DAW feedback

[moony1]

Hi,
I'm about to upgrade my DAW as I have been working on a shoestring and the resulting recordings are not always good (and yes, my MIDI I/O also needs upgrading). Cubase Pro 8.5 looks to be the ticket - for those of you using it, can you give me a few lines of feedback on ease of use, range of functionality? Great, OK, Poor?

Is there a better option in the same sort of price bracket?

Thanks.

[cassmcentee]

Hey Moony!
I mix in Cubase 8.5 Pro
Been in Cubase for 5+ years and am still learning it's functionality every single day
Plenty of Compressor/Limiter/Effects/Sounds included
I give it a 2 thumbs up!
If you do take the plunge, feel free to PM me with any questions
The Steinberg forum is practically useless, but there are plenty of YouTube vids that are comprehensive with their help.
Good Luck,
Cass

[andygabrys]

What were you mixing on up to now? (Daw?)

And what is the rest of your monitoring setup consist of?

Monitors?
Phones?
Room?
Treatment or absorbers?

[Cwadroon]

I also use Cubase 8.5 pro , and been using Cubase on and off since Cubase 5vst (1999? Lol). Like Cass, I'm still learning everyday, but am VERY impressed with the options and workflow in 8.5.
I'd give it a vote of "great" for me personally. Also if you teach any kind of music lessons or are a student, you can get it for pretty much half price if you buy the educational version.
Hope that helps

[cosmicdolphin]

You say " recordings are not great " but recording quality isn't really a DAW issue as any semi-modern DAW is capable of producing pro quality results if you use it right.

People make great music on $65 Reaper for instance. Like Andy hinted at , depending on your setup you may get far better improvements by investing elsewhere.

Mixing in an untreated room for instance will not allow you to correctly hear what happens to your mix once it leaves your studio ...you could probably do the whole thing for less than a new DAW.

Mark

[andygabrys]

You say " recordings are not great " but recording quality isn't really a DAW issue as any semi-modern DAW is capable of producing pro quality results if you use it right.

People make great music on $65 Reaper for instance. Like Andy hinted at , depending on your setup you may get far better improvements by investing elsewhere.

Mixing in an untreated room for instance will not allow you to correctly hear what happens to your mix once it leaves your studio ...you could probably do the whole thing for less than a new DAW.

Mark

Bingo. That's what I am getting at.

New plugins and fancy expensive DAW are great but it doesn't help your mix be any better, and unless you are mixing on a standalone 16 bit recorder or worse (like a true analog 4 track deck by Fostex et al) then you are already mixing at 48 Khz 24 bit (even if its Fruity Loops or FL Studio or whatever).

[Len911]

UPDATED: I see there were some great posts before I posted. It's really a priority-budget thing. If you never get outside the box, then acoustics doesn't matter as much as vst's. Otoh, if singing is your main thing, acoustics and vocal mic, etc.

I'm still on Cubase 5.5 since 2009!

There are way more choices now than then.

I see it's ~$550

It's a great program, no doubt. My first daw, and it was really hard to get my head around at first, probably because I had never used a daw before.

If it was me right now, I would probably try the limitless demo of Reaper. It's $60 if you decide to buy it. The reason for doing so, is that I'd have more money to spend on 3rd party vst's, and things like composition software, etc. I could always revisit buying Cubase later with nothing to lose, and still have my 3rd party software.

http://www.psyrox.net/reaper-vs-cubase/

[cosmicdolphin]

It's really a priority-budget thing. If you never get outside the box, then acoustics doesn't matter as much as vst's.

I'd tend to disagree with you there Len, whether or not you record any live parts the objective is "Broadcast Quality" and if you can't hear it properly you can't mix it. Good acoustic treatment is a key fundamental to mixes that travel well and sound "Broadcast Quality".

Stock DAW & free online Vst's on the other hand are capable of excellent results if well arranged/played/mixed and whilst I agree YMMV dependent on genre I'd always sort the room out before splashing out on the latest sounds.

Personally I always try to include a live element too as I think even in EDM it helps make it sound less sterile.

Mark

[Len911]

if you can't hear it properly you can't mix it.

"hear it properly". I agree, somewhat. Acoustics is not necessarily the answer. It's the translation of audio that we believe will sound well on most systems. Reference monitors. It's not how accurate they are, it's how they are able to be used as a reference. Acoustics is less important in mixing as it is in recording.

Live parts. Probably has as much to do with comb filtering, sounds bouncing around and bumping into things and more about the imperfections in the environment than anything, definitely less sterile sounding.

Samples are usually recorded in pristine environments with optimal equipment, edited and sort of premixed. Generally considered a good starting point.

There are plugins, I can think of a couple off the top of my head, that may help interpreting in a couple of ways, headphones, http://europe.beyerdynamic.com/virtual-studio.html
http://www.tokyodawn.net/proximity/

[andygabrys]

again don't agree 100%

inexperienced ears in a reflective small space with no treatment monitoring louder than breathing level gives one result.

experienced ears monitoring low in the same space with give pretty good results.

experienced ears in a properly designed and treated space are going to yield the best results. Most translatable to any other system.

As far as samples: sure they are often awesome. What is usually less than awesome is the scripting or lack thereof in the sample host plugin and the poor mating of samples with real world recorded instruments.

So yeah, in a lot of ways its back to you can't mix what you don't hear: you need decent enough monitoring and treatment and enough experience to realize what you are actually hearing.

an opinion to try on.