VST3's and their future?

[Dave Boulden]

Originally Posted by tyronehowe

And don’t get me started on the “overnight” dropping of several major Steinberg instruments.

What exactly could Steinberg have done about this??? Digidesign bought Wizoo and SB had no legal right to continue the Wizoo codebases on their own... As it was, they hired the excellent Dave Brown to finish off GrooveAgent3 when Wizoo disappeared mid-development... in fact, he had to completely redevelop it from the ground up... I imagine there was quite a bit of s*** hitting the fan in the fallout of the Wizoo situation.

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by tyronehowe

Also has FULL PDC, even for external instruments. And of course it is (by definition) the perfect host for VSTs.

To be fair to SB - this is probably another major reason I keep it - Ableton Live does sometimes have issues with its PDC and seem particular bad with the external instrument and external fx plugins. Mostly I know the causes of PDC problem in Live so I can choose my routing carefully, accept the consequences of bizarre routing and choose zero latency plugins over perhaps better sounding plugins and use them with care.

In C4 on the other hand, I dont generally have to think about this, but then I cant do the same bizarre routings either.

Its other strong plus points are its MIDI editing and and groove templates that even even dynamics quantise as well as timing quantise and rather nice snapping behaviour around the quantize as well (ie you can get the quantise function to ignore note that are off grid by more than a certain amount), so its easy to pull in for eg a 4/4 played kick + off beat HH to 1/8th while leaving the rest of the groove untouched.

Other really good areas - drum maps - works pretty well, but at the same time also feels like it was hacked in from another application and not quite fully integrated.

Another potentially excellent area was the device panels thing - absolutely excellent idea but suffers badly from being a real pain to create device panels due to buggy editor that hasnt been touch in several major versions and basically seems to have got abandoned and never integrated for bi-directional control, so stupidly you cant control it via the same CCs, Sysex etc as received from the device its controlling - Duh!

Next brilliant idea - control room - BUT you couldnt stick plugins in it - for eg the one time I really wanted to use this feature was to create a crossfeed headphone mix (ie a bit of left fed to right and visa-versa to get around some of the typical issues with mixing on cans) - well - you cant, though Im told that finally you can stick plugins in there - never tried it as firmly into using Live. I have since bought an external monitor control matrix - way way better!

Despite the excellent PDC, C4 was oddly plagued by midi timing issues, so here we have an excellent midi editing and quantize tool that ends up near useless because it cant record and play in time for external hardware synths - as a drummer with a midi drum kit - you can possiblyy just about imagin how annoying this was - eventually the audio hit splitting + midi groove quantize came to the rescue, but it was such a painful process to get recorded drums that even vaguely resembled what I actually played.

Yamaha and Steinberg together - I have a Yamaha 01x+i88x and a Motif ES rack which includes some level of integration with Cubase - the main point being the total recall - that works well - allbeit rather slowly, but could I ever get the plugin copies of aspects of the 01x to sync in Cubase 4 - never, and then for ages despite the integration, it turns out that actually Cubase could not cope with the asynmetric in vs out latency of the 01x, so audio recording allways had to be manually aligned.

As an electronic music producer (ie lots of synths, lots of fx, lots of bizarre routing etc) then its was simply way too constrained in term of audio routing options. Even basic stuff like bouncing a VSTi output to audio was imposible without first sending the audio outside the box and re-recording it - another Duh! Finally you can do this by sending the audio to a group as finally you can bounce the output of a group track inside the box.

I was realy pleased when they implemented external instrument and external fx support - that was until I tried it and found out that you have to dedicate external audio channels and midi ports to specific devices - ie there was no way in hell it was going to let you share ports and audio channels between devices (with the obvious caveat that its down to you to enable+disable devices before bouncing/freezing etc), so couldnt use that - I have a useful number of channels, but didnt have enough, so that potentially excellent feature was out.

The UI - I have never gelled with it UI - actually its so bad and fiddly and demands so much focus that it just instantly erases all creativity from my head - doing logical and focussed tasks with it is OK - tracking, mixing etc but I just cannot flow with it.

Actually I got very close to abandoning computers in audio production completely as a consequence of this and audio routing limitation and all the other oddities etc and instead going completely back to hardware for recording and editing. Thanksfully one day I tried the demo of the rather limited (as a pure DAW) Ableton Live and that restored my faith in useable relaibility, useable flexibility, computer based workflow and creativity etc - never looked back really. C4 still has its uses - it would probaby still play a major part in production for me if they finished all the half done bits and decided to stabilise it, as it is - it just annoys me too much for everyday use outside of conventional tracking and mixing and pre-mastering.

Perhaps the reason why C3SX and C4 irratate me so much is because its so damn close to being very very good and yet to whole is so much less than its parts and sadly it seems neither Yamaha nor Steinberg can be relied upon for consistent delivery and to instroduce an idea and see it through to logical completion rather than instead abandoning it half way and chasing their latest whim instead. (Yes - Yamaha are just as bad, if not worse - the mLan fiasco for example?)

[tyronehowe]

Originally Posted by Dave Boulden

What exactly could Steinberg have done about this??? Digidesign bought Wizoo and SB had no legal right to continue the Wizoo codebases on their own... As it was, they hired the excellent Dave Brown to finish off GrooveAgent3 when Wizoo disappeared mid-development... in fact, he had to completely redevelop it from the ground up... I imagine there was quite a bit of s*** hitting the fan in the fallout of the Wizoo situation.

Hi Dave

Yes I know you’re right – but I get fed up with having to worry about it.

Maybe Steinberg could have bought Wizoo themselves? Maybe they could have struck a deal with Digi? I don’t know – I really don’t want to know about all that. What I do know is that I have purchased products from Steinberg that were unsupported overnight.

If there had been some notice then that would have helped.

There seem to be a lot of companies that are like that.

But I’m not disagreeing with you!

OT: So you are a Kent boy?? I was born in Ramsgate and lived most of life in Broadstairs (until about 7 years ago), so that makes me a “Man of Kent” – are you the same? Or are you a “Kentish Man”?

[Dave Boulden]

Unfortunately, I don't think SB got the option to buy Wizoo, I believe the Digi deal came out of the blue... and Digi do a deal with a competitor??? Not even when hell freezes over

Obviously, from a customers point of view, I agree, the treatment did seem shoddy, but I really do believe their hands were tied in this particular instance. Plus this was all around the time Yamaha were buying Steinberg themselves, so no doubt that had an impact.

I'm a Kentish Man.... just.... was born literally a stones throw from the Medway in Maidstone... and it was pot luck which hospital I was born in, the other option would have made me a Man of Kent.

[Dave Boulden]

Originally Posted by Khazul

Despite the excellent PDC, C4 was oddly plagued by midi timing issues

But that was down to the mLan drivers, not C4 wasn't it? I too had the timing errors which were eventually resolved with the long-waited for mLan driver update.

[tyronehowe]

Blimey Khazul!

You’ve clearly had a lot more experience with Cubase than I’ve had – but I can see exactly why you feel you the way you do.

No DAW is perfect, I know that from experience because I have tried most of them. In terms of pure features (if they worked) I think that Cubase would be the best. Ableton Live I’ve always put “outside” of the other DAWs because it is deliberately different and does things that no other DAW can easily do.

Originally Posted by Khazul

C4 still has its uses - it would probaby still play a major part in production for me if they finished all the half done bits and decided to stabilise it, as it is - it just annoys me too much for everyday use outside of conventional tracking and mixing and pre-mastering.

You’ve summed up my entire view of Cubase. There are just too many unfinished bits and bobs.

Originally Posted by Khazul

Perhaps the reason why C3SX and C4 irratate me so much is because its so damn close to being very very good and yet to whole is so much less than its parts and sadly it seems neither Yamaha nor Steinberg can be relied upon for consistent delivery and to introduce an idea and see it through to logical completion rather than instead abandoning it half way and chasing their latest whim instead. (Yes - Yamaha are just as bad, if not worse - the mLan fiasco for example?)

Yup – I feel just the same. I remember seeing the huge amount of anger displayed on the Cubase forum when Sequel was announced while there were many serious bugs still in C4 that users were waiting to be fixed.

But … I know a number of people that use Cubase on a day to day basis and are happy to make money / have fun with it. It’s just that I personally wouldn’t be happy using their products knowing how they treat their customers.

The only one I still really use is Virtual Guitarist 2 (thankfully it was converted to UB before the plug was pulled) because I haven’t any replacement for it.

[tyronehowe]

Originally Posted by Dave Boulden

Unfortunately, I don't think SB got the option to buy Wizoo, I believe the Digi deal came out of the blue... and Digi do a deal with a competitor??? Not even when hell freezes over

Obviously, from a customers point of view, I agree, the treatment did seem shoddy, but I really do believe their hands were tied in this particular instance. Plus this was all around the time Yamaha were buying Steinberg themselves, so no doubt that had an impact.

Ok – that's fair point. I was, as you say, just looking at it from the customer’s point of view. I’m doing that a lot more lately – I think it’s a sign of getting older

Originally Posted by Dave Boulden

I'm a Kentish Man.... just.... was born literally a stones throw from the Medway in Maidstone... and it was pot luck which hospital I was born in, the other option would have made me a Man of Kent.

and I think that are now only a few people left who know the difference between a Kentish Man and a Man of Kent!

[sureno]

Wait till cubase 5 comes out when i was a member and user of C4 and cubase.net i was secretly hoping that C5 would be announced because it was so funny reading all the people getting irate about it, im not much of a moaner either get on with it or move away from the problem, may have the occasional moan up but some of these guys lived for it i just thought any day now there is going to be a revolt, i remember when they where meant to fix the Freeze function and didn't, some members where furious as they had practically started a campaign to address this but to no avail

[Dave Boulden]

Originally Posted by tyronehowe

and I think that are now only a few people left who know the difference between a Kentish Man and a Man of Kent!

That'll be the Jute in you

[sureno]

what you guys on about im feeling left out again, who's the Kent man

[Dave Boulden]

Getting a bit off topic.... but....

BBC - Kent Places - Man of Kent or Kentish Man?

[sureno]

Originally Posted by Dave Boulden

Getting a bit off topic.... but....

BBC - Kent Places - Man of Kent or Kentish Man?

Oh ok

[Monarch]

Originally Posted by Khazul

The UI - I have never gelled with it UI - actually its so bad and fiddly and demands so much focus that it just instantly erases all creativity from my head - doing logical and focussed tasks with it is OK - tracking, mixing etc but I just cannot flow with it.

Heh...classic example of how tastes can differ so much...I *love* C4's GUI. I think it is superb.

But yes there is no point using features that must be accessed through a problematic GUI. Personally I really liked/like it.

Originally Posted by sureno

Wait till cubase 5 comes out when i was a member and user of C4 and cubase.net i was secretly hoping that C5 would be announced because it was so funny reading all the people getting irate about it, im not much of a moaner either get on with it or move away from the problem, may have the occasional moan up but some of these guys lived for it i just thought any day now there is going to be a revolt, i remember when they where meant to fix the Freeze function and didn't, some members where furious as they had practically started a campaign to address this but to no avail

It's a really strange cycle. Half finished features, then patches > users demand new features and more patches> half finished features > patches e.t.c

Funnily enough even though every software package has some sort of buggy element to it, for the most part one can complete projects at times wihout really coming across any problems (my experience though).

Then again...a different workflow might bring up a buggy feature really quickly. I think the software industry...especially the speed of Music software development can be a very strange cycle indeed.

[sureno]

not that im a pro and its vital to complete my work, it is nice however and C4 sometimes just wouldn't let me, i would leave the project then the next day try and open it and bam, crashes and thats pretty much it for that project then the previous saves are the same story just a real pain! iv not encountered this with Logic 8 yet (fingers crossed)

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by Dave Boulden

But that was down to the mLan drivers, not C4 wasn't it? I too had the timing errors which were eventually resolved with the long-waited for mLan driver update.

Same MIDI toming issues regardless of whether I was using the 01x as my audio interface or another symetric ASIO device or even non ASIO devices. MIDI timing was a real headache for quite some time - Im not actually sure when it was sorted out as I gave up and went to Live - it seems ok now, though i think Live is generally tighter on recording.

I actually use an Edirol UM-880 as my primary MIDI interface to hardware synths - I wish roland still made them as I could do with another

About the only thing that I use mLan midi ports for is for controlling some external hardware fx devices - no synths on those ports.


Edit: actually I think you might be right about when the MIDI timing issues were resolved, I dont know if was related the the asymetric ASIO device latency problem - may testing and tryg to work around it etc didnt indicate it was (as an FYI for others, the Yamaha 01x has different input and output latencies which for a while caused Cubase to get a bit confused )