# Big question: Longtime Cubase user thinking about moving to Studio One or Reaper, would like to hear from others who have done that.



## Headlands (Dec 12, 2019)

Hey everyone, I asked a similar question in 2019 and want to ask it now: I'm a longtime Cubase user and am considering checking out Reaper (I see that Reaper 6 just came out) or Studio One for very big scoring projects that incorporate large orchestral arrangements (including VE Pro) and probably everything else (live and MIDI) you can think of, with many time and tempo changes etc. My mixes are deep and involved/complicated routing-wise. I know Cubase super deeply. I've looked into all the options and those two are my top picks -- Logic just isn't for me, I tried it deeply a few years ago and just didn't jibe with it.

I want to hear from people who have used _both _Cubase and either Reaper, Studio One, or both, and if you feel that either/both can hold their own to Cubase for scoring. From expression maps to CC control editing to being able to randomize quantization note starts by specific amounts (I know Studio One used to not have this, not sure about now) to workflow speed/efficiency to time/tempo changes to virtual instrument handling to, well everything...I'm used to going very deep. I don't have time at the moment to dig into them on my own which is why I'm asking first here -- I'm curious. I will absolutely try one or both out deeply when I have some down time, but right now I would just like to hear from some fellow composers.

What I'm frustrated by in Cubase:

-- Poor audio engine (it sounds fine (they all do) but it's not gapless and it pales in comparison to other DAWs as far as how much I can load plugin-wise -- this is what I've personally experienced directly from using/trying other DAWs like Logic, Pro Tools, Studio One and Reaper on the same computer)
-- Very slow updates and fixes, and so many massively useful features that have been requested for many years but still aren't there.
-- Workflow is slow and dated in some ways.
-- It's clunky in the way it handles MIDI instruments, and a lot more
-- Abjectly poor customer service.
-- The GUI to me looks dated and crowded/distracting in comparison to something like Studio One

I'm simply curious about how Reaper and Studio One hold up for composers who use/have used the most recent version of them and have also used Cubase -- there's no reason for anyone here to get emotional/angry/etc. at all. And no insulting people who use other DAWs -- let's handle this like grown-ups. 

Thank you!


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## stigc56 (Dec 12, 2019)

I have been using Studio One a couple of years back, and still have a license for ver. 4
I found that the updates concentrated on another customer type than me, who also works with fairly large projects. Expression maps is still - though clunky - the best way to control a large orchestral template.
But I will not block the bandwidth, I have only used DP10, Logic and Cubase/Nuendo the last couple of years.


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## kitekrazy (Dec 12, 2019)

For me it's about licensing. I can slap Reaper on every machine I own. It's resource efficient. I don't like to pay for a .5 update which is exclusive to Cubase.


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## KallumS (Dec 12, 2019)

I'm in the process of switching from Cubase Pro 10 to Reaper - so far I'm enjoying the CPU efficiency and size of the program. I already have all of the plugins I need so I don't miss stock ones. The actions list seems to give Reaper immense power, such as expression maps via Reaticulate.

Not sure what I'm going to miss from Cubase yet. Haven't tried the video player in Reaper yet, I thought Cubase's sucked because I could only get it to work with MOV files.

I tried Studio One for months and would absolutely not recommend it for scoring or Orchestral work. I found the program buggy and couldn't handle large track counts. On the plus side it has one of the best GUIs imo and innovative features such as the pattern editor and the transposing tools. I see Studio One as being a DAW for electronic music.


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## Noeticus (Dec 12, 2019)

I love Presonus Studio One 4.6 right now.


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## Headlands (Dec 12, 2019)

Noeticus said:


> I love Presonus Studio One 4.6 right now.



How to you compare it for advanced and detailed MIDI/score work?


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## Headlands (Dec 12, 2019)

KallumS said:


> I'm in the process of switching from Cubase Pro 10 to Reaper - so far I'm enjoying the CPU efficiency and size of the program. I already have all of the plugins I need so I don't miss stock ones. The actions list seems to give Reaper immense power, such as expression maps via Reaticulate.
> 
> Not sure what I'm going to miss from Cubase yet. Haven't tried the video player in Reaper yet, I thought Cubase's sucked because I could only get it to work with MOV files.
> 
> I tried Studio One for months and would absolutely not recommend it for scoring or Orchestral work. I found the program buggy and couldn't handle large track counts. On the plus side it has one of the best GUIs imo and innovative features such as the pattern editor and the transposing tools. I see Studio One as being a DAW for electronic music.



Interesting! I hear so much about Reaper, that you can pretty do whatever you want on it if you're willing to configure it, get additional scripts, etc. Do you find it to be as well-designed for composing as you experienced on Cubase (which has a lot to improve/might never improve in some ways, but is what I'm used to)? Speed and workflow is where Studio One really appeals to me from what I've seen, so I would hope that Reaper would be fast and efficient for workflow, even if it's done differently than Studio One.


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## Headlands (Dec 12, 2019)

kitekrazy said:


> For me it's about licensing. I can slap Reaper on every machine I own. It's resource efficient. I don't like to pay for a .5 update which is exclusive to Cubase.



But do you find the editing/mixing/composing features to be as deep and efficient for you as Cubase, or even more so (I hope)?


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## Noeticus (Dec 12, 2019)

Headlands said:


> How to you compare it for advanced and detailed MIDI/score work?



I'm not an advanced user, so cannot say, but the review/tutorial videos on YouTube make me think it can do most anything these days.


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## MillsMixx (Dec 12, 2019)

I hear what you mean about some of the cons in Cubase. It's powerful for sure but 
for me personally on Windows 10 my dislikes have been things like ..

...waiting for requested features that never make it into the updates like you mentioned, plus customer service.

I don't like carrying a dongle back & forth from home to work because I always forget to take it with me. 

There's still no external editor support other than Wavelab or Steinberg (I use Sound Forge) and I'm 
not keen on the browser.

The biggest issue I'm facing right now is Kontakt and a few other VSTs looking so small on my 4K monitors even with the HIDPI scaling enabled or not. I have it set perfectly for everything else but then Kontakt is way too small so I have to rescale and it looks bad. Thought they would have addressed this in the latest update.

I have none of these problems in Albeton.

I may be one of the few Albeton Live people on this forum, but I made the jump from Ableton to Cubase a while back and it's actually slowed down my creativity and workflow. 
I seem to be spending more time back in Ableton after the latest update to 10 and I can get really creative in Session View. All my 3rd party plugins look big & beautiful and I seem to be more productive.

I hear Studio One is pretty cool from what I've seen but I won't be taking on yet another DAW anytime soon!


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## Headlands (Dec 12, 2019)

MillsMixx said:


> I hear what you mean about some of the cons in Cubase. It's powerful for sure but
> for me personally on Windows 10 my dislikes have been things like ..
> 
> ...waiting for requested features that never make it into the updates like you mentioned, plus customer service.
> ...



That's cool -- I know Ableton and it simply won't work for the kind of work I do, but I know that plenty of people like it for their needs.

The thing I was reading about Studio One is that it's not as deep MIDI-wise as Cubase or as advanced/deep in a few other ways. But that was in 2018 and perhaps a lot has been improved.


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## jbuhler (Dec 12, 2019)

KallumS said:


> I'm in the process of switching from Cubase Pro 10 to Reaper - so far I'm enjoying the CPU efficiency and size of the program. I already have all of the plugins I need so I don't miss stock ones. The actions list seems to give Reaper immense power, such as expression maps via Reaticulate.
> 
> Not sure what I'm going to miss from Cubase yet. Haven't tried the video player in Reaper yet, I thought Cubase's sucked because I could only get it to work with MOV files.
> 
> I tried Studio One for months and would absolutely not recommend it for scoring or Orchestral work. I found the program buggy and couldn't handle large track counts. On the plus side it has one of the best GUIs imo and innovative features such as the pattern editor and the transposing tools. I see Studio One as being a DAW for electronic music.


I no longer find the track count to be a problem, though working with only being able to have one window open to piano roll is a bit of a pain. But large files do seem to be a problem so I avoid it for big pieces. Which is a shame because the scratch pad and the way it handles the arranger track would otherwise make it a natural for large complex pieces.

ETA: length of the composition causes me more problems than the number of tracks I have in use.


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## Ivan M. (Dec 13, 2019)

You might find this blog useful, there's a lot of reviews and comparisons: https://www.admiralbumblebee.com/


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## tabulius (Dec 13, 2019)

I also have been a long time Cubase user but recently have been switching between Studio One and Cubase a lot. I started to think Cubase updates became more and more irrelevant. I skipped the 9.0 and 9.5 entirely, but started trying out the 10 version again.

Studio One is great DAW for sure and frustation with Steinberg's direction I started checking the S1 again. I didn't think S1 was really that great, but with version 3.0 and up it was getting better and better. Presonus (in my opinion) seems to give more features and stuff for free with 0.1 and 0.5 updates than Steinberg. They also come up with more interesting hardware as well.

Studio One is very easy for Cubase users because there are a lot of similarities. I learned it quite fast. I just LOVE the workflow in some cases. For example when I'm finished the composition and I'm ready to start mixing, I just hit convert instrument tracks to audio. S1 bounces all the instrument parts and replaces those with audio. What is great about this, is all the channel routing, sends etc. stays the same. If I need to make changes to the whole song or just few tracks I can convert audio tracks back to midi, make the edits I need, and convert them back in audio. All the mixer settings are intact. Even if I make some audio edits - cut and move audio tracks around, those changes are reflected in the midi as well if I convert audio back to instrument tracks. This is the one big feature I miss in Cubase. Cubase seems to have a bit better CPU handling than Studio One, but I've heard that Cubase currently doesn't support CPUs higher that 6-cores 12 threads (when using Asio dropout protection), because of some stupid update of Steinberg. That is why DAWbench dropped Cubase from their test bench.

Setting up the template is a bit more work in S1 and setting the channels up is a little more work than in Cubase. But when you'll get hang of hit it starts to get faster. It is true that S1 is NOT optimized for large sessions. Cubase is great for big templates, because it stays as fast and snappy even if it has 200+ or 1000+ tracks. S1 starts to lag and lag more if instrument list grows. However I'm currently building a modular template for Studio One 4.6 following this guide. I feel this is great way to work and I can create bunch of empty Kontakt instruments with routing and sends and just drag and drop ARK1 Violins high for example into the project. Awesome stuff imo! https://www.jonathanwrightmusic.com/studio-one-instrument-presets-large-orchestral-projects/

Studio One hopefully continues to improve. I'm hoping a few more midi features, better video handling (seperate video track makes sense to me), support for EUCON. Everyone are excited about expression maps in Cubase but personally I haven't understand why they are so great. But if they are - sure why not, add those in S1 too!

In a perfect world I would get a DAW that would have the best features of Studio One and Cubase!


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## Chris Richter (Dec 13, 2019)

Also when taking a look at Reaper think about using OTR by Storyteller - I am not affiliated, just a happy user. http://otr.storyteller.im/
He has some Youtube Videos where he Shows off what OTR can do.

I am using Reaper and couldn't be happier. The Version 6 update had an CC overhaul which now work much like Automation. Lots of customization possibilities. If you have a certain demand, chances are there is a solution for that. Also subprojects are a thing. Reaper is great 
But there is a learning curve for sure.


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## Robert Kooijman (Dec 13, 2019)

Well since you asked: long time (since Atari days) Cubase user here that also switched to Studio One.

IMHO, Studio One is really amazing. So much more fun and inspiring to work with, much more pleasant GUI without distracting and inconsistent window borders, more streamlined workflow and lots, lots of really clever implemented features. Check out the terrific Youtube videos of Gregor and Marcus!

The only thing missing for me is decent articulation management. It has been one of the most requested features for years that Presonus just refuses to implement.



KallumS said:


> I see Studio One as being a DAW for electronic music.



Here I politely disagree. Working with large orchestral pieces shouldn't be a problem once you get familiar with a workflow that suites you.


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