Anybody using Cubase Elements?

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abacab
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2016/12/30 16:07:10 (permalink)

Anybody using Cubase Elements?

Just curious if anybody has tried this.  Version 9 has been released and is still pending the first maintenance update before the demo version is to released.
 
I'm going to have a look at the Cubase Elements 9 demo when it's released in a few weeks. Downloaded the manual and had a look though it.
 
The chord functions, including chord tracks, & chord events, as well as the chord pads & chord assistant are intriguing. The arranger track, with the arranger track inspector, and the arranger track controls look very good indeed! 
 
The score editor is a wait and see.  Have not used Cubase recently, so not clear on the differences in the Pro and Elements versions of the score editor.  But if the demo is solid, it may be worth the $99 for Elements. 
 
The chord and arranger features listed are among the highest viewed and voted feature requests for Sonar at the Bakery.  This might be a cheap, useful tool to complement Sonar with as part of the creative process, prior to entering the Sonar recording studio.

DAW: CbB; Sonar Platinum, and others ... 
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    Cactus Music
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    Re: Anybody using Cubase Elements? 2017/01/01 12:28:50 (permalink)
    Buy the way, awesome job of helping the guy with midi on the Sonar forum. 
     
    I like you ( just read this)  started back with midi only sequencing and I had a hacked version of Cubase for my Atari. I had bought Dr T so I stuck with that out of guilt. I'm a very reluctant pirate.   
    By 2000 my Atari system was getting old. and my family bought our first PC. 
     
    I had my music store and was a Roland dealer, so the sales rep gave my a copy of  Guitar Studio. My son was dumping cracked versions of just about everything on me back then so I had a copy of Cubase 4 but it was way to complicated. I tried a few others too, like Acid? Anyhow I stuck with Cakewalk because I got it to work without much fuss. And that's the year I joined this forum. Which was another reason for choosing Cakewalk over Cubase. Steinbergs forum you need to be a registered user to join and ask questions. Log in takes way to much time. Not user friendly. 
     
    I recieved Cubase 5 LE with my Tascam us1641 so now I'm legit. I still find it hard to get work done. I play with it from time to time but being an LE version I assume it's like using Home Studio and very basic. The Elements version is possibly a little more complete. 
     
    But  I was on the Steinberg forum and notice the demo of Cubase 8.4 could be easily downloaded and using my dongle, activated in it's full glory for a whole month. 
    So I downloaded it and when I tried to run the installer it was corrupted. 
    Then my dongle stopped working!! I couldn't open Wave Lab. 
    I got that fixed but was not about to try again with the dongle.  
    I'll see if I can do it on a computer that I don't have Wave Lab or Cubase LE on and sans dongle. 
     
    I'm still curious about trying Cubase as overall I think it's the closest thing to Cakewalk and very stable. I don't like Sonars monthy screw up plan much. I'd rather have a solid release that I use for a couple of years and get work done. Seems we are constantly fussing with the software these days. 
     
    So I have gone with Home Studio to use for my backing track assembly and possibly playback because so far it seems to have all I need and is rock solid.   And thanks to you I now have the Strike2 drums and now the FREE! Xpand pack so no licencing hassle with AD2 and Dim Pro. Who needs them..  
     
    PS; The air software also loads into Cubase LE. 
     
    Anyhow that's my small experiance with Steinberg .. I love Wave Lab Elements. 
     

    Johnny V  
    Cakelab  
    Focusrite 6i61st - Tascam us1641. 
    3 Desktops and 3 Laptops W7 and W10
     http://www.cactusmusic.ca/
     
     
    #2
    abacab
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    Re: Anybody using Cubase Elements? 2017/01/01 13:12:06 (permalink)
    Cactus Music
    Buy the way, awesome job of helping the guy with midi on the Sonar forum. 
     
    I like you ( just read this)  started back with midi only sequencing and I had a hacked version of Cubase for my Atari. I had bought Dr T so I stuck with that out of guilt. I'm a very reluctant pirate.   
    By 2000 my Atari system was getting old. and my family bought our first PC. 
     
    I had my music store and was a Roland dealer, so the sales rep gave my a copy of  Guitar Studio. My son was dumping cracked versions of just about everything on me back then so I had a copy of Cubase 4 but it was way to complicated. I tried a few others too, like Acid? Anyhow I stuck with Cakewalk because I got it to work without much fuss. And that's the year I joined this forum. Which was another reason for choosing Cakewalk over Cubase. Steinbergs forum you need to be a registered user to join and ask questions. Log in takes way to much time. Not user friendly. 
     
    I recieved Cubase 5 LE with my Tascam us1641 so now I'm legit. I still find it hard to get work done. I play with it from time to time but being an LE version I assume it's like using Home Studio and very basic. The Elements version is possibly a little more complete. 
     
    But  I was on the Steinberg forum and notice the demo of Cubase 8.4 could be easily downloaded and using my dongle, activated in it's full glory for a whole month. 
    So I downloaded it and when I tried to run the installer it was corrupted. 
    Then my dongle stopped working!! I couldn't open Wave Lab. 
    I got that fixed but was not about to try again with the dongle.  
    I'll see if I can do it on a computer that I don't have Wave Lab or Cubase LE on and sans dongle. 
     
    I'm still curious about trying Cubase as overall I think it's the closest thing to Cakewalk and very stable. I don't like Sonars monthy screw up plan much. I'd rather have a solid release that I use for a couple of years and get work done. Seems we are constantly fussing with the software these days. 
     
    So I have gone with Home Studio to use for my backing track assembly and possibly playback because so far it seems to have all I need and is rock solid.   And thanks to you I now have the Strike2 drums and now the FREE! Xpand pack so no licencing hassle with AD2 and Dim Pro. Who needs them..  
     
    PS; The air software also loads into Cubase LE. 
     
    Anyhow that's my small experiance with Steinberg .. I love Wave Lab Elements. 
     




    Hey thanks for the rundown on Cubase, and glad to hear that you are now a happy fellow AIR head!  I think that Strike and Xpand are very useful.   I went ahead and grabbed the entire AIR bundle upgrade for $75 after using Xpand!  Covered most gaps in my sound library, so not saving pennies for Komplete anymore.  Well someday, maybe
     
    I saw your comments on the earlier thread about getting Home Studio.  I understand what you were trying to achieve, and from your comments and several others, it offers a good Sonar experience in a slimmed down package.
     
    So my reason for this post is to gather information about some features that do not exist yet in Sonar.  I am not looking for another DAW to jump to.  I think Sonar offers everything I need as far as being a synth rack, and for recording and mixing. 
     
    I am specifically looking at the chord and arranger features in Cubase.  Not a guitar player, so I work primarily in MIDI with virtual instruments in the box these days.   Thinking that if I wanted to create a new song I could begin arranging song ideas in Cubase, then move them over to Sonar for any final tracking and mixing.
     
    I am just looking for a simpler way to begin the creative process, before entering the recording studio (Platinum), so to speak.
     
    I currently have Ignite and Band in a Box, both of which can export tracks.  I think Ignite is cool for laying out some quick musical ideas with it's included sounds on a clips scratchpad, then rearranging them.  But it won't let me use my VSTs.  BIAB is probably the best for just plugging in a chord progression and setting up some accompaniments.  But it suffers from some complexity.  It is fun though!  A real musical education!
     
    I have Acid, Project5, and Ableton Live, but none currently installed.  I could upgrade to the latest Ableton for cheap, but it just really doesn't click for me.
     
    So for me Sonar is almost perfect, it just lacks a few features, that maybe Cubase Elements is all I need to fill the gaps for now?
     
    Also, if I was more into live sampling, I think I would have to consider Reason Essentials for $69 strictly for their NN-XT sampler.

    DAW: CbB; Sonar Platinum, and others ... 
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    BobF
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    Re: Anybody using Cubase Elements? 2017/01/01 13:24:17 (permalink)
    I have 8.5 of the baby version.  Cubase makes my head hurt.

    Bob  --
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    Waves Gold/IKM Max/Nomad Factory IS3/K11U

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    abacab
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    Re: Anybody using Cubase Elements? 2017/01/01 13:25:41 (permalink)
    I don't want the entire Cubase DAW.  Just the MIDI stuff that Sonar don't have.

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    Rain
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    Re: Anybody using Cubase Elements? 2017/01/01 13:31:11 (permalink)
    abacab
    Just curious if anybody has tried this.  Version 9 has been released and is still pending the first maintenance update before the demo version is to released.
     
    I'm going to have a look at the Cubase Elements 9 demo when it's released in a few weeks. Downloaded the manual and had a look though it.
     
    The chord functions, including chord tracks, & chord events, as well as the chord pads & chord assistant are intriguing. The arranger track, with the arranger track inspector, and the arranger track controls look very good indeed! 
     
    The score editor is a wait and see.  Have not used Cubase recently, so not clear on the differences in the Pro and Elements versions of the score editor.  But if the demo is solid, it may be worth the $99 for Elements. 
     
    The chord and arranger features listed are among the highest viewed and voted feature requests for Sonar at the Bakery.  This might be a cheap, useful tool to complement Sonar with as part of the creative process, prior to entering the Sonar recording studio.




    I've kept my Essential version of Cubase up to date for years - though I have yet to update to 9. In all honesty, I haven't really played all that much with, but the chord assistant or whatever the function I tried was called gave me a song idea almost instantly - so I launched Logic, started working on that idea and never got back to trying Cubase again.
     
    Because I have such a "backlog" of songs and ideas to work on, and because I know Logic like the back of my hand, I have little need of a complement solution - which is kind of boring because I'd love to, somehow. Also, from a very personal perspective, I hate the new mixer almost as much as I used to love the old VST and SX one.
     
    But still, I insist on keeping Essential installed - and I've even considered upgrading to Artist at one point. So I guess my opinion of it is rather positive.

    TCB - Tea, Cats, Books...
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    abacab
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    Re: Anybody using Cubase Elements? 2017/01/01 13:41:27 (permalink)
    Rain
     
    I've kept my Essential version of Cubase up to date for years - though I have yet to update to 9. In all honesty, I haven't really played all that much with, but the chord assistant or whatever the function I tried was called gave me a song idea almost instantly - so I launched Logic, started working on that idea and never got back to trying Cubase again.
     
    Because I have such a "backlog" of songs and ideas to work on, and because I know Logic like the back of my hand, I have little need of a complement solution - which is kind of boring because I'd love to, somehow. Also, from a very personal perspective, I hate the new mixer almost as much as I used to love the old VST and SX one.
     
    But still, I insist on keeping Essential installed - and I've even considered upgrading to Artist at one point. So I guess my opinion of it is rather positive.




    Thanks for the feedback.  Don't plan to do any audio recording or mixing in Cubase.  Just work with some MIDI tools in Elements, then export .mid back to Sonar for recording the VSTs ...
     
    What I especially like about Sonar is the ability to record a soft synth output directly to an audio track now.  It's truly an in the box solution for mixing with virtual instruments.

    DAW: CbB; Sonar Platinum, and others ... 
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