Cubase 12 announced (or not... now sort of...)

[Guy Rowland]

Don't get too excited, but it is, technically, announced.

Cubase 12 will be released in 2022, but we are starting the grace period today. This means that all Cubase versions activated from today onwards will be eligible for a free update to Cubase 12.

https://www.steinberg.net/cubase/new-features/ (scroll to the bottom).

...and that's it.

There is a Licensing Info button which leads straight back to the home page. Some speculation this might ultimately mean the long-promised dongle-free Cubase may be 12.

EDIT - this information vanished from the Steinberg website after a few hours.

[kpc]

Some speculation this might ultimately mean the long-promised dongle-free Cubase may be 12.

this might be true. seems like i’ve heard some rambling over at the Dorico forum about getting rid of dongles.

[Guy Rowland]

Hoping so - it would be good timing with the MacBook Pros.

Probably an even bigger deal would be if VSL jump at the same time. A dongleless VE Pro on a 64gb MBP - what a dream. Running a disabled template means my entire setup could go onto it. That would feel like a watershed moment. (I bet Logic would run much better on it than Cubase though!)

[Guy Rowland]

Huh - that information on the Steinberg has now disappeared. On the Steinberg forum:

Matthias_Quellmann: "Unfortunately the information on the What’s new in 11 website was published unintentionally and it has already been removed. I’m sorry for the confusion."

Rather tricky situation that. I'd have thought legally they'd have to honour from today as the grace period - people could well have bought or upgraded on the basis of that information on their website.

[Tanuj Tiku]

Cubase has become a bit buggy since the last couple of versions and it is really unacceptable that sessions won't quit properly. It is a huge pain to deal with crashes simply because there is some problem with memory management.

This has been a known issue for several versions and it is inexcusable at this point.

Why they removed 'Local Undo' is beyond my understanding. This is also a major, major headache and it makes no sense.

Removing long standing features that make no difference to the performance of the software is not appreciated.

I hope we will see some improvements on stability rather than new features and I sincerely hope they will bring back local undo.

[Guy Rowland]

Tanuj - not that it will help, but I only very rarely get crashes on quit, though I know others suffer from it routinely. Also - local undo? I'm not sure what this is?

But I share the frustration, as you probably know I've been battling long-standing bugs for many years now, bugs that are so important that they really restrict my workflow. Some battles I've won, others I've not. I'm too weary now to keep fighting. For me one of the worst ones is in the most boring thing imaginable - media management. I've simply given up trying to make renders to files for NR correction, it's like trying to sew with bars of soap in your hands. I now work round the problem by exporting tracks and stems to Pro Tools for NR and the final mix / mastering stage.

I made a lot of noise about 4 or 5 years ago that our next version of Cubase needed to be all about stability and bug fixes. It got some traction. Matthias got involved, and he really helped, he's a great guy. Some of my issues ultimately got fixed. But like Tom the cat hitting Spike the dog on the head with a baseball bat to push the lump on his skull back in, another one just pops right up. And it is so desperately wearisome, isn't it?

Old code. The perils of old code.

[Pablo Crespo]

Local undo, how I miss that...you could undo things independently in each part, say you move a note in a violin midi part, then go to do other things and say, that note move was wrong, you were able to go back to the midi part and undo it, it was perfect!.

[Guy Rowland]

Local undo, how I miss that...you could undo things independently in each part, say you move a note in a violin midi part, then go to do other things and say, that note move was wrong, you were able to go back to the midi part and undo it, it was perfect!.

Huh, thanks Pablo that does sound great. When did that feature get removed? I can't recall ever being aware of it.

[Tanuj Tiku]

Guy, I routinely get crashes - almost everytime I shut a session. This behavior is the same on a near clone system (software wise but different hardware)) as well and hasn't changed since 10.2, through to the latest current version of 11.

Local undo was the greatest thing and it was really helpful when writing music that has many different parts that get changed as you write and the composition evolves. As you can imagine, it is highly useful in an orchestral context while orchestrating.

It was certainly there in 10.5 and then I upgraded to 11 - it's not there. I am seeing a growing number of people are baffled by this sudden loss of feature. but at the same time, like you, many were simply unaware. That is understandable because unless you work in this specific manner with lots of different parts, you are unlikely to encounter this.

[Guy Rowland]

So from the announcement on this thread - https://thesoundboard.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4934 - it looks like there will be quite a wait for Cubase 12.

You will soon be introduced to Steinberg Licensing, with the release of Dorico 4 early next year. I can also tell you that Cubase 12 has been moved to 2022, allowing it to be the next software after Dorico to harness the potential of the new system. As new versions of other products are released, they will use the new system, too.

https://www.steinberg.net/licensing/

It's very odd to me that eLicenser itself will be deprecated on Jan 1 2022, yet even the most up to date version of full Cubase is required to still use it.

[Guy Rowland]

Steinberg have now added confirmation that the grace period for Cubase 12 has started.

Due to the upcoming change to a new, more user-friendly license management system, the release of Cubase 12 will be postponed to 2022. The exact date has not been set yet.

Nevertheless, the Grace Period for Cubase 12 already starts on November 10!

This means that as soon as Cubase 12 has been released, any Cubase 11 license activated after November 9, 2021 can be updated to the corresponding Cubase version (Cubase Pro 12, Cubase Artist 12 or Cubase Elements 12) for free.

A license is considered activated when it has been downloaded via the eLicenser Control Center after entering a valid activation code and saved on a USB-eLicenser (Cubase Pro 11, Cubase Artist 11) or in a Soft-eLicenser on the hard disk (Cubase Elements 11).

We will inform you about the technical details of the free Grace Period Update in due time.

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... 8738020498

[Guy Rowland]

...and here's just a little bit more on C12 itself, primarily it will support M1.

Dear Cubase friends,

Today would have been the day of the year when every member of our Cubase team leans back for a moment and watches with excitement how the next generation of Cubase is released into the world. For the last 10 years we have been working toward presenting customers our achievements at the end of the year. But this time it’s different.

With the decision to switch our license management system to a modern, flexible, and open solution, this project became our number one priority from day one. Our goal was to introduce the new system with the next major update, even if this would require us to postpone the release of Cubase. We wanted to be fully committed to the project and thankfully everyone at Steinberg felt the same.

Today, we would like to give you the heads up on the next generation of Cubase, which will be Cubase 12 by the way, and which we are already beta testing and plan to release in 2022. This will be the first Cubase version supported by Steinberg Licensing. Please have a look at the announcement of our president, Andreas Stelling, and the detailed FAQ section that we put together to answer your questions. If there are more questions on Steinberg Licensing, please let me know, and we will try to provide the answers on our website ASAP.

Steinberg Licensing: A new and exciting era begins 10

For those of you who expected to get the full list of new features and improvements in Cubase 12 today, I kindly ask for some more patience. Of course, the next generation is not only about Steinberg Licensing. We have been working on new features, workflows, and performance improvements in many different areas in order to deliver a worthy update. But I’m not going to reveal too many details and spoil the release for you. You know us — we’ll try to keep it secret for a while longer.

Still, there are some things that I can already confirm. Cubase 12 will introduce native Apple silicon support to begin with. Please be aware that VST 2 is not supported on native Apple silicon, except when run in Rosetta 2 mode. So please make sure that you let the plug-in manufacturers still hesitating to release VST 3 versions know that it’s about time!

Additionally, we can confirm that the grace period for Cubase 12 has begun with this announcement. This means that all new Cubase versions that are activated from today onward will be eligible for a free grace period update to Cubase 12. Please have a look at the knowledge base article for further details:

Cubase 12 Grace Period Knowledge Base Article 7

So that’s it for now. I would like to take the chance to thank you, the Cubase community, for your support. Many of you have been using Cubase for decades, and we appreciate the trust that you put into our products and Steinberg as a company. I hope you are not too disappointed that you won’t be able to try out the new features today. It has been an exciting, but also challenging year for our teams at Steinberg, and we look forward to celebrate the release of Cubase 12 with you in 2022.

All the best,
Matthias

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/cubase-1 ... 022/748776

[Rdrane]

So from the announcement on this thread - https://thesoundboard.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4934 - it looks like there will be quite a wait for Cubase 12.

You will soon be introduced to Steinberg Licensing, with the release of Dorico 4 early next year. I can also tell you that Cubase 12 has been moved to 2022, allowing it to be the next software after Dorico to harness the potential of the new system. As new versions of other products are released, they will use the new system, too.

https://www.steinberg.net/licensing/

It's very odd to me that eLicenser itself will be deprecated on Jan 1 2022, yet even the most up to date version of full Cubase is required to still use it.

Thanks for sharing that. I'm surprised to hear that Dorico's been pushed back to 2022 as well. Only a few weeks ago, Daniel Spreadbury suggested it was to come out before the end of the year (he'd also announced the grace period on Twitter).

I wonder if this delay for Dorico 4 and Cubase 12 is a last-minute decision. Particularly given how the news on everything has come out - eg the suddenly retracted website statement quoted in your the post of this thread. The January date for elicenser does seem very odd indeed, but there's no mention of it in Steinberg's announcement, so perhaps that was the original plan before Dorico/Cubase got pushed back to next year?

[Guy Rowland]

I wonder if this delay for Dorico 4 and Cubase 12 is a last-minute decision. Particularly given how the news on everything has come out - eg the suddenly retracted website statement quoted in your the post of this thread. The January date for elicenser does seem very odd indeed, but there's no mention of it in Steinberg's announcement, so perhaps that was the original plan before Dorico/Cubase got pushed back to next year?

Could well be - that date came from reFX, which might reflect an original plan which suddenly got changed at the last minute. It makes no sense to deprecate it while it's the only licensing system for some of the products you can actually buy.