Brock
Experienced
I’ve used Cubase forever. While it’s certainly had bouts with serious quirks/bugs from time to time, all in all, it’s been very stable for me for the past several years. As much as I love it, I feel it’s getting bloated - new code built on old code, repeat, repeat, repeat for around a decade and a half now.
A friend encouraged me to try Studio One. He was also a long time Cubase/Nuendo user. He said his workflow sped up considerably when he switched to Studio One. Given the fact he records music for a living, I put a lot of stock into what he says.
I worked with Studio One exclusively for a few months - long enough that I was able to comfortably navigate around the program. I love the way it looks; I love the fact it shows gain reduction on the meters (for VST3 plugins); I love the fact that its windows are independent and not contained by an overall window like Cubase; I love the humanize and humanize less functions; and overall, it feels a bit snappier to me.
That said, I realize my workflow was considerably slower (and in many cases, handicapped) compared to working in Cubase. Here’s how:
I’m not writing this to bash Studio One. I really do like it. That said, my workflow is much faster in Cubase. While some of the items listed above are relatively small issues, they add up. More, I just felt I was missing a lot in Studio One.
A friend encouraged me to try Studio One. He was also a long time Cubase/Nuendo user. He said his workflow sped up considerably when he switched to Studio One. Given the fact he records music for a living, I put a lot of stock into what he says.
I worked with Studio One exclusively for a few months - long enough that I was able to comfortably navigate around the program. I love the way it looks; I love the fact it shows gain reduction on the meters (for VST3 plugins); I love the fact that its windows are independent and not contained by an overall window like Cubase; I love the humanize and humanize less functions; and overall, it feels a bit snappier to me.
That said, I realize my workflow was considerably slower (and in many cases, handicapped) compared to working in Cubase. Here’s how:
- No drum maps - I work with a variety of libraries and have a few different mappings I use. When I open the editor, I like to be able to see “Bass Drum” instead of C1 on the side keyboard. More, when I used my eKit to play parts in, all the note lengths were microscopic in Studio One. I had to select all the notes and lengthen them to be able to use them. Cubase’s ability to name notes and its use of diamonds instead of bars in the editor window makes editing exponentially faster for me.
- No library files - I can’t save Instruments with inserts on the respective tracks in Studio One. More, it doesn’t save the output configuration (e.g., using Kontakt with 10 stereo outs) when instantiating a preset. This was a massive time waster for me. The only workaround I figured out was to use Song Templates, but that wasn’t always useful, for example…
- Cannot import MIDI into existing project - If I import a MIDI file, it creates an entirely new project. So I can’t open a song template with my drums configured. I have to create a new project, load my drum presets, then set the output configuration, inserts, etc. manually.
- Non-flexible metronome - I use a 2 beat (4 eighth note) count off. Unless I change the meter to 2/4, that’s not possible in Studio One.
- No Re-record - I make lots of mistakes when I’m tracking. Cubase’s Re-record function makes do-overs super quick. It remembers where I started; it will give me a count off if I have the precount on, or not if it’s off. I created a macro in Studio One that mostly did this, but it was quirky - I had to always use the regular Record KC and then I could use the Re-record macro (if I used the macro KC for the initial record, it would undo whatever I did prior to recording the current part).
- No Control Room, part 1 - I use Sonarworks Reference 3 room correction software (which I can’t recommend highly enough!). In Cubase, I can set it in the Control Room so it is always applied while listening to playback, but never rendered when exporting mixes. I rendered mix after mix with it on in Studio One because I kept forgetting to turn it off. Plus, turning it off and on means I need to adjust the threshold level on the maximizer.
- No Control Room, part 2 - I use multiple sets of monitors. In Cubase I can switch between all of them with a KC. In Studio One I’d have to constantly change my Sound Device.
- No silence function - I clean up my audio, e.g., a guitar squeak, a breath, etc. In Cubase I do this with the Silence function. I was unable to find any Silence function in Studio One. I realize I could chop up events to get rid of them, but I’m goofy in that I always want my events starting at the beginning of a measure (makes copy/pasting/moving/etc. easier).
- No preset fade in/out for audio - I realize I can use the handles on the event to do this, but I like to fade audio in and out in some cases. In Cubase I can highlight a part of an event and via KC can fade in or out.
- Editing vocals - I realize Studio One comes with Melodyne, which is widely regarded to be the best pitch correction software. I don’t like it. First off, I hate that it opens as a separate program rather than a function within the program. Second, I found the workflow to be slow and awkward. I’m much faster using Cubase’s built-in tools. That said, I think Logic has the most efficient tool for this (intuitive, quick, and easy.
- Quantizing audio - much the same as above, I find Cubase’s tools much quicker and easier. Also, I think Cubase’s algorithms for transient detection seem more accurate. When I used the KC for quantizing an audio event in Studio One, I had to manually adjust a lot of markers.
- Adding inserts - when I add inserts in Cubase, it immediately defaults to the search window so when I start typing it immediately starts pulling up results. In Studio One, I have to click in the search window before it starts recognizing the typing; and I have to press Enter before it begins the search. This seems trivial but it really slowed me down.
- No Constrain Delay Compensation - If I have a mix going with CPU-heavy plugins and want to record something where I need the latency to be as low as possible, e.g., play in some drum parts on my eKit routed to a sample library, in Cubase I can click the CDC button and it turns off all the plugins that add considerably latency. In Studio One, I found a button that turns all the plugins off, but that’s not what I want — plus it was a total PITA to turn them all back on one by one. I’m told Studio One does have a CDC-like function but I was never able to find it.
- Mixer view - In Studio One I have to manually expand/contract each channel to see everything that’s going on in terms of inserts and sends. It’s a very horizontal layout. I run multiple displays, so I don’t need this. With Cubase I kick my Mix Console over to the second monitor and with its layout I can see everything at once without having to constantly expand/contract.
- Removing inserts - In Cubase, I can click-drag a plugin and it removes it from the track. In Studio One I have to click the disclosure triangle and select Remove.
- Mix Console configuration - In Cubase I prefer to keep my Group, FX, and Master bus channels right justified, so they’re always displaying. In Studio One this isn’t possible. For me, this resulted in a lot of scrolling and searching.
- Relative note velocities - In Cubase I can select notes and adjust their velocities a variety of ways where the velocities stay relative to each other, including lower/increasing all the velocities, ramp them up/down (while maintaining relative positions). I’m told this is possible in Studio One but it requires digging into a secondary or tertiary menu.
- Right-clicking - In general, right-clicking provides a lot more functionality in Cubase which greatly minimizes the need to dig into menus.
I’m not writing this to bash Studio One. I really do like it. That said, my workflow is much faster in Cubase. While some of the items listed above are relatively small issues, they add up. More, I just felt I was missing a lot in Studio One.
