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Question about Cubasis
I just tried to create an account with Steinberg to ask a pre purchase question about Cubasis on their forum but was unsuccessful. If this is any indication about how they operate then perhaps my question here will be moot.
Perhaps some of you good folk here will answer a question for me.
*First my rant.
I own most of the major iOS DAWs with the exception of Cubasis. They all have their pros and cons as we have all admitted. Being a Cakewalk user for many years, I have certain expectations regarding workflow. Right now my biggest gripe (among others) is the MIDI note editor within these iOS DAWs. I realize that using a mouse to edit notes on a desktop/laptop DAW is much easier than using a touch surface, but really, should it be that unintuitive?
Most editors allow for horizontal zooming but not all for vertical zooming. Those that do require mutli button taps to achieve something as simple as note re-sizing. Of course this issue could be my unfamiliarity with how they work and if so I'm sure AB users will guide me in the right direction.
Last week I came up with a nifty little riff that I thought I might use as a starting point for a new song. Not being much of a keyboard player (guitar is my main composition tool), I banged out a few MIDI notes on several DAW's virtual keyboards. My timing and accuracy was questionable so I tried to edit them but quickly realized that doing so was much harder than I thought it should be. I ended up emailing the riff to myself and got it sorted within a few minutes in Sonar.
Audio Copy/Paste is such a great tool that I wonder if a MIDI Copy/Paste tool would be as useful to others as I imagine it would be with me. Please, feel free to rip me a new one if I am way off base :-) .
End of rant*
Now my question. I have read through the Cubasis manual and it seems to me that there is no way to resize a MIDI note other than to split and delete the afterbirth. Is this correct?
Thanks in advance for any help that may be provided.
Comments
I just bought it last night, and haven't read the manual, but I was playing with things and I am pretty sure I was doing it. I believe it takes two fingers. On the sequence screen, select the note to be sized--the note should change the way it looks to be darkened with a white square on the right side of the note. Press and hold (the "Length" button on the left) while resizing to change length. Press and hold (the vertical or horizontal move button) while doing the move, to move the note vertically or just horizontally. I too have had most of the DAWs, and had Meteor as my main DAW until I bought Cubasis. I immediately liked this because of the increased accuracy that it allows for--Meteor uses a magnifying glass to move notes, but it's so easy to move things wrong that I was very pleased when I saw this method. At any rate, I hope this helps you. :-)
It would be a hell of a site easier if they used the whole screen, not just half. Bm2 is still the easiest sequencer from that point of view: just touch and use a button, so you can see what you're doing, especially with my fat fingers. But, yes, you can move up, down or resize and using the single button means you don't do a weird combo. And you get a proper grid, unlike Meteor. And if you export to Dropbox you have the equivalent of copy/paste for midi
+1 for bm2 being the easiest.
@Audiojunkie is right but I still find it cumbersome at times.
You can use the mixdown feature in cubasis to send a midi file to audioshare.
Ha! It took me about a half hour last night to figure out how to save a midi file, I'm like what the heck is going on and finally I realized you have to mixdown to a midi track
mixdown. > share. > open in >
@Keebo: Yes, you can resize a midi note by selecting it, as Audiojunkie says, but I find I can resize it using one finger by moving the white 'handle' that appears. Note that unless you set the Grid setting to off the smallest note size will be limited to the setting in the Grid. And, yes, Cubasis has vertical as well as horizontal zooming.
@Ian: You are not limited to half the screen in the midi editor. You can drag it up the screen using the double-grey line in the top left of the editor pane - all the way to just below the top row of buttons!
AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH! You mean I've been struggling all this time?
@Ian: yep!
I only found out by accident but it does make things much easier!
I agree with @ian and @commonstookie: the Nanostudio midi note editor is the best on the platform. Drag handles are the way to go.
and you can do it with audio too. No mention of either in the help menu and no mention of using the buttons too. So thank you @AlyrtEgo_UK and the finger to Steinberg! Right, I'll have to go back to that again!
While we're on the subject of the midi note editor, I've found that the note editor always starts at the beginning of the clip and not where I've double tapped or placed the play head. Is there a way around this? Scrolling at high zoom levels is a pain especially since I only now just learned that the midi editor can can be made bigger vertically.
While I'm at it, the way the left and right position markers are implemented drives me nuts. It takes a little work to precisely line a clip up at the correct position using a finger or stylus especially at grid levels like 1/32 or 1/64. Unfortunately, pressing and holding a clip for more than a second repositions the left and right makers to the clip's left and right borders. That's not what I'm trying to do. Maybe I'm just used to how Reaper works on the desktop but I only want my markers to move when i move them myself.
@cheesesteak: Those are my gripes too! I haven't found a way to synchronise the playhead in track view and midi editor
And, yes, scrolling through a clip in midi editor can be a real pain! It's a shame - these things tend to spoil a great app.
Hopefully fixes will come in an update soon.
Squash the width down, find your place and expand. +1 for the fixes. It would be so
Much easier if nanostudio had midi out
Initial Thoughts on Cubasis: Regarding Midi editor screen size: Not only can it be sized to the way you like it, but the keyboard and the drums are also able to be sized to be full screen. I've also discovered that the instruments have sliding panels to allow for easy simultaneous patch browsing without needing to be in the media bay. It's not really obvious, but I've found lots of ways to resize things and configure them to my liking. I'm really impressed! I have noticed that there is no Midi step recorder (where you can enter a note or chord, and then step forward to the next location to enter the next, etc--I think they call the function a step sequencer. Meteor has this, and it is really handy. Meteor is definitely the most full featured of the DAWs, but Cubasis is so much easier to work in that I prefer to work in it. :-) Also, I've noticed that there are buttons that can be programmed for chords--that may be useful instead of a step sequence recording for now.
Those little perks are what really draws me to Cubasis. The adaptability of the interface and the fact that you can use it in a single view without having to disruptively switch to a completely different screen to do anything is soooo appealing.
Seriously, I love BM2, but I can't staaaaaaand the need to switch from pad/key view to multitrack view ALL. THE. TIME. And the fact that you have to tap Home THEN multitrack view (2 taps) to get there is that much more frustrating... just takes you out of the groove.
@ jesse_ohio I agree totally! Beatmaker 2 and Meteor are both very well built applications that are extremely powerful and capable, but their GUIs get in the way. Cubasis just seems to allow me to get the work I want to do done. It gets out of my way and lets me do it. With Beatmaker and Meteor, I'm always fighting with the GUI and the interface.
I suspect that in 6 months time, with the way Steinburg are going, they'll have all the features, too. That said, it's been 3 weeks since one, so maybe they're slipping?
According to Steinberg on their forum, the next update will be a re-working of the audio engine and not the long-hoped-for automation.
I'm not sure when that will come out, but I've always understood that they release about every 4 months (that's what I read somewhere--I can't vouch for accuracy). :-)
weeks I think
Weeks would be MUCH BETTER! ;-)
Steinberg has been faithfully updating monthly since the release of Cubasis.
Good for them! I've only had Cubasis for a couple of days now, but I'm really pleased with how things are going. :-)
Thanks for the info, guys. I appreciate everyone's tips and opinions.
The Cubasis videos look very inspiring from a workflow point of view. Who should know more about developing an iOS DAW app than a PC/Mac DAW maker?
I'll most likely pull the trigger.
As much as I would like automation, I would really, really like for their audio and midi drum clips to be segmented loops that I could stretch for as many bars as I like. Oh, and the ability to enter the volume values using the keyboard. You should be able to touch a slider's volume display area and have the keyboard pop up. Dialing in the right value on the sliders isn't fun because I suck at lifting my finger from the screen at a precise right angle.
I'm going to say this at my own peril I'm sure, but... I'm a little miffed that I paid 50 bucks to be a beta tester for this app that still hasn't realized its full potential.
I'm sure that Auria will get there eventually.
@boone51 Yes, it will be at your own peril. ;-P No app is ever complete until it is abandoned by the developer. You aren't really a beta tester. There are several phases of development (alpha, beta, RC, Gold, etc). Most anything that has been released has already gone through the testing stages, alpha, beta, etc. Even after all of that, often a bug will slip through and have to get fixed by the developer. That's why "point zero" releases are so scary. If something is mission critical, you should always wait until after word has gotten back that there are no show-stopping problems. Always wait until the .01 releases come out for mission critical stuff.
As for apps not reaching their full potential, it is always wise to buy an app not for its potential but for what it can do for you now. Apps don't complete their potential until their development has stopped. That's what completing their full potential means--otherwise they are continually evolving and improving (increasing potential). :-)
Personally, I am satisfied with Cubasis as it is (for the most part), and only look forward to future developments as an increase of the potential (what the app can do). Does that mean I don't have feature requests and wants for future development? No, I like to think that there is lots of room for improvement, but having tested everything else, I know that the Cubasis/Auria combo is the best we have to date, and that these apps are in rapid development.
@Audiojunkie Good points.
@PaulB LOL! Nice.
@PaulB, lol, I know we have history on the topic and your humor is not lost on me. I would say that I knew what I was getting when I bought Auria. I don't lean on midi that much in my music, so it's not something I'm missing over there. I was really in a good place with BM2 when I bought Cubasis and should have just listened to my gut. Was especially disappointing when I ran across the undo bug several times after some long sessions (I'm telling you, I'd created the next White Album...I'm sure of it....if I could only bring it back up to let you hear you'd totally agree with me...it was my best work ever...until I lost some the second time...then that was definitely my best work ever). Was further disappointed when I realized that despite the incredibly well laid out interface, the midi note editing was still not as good as in BM2 and there was no automation. All of this seems to always be a few releases away.
@Audiojunkie I appreciate your input. I work for in the software industry so I'm aware that I didn't use the term "beta tester" in it's true sense. It was more of a tongue in cheek kind of comment. It was just commentary on the fact that Cubasis still isn't as good as BM2 in my humble opinion. There have been several bugs out of the gate and there are still some fundamental features simply not present in Cubasis.
ALL of that being said...which isn't much really... I would still say that it's a great piece of software. I don't feel like it should have cost me 50 bones when I got BM2 for 20, but that's just opinion. It's a well done piece of audio software by a great company who is clearly committed to making the app better. I just personally feel like I overpaid for it and still haven't gotten nearly the use out of it that I still get today from BM2.
And we all know the only real DAW on iOS is Auria. Everything else is just a toy. ;-)
I should add that this last line is definitely just a(n inside) joke