# Cubase 7 trial now available



## Guy Rowland (Feb 28, 2013)

http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/cubase/trial.html

Full version, works for 30 days (needs elicenser). Great that unlike the C6 trial it will work with the EuCon adapter, cos I'm very keen to see the changes between the two.

It's a large download - 5.6gb, 7gb when extracted - but it's very fast for me, about 10 mins (I do have a 100mb connection, mind).

EDIT - trialled very briefly. Horrible crackles on an existing good project. Doubled the RME buffer, no change. Went back to C6... which then broke too. Looking at the Cubase forum, there's someone with a similar issue who thinks it might be related to the eLicenser update. I ended up using System Restore, and C6 is working normally again.

Proceed with caution....


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## dannthr (Feb 28, 2013)

Thanks for the heads up, Guy!


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## kdm (Feb 28, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*

Be sure to install the latest elicenser and that may well solve your problems. FYI, the C7 installer doesn't necessarily install the latest eLc, so it pays to download and install the latest separately, after installing C7. Any updates after that should bypass their included elicenser install.


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## rayinstirling (Feb 28, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*

I have no idea what you are doing Guy but, I updated to version 7 some time ago and have had absolutely no issues with it.
Is it perfect in every way? No! But has there ever been such an app?


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 1, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*

Well Ray, I'll explain my process - I installed the C7 trial.

That's it.

As ever, it's a case of bugs affecting some systems / combinations and not others. 

KDM - interesting. I'm too cautious to try again immediately, I can't risk my existing setup falling apart again (and system restore didn't go entirely smoothly, so I don't want to rely on that). I had problems with the elicenser and my old M Audio soundcard causing CPU spikes, so I think the elicenser is a plausible place to look. Do you have a source for the info where a newer version solves this issue?


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## doubleattack (Mar 2, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*

Started yesterday the C7 trial version and could the trial license activate only with installing the previous version of e-licenser. I've got some wired messages on my mac's with other licenses too. Newest update seems to have some problems, otherwise all hosts, audio and vst instruments are working smoothly here (on W7 and Mac OSX).


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## Przemek K. (Mar 8, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*

I also tried out the Cubase 7 demo and so far it's stable here.
Though, it is more CPU hungry than Cubase 5.5.
There are some nice ideas in the new mix console concept but I think it's in an early stage. Alone the the usability problem with the sends, where you have to use 2 mouse clicks to switch between pre/post fader, whereas in Cubase 5 its only one .
Also the pre/post status is only highlighted ( if it even can be called that way ) with a little grey triangle, not so in previuus version of Cubase prior to v7.
In a big mix with lots of channels you get lost very fast because of this.
For me personally that's a big deal breaker.

Hopefully this will get resolved.


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## Scrianinoff (Mar 8, 2013)

When I upgraded to Cubase 7 some months ago, I noticed the opposite, less crackles than Cubase 6.5. However, I would advice to *switch off ASIO Guard*, which is on by default. A few times this produced crackles at even insanely high buffer settings and even crashed Cubase altogether. This was the 7.0.0 release though. Perhaps it's better now, but from what I've read it's not working magic if you host most of you're VI's in VE Pro anyway. With ASIO Guard off and running all VI's in VE Pro I don't have any crackle or crash issues, and zeros issues is less than the few issues per month that I had with Cubase 6.5.


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## DaddyO (Mar 8, 2013)

I downloaded the Cubase 7 demo a few days ago and absolutely love it compared to my current DAW, Sonar. Of course there's a learning curve, and yes, I have to decide the best way to keep it from coughing and dying when I simply load all 7 instruments from CS2 and nothing else (8 GM RAM). 

The only other thing I've got to figure out is how in the world I would actually be able to purchase it.


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## nickhmusic (Mar 9, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*

hi Guy, thanks for the review. 

Did you manage to use your existing E-Licenser, as on the email signup page it says it requires an additional e-licenser?

Thanks again


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 22, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*



nickhmusic @ Sat Mar 09 said:


> hi Guy, thanks for the review.
> 
> Did you manage to use your existing E-Licenser, as on the email signup page it says it requires an additional e-licenser?
> 
> Thanks again



First of all, a very belated to this question as I missed it - yes, existing elicensers are fine.

Yesterday I went back to the trial to take some time to fault find what was going on with my system and generally play around with it (not being mid-project is a wonderful thing). It turned out my horrible noises and glitches were all coming from Omnisphere - only in C7, C6 was fine. I fiddled with all the under the hood settings both in Omni and Cubase to no avail. I contacted tech support at Spectrasonics to see what they made of it. Predictably enough, they replied in next to no time - they noticed my dll and patch library was a version or two behind (I thought I was totally up to date!). I ran the latest updates and bingo, problem instantly eliminated. Who knows why that combination caused problems, but all I really care about is that it's fixed, so huge thanks yet again for superb tech support from Spectrasonics.

As for the rest of Cubase 7, I'm rather impressed. Lots of bugs which have been irritating me for years have been fixed - Quick Controls naming over Eucon, and that record disarming bug that made me swear violently at Cubase many times a day have been finally been eradicated. Also I noticed that in MixConsole, they truncated the track names hard, rather than "intelligently" collapse them to be incomprehensible - I was so delighted at this, I vowed to upgrade immediately. Within 3 hours I read on the Steinberg website that this feature was, in fact, a bug - about to be "fixed" in 7.0.3. Nooooooo!!!! I've put in a request to make this behaviour a preferences option - I love long track names and fill them out with all sorts of at-a-glance useful routing info, and always pack the important characters into the first few characters - readable over EuCon too. Hard truncating is much, much more preferable to me.

Many other improvements - finally I can drag and drop Quick Controls from channel to channel in the MixConsole (this is a biggie, it was impossible for any type of copying before). Even the look of it I find ok - I like that I can have inserts and sends up at once, and changing the colour scheme helps the visibility. Nice to see the signal patch to the stereo output in the channel settings window too, and I'm delighted to do away with the icons which I never remember, and replace with intelligent names like Send and Insert. Its much more user friendly imo.

TBH I've not played with any of the other features such as the chord thingy or that remote control setup thing, neither of which are likely to get much / any use. But just for basic usability and workflow, I'm definitely going to go to 7.0.2. Maybe not 7.0.3 just yet...


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## Polarity (Mar 23, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*

Could be I will download and give a try at it...
I'll see if this time they will convince me to update at last my Cubase 4.2


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## wcreed51 (Mar 23, 2013)

It's a shame that they don't seem to offer a crossgrade from other products...


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## Dan Selby (Mar 24, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*



Guy Rowland @ Sat Mar 23 said:


> As for the rest of Cubase 7, I'm rather impressed. Lots of bugs which have been irritating me for years have been fixed - Quick Controls naming over Eucon, and that record disarming bug that made me swear violently at Cubase many times a day have been finally been eradicated. Also I noticed that in MixConsole, they truncated the track names hard, rather than "intelligently" collapse them to be incomprehensible - I was so delighted at this, I vowed to upgrade immediately. Within 3 hours I read on the Steinberg website that this feature was, in fact, a bug - about to be "fixed" in 7.0.3. Nooooooo!!!! I've put in a request to make this behaviour a preferences option - I love long track names and fill them out with all sorts of at-a-glance useful routing info, and always pack the important characters into the first few characters - readable over EuCon too. Hard truncating is much, much more preferable to me.



There's an awful lot to like in Cubase 7 and 7.03 will fix some more important stuff that got lost in the transition from v6.x to v7. However, Guy: track names have been sensibly shortened for a long time (forever?) and it was one of the things they broke in C7 with hard truncating. Why aren't you using the track notepads for storing the sort of info you're describing? That's exactly what they are designed for.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 24, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*



Dan Selby @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> There's an awful lot to like in Cubase 7 and 7.03 will fix some more important stuff that got lost in the transition from v6.x to v7. However, Guy: track names have been sensibly shortened for a long time (forever?) and it was one of the things they broke in C7 with hard truncating. Why aren't you using the track notepads for storing the sort of info you're describing? That's exactly what they are designed for.



Three reasons really:

1 - The notepad isn't visible in the project window (unless you also have the tab open, but that's usually taken with something else). It's also impossible to glance at more than one track at a time in the project window, and that's useful to me.

2 - Track names over EuCon are trunctated. If the mix window's names are two, it brings the two into line, so you're not looking at two completely different things (that's more confusing than you'd imagine).

3 - I've never found shortening names works well even on relatively modest shortening, it usually results in incomprehensible results. Pro Tools is even worse than Cubase for this. I end up fiddling with the name to get write it myself in 8 characters or less, which is kinda mad given that you can have long names.

Truncating a name is simple and dependable. You fit the most important thing into the first few characters, everything else goes after. Dead simple, reliable, works.


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## jcs88 (Mar 24, 2013)

I need to buy a 20 quid dongle to trial the product? Excellent way of helping people switch...


Was excited they finally had a trial. Won't bother now!


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## Daryl (Mar 24, 2013)

jcs88 @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> I need to buy a 20 quid dongle to trial the product? Excellent way of helping people switch...
> 
> 
> Was excited they finally had a trial. Won't bother now!


Many plugin developers also require you to have a dongle to test their plugs, so it's hardly unique. However, if £20 is too much for you (actually it's £15, including VAT), guess you're out of luck.

D


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 24, 2013)

jcs88 @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> I need to buy a 20 quid dongle to trial the product? Excellent way of helping people switch...
> 
> 
> Was excited they finally had a trial. Won't bother now!



Also it's the same dongle as used by VSL - an iLok and an eLicenser are kinda inevitable sooner or later in this game...


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## Dan Selby (Mar 24, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*



Guy Rowland @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> Dan Selby @ Sun Mar 24 said:
> 
> 
> > There's an awful lot to like in Cubase 7 and 7.03 will fix some more important stuff that got lost in the transition from v6.x to v7. However, Guy: track names have been sensibly shortened for a long time (forever?) and it was one of the things they broke in C7 with hard truncating. Why aren't you using the track notepads for storing the sort of info you're describing? That's exactly what they are designed for.
> ...



I'm confused, though - you said: "Also I noticed that in MixConsole, they truncated the track names hard". But in the *mixconsole* you can display the track notepad for each track, and you can set the size so you can see all of the extended track notes at a glance. In the project window you can also see the notepad (in the inspector) for the selected track. I can see the inconsistency with the EuCon could be (mildly) annoying but isn't that a EuCon issue?

Why is it so important to you to see this additional track note routing information regularly, at a glance for multiple tracks and it has to be on the project window rather than on the mixer (which is possible). Can you give me an example? I'm not trying to be argumentative but I strongly suspect that you'll be in a minority of one in having an issue with this.


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## Jimbo 88 (Mar 24, 2013)

jcs88 @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> I need to buy a 20 quid dongle to trial the product? Excellent way of helping people switch...
> 
> 
> Was excited they finally had a trial. Won't bother now!




Yea that dongle thing is/was a PITA. I totally hated the fact I needed one.

On the upside I was forced to get one for GigaStudio and then VSL products. I spent 1/2 hour with the software and plugged it in. I have not thought about it since then. That might have been 10 years ago and 2 or 3 computers ago. I can't even remember how or why it works. I just swap it out to the next computer. I do remember that I put an "X" on the top so I know which way goes up. It does take up a USB port, but once it is in you don't worry about. (Knock On Wood!)


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## jcs88 (Mar 24, 2013)

Daryl @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> jcs88 @ Sun Mar 24 said:
> 
> 
> > I need to buy a 20 quid dongle to trial the product? Excellent way of helping people switch...
> ...



I've not come across a trial requiring a dongle yet. Is 20 quid to TRY a product too much? Yes, it is. 

I've got an iLok and so far EastWest is the only company that has things on there. I think the gaming industry has shown that the more restrictions you impose on paying customers, the more you annoy them (and for minimal protection over determined pirates)


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 24, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*



Dan Selby @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> I'm confused, though - you said: "Also I noticed that in MixConsole, they truncated the track names hard". But in the *mixconsole* you can display the track notepad for each track, and you can set the size so you can see all of the extended track notes at a glance. In the project window you can also see the notepad (in the inspector) for the selected track. I can see the inconsistency with the EuCon could be (mildly) annoying but isn't that a EuCon issue?
> 
> Why is it so important to you to see this additional track note routing information regularly, at a glance for multiple tracks and it has to be on the project window rather than on the mixer (which is possible). Can you give me an example? I'm not trying to be argumentative but I strongly suspect that you'll be in a minority of one in having an issue with this.



Well, I don't see it as a EuCon "issue" cos I think EuCon is doing it right! I see it therefore as a Cubase "issue" (though of course I realise it's by deisgn... for me it's a bad design). I just don't like supposedly-intelligently shortened names - they're horrible. I hate them in Pro Tools, I hate them in Cubase. Truncated names just work, eveything looks the same with them, you know exactly where you are.

The main think I'm using long track names for is routing info in and out of VE Pro. It's terrific to just look at the project window and at a glance see where everything is coming and going (90% of my time is spent there rather than the mixer). I appreciate you can see it if you tab to notes, but it's slower, and like I said I can't see where adjoining tracks are going for comparison (easily, anyway). It is possible now to go through the entire template and reduce all track names to 8 characters and put the other info into Notepad, and that'll look fine in the mixer. But it'll be a big step backwards in the project window.

Right now, in 7.0.2, it's working PERFECTLY. All that's needed is a checkbox in options to keep it working perfectly for any of us who prefer working in that way.


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## Dan Selby (Mar 24, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*



Guy Rowland @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> Well, I don't see it as a EuCon "issue" cos I think EuCon is doing it right! I see it therefore as a Cubase "issue" (though of course I realise it's by deisgn... for me it's a bad design). I just don't like supposedly-intelligently shortened names - they're horrible. I hate them in Pro Tools, I hate them in Cubase. Truncated names just work, eveything looks the same with them, you know exactly where you are.
> 
> The main think I'm using long track names for is routing info in and out of VE Pro. It's terrific to just look at the project window and at a glance see where everything is coming and going (90% of my time is spent there rather than the mixer). I appreciate you can see it if you tab to notes, but it's slower, and like I said I can't see where adjoining tracks are going for comparison (easily, anyway). It is possible now to go through the entire template and reduce all track names to 8 characters and put the other info into Notepad, and that'll look fine in the mixer. But it'll be a big step backwards in the project window.
> 
> Right now, in 7.0.2, it's working PERFECTLY. All that's needed is a checkbox in options to keep it working perfectly for any of us who prefer working in that way.



Hmm. I really can't see why it is important to be able to see VEPro routing info *regularly and across multiple tracks* at a glance in the project window. I'm also using a large template with nearly everything hosted in VEPro (as are lots of people on this board, I would think). Why would you need to do that?

Anyway, as I say I'm not trying to be provocative just that:

1. I'd be very surprised if it would be changed back or added as a preference any time soon. We have no way of knowing the programming resource it would take to change the codebase to make the preference possible. And if only one user cares about it...

2. Given that, EuCon notwithstanding, we must have broadly similar setups and I can't think why I would need to regularly see at a glance VEPro routing info across multiple tracks (or even for one track, actually. Ever.) then maybe there is something different about the way you are setting up your template that might be useful to unpick so it might become an unimportant issue for you too?


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## Dan Selby (Mar 24, 2013)

jcs88 @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> I've not come across a trial requiring a dongle yet. Is 20 quid to TRY a product too much? Yes, it is.
> 
> I've got an iLok and so far EastWest is the only company that has things on there. I think the gaming industry has shown that the more restrictions you impose on paying customers, the more you annoy them (and for minimal protection over determined pirates)



As Daryl said, it's under 15 quid, not 20 quid. And Cubase is a dongle protected product and always has been. You are free to not like dongles or to choose to use something else, obviously, but complaining or being surprised that the fully functional, time limited trial is dongle protected seems a bit odd. Given that they protect their product with a dongle they are hardly likely to release a fully functional trial that isn't dongle protected, are they?


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 24, 2013)

*Re: Cubase 7 trial now available (but warning!)*



Dan Selby @ Sun Mar 24 said:


> Hmm. I really can't see why it is important to be able to see VEPro routing info *regularly and across multiple tracks* at a glance in the project window. I'm also using a large template with nearly everything hosted in VEPro (as are lots of people on this board, I would think). Why would you need to do that?
> 
> Anyway, as I say I'm not trying to be provocative just that:
> 
> ...



I think we probably just work differently


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## Dan Selby (Mar 24, 2013)

Clearly.


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