Why did you leave Cubase?

[TheHansen01]

For example, I chopped up a Hot Pants break in GA SE5 and made a few midi patterns in the timeline that I subsequently dragged into pads in the Pattern section of GA. I saved the whole thing as a preset, which you can see is currently selected in the browser. However, when I double click that preset to load it, nothing happens.

Made another Groove Agent discovery that addresses my prior comment here.

If you create your own sounds in the DAW (and/or drag them from an audio track into Groove Agent), and want to save them in Groove Agent as a preset, you need to right-click the name of the Kit (displayed above the pads), and select "Export Kit With Samples". This will save your Groove Agent kit as a preset which includes the audio samples in the kit within that preset file.

Previously, I was saving the kit as a preset using the VST menu bar at the top of the window - this doesn't save the audio files with the kit, it merely references their location (which in my case, is this Cubase file's project folder). When I deleted the project folder, I was losing the samples.

The only part of the workflow that seems to be absent is that once you export the kit with samples, it doesn't show up in the "USER" filter of the Groove Agent Media Bay by default. You need to use the Media Bay browser to open up that preset you made, and then use the Save Preset function from the VST menu bar at the top. Only then will that preset show up in the "USER" filter in the GA Media Bay.

If anyone is aware of a smoother workflow for this that I'm missing, please let me know!

 

[Andy_P]

Made another Groove Agent discovery that addresses my prior comment here.

If you create your own sounds in the DAW (and/or drag them from an audio track into Groove Agent), and want to save them in Groove Agent as a preset, you need to right-click the name of the Kit (displayed above the pads), and select "Export Kit With Samples". This will save your Groove Agent kit as a preset which includes the audio samples in the kit within that preset file.

Previously, I was saving the kit as a preset using the VST menu bar at the top of the window - this doesn't save the audio files with the kit, it merely references their location (which in my case, is this Cubase file's project folder). When I deleted the project folder, I was losing the samples.

The only part of the workflow that seems to be absent is that once you export the kit with samples, it doesn't show up in the "USER" filter of the Groove Agent Media Bay by default. You need to use the Media Bay browser to open up that preset you made, and then use the Save Preset function from the VST menu bar at the top. Only then will that preset show up in the "USER" filter in the GA Media Bay.

If anyone is aware of a smoother workflow for this that I'm missing, please let me know!

Cubase needs a serious update for its Preset handling. It is so arcane. Track Preset system is also so convoluted. Take Live for example. Create your Drum Rack, drag to Browser/User Folder (Or anywhere) done.

 

[husker]

Where did you "hear" or read this?

After that guy a few pages back kept claiming the code base was 34 years old, I did some google research. There are several articles (and a "History of Cubase" YT video) that reference a rewrite at Cubase SX. A couple of them even claim it was "from the ground up" rewrite. YMMV....

 

[Shimoyjk]

Btw are you guys using Groove agent a lot? For sorely drum programming?
I’m new to cubase and liking it a lot but haven’t explore many feature yet!

 

[Jeremy Spencer]

After that guy a few pages back kept claiming the code base was 34 years old, I did some google research. There are several articles (and a "History of Cubase" YT video) that reference a rewrite at Cubase SX. A couple of them even claim it was "from the ground up" rewrite. YMMV....

Wasn’t SX from about 2003?

 

[vibrationisreality]

Btw, cubase IC pro app is still not worth it? if anybody using it?

Don't waste your money on IC Pro!

 

[Crossroads]

Don't waste your money on IC Pro!

Well, more nuanced take is, it does work now, it has recently been updated, but it cannot do what TouchOSC or the like can do better.

 

[T-Cup]

I can't remember exactly, but it was in a discussion about Studio One. Someone was complaining about the performance drop with a high track count, and someone else mentioned that Cubase was much better for that case because it had been rewritten from scratch. I don't have any official confirmation, though.

I think they rewrote the audio engine.

 

[Crevalation]

Another reason that I use Cubase , the fact that it is a native plugin is amazing. Replicating in other DAW does requires a lot more work:

 

[Pier]

So after 1.5 years using Cubase (I'm on 13 now) I'm still happy with it.

The improvements of the piano roll in 13 are amazing. I mean the range selector and being able to see the midi regions at the top.

There are still a couple of things bugging me though.

1) You can't send MIDI from an instrument track into insert effects of that track. For some weird reason, instrument tracks can't have MIDI sends so you need to create an additonal MIDI track.

2) You can't insert VST MIDI plugins into an instrument track. Again, you need to create an additional MIDI track for this.

3) Still no way to do branching audio paths for insert effects like the fx racks in Live or Bitwig, the splitter in Studio One, or the patcher in FLStudio. There's no solution for this. No way in Cubase to do something like this:



I know you can use plugin hosts but I've had way too many issues with those (Metaplugin, Freestyle, etc). Either the plugin is not scaling properly in a 4K monitor, or the hosted plugin doesn't receive MIDI, or the host doesn't deal with multithreading properly, etc.

Cubase and (I think) Logic are the only major DAWs that do not support this kind of audio routing.

 

[Nico Schuele]

Still no way to do branching audio paths for insert effects like the fx racks in Live or Bitwig, the splitter in Studio One, or the patcher in FLStudio. There's no solution for this. No way in Cubase to do something like this:

Not in Cubase directly but you can do something similar with BlueCat PatchWork.

 

[Pier]

Not in Cubase directly but you can do something similar with BlueCat PatchWork.

I know you can use plugin hosts but I've had way too many issues with those (Metaplugin, Freestyle, etc). Either the plugin is not scaling properly in a 4K monitor, or the hosted plugin doesn't receive MIDI, or the host doesn't deal with multithreading properly, etc.

 

[TheHansen01]

3) Still no way to do branching audio paths for insert effects like the fx racks in Live or Bitwig, the splitter in Studio One, or the patcher in FLStudio. There's no solution for this. No way in Cubase to do something like this

You can do it manually but I agree it's a pain in the a$$ by comparison. In this example, I have the yellow piano track feeding into the two blue group buses via sends (I have a delay on one and a bitcrusher on the other). Those blue buses are routed into a "combined" bus to control the total output.

If I had to say something positive about this workflow, it's that you have easy access to faders/inserts for each individual "chain", which might make mixing a bit easier (vs. needing to dig into the signal window or plugin chain).

 

[Pier]

You can do it manually but I agree it's a pain in the a$$ by comparison.

It's a pita for small use cases like this but it's just not feasable for something more complex. You'd end up with so many tracks that you wouldn't even know what you're doing.

 

[Nico5]

I think generally Cubase still optimizes for maximizing a flat single surface. The amount of stuff accessible from the separate mixer window(s) via single click is remarkable. And the bigger the screen(s), the less clicking.

So for advanced audio and MIDI mangling, we end up choosing between

• keeping things flat with myriads of tracks/channels
• nesting things with 3rd party wrappers

I'm quite surprised, that over the years, Cubase hasn't provided wrappers as part of it's included plugins. I can't help but wonder if that's a more philosophical or just a pragmatic decision.

While I have purchased several wrapper plugins, that are not free, but better than the other options I've tried (currently I like Unify for making super synths, and PatchWorks for making super FX). And of course, there's many plugin makers that have wrappers for just their own plugins.

I currently use wrappers more while designing/experimenting with deeper sound design chains. And flatten things for my Cubase projects. -- But that may still change -- I'm really on the fence about flat vs. deep.

Also: Cubase has a lot of bolt-on functionality. I think, that's the price one pays for keeping things more backwards compatible. Every time Steinberg abandons an old way of doing things (and they also do that from time to time), the anguish in the long time users community is (understandably) large.

 

[method1]

How do other DAWs compare in terms of stability?
I've lately been having a crash fest with cubase 12 & 13, taking a peek to see if there are any alternatives.

 

[Pier]

How do other DAWs compare in terms of stability?
I've lately been having a crash fest with cubase 12 & 13, taking a peek to see if there are any alternatives.

Are you on Windows?

Cubase 12 and 13 have been both stable for me on macOS. In the year I've been using Apple Silicon it has crashed a couple of times.

 

[method1]

Are you on Windows?

Cubase 12 and 13 have been both stable for me on macOS. In the year I've been using Apple Silicon it has crashed a couple of times.

Mac, not sure why but since they changed the way the MLE/PLE works (for the worse imo) I get lots of crashes when using those functions. Since the logical editor is pretty central to my workflow, I'm dealing with a lot of showstoppers unfortunately.

 

[MikeT99]

How do other DAWs compare in terms of stability?
I've lately been having a crash fest with cubase 12 & 13, taking a peek to see if there are any alternatives.

If you’re now having crashes, and you weren’t having them before, surely you can’t blame cubase. I’m on windows 10, and Nuendo 12 (and prior Nuendo 8) has been the absolutely most stable version so far, specially taking into account ara integration. I’m no Steinberg fan boy, but I do believe almost all daws are truly great, but it pays a lot to commit to one and really really get to know it, customizing it to your workflows, knowing their shortcomings and eventual bugs.

 

[method1]

If you’re now having crashes, and you weren’t having them before, surely you can’t blame cubase. I’m on windows 10, and Nuendo 12 (and prior Nuendo 8) has been the absolutely most stable version so far, specially taking into account ara integration. I’m no Steinberg fan boy, but I do believe almost all daws are truly great, but it pays a lot to commit to one and really really get to know it, customizing it to your workflows, knowing their shortcomings and eventual bugs.

My crashes seem directly related to the implementation of the logical editor that started in cubase 12, if I don't use those functions cubase behaves, but I rely a lot on the LE and have reached a point now where it's irritating enough to seek alternatives, if there are any.