Cubase Sx Experiences, any reviews anywhere at all? Options

Cubase SX for OSX has been out for over two weeks now, so I believe. And yet I can't find any reviews of it, and no one seems to be mentioning it...

The silence is deafening. So, has anyone got it? Has anyone seen a review of the OSX version?

I was excited about the release, but there is no demo, and I can't find anyone who has anything to say about the product based on actual experience... I'm not sure that I want to buy something based on such a lack of information.

Any links at all to a review would be welcomed - no, I don't mean the official blurb, I mean a really thorough review of it.

cheers all

[Levon River]

The silence is deafening.

Been hurting my ears, too.

After all the anticipation, I thought there'd be a virtual stampede. And Steinberg's site is no help--at least not to me. I think their own marketing people are confused about what their product line actually consists of. If they aren't, they sure are keeping it a secret.

[wonx]

I too am very interested to hear something about Cubase SX, especially how it measures up to Logic 5.4. I've heard rumors that it's Rewire work very well with Reason 2.0, but again would like to hear that from somebody who has actually used it. I'm about ready to throw down for a new sequencer and I too have been frustrated by the lack of reviews. Help somebody!

[gdoubleyou]

The first reports are coming in at the mac forum.
http://www.Cubase.net

Thanks for the link gdub- Initial reports are encouraging

[D-plex]

I just received my upgrade to Cubase SX yesterday. Here are my very first (i.e. not particularly in-depth) impressions...

First, my machine config:
400MHz G4
576MB RAM
OSX v. 10.2.1

I purchased my upgrade directly from Steinberg. Installation went without a hitch; previous proof of ownership (such as inserting my Cubase 5 CD or entering my old serial number)was not required. A USB dongle is included, and required to launch the application after installation. I have it plugged into a USB hub, and it works fine there.

The Cubase SX interface has, superficially, a much different look than 5. Steinberg seems to have backed away from the metal-ish interface design of 5 in favor of a less literal, bolder appearance. It has some of the “powdery” look of Win XP, in my opinion. In general though, things are laid out much the same as they were in 5.

Without trying to optimize my system at all (turn off haxies, menubar add-ons, etc.) I imported a Cubase 5 song file that I had been working on recently. All of the instrumentation had been created in Reason to be played in Cubase via Rewire. There were also 12 vocal tracks I had recorded into Cubase, different takes so that I could pick and choose the best bits to assemble into a single vocal performance.

After I helped SX find the audio files, I hit play. There was no sound, but I noticed that SX has left all twelve audio tracks on, so I turned all but one of them off. SX played the track just fine, including the effects I had set when I was working on the track in 5. After some experimenting I found I could play six audio tracks at the same time before maxing out the CPU. A bit disappointing, actually, but I really haven’t tweaked the settings much, so better performance may be possible. It could just be that my G4 400 is showing its age.

Having proven that it could play the audio I had previously recorded, my next step was to try playing Reason through Rewire. The Rewire panel (accessible via the “Devices” menu) looks exactly as it did in 5. I turned on the first two channels to get a left/right mix of everything Reason was playing.

It worked. Reason played back through the mixer, the vocal track played on top of it. But...

Everytime I hit stop the sound sort of “crumbles” or distorts as it fades out. This may not be a problem when actually recording, because of course you wouldn’t stop the song while doing so, but it does make me uneasy. Perhaps it’s a sign that buffers need adjusting.

An even bigger problem is Reason playback. Although it sounds fine initially, playing reason via Rewire seems to cause the CPU to spike at seemingly random times, creating audible glitches. The song will be cooking along nicely, using 25% to 60% of the CPU, then WHAMMO! the CPU meter jams at maximum for a brief moment, creating a click or pop in the sound. This has been a much discussed bug on the Mac cubase.net forums, and I have not yet seen anyone discover a solution.

Because I use Reason extensively, this is disappointing news for me. I was hoping to be productive with Cubase SX immediately, but I get the feeling I may have to wait for an update before I can use Reason and Cubase together in OSX. Complicating things is not knowing if it is Cubase or OSX responsible for the problems. I will continue to explore Cubase SX and if I learn anything of value I will share it here.

[deleted]

A big thanks to you, D-Plex, for this real-life report...

Anyway, i'm very confused concerning the 6 tracks maximum! Anyone can confirm this? It's a very low performance, even on a simple G4 400MHz...
Will we have to buy a bi-1,25GHz to use 32 tracks & Reason & NI instruments & etc. at the same time? Damned...

Bye.

[Levon River]

After some experimenting I found I could play six audio tracks at the same time before maxing out the CPU. A bit disappointing, actually, but I really haven’t tweaked the settings much, so better performance may be possible. It could just be that my G4 400 is showing its age.

Say what?!?!

I've run up to 20ish audio tracks on a B&W G3 400 in DP on OS 9.x--with effects on many of them! This just can't be.... Can it?

That's downright scary...

Sounds like more than a mere buffer tweaking is going to address, but maybe. (?) Please let us know, and thanks very much for this comprehensive in-depth report. Very much appreciated.

[D-plex]

Okay, now for some good news...

Obviously, it’s very frustrating only being able to play back six audio tracks at a time, so my first investigations into Cubase involved trying to squeeze more audio out of the software. Similar to Levon River’s post above, I have gotten very good performance out of Cubase in OS9, being able to play at least 12 audio tracks at once.

Because I had imported a Cubase 5 song rather than starting a SX project from scratch, I decided to see if anything got screwed up during import. And I found out something interesting.

In my original Cubase 5 project, each of the twelve vocal takes I recorded was being sent through the same VST mixer channel. This was because I was using a combination of chorus and delay on the vocals, and I wanted to compare how each track sounded through the effects. The tracks were never meant to be played at the same time, and setting identical effects for different VST channels would have been laborious. So I just went ahead and funneled ‘em through the same channel and turned tracks on & off to compare them.

The Cubase SX version did not mimic this behavior. When I imported the song, it changed things. First, it gave each of the audio tracks its own VST channel. Then, it very helpfully duplicated the VST effects I was using on the vocals to each of the 12 VST channels. It also named each of the tracks "Channel 12," making me think that they were still being sent through the same channel. The end result was that every time I turned on another audio track I was also turning on another instance of a chorus effect, a delay, and EQ settings. To make matters worse, these are the old-style Cubase 5 versions of the effects, which Steinberg offers in SX, but with a “use at your own risk” warning. No wonder the CPU was freaking out!

I immediately turned off all VST effects on all tracks, and I am overjoyed to report that I can play all 12 audio tracks at once and the CPU meter never even reaches the 10% mark. (It sounds great, too...a choir of 12 voices all singing the same thing. I really need to play with vocal harmonies more.)

I hope I didn’t panic anyone too badly with my first report. I will continue to relate my experiences with SX here. I guess my first lesson is that importing old Cubase 5 song files is not a seamless process. My next goal, now that I know that the audio works, is to solve any issues with running Reason through Cubase via Rewire.

[deleted]

Thanks D-Plex, and if you feel like writing a short article about "Cubase SX: first impressions", you're welcome ;-)
I'll do the translation to fench. Just let me know.

Bye.

Bixpender, i deleted your flaming post, try to be a little bit more constructive, next time :-(