Steinberg Cubase 4 Reviews

[brandondrury]

Steinberg Cubase 4 @ Musiciansfriend



Steinberg Cubase 4 @ Zzounds

Steinberg Cubase 4 Description
Cubase 4 represents the cutting edge in digital audio workstations. Designed for professionals from the ground up, Cubase converges extraordinary sound quality, intuitive handling and a vast range of highly advanced audio and MIDI tools for composition, recording, editing and mixing.

[Vulconizer]

I get to use Cubase 4 at the studio. I have Cubase SE 3 at home to mess around with, but the difference between the two makes me not even want to use the SE 3 anymore.

The sheer difference in the EQ, the versatility, the added number of inserts and sends just blows SE 3 away. It has all the routing that I would expect to ever need for anything. Many user-definable options for the workspace make it easy for me to know what I have going on ( almost ) all of the time. ( If I ever know what's going on 100% of time, the whole world is in trouble. )

Some of the annoyances in SE 3 are gone. The only thing I wish they had done in 4 was allow for dragging a send from one spot in the chain to any other like you can do with the inserts.

It's also cool in that it just " looks " more professional than SE3. I know that's nothing to really base a judgment upon, but it makes me feel like I am working on something worth working on.

The Halion instruments that come with it are awesome, to say the least. We have yet to even start tweaking the various synths, but for someone who is really big into MIDI, I think this would be heaven. We have spent quite a few hours just laughing and being amazed by the sounds the synths alone can produce.

I give it a 10 in quality for the above listed reasons.

I'll give it a 9.5 for reliability because we've so far had no major issues. 6 months or so and loving it more and more.

An occasional little quirk here and there that seems to have something to do with us running up against the CPU limits when we have a few big VST instruments going at once. It just asks you to save what you're working on and that it needs to close down. We shut it down, reboot the computer and we're back in business in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. May not even be a Cubase problem at all, but something running in the background. Still working on figuring it out. Maybe human error as well. It doesn't happen all the time, either.

All in all, I'd highly recommend this software to anyone who is serious about making their music and having all the flexibility they should ever want.

[ric822]

Thanks for the info. I am trying to find quality software and your review has helped.

[uab9253]

Try the Prologue patch called Lucky Manic. They nailed that Moody Blues tone. I almost fell out of my chair, thinking John Lodge was in the room.

[Vulconizer]

Hey Alan, I'll give that Prologue patch a try. I've been very impressed overall with most of the synth sounds that came with Cubase, so I'll probably have some fun with that particular one since I happen to be a Moody Blues fan. Heh

Thanks for the tip.

[KonradD]

This review on the music friend link is quite off-putting:

"After some experience recording on this and other Steinberg products, I have come to the conclusion that it is probably a very good product,... as long as it works. The software does have some ridiculous problems and glitches. On top of that, customer support is non-existent. If it breaks,.... you can't fix it. And in some instances you may even have to re-format your computer."

The lack of cutomer support suggested by this guy is a big concern considering I could be paying up to $600 for the software.

Any thoughts?

[Bigduggieface]

I recently ordered a copy of Cubase 4 in order to "upgrade" from Cubase SX 3. It should arrive any day now.

I too have read that SX 3 may be a bit more stable and less prone to glitches than Cubase 4, and I guess I'll find out. I know that Steinberg recently released another update patch for Cubase 4 that may address any shaky software problems.

I installed Cubase 4 on a friend's computer and was able to spend a couple of hours with it. It's easy to adapt to the layout after using Cubase SX 3 and Nuendo, so I know I won't be slowed down by needing to relearn the recording software all over again.

I've used Steinberg products for 10 years, and they just keep getting better.

[icarus579]

I had trouble setting up Cubase 4 on my Windoze (XP Pro SP3) machine. Cubase kept locking up when it tried to load the midi settings after the initial set up. After four reinstallations and a day's cooling down period, I installed on my Mac G5, and it works without a hitch.

I find Cubase 4 easy to use, and as I gain experience, I notice it has a lot of "tweakability."