Which DAW?

[WinterMute]

I'm still a Pro Tools guy, I've worked with all the others, I have Logic X and Universal Audio Luna on my system, but I've always come back to PT for big sessions.

It's built to behave the way an audio engineer expects and it does the job very well, if you're audio recording, editing and mixing, it's still streets ahead IMO.

if you're producing EDM or anything using a lot of soft-synth etc. others will be more useful.

We develop demos in Logic X, then track, edit and mix in Protools.

Edited March 16, 2021 by WinterMute

[PatrickJ]

54 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

You see, that, in itself, confuses me. 

As a Cubase user it confused me too - I saw that and always assumed max 3 VST instruments, but since I only ever apply them at track level it seems that may not be a limitation after all.  Perhaps I don't need the Artist upgrade after all. 

[PatrickJ]

51 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Ive never used rack instruments in CB. I think the idea is you set the module up, and direct you’re midi tracks to it. I think Steinberg are phasing this out as it seems pitiful that you can only use 8 of them. There doesnt seem to be any be real benefit to using them, but I’m probably missing something. 

The track method is a bit confusing at first, but doesnt have to be. Want a Piano on track one, crate the track as an instrument track with a sound module and load a piano. There’s your track. You can even layer it and still play it form one track etc. You can record midi to that track, but you can still use that module for other midi tracks (so liek a rack i guess). Because its going through a softsynth you have two sections on the left. Top one relates to all the note stuff, volume, panning etc. then underneath you’ll have the audio adjustments so you have your sends and inserts for audio FX. 

Not sure if the other DAW’s have this, but when dealing with lot of tracks its very easy to colour code them and /or add them to folders to have under one control. Also the ability to hide and un hide them, and have these views as presets for quick recall can be handy for large projects. Lots of little things that make life easier. 

Ive tried a lot of DAW’s over the years, but never really grasped them as fast as i have CB. 

Like you say, plenty of way to skin a cat (or write a classic hit). The best way is the easiest.

Sounds like we should set up a Cubase tips and tricks thread (since I'm now committed to staying with it) to share some of this wonderful knowledge you hold :).

One thing I'd really like to get better at is mixing VST drums.  I have EZ Drummer 2 and watched the YT video that shows you how to run each of the drums in a separate channels which is cool but I didn't really know what to do with it other than to have finite control over the mix levels of each part of the kit. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by PatrickJ

[PatrickJ]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Yes, Its the one that comes free with certain things, you cant even buy it. Its quite strange as Steinberg don’t sell these cheap upgrades, i got mine from G4M. Even came with a dongle. Not bad for £245. Most of the music retailers sell the upgrades. 

OK, so Andertons have the Artist upgrade from AI for £120.  That's cheaper.

In my Steinberg account I have the download option for Cubase AI 8, can I use that?  I don't seem to have a License for it

I don't seem to have a License for it though.

[dave_bass5]

Just now, PatrickJ said:

Sounds like we should set up a Cubase tips and tricks thread (since I'm not committed to staying with it) to share some of this wonderful knowledge you hold :).

One thing I'd really like to get better at is mixing VST drums.  I have EZ Drummer 2 and watched the YT video that shows you how to run each of the drums in a separate channels which is cool but I didn't really know what to do with it other than to have finite control over the mix levels of each part of the kit. 

Ha, ive only been using it properly since Dec so hardly an experienced user. I’m sure there are plenty on here though. Some of the recoil dogs ive heard are amazing, and done on less specified DAW’s.  Always happy to help of course. 

As you know CB comes with Groove agent SE. This is quite a good  way in, but can be confusing. I still don’t truly understand it but it does have a lot under the hood. .

Once you get the different instruments on separate outputs it just makes it a lot more versatile. GA has its won mixer and you can add effects within it, but having, say the Snare on a separate output means you can pile on the FX, automation etc, a lot easier. Ive used this feature once or twice but find the GA mixer does enough fro me most of the time. 

My comment about the Track instruments was a very educated guess. Ive had 11 VST instrument tracks running in Pro, so that more than the 8 Instruments they quote, so I’d suggest trying it first.

In fact just re reading that i wonder if it just means 3 Instruments are included. That might actually be it and all my other talk was just rubbish lol. 

[Dad3353]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

...Not sure if the other DAW’s have this, but when dealing with lot of tracks its very easy to colour code them and /or add them to folders to have under one control. Also the ability to hide and un hide them, and have these views as presets for quick recall can be handy for large projects. Lots of little things that make life easier....

Here's a screenshot of one of my orchestral templates. There a re 106 tracks in all; I may well add a few for Fx buses. All of these can be whatever they are, it seems simple enough to me, and I'm dumb...  Click to enlarge; the individual tracks are all folded here, but can, of course, expand, individually as required, to show the audio, or MIDI, or sample etc. Yes, the colour coding helps..! 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Dad3353

[dave_bass5]

Just now, PatrickJ said:

OK, so Andertons have the Artist upgrade from AI for £120.  That's cheaper.

In my Steinberg account I have the download option for Cubase AI 8, can I use that?  I don't seem to have a License for it

I don't seem to have a License for it though.

I wouldnt like to say, as its a bit of a tricky one. I do know that if you have ever upgraded from AI to Elements, the AI code is no use anymore. 

I’d get on to Steinberg and ask them. 

[dave_bass5]

2 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

,it seems simple enough to me. 

And thats what makes it the ‘best one’. Unless it lacks features you want, i cant see any reason to change. Looks pretty neat, much neater than my smaller projects. I’m a messy bugger with my desk and desktop.

The audience will never notice  😂

[NickD]

You mentioned tempo track problems in Elements... what is the issue? I ask as I'm a sod for time signature and tempo changes, and I always thought it was pretty straightforward.

[PatrickJ]

2 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

I wouldnt like to say, as its a bit of a tricky one. I do know that if you have ever upgraded from AI to Elements, the AI code is no use anymore. 

I’d get on to Steinberg and ask them. 

Yeah, that could be why I don't see them, same why I don't see my old 9 and 9.5 Elements licences.

[dave_bass5]

6 minutes ago, PatrickJ said:

OK, so Andertons have the Artist upgrade from AI for £120.  That's cheaper.

In my Steinberg account I have the download option for Cubase AI 8, can I use that?  I don't seem to have a License for it

I don't seem to have a License for it though.

Is there anything in the eLicenser section for AI? It looks like you have registered it if you are offered a download link. 

[dave_bass5]

1 minute ago, NickD said:

You mentioned tempo track problems in Elements... what is the issue? I ask as I'm a sod for time signature and tempo changes, and I always thought it was pretty straightforward.

It wasn’t the use of them, it was what i wanted to achieve. 

We started a project in Elements that had midi and audio (guitar and bass). Before we went to mix it we wanted to  speed the track up, but the timing went in the audio parts. Artist and Pro have a music mode for tracks, which means the audio gets adjusted with the tempo changes. Auto time stretch i guess, but it does it in a way that everything just stays in sync at each point in the track, inc any variations in the tempo.

We have also done a couple of tracks where we took vocals off old demos and put them on newly recorded backing tracks. The old recordings were too fast, and we used a drummer who couldn't keep good time. CB Pro gives you the option to imprint the tempo in to the audio files so they play back perfectly in time with the project tempo. It also works if you have multiple audio tracks you need to align. Choose the master track, and CB will match the others to it, again with variations. Pretty neat. 

[NickD]

Ah, I see. That's a little beyond my usual usage.

[dave_bass5]

Ok so my last comment about VST instruments was correct, and the previous ones were way off lol.

Elements comes with 3 VST instruments, Artist and Pro come with 8. That clears that up.  

[dave_bass5]

3 minutes ago, NickD said:

Ah, I see. That's a little beyond my usual usage.

It seemed a simple thing to do, and not something ive done before, but I couldn’t figure out what it was all going wrong.  Normally not a problem, but it was nice having this feature. If i i time stretched it i could get the benign and end linked up, but the bits between would not match the bars. 

 We also did our own verison of Town called Malice, and i used Spectrlayers to rip Weller vocals off the original and put it on ours, just as an experiment. That too worked well. I also had to play bass on that, and I hadn’t played bass for over 6 months. I ended up going in and moving any of the notes that were out of time back in time. Mates thought i had played it really well.....don’t tell them otherwise lol, 

[Naigewron]

I use Cubase Elements and it covers all my needs

...except one: I can't export multitracks to my bandmates when we record demos. So if I want to export multitracks, I have to mute all tracks except one, export that, then mute all tracks except the next one, then export that, etc. We're doing more preproduction at home these days, so this is really becoming a hassle. I might upgrade just to get this sorted.

Other than that, I'm happy with it. I don't do any mixing, and all my recordings are either preproduction demos, or just screwing around for my own amusement, so I don't need a lot of features.

[PatrickJ]

42 minutes ago, NickD said:

You mentioned tempo track problems in Elements... what is the issue? I ask as I'm a sod for time signature and tempo changes, and I always thought it was pretty straightforward.

More simplistically re: tempo and time signatures.  In Elements these tracks can only be viewed by opening a separate Window.
In Artist you can have these running as separate tracks in your main project window like you would with a Chord Track.   It's a convenience improvement but since we do play with time signatures quite a lot it's a useful feature - the tempo track window always feels a bit cumbersome to use.

[PatrickJ]

26 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Ok so my last comment about VST instruments was correct, and the previous ones were way off lol.

Elements comes with 3 VST instruments, Artist and Pro come with 8. That clears that up.  

Do you mean the number of instruments bundled with the software?

Elements has Grove Agent, Halion SE and Prologue.  What do Artist and Pro come with that's extra?

[dave_bass5]

9 minutes ago, PatrickJ said:

Do you mean the number of instruments bundled with the software?

Elements has Grove Agent, Halion SE and Prologue.  What do Artist and Pro come with that's extra?

Yeah. Those plus others. Still not the full versions of GA and Halion, but with more sounds in Halion. 
https://steinberg.help/cubase-manuals/cubase-pro/cubase-pro-11/

 

[paul_5]

As a Pro Tools user I can honestly say that I can't recommend it. The software itself is amazing - editing is a breeze, and the sound of the audio engine is great. 

The annoying thing is that it doesn't come with a great deal of virtual instruments, but the deal-breaker is the astronomical fee for the software - especially the ludicrous 'subscription' debacle.

You're far better off going for Cubase, Logic or Reaper etc... as regards value for money.

[dave_bass5]

If you can go AI to Artist or pro, you can still use Elements. You’d need to get another dongle as it’s locked to your computer using the soft licenser, but with a dongle you can take it to another computer if you need to. 

[Dad3353]

Dongle..? Dongle..? What's a 'dongle'..? 

...

 

[dave_bass5]

13 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

Dongle..? Dongle..? What's a 'dongle'..? 

...

 

Something that’s getting phased out after all these years 😀
Personally I have no issue with it. Long gone are the days all you needed was a cracked copy of a .dll to run Cubase. 

I did like the idea of the dongle though. It keeps all the licences together and I can go to someone else’s house and have full functionality, even if they don’t own the software. No need to keep registering it etc. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by dave_bass5

[Al Krow]

Dammit, looks like a few of us are going to get swept up on Cubase wave.😁

Can it handle video files or do you need a separate video editor / if we want an AIO solution, are Mixcraft and Reaper still the obvious solutions? 

[WinterMute]

3 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Dammit, looks like a few of us are going to get swept up on Cubase wave.😁

Can it handle video files or do you need a separate video editor / if we want an AIO solution, are Mixcraft and Reaper still the obvious solutions? 

I'm not sure it really matters much anymore, most of my work comes in either Protools or WAV audio files so I choose to work in Protools, but grab whichever looks good to you and you can afford and get working, they all have great features these days, and you can work around the shortcomings of any system.

The learning curves are steep unless you're into Fruity Loops...