creativenorthmedia
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creativenorthmediaThought you might say that… sadly it does not appear to work.
I have selected the root folder, the one with “SDX CORE” and others as a subfolder. Is there another folder I need to click? Perhaps the SDX CORE folder itself?
creativenorthmediaGuys, ffs… please make a menu entry for the manuals… I shouldn’t find this forum entry as the first Google result (where is your SEO?) or at the very bottom of a way too long product page.
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Thanked by: sebastian zetincreativenorthmediaOk but since that comment (which was just an off-hand comment btw) I’ve tried to engage in a reasonable discussion. You’ve chosen to be offended by semantics and attach your personality to a piece of software… that, good sir, is your problem, not mine.
Not even Pro Tools users are this tetchy.
If it doesn’t have you rushing to help or discuss then why did you engage in the discussion? It beggars belief…
Anyway I’m done with this, hitting unsubscribe…
creativenorthmediaAll I hear is butt-hurt Cubase users that won’t answer a simple question or make a case… all just hand-wavy elitism…
What a waste. Anyway let’s end this here, I’m clearly not going to get a reasonable engagement.
creativenorthmediaYes apologies to Toontrack community, we’ll be done soon I’m sure…
“Your screen cluttered mess” hahaha classic
Loaded van vs a tricycle, there it is again… this claim that Cubase is jam-packed full of features. I’m not going to debate that coz it probably is, but it’s like saying you have the best control panel in the world, it can do so much, but you have one knob to control it all.
Ok ok ok… so let’s get serious for a second, I’m genuinely curious what these features are because from what I gather they seem more relevant for midi based composers? Or a version of audio professional from another era, at the least one that isn’t relevant to me as a professional.
My gripes to be specific are the interface, the routing philosophy, and the some of the midi editing features… like when I go to extend a clip it actually stretches it instead (which I never figured out).
By the by… here is an entire thread of ppl claiming its “amazing and has so much” and “is simply the best for REAL professionals” and then the thread devolves into naming all the issues with it… https://forums.steinberg.net/t/why-cubase-lags-behind-other-daws-or-does-it/126730
I saw the same thing in the Linux community for a decade: it’s super great and its the lowly pathetic disgusting user’s fault if they don’t know better, coz we are the REAL technologists etc etc..
creativenorthmediaDude, I mean like you asked… it was an inane comment about, as you rightly put, something unrelated to SDX. Maybe don’t engage with someone if you don’t want to hear what they have to say?
I never had a go at you, but you seem to be taking this way too personally… more to my point really. Maybe Cubase is the Windows of DAWs, but the users behave like the *BSD of DAWs hahaha
I agree, it’s more powerful but it’s power is neutered by its interface. That’s more than a reasonable criticism that is WIDELY shared.
LOL all DAWs are the most used DAWs these days, that’s how the ubiquity of technology works friend. Surprisingly though, I’ve heard Cubase is used more widely in Europe compared to Ableton.
Ah well, what a waste. Better luck next time!
creativenorthmediaYou misunderstand me, I can agree it’s extremely powerful just not usable. Unfortunately this renders it ultimately useless and there are countless other examples of this scenario. Linux is another great example. I used Arch for ten years, as a daily, then rage quit and bought a Mac. PowerShell is another one, extremely powerful but unnecessary complicated.
My test for usable and intuitive products is this: if you can’t sit down and start without looking at a manual, and you can’t intuitively navigate most cases, only stopping to look for something here and there, then that is a failure of product development. I’ll give exception to a short intro video that should be no more than 5 mins, but you should know enough to heuristically extrapolate from there. Cubase fails spectacularly in this last one, as does Reaper and Ardour for that matter.
Like I said I mean no disrespect, but my experience in the forums showed me that its mostly older people using Cubase. Those within that generation who adopted technology seem to approach technology in much the same way, this is least reflected in the Cubase docs which are un-Google-able but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for most older users. Steinberg’s SEO is not setup properly so that answers are present when searching (or indeed point you to the right version of docs) and there is no label as to the version of documentation for any DAW. That alone is some schoolboy level nonsense, even obscure C libraries do better, but I suppose Steingerb understand their audience’s needs and lean into that need.
When I submitted this complaint, Steingerb acted as if it was the first time anyone had ever suggested it… my mind was figuratively, metaphorically, and astro-physically blown.
The level of intuitive usability one needs to operate in a professional setting is unfortunately lacking in Cubase, they simply do things the “wrong” way. That is to say there is a much better way and an entire industry of established professionals to handle this usability problem (UX), which I can only surmise flourished long after Steingerb became an established company and therefore they did not adopt those principles… or it’s just a German thing (see: SAP), who knows… like I said, I could probably write a short thesis on all of the problems with Cubase. I do not mean that figuratively.
What’s worse is when you question this on the forums, the only response is a resounding groan without any kind of discussion or room for growth. A collection of Luddites that aren’t capable of arguing a case against sane and well reasoned criticism.
Also I think it’s disingenuous to say it’s just my personal opinion, that is a lazy rejection of something we can easily prove in the wild. Why is Cubase not used more widely? Why is it not used in a live setting as a preference to Ableton? Sure it works for some, but I would be curious as to just how sophisticated those users are in their daily lives and the overall applicability of their opinion to more professional situations.
Do they also use an abacus when an electronic calculator is at the ready? Do they also think the Imperial system is better than the Metric? You can teach a person to eat using their feet, that doesn’t mean the philosophy behind using their hands has no obvious benefit. Sure eating with your feet is an amazing feat (nice), but does that person have no arms? How long does it take them to eat with their feet? Not to say eating with your feet is invalid, but that we are operating under completely different criteria and one person’s needs do not suit another.
The subtext being that all needs are then somehow equal, I reject this notion. There were better Generals of war, better technologists, better academics and researchers. Somewhere in there, a difference means a difference in quality and competence.
Unless you have no arms.
Every person I have ever introduced to Cubase has found it overly difficult to understand and use. This ranges from industry professionals all the way down to amateur musicians who, as you say, are not always tech savvy. To those musicians I now advise Logic
Now for the record, I think most DAWs are trash and most product owners/developers have a special place in hell. Ableton, Studio One, and Pro Tools got it right… but even then, Avid have their head firmly implanted in their collective rectum.
The way I see Cubase is kind of like the Windows of DAWs: clunky, backed by an archaic organization that is too big to support it’s own weight (also Avid), and the solutions to problems are more frustrating than the problems themselves.
If you enjoy using it then more power to you, but you are the minority and not for the reasons you might suspect.
creativenorthmediaI wouldn’t normally say this but I can confidently say you’re mistaken, Cubase is an objectively bad piece of software for human use. Group tracks and something or other bla bla yuck… disgusting… I’ve actually submitted for a refund it’s that bad. I could write a thesis on how utterly crap Cubase is and how useless Steinberg are at developing human-usable software. I’m astonished they’re still in business.
With respect, the fact that you have used it “since Atari” is not surprising. It seems to be a DAW for boomers, no offense.
Using Cubase is kind of like saying you use Powershell coz it’s “super powerful” … I mean it is, but I’ll be gd’d if it isn’t the most unnecessary language.
creativenorthmediaSetting velocity to a certain value, so that when I apply a hit, it is at that value. Like in Cubase which, although is a shockingly shit DAW, their drum editor is really good.
creativenorthmediaI have found the keyboard shortcuts… (increase/decrease is all we’re getting for now it seems)
Also for anyone else who finds this, I have already submitted a feature request to have preset values for velocities available e.g. 127, 110, 90, 35, etc…
EDIT: for anyone else reading this thread, fair warning this is where useful information ends… the rest is just us talking about Cubase.
I have found the keyboard shortcuts… (increase/decrease is all we’re getting for now it seems)
Also for anyone else who finds this, I have already submitted a feature request to have preset values for velocities available e.g. 127, 110, 90, 35, etc…
EDIT: for anyone else reading this thread, fair warning this is where useful information ends… the rest is just us talking about Cubase.
creativenorthmediaIt’s not entirely difficult, but it is hard to FIND that information and as a solution it is just clunky. The combination of these two things amplify the feeling of frustration.
Luckily, it appears that Toontrack are a bunch of awesome ppl so they’re gonna make some more docs. So that’s actually cool.
The alternative of recording out the hits is marginally less irritating, though I was still using Cubase at the time (which I dropped faster than a hot potato when I found out about the internal grid editor) and setting up anything in that joke of a DAW is just a headache (except for the drum editor, they nailed that). A double increase in frustration.
Aside from that culmination of bad experiences, which I admit don’t reflect my thoughts on SDX, it renders the in-DAW programming experience ultimately useless. So that’s great…
Unfortunately, even though the grid editor in SDX is awesome and has lots of very intelligent features, it also omits some very basic features like hotkeys for velocity or indeed setting velocity prior adding a hit.
Still getting used to the grid editor and I know I just need to adjust to the “smart memory” of the velocity.
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Thanked by: RaymondcreativenorthmediaHi John,
Thanks for the answer!
Sure that all makes sense, but the only issue is that doesn’t tell the whole story.
If I load all the cymbals and drums available on a kit (for example in the metal foundry) and I want to map using the MIDI In/E-drums page, I first have to remove all the extraneous allocations in the “notes” window before then mapping again to newer cymbals. Otherwise those spots in MIDI In/E-drums page will simply not be available.
I think it’s great you want to give extra features and I can definitely see why what you said about mappings would be necessary. However, with respect I would encourage Toontrack to think more carefully about how this feature is developed and possibly leave edge cases where they belong: at the edge.
Assigning new keys and building midi maps should be much simpler, require less work, and indeed should be accompanied by an updated how-to guide to make it more obvious for new old-comers to Toontrack like myself.
MIDI can get very complicated very quickly, but it doesn’t need to be this difficult.
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creativenorthmediaThanks for this answer, however I am very frustrated that this is indeed the answer.
If I had known to just use the app and it would be this difficult to extract from a DAW programmed midi, I would have just used the app.
Massive fail imo, please improve.
creativenorthmediaSee attached. This absolutely sucks. Can’t even expand that window out and also the “clear” function doesn’t exist in the Midi In/E-Drums menu.
Such a great program let down by the seemingly most important aspect of its function: MIDI.
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