Cubase 9

[Raymond_Kemp]

I'll go back to a point I made earlier about the lower window. I think they are definitely pitching this screen layout towards big 4K monitors. Are they concentrating on professional users? I think not, because that market is shrinking. Is it worth the update money? Well, I'm on the bandwagon so onwards and whateverwards.
In saying that, I really am interested in others views and/or concerns about this DAW. I couldn't care less about what other DAWs can or can't do. Over many years Cubase has allowed me to create recordings worth a few quid to me with little problem or frustration. Perhaps this is through modest expectation, but that is my position.

[IFM]

The lesson of Opcode and Studio Vision is that ANY DAW can go away. That said, Kayle, as a guy who daily is on a forum that the Logic developers participate in (that is all I can say) I see zero evidence that Logic will not continue to be anything but what Logic has been in recent years, a pro app that they have tried to make both the logical (pun intended) next step for GarageBand users while trying to add the wished features of many present Logic users.

Always good to know Jay. I am a bit of a geek when it comes to DAW's in that I like having several of them but I always do most everything inside Logic since version 7. When a new version of one of main three comes out I'm always interested in trying it. Heck DP is another one but their midi editing leaves a bit to be desired visually.

In the end every time a new version of something comes out I end up learning more about Logic in the process...love that!

[Raymond_Kemp]

I've known many geeks with manners.

[Guy Rowland]

My hostility to Cubase 9 is fraying at the edges. Before I say nice things about it, let's not forget the issues with the headline features:

The Lower Zone
No use for multiple screens, and fundamentally restricts height all round for laptop users. Were it a window that could be placed, resized or docked at will, it might be of more use.

The Sampler Track
Atrocious quality for time stretching, slaps the new track at the end of the project window not next to where the sample came from; imports the parent file not the clip you drag; doesn't route the new track to the same destination as the source; only works in the Lower Zone that many users will disable.

The Transport Bar
Only works at the bottom of the screen, interfering with the Mac Dock if set to pop up, and the Windows equivalent.

Mixer History
Undo is handy, but they miss obvious tricks - the ability to undo a single item in a list; saving snapshots etc.

So plenty of missed opportunities and half baked idea here. But now for some better news, much of it lesser known and obscure

The VST rack
This now works as it should have done in C7. Narrows nicely, adding outputs much more elegant than before.

The VST Sentinel
My jury is out on this, but I'm leaning towards it being a good thing and here's why. In my Elements trial, it threw up scores of NI and iZotope plugins for me, which obviously was a problem. However, turns out all the NI plugs just needed an update which took minutes to fix, and that - according to Sternberg - iZotope plugs on a Mac running an OS prior to Sierra have an OpenGL issue which means they are unstable, and might cause performance issues on ANY version of Cubase without it being in any way obvious they are related to the plugin.

So let's think about that for a moment. The first complaint anyone has about their DAW is if the performance is compromised. Crashes, spikes etc that you can't get to the bottom of. Currently may main rig runs pretty well, but for no reason I get the odd debilitating spike that is no small PITA. Cubase is shit, right? Well what if it is caused by one rogue plugin that I use routinely, but have never diagnosed as a problem? The Sentinal becomes the primary tool for a reliably functioning DAW. So if I just throw up my hands at all the blacklisted plugins and say "what a ridiculous waste of time" and put them all back sighing heavily at the political correctness gone mad, I'm throwing away the one tool to solve my performance issues.

Now this is a best case scenario of the Sentinal, and it might be more hot air than I've just described - that's why my jury is still out. But if it means in practice that we get better stability by just updating plugs that Sentinal throws up (knowing we can take the risk for a while until they are updated if necessary), then it has to be a good thing, right?

The top toolbar spacer

The new Transport Bar may be a bust for me, but one unheralded new tiny feature is the kind of thing I wanted 100x of. The top toolbar now has left and right spacers, so you can engineer a big blank space in the middle - perfect for placing a transport window, as it happens:



Nice.

It looks better, at least on an MBP

Compare and contrast:

C8



C9



It IS sharper. Not sure if that's true on other platforms yet.

So is it worth updating? Not yet sure, but pure pragmatism suggests it might be, just. Mixer undo has to only save you a few times to be worth it, and if my dodgy plugins are identified, then that too is worth it. It has to be the most marginal release they've ever done - even below a .5 update really, but I guess there's the hope that at least the Sampler track, Transport Bar and Mixer Undo will improve over coming updates. Hard to get excited though, innit?

[Lawrence]

Sorry about this Raymond, but if I ever move on from my ancient Cubase 6.02, my next upgrade of Cubase would probably be Logic Pro X, or
at least I'd give it a try. Cubase is rock solid on my Mac but pretty darned power challenged. Anecdotal evidence suggests Logic provides a better use of CPU cycles.

Steinberg hasn't impressed me at all with upgrades from 6 on. I watch the videos and shake my head. Anyone who haunted the old Steinberg forums as I did knows that render in place was a feature request by MANY users that took over FIVE YEARS. Mixer undo as well. Progress is just glacial.

I place the greatest emphasis on stability, so here I still am. VEP was a godsend, allowing me to use 32 bit stuff with stability and increase CPU power around the inherent ASIO limitations, which seem a lot worse on Mac than PC. Still, if I move on, might be time to look elsewhere.

[Raymond_Kemp]

Don't be sorry Larry, I don't mind reading about problems folks may or do have with Cubase because this thread is about Cubase (good or bad) however, if I see one of the many threads featuring questions and answers concerning Logic, I leave it alone. That for me seems a fairly reasonable position to take. The bottom line is no more no less, workflow. Different folks different strokes and all that stuff.
I got a laugh earlier today reading a post in that other forum where a member advised the OP to check out a particular plugin as perhaps being the right tool when he had never used it himself. There is no end to the useless advice being given on the net and most worryingly, on far more important issues than a bloody effects plugin.
Now, when I see my cardiologist this coming week I'm going to ask him if I can reduce my Lipitor 80mg bombs to 40mg because I'm fed up putting up with the side effects that are making me an old curmudgeon. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Ray

[PhJ]

So after reading the many threads about it I finally bought the upgrade.
Working good so far, I like the GUI changes (docked transport is fine since my taskbar is on the left).
The only blacklisted plugin was Play5, that I re-activated with no ill effect (so far :-) )

Not sure about "the zone" yet. I use 2 screens, 1 for project & the other for MixConsole, but in the couple of hours I tried C9 I haven't yet deactivated it (no heavy editing so far though). I might enjoy having a docked glimpse of the score once in a while (to remember what it is I'm doing :-) ), maybe there's a way to open a separate piano roll window when you don't want the lower pane ? (like CTRL+click or something)
I'm not so happy about the color scheme though (ie velocities inside the piano roll). Fonts seem sharper even on my modest 1280*1024 screens, somehow.

It sure feels more like an 50€ update than a 99€ but other than that, I'm not complaining.

[Lawrence]

Now, when I see my cardiologist this coming week I'm going to ask him if I can reduce my Lipitor 80mg bombs to 40mg because I'm fed up putting up with the side effects that are making me an old curmudgeon. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Ray

See, I figure my 80 mg Zocor bombs are keeping me civil

[playz123]

All of my Izotope plugins, all VST3, are black listed in C9 on my Mac Pro. Apparently the only way they will work is if I upgrade my o/s to Sierra from El Capitan. I just upgraded everything two months ago. Izotope has apparently not offered any help to others re. the problem. So Cubase 9 will remain dormant on my system in the days ahead. Not a happy camper right now.

[Raymond_Kemp]

Frank, there is now a separate thread for Mac users. These plugins work just fine on my cheap and nasty PC.

[Guy Rowland]

The interesting nuance about the iZotope situation, Frank, is that the plugins will perform equally well / badly on ANY version of Cubase running OSX - the only difference with C9 is that it is flagged as problematic, Its not entirely clear how unstable they really are. Although I'm very critical about the C9 update in many areas, this does sound like a very stable first release, and I suspect a large reason for that is eliminating plugins that cause system instability,

[playz123]

Ray, are you referring to Guy's thread entitled "Sierra" which was just created yesterday, and which I just found? Didn't realize a thread about Cubase 9 was suddenly platform specific now.

Guy...thanks for the input. I have sent a support request to Izotope, but apparently no one works on the weekend, and others reported that Izotope basically said very little re. their requests. I guess I could try restoring some blacklisted plugins, but then if they caused instability, I'd be even more ticked. They were not unstable previously. The topic of restoring black listed plugins is not platform specific as people on both platforms face similar situations, even if they aren't Izotope related. Anyway, will comment further, as this Izotope situation progresses, in your new Sierra thread. Cheers.

[Guy Rowland]

Frank - I'm struggling to find the exact post from the Sternberg guy that said it, but basically he said that if it performed ok in 8, 9 should be identical. Literally the only difference is that it has been flagged as a potential problem. That said, what made sense to me is this article - https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... r-Cubase-9 - which explains that although it might appear to be performing ok, a rogue plugin can cause instability in ways that make it near-impossible to diagnose. Cubase 8.5 is pretty stable, but I do get issues with random spikes with no obvious cause. Perhaps its some of these plugins that appear to work but might still cause issues?

My feeling is that Sentinel is doing a worthwhile job. However, if you enabled every blacklisted plugin, I think all it would do is work just as C8 did (with the caveat that 32 bit won't work).

[playz123]

Interesting points. There are two or three other plugins that were black listed as well, but none are important and also none are 32 bit (I eliminated all those a few years ago). I think it's the unknown factor and the "possible" instability that concerns me. Just because a plugin "should" work in 9 if it worked in 8.5, doesn't mesh well with "a rogue plugin can cause instability in ways that make it near-impossible to diagnose". It's the latter that makes me hesitate.

Steinberg recommends we contact the plugin developers, which I have done, but my plan is simply to wait to see if fixes are planned, rather than try to reinstate plugins with the hope they will work. And I would think that a rogue plugin or two may indeed be a possible cause of your random spikes. I have found Cubase 8.5 to be quite stable myself, so can stay with that until C9 issues are resolved.

PS: Your mini 'reviews' above of C9 were quite helpful, so thanks for that too.

[Guy Rowland]

Here's what iZotope said when I contacted them:

Recently Steinberg released Cubase 9 which includes a new feature called Plug-in Sentinel. Plug-in Sentinel scans all VST plug-ins on start-up and can “blacklist” plug-ins that may experience issues with performance and functionality. As a result, we have learned that many iZotope plug-ins become “blacklisted” when Cubase 9 is run on OS X 10.11 and earlier.

If you are using Cubase 9 on OS X 10.11 or earlier and encounter this issue, the only work-around presently available is to update to OS X 10.12 Sierra. We apologize for any inconvenience, please see this article for more details:

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... r-Cubase-9

Thanks for reaching out and for your support.

Rubbish, innit? The more people who complain to them, the more chance there will be that they will properly fix it I guess.

[playz123]

Here's what iZotope said when I contacted them:

Recently Steinberg released Cubase 9 which includes a new feature called Plug-in Sentinel. Plug-in Sentinel scans all VST plug-ins on start-up and can “blacklist” plug-ins that may experience issues with performance and functionality. As a result, we have learned that many iZotope plug-ins become “blacklisted” when Cubase 9 is run on OS X 10.11 and earlier.

If you are using Cubase 9 on OS X 10.11 or earlier and encounter this issue, the only work-around presently available is to update to OS X 10.12 Sierra. We apologize for any inconvenience, please see this article for more details:

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... r-Cubase-9

Thanks for reaching out and for your support.

Rubbish, innit? The more people who complain to them, the more chance there will be that they will properly fix it I guess.

Definitely! I saw that yesterday AFTER having purchased. Sigh! That's why I mentioned my current o/s above. No plans to update to Sierra for awhile yet...after just updating to El Capitan in September. Rubbish indeed.

[Guy Rowland]

Here's what I just posted over at the Cubase forum:

After testing Elements on the MBP for the past couple of weeks, I decided to upgrade to C9 on the main rig. In the end, it was one single reason that made me jump above all others - stability. Subjectively, C9 Elements on the MBP felt snappier, looked a little cleaner and seemed to behave impeccably - for a .01 release at launch, quite something. On the W10 main rig, I found exactly the same thing - not a single hiccup or glitch. I did have spikes I never tracked down in C8.5. So far, an hour of playing around with a moderately busy session, C9 has performed impeccably. Whatever else it may or may not be, C9 feels slick and stable. Aside from the useful and very long-awaited mixer undo, sadly this is pretty much the only reason to upgrade.

I still can't see myself ever using the Lower Zone. I run a 4 monitor rig - 3 across the front, 1 above and behind. The central screen is for the main project window - everything else has to get out the way and stay out. Extraneous toolbars are banished. Something that a) restricts the project window's height and b) is itself so height restricted and thus functionally crippled is as welcome as a polar bear at an antiques shop. The Lower Zone for me is, literally, a waste of space. Also a waste of space and time - the new Transport Bar. I have transport buttons on the top menu bar, and the floating bar on the right hand monitor top right, so a new option to restrict height in the project window is entirely redundant. The Sampler Track, as discussed elsewhere, is currently weighed down with all kinds of problems - maybe successive updates will make this something useful, but until then it will be another unused new feature by me. The Frequency EQ plugin is however rather nice, hardly essential for those already well stocked, but it looks like being a useful workhorse and easy to see where your problems might be.

Meanwhile a myriad of irritations, bugs and underdeveloped features remain. For (glaring) example, with the new crispness, its all the easier to see how ridiculous the truncated names are in the mixer inserts and sends - as others have pointed out, it makes it nigh on impossible to work out what plugins or effects are being used sometimes. There has to be a better system, and Steinberg could do a whole lot worse than looking at how Pro Tools does it - somehow conveying more useful information in less characters in their narrow mix view. Scrapping spaces and vowels first would be a start, eliminating space-wasting ".."s close behind. Anyway, just one example of where Steinberg seem to be focused forever in the wrong place, missing the glaringly obvious in front of all our eyes.

So after a few weeks and an upgrade on the main rig, my initial impression is largely intact. This is overall a poor upgrade. The new features clearly miss the mark for many users (not all). In my view, all are either poorly conceived or executed, and do little to address the pleas of core functionality and workflow improvements. However, where I've shifted my view is that under the hood there do appear to have been some significant improvements. While the headline performance seems broadly similar to C8, my early results suggest that it is a less bumpy ride. For that, and that alone, Steinberg are to be congratulated.

[playz123]

A really well balanced, informative and respectful post, Guy!

[IFM]

Could Logic fanboys go start their own thread please?

None of these post come across as fanboyish.

Anyways some brief testing with C9 on Sierra with the .2 update. High VEP instance links spiking ASIO seems to be fixed. Even high Kontakt instances appear to be better behaved...more testing needed.

I'm glad you can shut off the dark colors in the editor...terrible choice.

[playz123]

A quick update on the Izotope situation I mentioned above. Just received a 'form letter' response from them outlining what we already knew, and indicating they feel it's up to the customer to fix their problem by switching to an o/s that is not yet proven. Very poor approach in my opinion.

"Recently Steinberg released Cubase 9 which includes a new feature called Plug-in Sentinel. Plug-in Sentinel scans all VST plug-ins on start-up and can “blacklist” plug-ins that may experience issues with performance and functionality. As a result, we have learned that many iZotope plug-ins become “blacklisted” when Cubase 9 is run on OS X 10.11 and earlier.

If you are using Cubase 9 on OS X 10.11 or earlier and encounter this issue, the only work-around presently available is to update to OS X 10.12 Sierra. We apologize for any inconvenience, please see this article for more details:

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... r-Cubase-9

Thanks for reaching out and for your support."

[IFM]

Hmm I thought I was in the clear with C9 but the problems with ASIO are back and so random it's impossible to pinpoint. Figures as I just spent real money on a permanent license.

I'm getting an occasional massive blast of digital distortion when switching VEP instances, random pegged ASIO meters, and this seems to happen with either normal or high AG and normal and boost AP. It pretty much renders Cubase unusable with VEP.

Note this is all hosted on one Mac Pro. No problems like this with LPX but it has its own issues.

Update: Taking Kontakt down to 4 cores for VST seems to have calmed things down. VEP does only like Normal AG as high still causes blasts.

[Guy Rowland]

Again, for me at the buffers I want to work at, I'm in AG2 low. Jordan has made medium work for him, I don't think anyone has ever made high work, so no surprises there.

[IFM]

Again, for me at the buffers I want to work at, I'm in AG2 low. Jordan has made medium work for him, I don't think anyone has ever made high work, so no surprises there.

Yep I seem to recall it always giving me problems. Finding the right balance of cores with Kontakt and VEP seemed to be the trick...now let's see if that stays consistent from day to day. I'll probably end up utilizing the PC slave again at some point.

Chris

[IFM]

I've fired up the PC slave again. I've put HS Diamond and EWSC on it. It's an 8-core AMD that works pretty well. Using Cubase with AG at Normal and Priority at Boost seems to be the most stable. In my template it sits with an average CPU around 35% (256k buffer) and doesn't move much off of that. CPU on realtime of course varies but spiking isn't happening.

My only side complaint is Play5.0.1 is still slow to load on the PC yet blazingly fast on the Mac...and that's with an SSD.

[Guy Rowland]

My only side complaint is Play5.0.1 is still slow to load on the PC yet blazingly fast on the Mac...and that's with an SSD.

That's not my experience here - super-fast here on the PC. Couldn't be the streaming settings are different could it?