For financial reasons I recently sold 99% of my analog gear (kept the converters) and I'm planning to move to a fully ITB setup.

I know a lot of these choices are subjective and come down to personal workflow and taste, but after almost 20 years working mostly with hardware stuff I feel a bit lost with the sheer amount of options on the digital side.

Right now I'm on Cubase (version 12 atm), since I've start my career on it. I'm considering upgrading, but I'm not sure if it's really worth it, or if I should look at other systems instead. I'm open to suggestions (apart from Pro Tools).

I mainly do mastering and some mixing too and I'm not planning to record much since I will moving to a pretty small room.

I'm looking for recommendations on:

• whether it makes sense to stick with Cubase or switch
  
  
• essential plugin bundles that are worth the investment
  
  
• individual plugins that you consider gold standards for mastering\mixing

Any advice or personal experiences would be appreciated. Thanks.

No AI driven replies please, I need real life experiences.

 

If Cubase is the DAW you know, stick with it.
Any reasons to change the DAW? Workflow changes?
For plugins, it´s a huge blackhole

 

Nope. Just pure curiosity about if there's something out there more appropriate for the analog/digital switch.

 

For bundles UAD (and familiar territory for you) If anyone tells you otherwise, don't listen. You could mix ITB with solely UAD and not that many of them and do great work.

Ironically I've gone the opposite of you and get more and more hybrid as the years go on lmao.

Nonetheless, UAD, McDSP, some softube I'd look into. These are gonna be closest in terms of what you're used to and also the quality you're used to.

Of course plugins now are all decent but yeah my 2 cents.

Acustica/Nebula is also fantastic but that entails an entirely separate convo about the way you'd have to run them.

 

Thank you. This is a point I forgot to mention… I wouldn't want to end up with hundreds of plugins that all do the same thing (like a dozen emulations of the same compressor) and then find myself only using a handful of them. My analog workflow was fairly simple, and I'd like to keep it that way.

 

Most of the DAW´s plugins do the job, you may just need to learn around them.. No matter what DAW

 

I agree up to a point; stock plugins are underrated and over the years I've used them quite a lot for small refinements and adjustments, but I've always noticed a lack of "character"… maybe because I'm used to analog gear, but the few times I mixed using Cubase's stocks everything always felt a bit sterile to me, regardless of the recording quality.

 

Your answer is built into your question. Look for emulations of the hardware you are used to using/owned. Most devs offer some type of demo/trial which you can use to compare rendered files or plug-in vs. plug-in.

 

There's no need to change your DAW, Cubase has mostly everything you'll ever need.

About plugins... if you're used to hear real hardware all of them will sound "lifeless", however if you manage to find a plugin/developer that you feel the same way as their analog counterparts, congratulations! Just use them regarding what others think.
Maybe you should try monthly subs from UAD or Softube, as they are known for their analog "fidelity", and see how it goes. Other brands like Arturia, Slate digital or Brainworx also sounds good but they took some liberties when it came to emulation, for better or worst (specially Waves, don't even try them).

PS: First time here! Not a bot or something, I'm real

 

Stick with what you know: Steinberg Cubase. Before you update, test whether you actually need an update. FabFilter is top-notch quality: www.fabfilter.com/shop?currency=eur&vat=0 If you don't already have an audio interface: https://audient.com/products/audio-interfaces/id14/overview/ You'll need the driver for your DAW.