The Down Side of Cubase

[nowaysj]

Hey cubase veterans,

what are the down sides to cubase? What's it's problems, limitations, flaws, ****** workflow workarounds, whatevers.

Thinking of trying it out. I love flstudio, but no auto plugin delay compensation, and its getting to be a deal breaker, casting about for alternatives. Interested in the base.

[hurlingdervish]

you cant copy automation with song chunks from what I have heard.....deal breaker right there for me

[nowaysj]

Oh, that blows. I love automation in fl. Itz good, and fucking a getting better. Best of all the softs I've tried.

[Sinus Sawtooth]

Oh, that blows. I love automation in fl. Itz good, and fucking a getting better. Best of all the softs I've tried.

This thread is now officially hijacked by the FruityLoops crowd.

[the dub lemon]

I use cubase 5 extensively and only have 3 thinks which I'd mention as downside.

1) Lack of ability ability to adjust the pitch of audio evens with out it apply a pitch shift algorithm, can only be done as an offline process.

2) Can't drag samples from mediabay to vsts with drag & drop capability (e.g drag a sample from media bay to kontakt).

3) Timestretch could be better.

Love everything else about it, audio editing is amazing, midi functionality is vast, automation is great (could be improved but I'm not complaining). Cubase is complete and innovative imho.

In the end it's down to you though, if it's not the right tool for you you simply won't get on with it...for me I wouldn't use anything else.

[decklyn]

I use cubase 5 extensively and only have 3 thinks which I'd mention as downside.

1) Lack of ability ability to adjust the pitch of audio evens with out it apply a pitch shift algorithm, can only be done as an offline process.

2) Can't drag samples from mediabay to vsts with drag & drop capability (e.g drag a sample from media bay to kontakt).

3) Timestretch could be better.

Love everything else about it, audio editing is amazing, midi functionality is vast, automation is great (could be improved but I'm not complaining). Cubase is complete and innovative imho.

In the end it's down to you though, if it's not the right tool for you you simply won't get on with it...for me I wouldn't use anything else.

Hello,

You can copy automation.
There are multiple time stretching algorythms - right click audio and click process - there are two main algorhyms with different quality settings for different types of sounds like in live. Agreed though the default algorhytm applied when you use the handles is all choppy. I like the effect though and intentionally use it.
The real down sides for me are in the stereo channel versions (ie the ones that don't have surround) you can't have stereo sidechaining with many compressors. Check out sidekick v3 or v4 to remedy this though.
At least in cubase3.
It's also intimidating for some people.
There are a limited number of insert and send channels.
You can't change the order of send channels like you can in logic.
It's a great Daw though all in all. Great flow easy to use. My personal fav.

[gravity]

cubase is without a doubt the best sequencer imo

im an ex fl addict, and for my latest track i've pretty much tried to phase out FL (only used it for the beat really) and just realized how quick the workflow of cubase really is. im still on v2 but the more i use it the more i love it. having tried live, sonar, fl, reason and pro-tools, cubase is still my fave. there are things the others do a bit better, but all in all cubase is the winner.

i'd say dont limit yourself to one sequencer though, if theres something you prefer about another, dont stop using it alltogether. you can rewire or even just export stuff if you like.

[nowaysj]

My only experience with rewiring is rewiring reason into fl, and that was none too fun. I don't know if that's how that sort of thing usually goes down?

I know that fl also comes in a vst, so you can use it as an instrument right there in another daw. Have never really tried this out though. I am a monogamist (serial). For a daw, I like to use one tool, and just learn it until its near transparent.

I love fl because it is fast. I can really get around in there and do what I want very quickly. But two things I'm coming to understand that I need is sample accurate editing of audio on the playlist and automatic plugin delay compensation. I'd also really like to folder up tracks and sections to be able to visually condense tracks for arrangement.

One thing that concerns me in Cubase, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you can't use multiple output vst's in instrument tracks? I tend to use drum machines and samplers with multi outs. Do you have to use midi tracks for each output of the multi output device? Like if I'm using a drum machine with 8 stereo outs, do I need 8 tracks just to sequence the beat?

In fl, you simply program midi in one track, and assign the outs of the drum machine to mixer channels. It really couldn't be any easier.

[my_fickle_eye]

My only experience with rewiring is rewiring reason into fl, and that was none too fun. I don't know if that's how that sort of thing usually goes down?

I know that fl also comes in a vst, so you can use it as an instrument right there in another daw. Have never really tried this out though. I am a monogamist (serial). For a daw, I like to use one tool, and just learn it until its near transparent.

I love fl because it is fast. I can really get around in there and do what I want very quickly. But two things I'm coming to understand that I need is sample accurate editing of audio on the playlist and automatic plugin delay compensation. I'd also really like to folder up tracks and sections to be able to visually condense tracks for arrangement.

One thing that concerns me in Cubase, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you can't use multiple output vst's in instrument tracks? I tend to use drum machines and samplers with multi outs. Do you have to use midi tracks for each output of the multi output device? Like if I'm using a drum machine with 8 stereo outs, do I need 8 tracks just to sequence the beat?

In fl, you simply program midi in one track, and assign the outs of the drum machine to mixer channels. It really couldn't be any easier.

Depends on the routing of the VST i guess, but with Kontakt you can send different instruments within kontakts rack to different aux channels within the vst. So yeah you can edit each output separate output from one vst instrument. Then you can use loads of effects and automate it to fuck!

I dont find cubase automation limiting at all, you can automate 90% of vst instrument parameters (adsr cutoff etc) as well as midi parameters and effects. You CAN copy and paste, you can copy and paste multiple tracks of whole sections with all the automation intact. Put multiple instruments through one output to effect a whole rhythm section etc. I'm not sure about the folder thing as i have SX3 with that you can stick a ruler track in there? helps separate the parts and you can colour code your tracks

[cloak and dagger]

Haha two of the things mentioned in this thread are two of the things I've asked about on here previously.

Yeah the automation kind of sucks in that automation follows audio events but not midi events. So you have to move automations manually when you move midi events, and I always forget to, and then it becomes a pain in the ass.

And instrument tracks can only have one stereo channel, so for samplers and drum machines, you still need to use the instrument rack.

I have no idea why this is, both of these issues are pretty retarded. Other than that, I have to say I dig it though.

[nowaysj]

wait a minute - lets say I have a vst with two stereo outputs, and I want to process each one separately in it's own mixer channel. Can I do that in cubase?

[grooki]

automatic plugin delay compensation.

what the hell is this?

[cloak and dagger]

wait a minute - lets say I have a vst with two stereo outputs, and I want to process each one separately in it's own mixer channel. Can I do that in cubase?

Yeah, that's no problem. Since Cubase 4, there are two ways to load a VST instrument: 1) Add it to the virtual instrument rack. All of the outputs will be assigned to their own mixer channel, and then you just have to create a MIDI track for the instrument. 2) Create an "Instrument Track," where all automation, etc is contained within one track in the sequencer. However, Instrument Tracks can only have one stereo output...so they're ideal for a synth but don't work for something like Battery or Kontakt. So for those, you would use the virtual instrument rack.

[nowaysj]

Think I got it! Thanks! So in the vi rack, you would have a lane of a midi track, and a lane of an instrument track for the automation?

Grooki, you're a fl user right? Think I remember that.

One of Fl's major downfalls is that it doesn't do auto plugin delay compensation. This is a big issue! If you have a bass and its routed to two mixer channels for separate processing, and one channel has a plugin that introduces delay (I'd say a majority of pluggins introduce delay, and many powerful plugins introduce substantial amounts of delay, some don't introduce any [like very little a sample or so]), and then you mix the two channels back together, one of the channels will be delayed by the slower plugin. If you have a transient, it will be blurred out in time. Bass can go out of phase. It's just dirty. Fruity can do plugin delay compensation, but its not automatic, and from what I can tell, it is laborious. You basically... wait, I'm not even gonna write how to do it. I don't even want to think about it. Hit the f1 when you've got the mixer up and you can read about it.

Here is a picture of non automatic plugin delay in action. The first hit is a snare, split and routed to two channels then summed. The second hit(s) are with a latency inducing plugin on one of the channels. Notice how the whole hit is late, the peak is vastly different because the transients of the second snare come later than the transients of the first snare.

[cloak and dagger]

Yeah it makes a track that folds out into at least two sub-tracks- one is the parameters of the instrument plugin, the others are the outputs. You then create a MIDI track (or two, or three) and assign it to that instrument. This is why automations don't follow MIDI events, apparently. If you create an instrument track, what would normally be three tracks (automation, output, and MIDI) are all combined as one track, which is much, much easier...but you can't use it with multi-out VSTs unless you want to sacrifice all of the other outputs. What would be ideal is if you could create an instrument track assigned to a specific output instead of a specific instrument, but they're dragging their feet with improving that for one reason or another.


Also, I could be wrong, but there MIGHT be a way to have automation follow MIDI events in Cubase 5...but I'm not positive on that one, as I don't know anyone that owns it. Here's what it says on the Cubase website, but it might only apply to MIDI automations, not track automations:

Automating the MIDI area of productions has also been made far more transparent. Rule-based consolidation of part-based MIDI controller data and track-based automation data routed to the same target eliminates conflicts and fuses the two systems together.

Now it’s easy to use both MIDI Continuous Controller and MIDI automation (track) data on the same target and handle layered controller/automation data in a consistent way. This best-of-both-worlds approach really comes to life with the brand-new ability to view and edit MIDI track automation side by side and inline with existing MIDI controller data in the Key Editor or the Project Window.

[nowaysj]

Thanks man, and thanks everyone, appreciate the info.

Holy crap do I wanna stop dealing with daw hassles and just make some music. Tiered of dealing with this shit.

[nowaysj]

2) Can't drag samples from mediabay to vsts with drag & drop capability (e.g drag a sample from media bay to kontakt).

Ouch. Even in 5? There is preview in the media bay though, right? So you've got to find the sample through the bay, then find it again through the os? Blagghh!

Fl and Battery had this problem in 8 and they JUST FIXED it like a week and a half ago in 9...

Out of the frying pan into the fire

[cloak and dagger]

Haha I know how you feel, I've recently moved from Reason to Cubase and it'll take me ages to work out something really simple.

To be fair though, the Mediabay is a function of Cubase that you don't really have to use. You can either use the browser in Kontakt/Battery, drag and drop from Windows Explorer, or do what I do, which is click on "Import Audio File," which has a preview, find the sample I want, and then just drag-and-drop it from that window.

[deadly_habit]

version 5 fixed my gripes
close to flawless imo, but logic has plugin advantage atm

[resktwo]

any downside that will be mentioned is just a matter of not knowing how to do it.. Since cubase 4 it has no flaws if your willing to get to the bottom of things..