Steinberg Support....

[Spiritworks]

And I also considered to upgrade the windows version to 64bit, but the only way doing so was to upgrade it to Windows 10 (or use a cracked windows version). W10 is great, except for one thing : you can't turn off the automatic update.

I have Cubase Pro 9.5 latest upgrade, 64 bit running on a Windows 7 computer

 

[efinque]

That being said, the gap between Cubase and Nuendo and Protools is getting thinner. Many typical composingfeatures and Midi features are also available in Nuendo and Pro Tools nowadays, while cubase also has basic 5.1 surround  functions nowadays.

I think the MIDI in Cubase just isn't suited to the demands of todays music, EDM in particular.

Other than that it's really a powerful software, just not my cup of tea.

 

[helterbelter]

I think the MIDI in Cubase just isn't suited to the demands of todays music, EDM in particular.

Other than that it's really a powerful software, just not my cup of tea.

That could well be. And that also explains why you went with Ableton .
I do know that there have been a lot of new features added since Cubase 4, particularly towards electronic music.  But it probably won't beat Ableton for EDM.  And ProTools is worse than Cubase when it comes to midi...

I have Cubase Pro 9.5 latest upgrade, 64 bit running on a Windows 7 computer

My studio computer is also W7/64 bit.  With Cubase Pro 8.5.
I  only needed the Ai versions for older computers for my bandmates so they can record their ideas at home. It wasn't the intention to spend more money than the costs of the UR22 interfaces thaat include the Ai version of Cubase.

 

[efinque]

That could well be. And that also explains why you went with Ableton .
I do know that there have been a lot of new features added since Cubase 4, particularly towards electronic music.  But it probably won't beat Ableton for EDM.  And ProTools is worse than Cubase when it comes to midi...

I didn't like the built-in compressor which was too graphical for my liking and the fact that it didn't have a sidechain, although it could be achieved with somewhat complicated send&return routing.

The per channel EQ's were very intuitive though and I kind of miss those..

But yeah, back when Pro Tools required thousands worth of hardware (the Mbox system for instance) Cubase was seen as a reasonably priced alternative for tracking stuff in the box.

EDIT : do bear in mind that this was almost 10 years ago when I was starting out... I think a lot of professional sound engineers dislike Ableton Live because of the clip view (and the timestretch algorithm which is more suited to electronic music)

 

[scott2000]

I didn't like the built-in compressor which was too graphical for my liking and the fact that it didn't have a sidechain, although it could be achieved with somewhat complicated send&return routing.

The per channel EQ's were very intuitive though and I kind of miss those..

All growing pains and those limitations had to be well over 10 years ago and not limited to Cubase back then .... It's a pretty developed software now and I can't imagine anything really having advantages feature wise over another program this day and age. Work flow and comfort with the layout seems to be the main consideration now..... I know Reason can do everything now too but you won't see me using it other than stand alone or rewired......

But yeah, back when Pro Tools required thousands worth of hardware (the Mbox system for instance) Cubase was seen as a reasonably priced alternative for tracking stuff in the box.

I think Pro Tools was geared towards "recording" studios. There was no real VST technology developed for it during the beginning. Cubase was a pioneer in this and midi and I think it opened the doors for people to have instruments and a studio in their bedroom. I don't think it was just a way to save money. Why buy into a software if there's nothing to record????

EDIT : do bear in mind that this was almost 10 years ago when I was starting out... I think a lot of professional sound engineers dislike Ableton Live because of the clip view (and the timestretch algorithm which is more suited to electronic music)

Who knows.... I've never heard anyone complain about Ableton because of it's timestretch algos...... I like Ableton but, I've just become comfortable with Cubase . I wish I could fly around as well as guys on Ableton. The layout is all right in front of you which is great.

My son is just starting some interest in production. It's funny because he sits next to a guy in high school  who's released to a couple dance labels already and does a few festivals.... and my son is an excellent piano player so they started talking. My son was playing with FL Studio for a couple of days and now he's messing with Pro Tools because it came with a free lite version with his Focusrite interface..... I told him to just try different software and go from there..... It's all the same purpose and nothing is really lacking in any software now a days.......I think his buddy is using Logic.....

Unless you're into Mastering or something, most of this software is all the same anymore imo.......

I remember when Rebirth was all that I had...... Guess it's not as bad as only having a tape player and microphone....

 

[efinque]

I think Pro Tools was geared towards "recording" studios. There was no real VST technology developed for it during the beginning. Cubase was a pioneer in this and midi and I think it opened the doors for people to have instruments and a studio in their bedroom. I don't think it was just a way to save money. Why buy into a software if there's nothing to record????

Yes the VST technology Steinberg put a lot of effort to is considered a standard these days..

Who knows.... I've never heard anyone complain about Ableton because of it's timestretch algos...... I like Ableton but, I've just become comfortable with Cubase . I wish I could fly around as well as guys on Ableton. The layout is all right in front of you which is great.

The germans are experts in engineering audio related stuff (NI, Ableton, Cubase, Celemony Melodyne etc...) I found myself chopping up drum breaks from transients in Cubase to get them in time.. the timestretch algorithms back then were very different to the ones used today (for example Ableton Live does it almost automatically) which are a lot more powerful although they're hard on the CPU (edit : when used extensively)

One reason for using Cubase was that one of my favourite drum and bass groups (the Netherland based Noisia) was using the software as well as endorsed by Steinberg..

 

[scott2000]

Black Sun Empire does some pretty cool stuff with it too...... Their mixing stages are sometimes epic...

 

[efinque]

Black Sun Empire does some pretty cool stuff with it too...... Their mixing stages are sometimes epic...

I believe they're dutch too.

But yeah, engineering and sound design-wise drum&bass is very avant-garde.

 

[Pip]

VST is a Steinberg invention! It is licensed to everyone else from them. So is ASIO!

Cubase and Nuendo have been leaders in theaudio and MIDI field for decades. Cubase was the other sequencer software when there were only two of note Notator/Logic which was CLabs and Cubase which was Karl Steinberg and Co. One got bought by Apple the other by Yamaha.

IMO the only one still leading the way and making things that are really useful for the market is Steinberg.

 

[PRR]

> or use a cracked windows version

Legal-enough copies of Win7 can be found Amazon or eBay.

Typically these are the installation DVDs plus the Authorization Code for corporate PC deployments. They ship with some PCs for corporate clients even if the system is pre-imaged at the factory. (Plain consumers don't get this but some corporations do.) They typically come on the excess market when the PCs are retired from the corporation. Technically, installation on another PC bends MS' terms of use. In fact it does not seem to be a problem.

 

[Mbira]

I think the MIDI in Cubase just isn't suited to the demands of todays music, EDM in particular.

No chance.  Cubase completely blows away Ableton in terms of it's midi capabilities.  There are lots of us "EDM guys" that use Cubase.  I use Ableton exclusively for my live sets (well over 1000 shows) and I use Cubase exclusively now for production.  I consider myself an advanced user in both DAWs.

Obviously a lot is going to come down to personal workflow, but here are just a few specific things that you can't do in Ableton that you can easily do in Cubase:

Freezing VST instrument tracks without freezing the audio plugins on the track: IE: You can't freeze an ableton track that has an external sidechain on it.  WTF?

The grid does not adjust for swing quantization.  You can only quantize the notes within clips themselves.  So you can't write new stuff in an already established swing-oh yeah-you can't even make your own swing on the fly, you have to audition the ones they have or drop an audio track to try and match it. 

No individual MIDI not expression. 

The quantizing options aren't even close.  It's insane the amount of control you have over quantization (lengths, beginning, end, overlap, iterative adjustments, etc).  It's certainly not easy to know all the things that Cubase can do with quantization, but it is a ton.

The logical editor...

You can't send external CC without using buggy third party M4L patches. 

And that's just a few midi things.  For me the number one killers in using Ableton for any serious production work:
No VST3 support
You can't batch export stems or tracks. 
There is NO REAL MIXER VIEW.  Trying to do a final mix on a project with 100-200 tracks makes me want to stab my eyes out.  You can't hide tracks or groups, etc.
And the worst thing of all-and I will say this has only been my personal experience, but it has happened on a number of occasions-when I get projects that are up over 100 tracks or so and I have to have a bunch of tracks frozen and Ableton is working hard, I have found the timing of the project to get a little lose.  It's like there gets to be some variable latency between the tracks and things start to fall apart a little bit.  It is very disconcerting. 

There are a few things that Ableton has that Cubase doesn't have that I miss in production:

The Drum rack is great!  Super fast and easy.
Cubase's drum track does not compare and is a little buggy.

The Audio Effects Racks are a great way of creating effects chains.  The parallel chains within the effects rack is awesome.  Super fast, flexible and very powerful.  it takes a long time to build similar effects in Cubase.

Clip view is a super fast way of building a track.  Obviously Clip view is the single biggest thing that Ableton has over every other DAW.  It's great and things like Clyphx make it even greater.  Without Clipview I would not be able to do my live show.

MIDI mapping of external gear is really simple with Ableton (as it should be!)  It is a travesty that Cubase makes mapping external gear so hard.

Push is awesome.  I wish Push worked with other DAWs because it is (in my opinion) hands down the best controller built.

Aside from these EDM focused things, I just have to leave two last non-EDM specific thing:
Comping is a horribly sick joke in Ableton
There is no Score editor in Ableton

Cubase is not an easy DAW to learn because it is very deep.  But I think it's a big mistake to think that it is somehow a lesser program in terms of MIDI or production.  Personally I think it has every DAW thoroughly beat in terms of MIDI and for Audio the only thing that I really know of that Pro Tools has on it is that the Cubase "track versions" is totally lame compared to "playlists". 

It's been an interesting last two years or so for me to really go as deeply into each of my DAWs as I can.  The standard internet thing to say is that "every DAW is basically the same" but once you start to really push them then that is when you start to see where each one really shines. 

 

[efinque]

And that's just a few midi things.  For me the number one killers in using Ableton for any serious production work:
No VST3 support

I haven't tried VST3.. however there are a few problems in Ableton when running 64bit-plugins.

You can't batch export stems or tracks.

Yes you can.

There is NO REAL MIXER VIEW.  Trying to do a final mix on a project with 100-200 tracks makes me want to stab my eyes out.  You can't hide tracks or groups, etc.

This is highly subjective as to what a real mixer view is.. the clip matrix does take up an awful lot of space though.

There are a few things that Ableton has that Cubase doesn't have that I miss in production:

The Drum rack is great!  Super fast and easy.

Yes it's easy and lightweight.. I use individual Drum Racks for single drum sounds.

The Audio Effects Racks are a great way of creating effects chains.  The parallel chains within the effects rack is awesome.  Super fast, flexible and very powerful.  it takes a long time to build similar effects in Cubase.

I remember that Steinberg advertised a feature in Cubase where a plugin would affect a sound only if there was a signal present.. I though it to be advanced but how does it work with a gate? (I rarely use gates and didn't really give it a thought back then..)

Clip view is a super fast way of building a track.  Obviously Clip view is the single biggest thing that Ableton has over every other DAW.  It's great and things like Clyphx make it even greater.  Without Clipview I would not be able to do my live show.

I use Ableton for live stuff and DJ sets too.. however I've been having a lot of performance issues lately so I use Traktor mainly (and until I grow an extra pair of hands as my current setup is an APC40, a Mackie D.4, Novation Mininova, Akai Rhythm Wolf and a saxophone; with a MBP running Ableton Live..)

MIDI mapping of external gear is really simple with Ableton (as it should be!)  It is a travesty that Cubase makes mapping external gear so hard.

I think anything related to MIDI mapping devices requires a bit of skill and patience.

Push is awesome.  I wish Push worked with other DAWs because it is (in my opinion) hands down the best controller built.

I've yet to try Push.. it's been getting rave reviews. Although a bit overpriced imo, I still stick with my APC40.

Aside from these EDM focused things, I just have to leave two last non-EDM specific thing:
Comping is a horribly sick joke in Ableton
There is no Score editor in Ableton

Yes I remember the score editor which is something I would've needed a year or two ago for a polytechnic/music academy application process.

But I think Cubase is still more of an audio editor.. the clip editor was really nice, in Ableton it's a bit dodgy but it works.

 

[helterbelter]

Nice info ! Keep it going. 

btw,  the VST3's in Cubase are turned off when there no soundfile present to process at that time. It's not that the plugins are turned off when you recorded silence or when a gate cuts the sound off prior to other VST3s.

But, to add some fuel on the discussion, any people that fancy Reaper ? Mbira, have you tried this ?  A few friends of mine say it's fantastic, but, they never got into Cubase that deep, so... I'm very curious to know what you think of it.

 

[efinque]

Nice info ! Keep it going. 

btw,  the VST3's in Cubase are turned off when there no soundfile present to process at that time. It's not that the plugins are turned off when you recorded silence or when a gate cuts the sound off prior to other VST3s.

But, to add some fuel on the discussion, any people that fancy Reaper ? Mbira, have you tried this ?  A few friends of mine say it's fantastic, but, they never got into Cubase that deep, so... I'm very curious to know what you think of it.

I've been using Harrison Mixbus lately for mixing and mastering.. great set of plugins and a powerful audio engine although the Harrison plugins are very expensive.

The new VST instruments in Cubase were good.. I thought the ones prior to the new instruments such as Prologue were crap (except for some of the Halion presets such as the grand piano)

 

[Mbira]

I only tried Reaper a few times, but I do have some friends that I really trust that have ditched every other DAW (including Cubase) for it.  I've heard people rave about the routing flexibility but I have never done a serious project on it to really see what makes it different.  But I can't say that I have heard much about the midi functionality with Reaper (good or bad).

In any case, if you are really in to MIDI, I really recommend giving Cubase a closer look because there really is nothing that lets you handle MIDI as deeply as Cubase that I have seen.  It does things I didn't even know were possible with MIDI: for example-playing a full chord and bending only a single note in the chord (VST3 and midi note expression required), or taking a long string of 16th notes with the same velocity and just quickly creating a macro where the first 16th note of every bar will be velocity of 20 and the 2nd and 4th will be 60 and the 3rd will be 80 (a nice closed highhat pattern). Stuff like that is really fast. 

In any case, I wish you all the best in making great music!