garyb wrote:yeah, if you have something that works well for you, why buy something new just to "upgrade"? this is a bit of faulty logic and desire peculiar to the software world....
Not quite gary. All over london there are shops called TKmax that sell Brand labels as well as wares/houseold goods for high street prices or less. It's not because the goods are damaged or faulty, but simply because in most cases they are last seasons products. The truely fashion concious would not be seen dead in last winters armarni even if the the price has been slashed by over two thirds!
I don't pretend to understand the fashion market any more than the audio software market but my guess is that the pitch must be quite similar.
Anything new on the market has to justify it's existance even if it is just a rehash or rip-off froom your own or competitors line. So the usual blurb is that we as the consumer cannot possibly live without this new improved "thing" and that we will somehow be left behind scratching out a megre existance, left only wondering how life could be if we would recognise the brilliance of said "thing"
My razor has three blades. How many does yours have?
irrelevance wrote:...My razor has three blades. How many does yours have?
one - and it's the same razor for 15 years or so - that's why blades got to be kind of expensive...
but you have a point there with this music production for production's sake...
I made the upgrade from VST32 tio SX1 because the price was not so high and I was very curious of what claimed to be a "new" software....I must say that I was really shocked to see how it sucked...I had been too fast and somehow a "victim" of the marketing strategies.....I kept downloading the bug fixes, but continued the work in VST32. The fact is that the MIDI workflow and features were infinitely better for me in VST32, so....
I missed intentionally the update to SX2, SX1 wasn't good enough for me either, I kept working on VST32.
When SX3 came out some of the advertized features (audio stretching etc.) where interesting, the upgrade price from SX1 was the same as from SX2 (another occasion to piss off many customers...) that I decided to get it.
Well, bottom of the line is that for my CD I used VST32 for nine tracks and SX3 for two. Using separate busses to Scope and having even forgot how does a vst instrument or fx look like, I must say that SX3 doesn't offer anything different from VST32 that I need. Audio stretching algos sound awful, some functions are cumbersome and not logical, I find the "more professional" look extremely more tiring than VST32, that in its 5.1 version works fine on XP. If all the features reached a good level, well, I'd use it, but for now I just use SX3 after I recorded the 32bits f.p. mix, to load it and re-record it after processing it in a dedicated finalizing Scope project and for final dithering and export with the better UV22hr.
I'm out now from the Steinberg upgrade route, all the new stuff in C4 is useless for me, I have 32 dsp's in one machine and 9 in another one, a sleek tracker with powerful MIDI is all I need. My future purchases will look probably somewhere else.
i remember when Wilkinson brought out that Quattro razor and jokingly though Gillette would bring out a five blade razor. And they have (i think i got that the right way round).
irrelevance wrote:Valis who originally developed the Nuendo platform then?
I don't know to be honest, I started using it when I joined a company in California that makes (made) video editing hardware. Our Japanese distributor had it in their offerings and to be honest it was WAY too pricey for me to afford until Steinberg took over and rebranded it (version 1.2 or 1.3 I forget). I picked a copy up in v 1.3 and was quite happy with it for the majority of that year, as nothing else that worked on Win2k even came close to its audio handling abilities (most software still required I reboot into win98).
It is amazing... it has happened again! But this time is just too silly and too much!
I have not done the latest upgrade with Cubase, but I certainly feel annoyed too by their dishonest way of doing business, in support of all users of Steinberg products.
How much money did we spend on it already? I used to look at Cubase with such a mystical light, it was my baby... I have worked with it since version 1.1... long, long ago, it had only MIDI then.
After this, I started to work with the VST line and had many problems at the beginning, but finally it became quite a robust software for what I did with it. It became quite good when it reached its 3.7 version of VST.
I think many of us will finally move to some of the great alternatives out there, sooner or later, alternatives much, MUCH cheaper and today, almost as good as our old baby.
I think one of my choices would be Ableton Live.
Anyway, part of what is happening is our fault, because we are too eagerly waiting for the last plug-in to appear, the last synth, the last piece of gear, the last CPU, the last stick or RAM and so on. This talking laud makes us so vulnerable! But we still continue with this behaviour, and the guys in charge of the marketing come to places like the Z and many other music forums, read all about what we think, whish, desire, dislike, about our deceptions, etc. In a few months, “curiously”, there is a product that coincides with the likes of the many... and then, there we go again... but marketing is never a fair representative of what is behind, i.e., the product itself and its upgrade policy.
Ideally, every product should be perfected on its own, and not be considered the continuation of the previous software. I mean, the last version of VST should be a perfectly working version. Then, if there it comes SX, well, ok, that’s fine, we cannot stop creativity or advance in the technological world, and if someone wants a software with a built in kitchen and a virtual hand to scratch his head for him, that’s cool. But we for sure have the legitimate right to claim for a software that works correctly with those prices, when we come to the last version of it. Do you want to change to yet another more sophisticated piece of software, let say, Cubase VXA10, that’s fine again, but first lets perfect SX when it comes to its final version!
If you remove all the bells and beautiful words, all the promises and fantastic pictures with many colours that marketing put in front of us, we are in fact, in front of a fraudulent move...
I remember, when I did my second big PC, a few years ago, I said “I would forget about technology and all the upgrades, and will concentrate in making music”, fortunately, I did, and it was great. I didn’t have the latest motherboard, or CPU, or board, or software, but instate, I’ve got a better understanding of composition, musicianship, mastering, and most of all, I did lots of music. It was much, much regarding by the end, than having the latest PC with the latest software. Well, I don’t know, my story may not appeal to you.
Of course, I would always like to have enough money to upgrade hardware and software every year, but common, these two things must have a limit, and in no way can overcome the importance of music itself.
*MUSIC* The most Powerful Language in the world! *INDEED*
Like others i have been using Steiny for a while Pro24 on the Atari ring any bells? Anyway i have to see i have become progressively disillusioned with them - this is just the icing on the cake - and when i do eventually upgrade for whatever reasons i may try Samplitude, although they have a dongle now. Any Samplitude users on here?
I will personally continue using Cubase for ages, because I think it is the best sequencer-recorder software ever made, it matches my needs 100%. I don’t think I will need anything else for a long, long time to come...
For those of you that feel it is moment to change, here you have a list of most of the sequencers out there, you will hardly find many more out of this list, so keep here, and read so to inform you:
Reading the cubase forum it seems to me that cubase 4 resp. cubase studio 4 are not matured and have still too much bugs. I agree with stardust: If you have a well working sx3 or sl3 (like me), stay with it and wait for updates and bugfixes.
After the release of Cubase SX3 two updates followed.
The second one introduced a new bug on the mac platform for Wacom pen users: the faders and knobs don't react to pen movements...
For ever now.
So I have to pay a firm price to solve that bug by upgrading to -for me useless- SX4, or stick with 3.1.1.944.
spoimala wrote:If you sell me your music CD and I find a mistake in it, do you fix it? No you don't. You're busy making a new CD.
If the fix was promised, though, that's a different story.
I'm not sure if that's a very valid analogy/comparison.
Artistic 'mistakes' are harder to define and prove compared to technical ones. So much more is open to interpretation and opinion/personal taste. Besides, humans are not computers. Even the most technically advanced player in the world cannot accurately duplicate a performance time & time again, therefore their every performance is flawed, surely? Not so a computer; that is a machine which can 'play' the same piece of software identically time and time again, giving the developers the opportunity to test, modify and perfect it.
If I buy a piece of sequencing software, work hard on developing a piece of music and then BANG it crashes, taking my work with it I'd say that was a pretty clear-cut technical mistake which should have been resolved by proper testing of the software. That's one of my main criticisms of Steinberg; they do not have a thorough enough test procedure for their products. Even completely basic, obvious-straight-out-of-the-box software BUGs are overlooked and released to paying customers. Take SL2 for example, which, when released, had a BUG which I spotted within a minute; for audio channels, only one channel's audio activity is ever shown; the other channel is always blank.
Only poor testing and quality control could allow such a BUG to be released. And did Steinberg address this issue in any of the SL2 patches which came out? No, they did not. Then they moved to SL3 and expected me to pay more money. Sorry, but I do not have the confidence in their ability to thoroughly track and resolve issues to give them more money not to do so.
Like Nestor, I've been with Cubase since v1 on the Atari, so I must like the product! However, for the above mentioned reasons, I am uwilling to give them any more money.
In 'today's money' I've given Steinberg several thousands of pounds now....I think that's quite enough, really.
for me, cubase is very well laid out and works well. i'm not really a synth/midi guy though i do use both. i know the program has faults, but they don't really affect me and there's nothing more i need at the moment. it would take a major upgrade for me to spend the money right now. i'm betting the same for most of the customers. i'm not angry, though. the abandonment of a previous version is to be expected. it is a shame that promises were made by the previous regime, this is a good reason to duck all promises to consumers(don't make promises if you write software until you're done!).
(i think i got that the right way round).
Good luck!
