You Seem a Bit Wigged out?

 

Amm, I see you didn't meet my girlfriend.. yet!

 

When I first got into computer music in the late 80's I started with Steinberg when their software was just with MIDI. Then audio processing came along and Cubase VST/32 arrived. Virtual Studio Technology ushered in inconceivable advances in making music and has lead to the home studios we all enjoy now. I remember as every year passed we were able to have tens of thousands of dollars of gear and then hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear inside a PC or Mac that we would never have had the opportunity to work with. I watched and used Logic until it was stolen by Apple and it may have been my main DAW if I went the Apple route. I would use it as much as possible as it hit great strides and battled it out with Cubase. I still boot up my macOS partition to use Logic Pro from time to time. So for me it is both having learned Cubase Pro over the years as well as having grown alongside the technologies it created. I think one of the problems with Cubase is that it has such a large amount of significant major components that it is always trying to catch up with some of the smaller yet useful and time saving features that newer DAWs appropriately pay more attention to. Teaching yourself and learning from various sources is an ongoing thing with Cubase and this takes some time here and there.

One of the technologies that Steinberg developed was called VST System Link back in the late 1990's. This concept was incredible allowing you to link several computers via fibre optic cards and harnessing two or more CPUs. It was truly amazing to see in action. It didn't really catch on though as the cards were a bit expensive and there wasn't as many computers lying around in those days. Ethernet seems to be the choice these days. Experiences like this do endear you to a company.

I have a lot of fun with Studio One. I find it a bit more freeing and straight forward to just try ideas and sketch out things on the fly. I then will quickly port over what I need to Cubase. As music is a hobby for me I don't push myself to learn the fragile, stringent and 'I'll break if everything is not perfectly up to my standards' Pro Tools. For those who are really into dance tunes I can see how FL Studio, Ableton and Bitwig would be perfect.

A lot of talked over the past years has been in getting that analogue feeling in recording. I did try Harrison Console's DAW and I exported some stems of one my songs that didn't have too many plugins. I must say that I really enjoyed just using the console to mix and doing the compression etc right there without loading plugins. I found this to be quite freeing and I mostly limited myself to the desk without many plugins. I found myself concentrating more on the music as I wasn't wondering in the back of my mind 'should I add a plugin?' Now, in terms of the analog sound I could not notice an appreciable difference. Now I may not have the most trained ears so I was hoping others in the forum might comment on this aspect of this DAW. Lately I purchased an Apollo Twin USB. I am just getting used to it and I do hear the analog difference more than I did on the Harrison Console's DAW. I would welcome any thoughts of what my expectation should be in terms of getting a more 'analog experience'.

In terms of choosing a DAW, and if you are just starting out, I would recommend taking what you can from the forums and some reading and just pick one. We are lucky to be able to 'try out' many of them. But pick one and find tutorials and use youTube channels where you can watch someone with experience build a song. It is an extremely good resource. If you are stuck with something it is invaluable. Once you are at an intermediate level only then can you really compare what other DAWs may suit you better. The biggest thing is to get started making music at what ever level you are at. Don't wait until you think you are ready to write the perfect song. It will never come that way.

We live in great times with an abundance of tools that are allowing musicians at any level to create and share our music all over the world. It was only a dream just a decade ago and all of our DAWs , combined, over 30 years, has made this possible.

 

@Jenin Glad you said that, about VST technology. We have a lot to thank them for.
I started on the Ataris; the 520 and the 1040. It was such a breath of fresh air after using the Roland MC's for sequencing!
A colleague from the past, Phil Chill, co-wrote, programmed and produced 'Return Of the Mack' with Cubase in the '90's, and programmed and co-wrote on 'Raw Like Sushi'. Cubase again. Both top ten albums.
And I think that was at a time when they started do the mix with Cubase too.
I just happened to sway towards the other main software at the time; Logic, because i was demo'ing keys in a music store, and if we were able to sell a certain amount, Emagic would give us a free copy of Logic Platinum! Of course, it was cross platform then.
Re. your 'analogue comments', reminds me that we would bounce down stems and then re-record them through a Mackie channel strip we had.
That used to work wonders!

In studios over the years, I've mostly encountered the 'real' ProTools, with all the external hardware, and often with a Logic interface. And these were all top studios. I think I saw DP once! Never ever came across Cubase in a commercial studio. But that's just my experience.
I don't know why people still refer to PT as industry standard, if they aren't using all the external DSP gear, just the software. But I know what they mean.

Imho, what DAW we use is circumstantial. And coming from the start of MIDI, all I can say is it's all good now!
Sometimes I wish I stayed with Cubase. It has some things that Logic doesn't re. automation.

Good luck with the Apollo! You made me check them out. I'm thinking of going for it soon. I reckon nothing touches them.

 

to late, its not yours anymore, its their inside preciouses thread now. ;)

 

@ArticStorm I think you have perhaps missed the point a bit, I don’t want you to love Cubase (or me for that matter) I'm quite happy that you love Ableton Its all good. It’s the "Cubase ate my hamster" posts I care about. Along with a similar amount about Breixt and Independance.

Ignore me, I'm just a silly old b***ard with too much time on his hands, Ill be back at work next week and give you less greif.

 

Last edited: Feb 7, 2019

The only thing I don't like about cubase is that they don't offer a trial of pro so I can't test if the features I actually want are implemented well before committing the large cost to what is for me a hobby... and we don't have a version we can borrow from the internet either.

 

u have 1 month trial with cubase pro

 

I thought you could only trial the baby edition ? i'll have to try it out.