I really wanted to LOVE S1. The whole song and project tabs/pages seemed very cool to me, but....
Okay, I was setting up my vocal mixing template in S1, the same one I setup in Ableton and Reaper. All I needed to do was have all my main and BG vox tracks set to output to the sends only. I tried seting it to prefader, also muting the tracks. I couldnt figure out a way to do it without some kind of work around. Maybe I missed a little square button somewhere. Google and the manual didnt tell me what I was looking for. And then there was the cpu hit compared to ableton and reaper for the same project and plugs. I really tried S1, made a whole track in it after watching endless tutorials, but I hate using workarounds (for basic routing). I was reminded of FLStudio and the reasons why I disliked it. I know my way around all 4 DAWS mentioned very well. Maybe I missed something, but maybe I didnt. I couldnt figure out how to do it easily. I would like to give it another shot. Seems like the way to go for mixing a whole ep/lp the way you can tab back and forth from the mixing and mastering sessions and it will update the changes rerender automatically. Great for getting that perfect balance of all the songs.

How do I have a track send to the returns only and have no sound coming from the main track? Anyone know how to do this in S1?

This is simple to do in ableton and reaper, no manual (or google) needed.....

Reaper can have multiple projects as tabs but you still have to manually render it out and reimport the songs into your mastering session

 

Last edited: Dec 5, 2016

Ahh that sucks man. That was exactly my experience with Studio One. Just didn't work on my system(s) the same way everyone else said it worked for them. Egregious latency and inefficient cpu use to the point it was limiting my ability to run as many plugins as I needed. Took me a long time to accept that I couldn't make it work, and after using Cubase a bit it turned out to be a big fat blessing in disguise.

Funny enough, Cubase was literally very last thing I ever wanted to get. I'm not one of these jokers who gets on a soapbox about boycotting dongles while using nothing but warez to begin with, but I really didn't want to rely on a shitty plastic USB stick with a one per lifetime license replacement policy (fuck off Steinberg) and occupy one of my precious few USB ports.

Anyway the point I've been getting to... I tried Reaper. It's obvious it's a great DAW but it wasn't for me. Priority number one for me is a good workflow for recording and comping vocals in a takes/loop based format, or else I'd just do everything in Live. Reaper's comping workflow proved to be a little too cumbersome for me. I didn't like the idea of not having a master take that is distinct from the lanes I recorded into, and it was slower and less powerful with cutting, resizing and fading segments of a comp as opposed to Cubase, S1, Pro Tools, Samplitude, etc. where comping is basically just done by highlighting the section you want. I also found the plugin manager to be a bit too far removed from what i'm used to. It definitely offers more in that regard than Live or S1, for example, but Cubase clearly takes the cake in this category (although I believe Sonar does something similar)

This is a lot more information than was really warranted, but once I get going about DAWs this is what I end up with lol. tl;dr Reaper is also great. It just fell short in the one category that mattered most to me

 

"Reaper can have multiple projects as tabs but you still have to manually render it out and reimport the songs into your mastering session"

have u checked subprojects?

 

You mean this one?

 

I actually got into Cubase when I had the extended trial of 5 if you guys catch my drift on this. I also thought it was great, really great.
So I used 5 until 7 came out and I purchased the full version it all the way up till 8. I Have heard horror stories with Studio One also.
I can tell you I know Reaper is not as pretty in the area of the midi editor as Cubase is and Reaper developers are way better on there licensing than Steindberg, since I was able to use the demo for like 5 months till I got really used to it and moved.

I did reach out to steingberg support on the issues and they really have no clue as to why the latency is so high. I even told them about how Reaper was able to work better on my PC and this is set as balanced mode not high performance mode.

The Comping in Reaper is really good now in 5.29 by the way. Can I say it's exactly like Cubase no, but it has improved a lot. YOu can even separate the track into different track with one lick. has like 4 different way to separate the tracks.

 

Mixdowner, I do not meant to be rude here but I have a 4790-k 4 cores 8 threads and cubase in high performance mode is slower than Reaper running in Balance mode. I which I could say you know it's my processor and just upgrade, It's not.
Please note that my computer is the same but
When I start reaper versus cubase they both show the same latency values. But after like a couple of track I have to really adjust my buffer size on my pro 40 to allow a reasonable sample play back and the delay just get's bigger and bigger. With Reaper I leave everything alone and just make music.

I do not know maybe it's the way Cubase and the VST plugins are used. I mean I could totally agree with you if I was to say you know I have 100 plugins loaded and 50 tracks but that is not the case it's more like 3 or 4 track with maybe 2 tracks of Guitar rig or amplitude loaded.
I think what really got me is that after spending so much more on a product that Cubase support would be able to assist me in getting it fix.
In my experience with Cubase support they are totally crap. They remind me of MS in the early years when they just keep denying there product was junk and kept pushing out new stuff. This is not to say Reaper is the perfect DAW either.
But I can say in my dealings with support in both companies Reaper support is serious. I reported a bug in the midi event not showing up
They asked for an example verified it and fixed it in the next release. Also I ask that they address the focus on the grid not releasing and they did. Totally they are dedicated programmers.

My computer is way fast enough. I guess being an experienced IT guy I know when and what to expect when software runs on my computer.
It should not consume ever piece of resource with 3 or 4 tracks. That being said. No DAW is perfect I can say that Reaper has it's issues also.
I am also into midi and agree with you.

 

Nah you just sound like a guy who hasn't used it enough to understand it or probably hasn't used it at all. AFAIK Ableton's invented at least two concepts that were totally innovative and arguably put it at the head of the pack for certain functions. the session view is all about having a nice easy environment to jam in and string ideas together without having to commit to anything or futz around with moving things around the timeline. But more importantly, it's all about the racks. instrument racks, drum racks, effect racks. There's so much about them that's uniquely powerful that I couldn't really even get into it without a super long post. You can accomplish--on one track, with a rack--things that would take several tracks and bus routing, plus they have their own internal OR external sends and returns, a chain selector that can switch between signal chains or crossfade them and can be modulated by note, by velocity or manually; PLUS assigning multiple parameters to a macro control with definable range/polarity.

I love Cubase but I'd never want to do sound design in it. I'd feel like I'm missing an arm if I had to work without the easy parallel processing and macro manipulation of Ableton's racks. Not to mention Cubase's retarded 8 plugin per track limit. Lol that's the exact opposite of the rack architecture, whereby you can reduce several parallel signal chains and bus processing to one track. In Cubase if you really wanted to stack up an effect chain for sound design you'd actually have to add an extra bus just for plugins.

Yeah. Cubase is fantastic for lots of things, but I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about re: Live.

Yeah, Cockos are better on licensing than... well... everyone. You can't even demo Cubase Pro without a dongle. And really why else would you have that dongle... for Nexus? lol

Glad to hear about the improvements in the comping. They needed that, and to their credit they seem to be better with updates and feature requests than just about anyone. It's a shame that some number of people will never take Reaper seriously just because it's inexpensive. i.e. "It's not professional unless I need to take out a mortgage to get it"

 

Last edited: Dec 5, 2016

maybe your case is a special case and your audio card is to blame for bad latency, it would be interesting to check with a generic Asio driver like ASIO4ALL and see what happens.

i've never said Reper's performance sucks, quite the opposite, it's probably the best performing DAW in the market and in some way the most innovative (see the Jesusonic plugins for instance, and much more).
my problem with Reaper is that it's still not a mature product as far as i'm concerned, the GUI is horrible and looks like a relic from the 90s, yeah they have Skins, including a Cubase skin, but it still sucks, they're trying to do too many things together, only time will tell if it will evolve in a solid mature product.

Guitar Rig could be to blame too, in my old setup all the NI plugins were always sucking way too much cpu, and i can't live without NI plugins unfortunately.

cubase support always sucked but i've never been in need of their help, bugs and crashes are an integral part of using any modern app, the only crashes i have now are because of spectrasonics and a few other bad plugins.

 

You are not a lone on the being glad the comping is better.

I can honestly say I was one of those people who thought Reaper was a total joke and piece of crap software.. So after trying everything, really everything to get Cubase to do better I cut my teeth on Reaper and learned it on the Demo version. To me it was not that it was cheap, It was just that I was not used to it being a Cubase user for several years. Also things are pretty much the same in features it just called different things in Reaper.

If you think about it. No one would buy a car with out test driving it, and as we all know you can not even test Cubase with out the Dongle.
but Reaper the Demo just goes on and on. I think to me at least, they are pretty sure of there product quality and features to offer this.

 

Hmm.. i wonder how many it is that stoped using cubase when it no longer had a working crack back in the days. Went for other "new" DAWs since they wanted the latest and could tell their friends how much they liked their latest version of this or that in their DAWs. But i will not go into any DAW battles here. And as Mixdowner said if you go deep in your daw and read the manuals there is a way greater chance of reaching your goals. Jumping back and forth between DAWs since you wanna do this or that aint that good in the end.

And francly, beeing fanatic about Reaper (with it endless updates each week) or any other DAW is rather silly. Ive been using my DAW since i started to use my Atari. There are things i would love to see in Cubase that isnt there. Some things are great in and easy to do in PT just as there are things in Reaper and S1 that would be great to have and easy to use. But switch to another DAW for thoose things, never. I can do it even if its needed a few more clicks. It would take me months if not more than a year to convert all the song or wokr i have done by swithing. And as my intensions always are to make a few bucks on my work why should it not cost me. Ofc not all uptes has been as i like them to be, Steinbergs way of selling their product is the best either. But then again, Im pretty sure that many man of you would jump to it if it now was posted on the Audioz with a working crack. Not all but many of you. Maybe you would like it, maybe now but that dont matter. Work with what you like or have to use cause you dont have money or skills for that perticular DAW. I would even start using FL (nothing wrong with it) if it could support me in my goals to create songs.

But back to the topic. IF there now will come a C9 on Wendsday i will ofc look into updating to it. Editing the blacklist file is kind of easy to do even if i find it rather strange if they would blacklist plugin that is actually working.. Reason for them to blacklist plugins has normally beeing that they havnt been up to standard. When Steingberg has dropped support for some things it has very rarely been about the DAW itself but mostly about plugins from 3rd part that aint using or beeing up to date when it comes to OS etc.Butcan agree that support sometimes is rather bad. But having a company that been around for as long as they have, working with people that mostly know what they are doing has a cost. That means that people that dont know how they computers are working and so on will have to step up to the plate.

But i will be a little suprized if we see a new cubase version in two days now. Still a very nice one. Cause for me i stick with it until something is actually better.. FOR ME..

Have a great week folks..
Vaijj

 

Some thing to ponder. So I would say ok its Guitar Rig, but how come it works fine in Reaper. In my honest opinion I think the code in Reaper is better.

 

Poor Hans Zimmer, JunkieXL, Harry Gregson-Williams and all the others. If they only knew how superior Reaper was...

 

Yes, poor Hans, Junkie and Harry. They are busy living very comfortable lives scoring for blockbuster movies with Cubase.

And what have you accomplished with Reaper?

 

well, cubase was never designed to mess with session or racks, not at the moment at least, maybe Steinberg/Yamaha are baking something for that but it would not be welcome by its loyal userbase, it would be more logical lo launch a brand new DAW than make a mess of Cubase.

if you need all that freedom in routing and racks probably Cubase is not for you.
but what Ableton is doing comes with a price, i never had the impression that Ableton is focused on MIDI tracks, it seems anyone on Ableton is either a DJ or someone with a gazillion drum loops doing Trap or Dubstep, just as with ProTools and Reaper its MIDI editing is barebone.

BECAUSE ... Cubase is a real sequencer, actually the best sequencer since the 80s, that later developed into a DAW.
Ableton, Reaper, ProTools, are first and foremost DAWs and that's their focus since day one.

8 plugs per track ? yes but unless you've special requirements it's usually more than enough, my FX chains are 4-5 FX in most of the cases, for voices maybe 6-7.
if you really 20 FX in a row either you're into sound design or the sound you're trying to filter reaaaally sucks.

however, i'm using both FX chains as Insert and standalone FX channels, depending on the song.
I could save maybe 50% cpu power using some faster plugins but then i would be forced to make more layering, there's always a tradeoff, a price to pay, if i'm really struggling i will use the Track Freeze instead.

 

Guitar Rig 5 is probably my most cpu-hungry plugin, i don't think it can get faster using different DAWs, technically it's a DLL that functions as in/out with DLL calls between itself and the Host.

due to its nature there's no way to make it faster, it's a multi-FX plugin, you create a guitar rack with 15 FX and of course it will weight a lot on cpu.

in any case NI plugins have never been fast in general, i use Replika XT in all my songs for instance and it sucks probably twice cpu than the other delays of FabFilter or PSP, after all even the performance of Kontakt is a piece of shit compared to other samplers, it's obvious that the Framework used by NI to develop all their plugs is not the best and most optimized but i see a big difference in the quality and final result, NI plugs are always top notch.

 

Yes, If cubase as a DAW is not enough, they could try Nuendo !

but there's nothing wrong in trying all the daws in the market, i think i will add ProTools to my setup soon, at the moment i keep it warm just for testing, i've also Reaper and Ableton 9 and S1 but never use them.

learning PT is a necessary skills nowadays as unfortunately most of the studios around use PT.

FL Studio is a total waste of time in my opinion, great for beginners as it's a glorified "music tracker" with all the bells and whistles, but being a damn music-tracker has tooo many limits it become a negative factor in the end, the GUI is horrible looks like Amiga OS, for anything else it's OK plenty of famous producers are stuck with FL and are happy as a pig.

i think music prodution is really getting too complex nowadays, doing everything with just one DAW is always better than using one for midi and one for mixing/mastering, i spent years learning all i know but anyone starting from scratch will feel overwhelmed.

 

blockbusters are mostly symphonic scores, of course they use Cubase, it's the bread and butter of Cubase.
Hans Zimmer said he's (reluctantly) using ProTools for mastering.

 

haha that sentence gave me a chuckle
But yeah, I am into sound design. And it's one area where Live really takes the cake. But Cubase is far... far better with recording, comping and editing vocals than any other DAW I have used. Solid latency and plugin handling on my system, track versions, highlight-and-go comping style, slip editing (so nice! so much better than moving the actual event/object), etc etc. Samplitude was really good for this too, but I find Cubase quicker and a little less cumbersome, with a waaaay better mixer, among other things.

Since I do my midi work in Live, can you explain what in your opinion makes Cubase superior for midi editing? I mean, to me it's all just playing and/or clicking notes into a piano roll. I know that Chord Tracks and Expression Maps are great features. I'm just not sure what it offers beyond that, that's unique from any other DAW. Seems like FL studio is the consensus king of the piano roll.

FWIW Ableton has some midi devices that can be helpful. Chord and scale devices that force the midi into definable scales or expand one key into chords. Basic arps, velocity compression for taming performances with broad strokes, etc. It's not without it's charms for midi, but for the most part it's lost on me since I'm just playing stuff into the computer and then focusing on sound design or mixing once the composition stage is done.

 

I was making a joke man, I can't stand Reaper, Cubase all the way here...

 

I'm actually still using the "extended trial version" of Cubase 5. It's worked very well for my purposes and I've developed a great workflow and knowledge of the program.
I recently upgraded to a i7 5820k rig to keep up with increasingly blood thirsty plugins, but now my mix sessions are starting to feel the pinch of Cubase 5 x86 only being able to access up to 4G of my RAM!

Currently looking for other x64 DAWs to be able to use all my RAM. Tried Reaper with the Cubase skin, to ease myself into the new platform - but it just feels so cumbersome and unintuitive, in comparison.