes useful, is all over the map. Support is slow and mostly useless (they know the Big stuff but can’t be expected to find some odd little conflict).

If Cubase becomes too High Maintenance I WILL find a new tool.
And I will not be on this forum complaining.

So . . for those Non-Users that are reading all this blather - keep this in mind:
Just about everybody on this thread is absolutely passionate about Cubase.
They wouldn’t be here if they were not! They would be off using a competing DAW! I know that’s where I will be if it comes to that.

So . . as Starsprinkler said:

  • Make Cubase SOLID. The Kid in me want’s New Flashy Features but the Audio Guy who wants to get work done wants Solid, Efficient performance. There are already more Features than I can keep track of. There are some “Bugs” (like saving a template with disabled Instrument Tracks) that WILL bite me sooner or later but performance is a bigger priority.

  • And maybe publish more “Official” word (as opposed to guesswork on this and other forums) on recommended OS’s, Hardware, etc. And conversely stuff to avoid?
    I already build for Cubase (building 2 new boxes now) and would definitely take your advice.

Edit: Deleted some OT Pricing and Hardware Comments.

So my vote is definitely in favor or Performance and Stability.

Hugh

Nasty addiction especially as they have never recalled correctly on re-enabling disabled tracks. A huge disappointment for anyone using expression maps with large templates when they also would like to use the disabling of tracks feature…making it useless in that situation.

Depending on the day… :wink:

Yes, I agree.

Hugh

Of course not. I don’t want to speak for the OP, but for me the point is this horrible cycle has gone to extremes. It’s gone too far especially when Steinberg wants to call it pro. What new features will be introduced in C9 but still have bugs remaining or unfinished functions from many prior versions?

GN speaks of Cubase “Creativity First” which drives us to innovate and search for new tools and continue to develop new technologies." That’s wonderful. But how about focusing on the core functions and better workflow first? I think if you want a Pro application, you had better have working MCU from the start. HughH knows exactly about this…releasing a version with non-working MCU. That happened not once, but twice in the past couple years. I’m pretty sure Steinberg knew about non-working MCU prior to it’s release, yet they decided to release it…not working.

Does mix undo not fit in with the innovative search? Wouldn’t it had been cool if Cubase had been the first with mix undo?