I updated. Staying on the treadmill for now.

This version looks like it's worth it.

I haven’t been too thrilled with the last few versions of Cubase, felt like they were cramming it with unnecessary bloatware whilst not paying enough attention to actual feature requests and fixing bugs.

Reading through the release notes, this version looks like they have taken some huge strides in a very positive direction. Will be updating later today.

I couldn't agree more regarding both points. 13 was a waste of time and money. Did the update to 14 yesterday and checked some of the new features out, looks good. Speaking of looks - I absolutely don't like the changes they introduced with 13. Looks very toy'ish to me. Feels pretty similar to Studio One now - and the main reason I haven't switched to Studio One has always been the crammed and poppy GUI. At least Cubase finally is pretty much on par program- and featurewise.

I've been on Cubendo for years but am abandoning Cubase as of 13. I will however update Nuendo 13 to 14 the nanosecond it's released after the first of the year. And then just stick with that going forward.

So you're saying you used to have both and now will only use Nuendo going forward? Because I always wondered why someone would have both.

lol …. everything is a treadmill if you view it that way.

I like to think of it as …. a team of expert coders spend a year ticking off more of my Cubase wish list and adding features I didn’t know I needed …. in exchange for the cost of a decent meal out and glass of wine for me and my better half.

Agreed, this update definitely feels worth it

I think 13 gets some undeserved heat. Users complained, legitimately, for years about the inconsistent and old interface. 13 was an extensive overhaul. I believe this was quite an amount of work on Steinbergs part.

Then of course users complained anyway, because users want everything to change but also stay exactly the same. I liked the look of the old monochrome interface but I can definitely get onboard with the new one. I don’t think they changed it on a whim, but had valid reasons.

Personally, the drum machine and modulators in 14 were not on my top list, as I do more traditional recorded music. But I can see the value from Steinberg’s POV. They want to attract the Live crowd. I’m guessing this is also why they add plugins, which again does nothing for me personally. I have great processors coming out of my ears and don’t need the DAW to come with more and slightly less useful ones. I’d happily pay every year for nothing but workflow updates.

But then I’m just one customer. Steinberg are the ones who have to figure out a business model that allows them to stay in the game and evolve the software.

Cubase remains, for better or for worse, arguably the most feature rich and well rounded of all the DAWs. Now that suits me, even if it means there’s stuff I hardly use. I like that it’s there should I need it.

TLDR: Cubase 14 seems great, but I upgrade without hardly reading the update list. For the same amount of money I’d spend on Netflix I get the latest updates of a professional DAW I use every day. No brainer.

I'd imagine they crossgraded in the summer sale.
Crossgrade doesn't invalidate your Cubase license so unless/until you decide to sell it you'll own both.

Having both was useful for a while on multiple slave computers. It's mostly a transitional thing for me now as I began with Cubase on elicenser, did crossgrade to Nuendo a few versions ago and kept upgrading/using a mix of both through ver13.....mostly from habit

Cb14 looks great...I anticipate Nuendo14 in the first quarter of 2025 will be cooler still and I'll upgrade the minute it's available.

Anyone know how to make the cursor in cubase behave the same as it does in logic Ableton and protools ? All these new bells and whistles are nice but the cursor thing drives me nuts. Your always chasing the cursor. Return to start on stop is the stupidest thing I've seen/. How about return to start on play same as the other DAWS.

How about changing this with a simple click in the options menu? It's that simple. Preferences -> transport -> uncheck the 'return to start' box.

Yes, Steinberg do seem to be wanting to attract the Live crowd. Frankly, I'm glad they are doing it. I have long been wanting to get into learning and using Live but always been put off by something or the other about it - the appearance, the workflow, it's all so jarring and unfamiliar to me. The Live-inspired features in C14 are very appealing to me, especially as a media composer it seems more and more TV shows are wanting hybrid orchestral/electronica scores and Cubendo offers the best of both worlds' workflows.

Upgraded from 10.5 to 14 last night.

14 is worse in every way. Cluttered, bloated, lots of things I don't need. And half my plugins don't work, and I don't have the time to find out why.

The VST2 half? Turn on VST2 scanning.

10.5 to 14 is a huge jump. You could've run the trial for a couple months before upgrading if you weren't sure?

A lot of the issues you're probably facing aren't down to 14 itself, but one of the many versions along the way. Like stella645 said, if it's VST2 plugins you need just manually scan for them and they should load up. 32 bit plugs however stopped working circa 13, IIRC.

I thought 32bit plug blacklisting began a long time ago.

At any rate, jbridge seamlessly handles that non-issue on windows.

I'm hoping J-Bridge will start to support VST3 as my 32bit VST2 Powercore plugins are still something I find very useful in a mix.

Currently J-Bridge only wraps to VST2 64bit.

haha ...guess I lied. I just clicked to upgrade to cb14 and will do the same for n14.

No explaining the minds of musicians. Such flaky creatures we are

I don't think I've ever installed a trial of Cubase, but I'm considering it now, as I can't afford it atm but will probably be able to buy it before the trial ends.

Any differences between trial and full version? I.e. does it only install Cubase or all the extras too?

Dont' know for cubase but Nuendo 13 is a great piece of software. PT and logic killer is here. Can't wait for Nuendo 14.

Agree. I was a huge fan of Cubase from "VST" to v6 but I stopped using it when I discovered some serious bugs that Steinberg refused to patch, or even acknowledge, in spite of me providing supporting files and screenshots. They, instead, suggested I buy the latest version which they claimed was "fixed" - however I tried it and it was NOT fixed.

But it's been awhile so I thought I'd give it another try demoing version 14. However within the first few minutes I already discovered a few bugs.

For example, when I select to "add a group track INSIDE a folder" it adds it OUTSIDE the folder. Likewise adding a group track outside the folder adds it INSIDE the folder (it's backwards). No one else noticed?

Also found a bug in the new Drum Machine whereby loading the last type of instrument, such as Kick 4 does not come back to the Kick drums if you go back to select Kick 1-3. See attached videos.

I realize these are just two small examples BUT this is only after 15 minutes or so of playing with v14. I'm curious if the issue I had long ago was ever fixed (accumulating drift in the audio warp quantizing).

I am not bashing Cubase. The "early years" were great. But as you said, Steinberg has always seemed more concerned with adding new features for the next paid v0.5 update then in making the program solid. That's a shame because I was a big fan for a long time.

There are not many choices in professional software only 4 :

- protools ultimate
- sequoia
- nuendo
- pyramix

This has always been like this. The reasoning is: the default location for a new group is INSIDE the default groups folder. If you want it to be right next to where you are, you thus have to select OUTSIDE the default groups folder so you can place it anywhere you want. Makes sense to me.

While I agree there are still bugs that haven't been adressed, this one doesn't count.

What do you mean by "default groups folder"? Sorry, this does NOT make sense to me. Just because it's always been like this doesn't make it right - it means they never fixed it.

I don't care really as I found more issues since this post; deleted the demo and moved on. Just sharing my long-time experience with CB here and agreeing with what so many others have said.

BTW - I also do not like the fact that Steinberg is basically forcing most existing owners to upgrade due to the new licensing system. Again, paying more money to keep or fix whatever you already purchased. Sorry, I don't - and won't - support that business model.

Group tracks either go next where you clicked or they go into a default folder. The default is the groups folder. NOT "any" folder.

So if you choose default that's where it goes. If choose "outside" it goes outside of the default folder.

Just because it's poorly labeled or because you don't like it doesn't mean it needs fixing or that it's broken. I agree, they could have worded this better, but the functionality you seek is there. If you want the group track wherever you 'are' then choose "outside", if you want it in a default group tracks folder with other group tracks then choose the other option.

No software will be 100% perfect, there will always be bugs. So no matter what DAW you choose you are going to be getting a software where problems are fixed across generations of it. It's just the way it is.

At the very least I'd say most Steinberg updates are well worth the money (I'm on Nuendo btw) so it's not like you're paying for only bug fixes, you get other improvements as well.

As for the new licensing system there were those of us who argued for keeping the dongle and the majority were against that. Steinberg listened. So here we are. Seems that the discussion has been had many times over already. In my opinion it's going tomake sense to upgrade for a lot of people. Users can basically just compare the options and put down how much that will cost on a piece of paper and see what it is. Figure you can use the software for a couple of years maybe before upgrading again and whatever the savings are from upgrading now as opposed to re-buying new later you can divide that by 24 and that's the monthly saving from upgrading, or cost from waiting. And then take into the account the value of actually using the software from 'now' until you'd otherwise purchase new.

Did you look at the video I attached here? I was INSIDE a folder when I chose to add a Group INSIDE the folder and it added it OUTSIDE that folder. Sorry, but that does not make sense. If I was working on a big mix that would get very confusing.

I also had several clips show up with the "musical mode" symbol in the edit window but Musical Mode was not checked for those clips in the Media Pool nor did it show in the clip info line. So I don't know WHAT mode they were in.

I also had a complete DAW crash when just trying to load a sound in Halion. I posted about a Drum Machine bug above.

All of these issues I came across within only about 20 minutes or so of demoing CB 14 which tells me that this product has not been thoroughly vetted/beta tested. If Steinberg was aggressive in fixing bugs I would go for it but IME they tend to leave a lot on the table never addressed. That's unacceptable, IMO, for a $580 DAW.

Agree, there is no perfect DAW. But for many years now it seems this one has cared more about adding new bells and whistles than in making a solid tool. That's my experience and my opinion and CB 14 did not change my mind.

Disappointing to me but if it works for you, great!

Yes, I looked at the video and I understand what you are saying.

Both me and JSchlomo explained how it works and what we say seems to be correct, does it not? When it says "outside folder" it really means "outside default folder (according to track type)".

In other words, if you create an FX track it will create an FX track folder if one does not already exist if you choose "inside folder", and if you choose "outside folder" it will create the track on the "level" that your current selection is on.

If you have selected a track inside a generic folder track and then choose "outside folder" it will create the FX track outside of the FX track folder, and that puts you back at the other location for the new track that you are creating - the location of your current selection, which happens to be inside your generic folder.

It is consistent behavior, and if anything the labels of the dialog box content should be changed.

All I can say is that ever since the pandemic I've made about 99% of my income off of Nuendo, which is basically Nuendo plus extra stuff. I have no stability problems from the DAW itself, ever. It isn't a perfect DAW and neither are the others.

I don't know which version of Cubase you're currently using but I think it's absolutely fair to say that if you can have someone like Hans Zimmer use it professionally for the types of productions he does then while it isn't perfect it's certainly good enough for some very talented and demanding people. And he's not the only one of course.

Fix bugs? Yes please.
No company fixes all bugs. Sucks. Is life.

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I'll just add this food for thought: I've worked professionally on Pro Tools for well over a decade with Nuendo being the secondary DAW, say 5-10% of the time, and now almost exclusively Nuendo. The one thing I learned a while back is that you simply can't look at one DAW and demand that it should behave a certain way and then go banging your head against a wall to get it to do things it just doesn't do, or get it to say or show things the way it doesn't. Why? Because it's a waste of time.

So in your case when you are talking about creating tracks there is a painfully simple answer to that problem: Just deal with it. It is so very, very easy to remember what the commands mean and then have a consistent experience. Sure, annoying you ran into that and didn't understand the behavior because of labeling, but now that you do you can use that feature in a predictable manner.

When adding group channels, I almost only ever use the “add group channel to selected tracks” function, which I’ve assigned a key command to. The group channels appear right below the last selected track.

Every single version of Cubase released (I've had them all) people say exactly the same thing as you posted above.

"Steinberg released this before it's ready"

Yet here we are, with Cubase 14 being the pinnacle of what's possible with a modern DAW.

I have Cubase 14 running on my machine and already running 8 hours a day and getting work done.

All these software companies are same - they use that Agile approach,

Agile methodology is a project management framework that focuses on collaboration, improvement, and quick delivery:


Money makes a software house keeps the lights on, they work towards "generally" expectable releasable product - then once it's out on the field earning money so follows the bug fixes!

For many years I ran the method of only buying a new Cubase version updates once two updates had been released X.2 and this worked well.

Of late, since about Cubase 11 new versions have been on my system ready to use straight away with just a few tiny issues that get fixed after a month or so.

I ruin Logic X, Pro Tools and Live for session compatibility and I don't find them any better/worse.

Cubase/ Wavelab/ Dorico are my main system in constant daily use and I'm constantly amazed how software of such incredible power and functionality (and relatively cheap cost compared to other commercial non music software) works so incredibly well "out of the box" so to speak.

I hope you find things improve for you with Cubase 14 with future update fixes - because Cubase 14 is a fabulous way to make music imho.

One bugbear I still have with Cubase is that Touch automation still doesn’t work correctly, the way it does in Nuendo and any other DAW. Very frustrating.