Cubase 15 is released

[Jaap]

Steinberg dropped Cubase 15 today and here a list with all the new features:

https://www.steinberg.net/cubase/new-features/

Also a the youtube channel is updated with new videos:

https://www.youtube.com/@Cubase/videos

I am myself on Nuendo 14 and likely have to wait a few months before these features hit Nuendo, but so far I am not that hyped on what is new. Some interesting stuff like per articulation negative track delay, the expression maps update looks nice at first glance and the new modulators are also looking fine.

[Guy Rowland]

All due apologies in advance for being a misery on launch day.

This is a pretty disappointing update for me personally. I abandoned Expression Maps over a decade ago and never looked back - I found them so cumbersome and illogical. I appreciate the new version will help, but it mainly seems to be refinements in the setup. I actually found in use it never behaved as I wanted - I got good people here to hold my hand, I had 3 separate attempts to really give it a go but I always hated it when actually trying to use the damn thing in a composition. I don't think the new improvements think will change the core behaviour I never liked.

Really all I ever wanted was a partition bar in the key editor to make keyswitches immune from transposition etc and the ability to see the named keys in the key editor and just work with the switches as notes. That's it. I wanted it less engineered, not more.

Aside from that the stem separation quality seems poorer than the competition; the AI voice thing looks cumbersome and sounds not great; there's a melody thing mmmmok, an ever expanding hub which looks less clear than before, tons of modulators and plugins I won't use.

About the only feature I liked the look of was the ability to put a separator in the plugin manager. Yay. Oh, and if the exporting is faster that's genuinely good.

Cubase is getting bigger and bigger every year and to me it is genuinely off-putting. I don't use 80% of it now, and almost all the new stuff I won't use either.

The things I really want are better performance and day to day workflow improvements. How about slicker and reliable ways to work with multi-out instruments? How about always bringing VIs to the front, if they are open, whenever you switch channels? Core workflow stuff like that.

Ah well, an easy one to skip so to be fair.... what am I complaining about?

(I posted this on VI-C)

[scherzo]

Yeah, I feel similar.

I'm an expression map nerd so I'm very excited (and more than a little terrified) to dig into the new system. Will report back when I get to it!

Other than that, most of these updates strike me as decidedly meh, if not outright worrisome for the future. I guess it's a universal trend these days to include more and more toy-like features - like the weird melodic pattern editor, or the 'probability of play' parameter in the previous version - aimed at the most casual of dabblers (and AI gimmickry creeping into everything), and fine I guess, if that's where the money is. You can be sure I'll be complaining about it every step along the way though.

On my personal wish-list: fix long-standing bugs and reliability issues, give me a proper VCA implementation (which I believe Nuendo already has?) and time-stretching in the piano roll. And I wish DAW-makers would stop doing synths, plugins and 'content', and just focus on the core application instead - you know, the one thing that I can't easily cover with third-party solutions.

Ah well, enough complaining, time to go actually download the thing.

Dear Expression Maps 2.0, please be good, please be good....

[playz123]

Re. Guy’s sentiments, my feelings match his. The term “bloatware” resurfaces in my mind, and I see very few features that I really need or want. Perhaps time will prove me wrong, but certainly less than excited at this early stage.

[Lawrence]

Still on 10.5 here. I bought the upgrade to 13 and never installed it because it didn’t include the one thing I really want, which is the ability to export a finished video with music that isn’t hugely bigger that the imported video I receive from clients.

From the lack of mentions, I assume that hadn’t changed in 15 either?

[scherzo]

Well, I upgraded and spent some time tinkering with the expression map system. For me it's a mixed bag - there are a lot of improvements for sure, but also some new bugs and issues. And some esoteric details of the implementation that I'm still not clear on how it's actually supposed to work. I'll spare everyone the rant (I think I'm the only one here who uses these things in depth...?) as I've already posted enough about it on VI-C. And quite frankly, I feel quite overdosed on techy setup, tinkering and problem-solving and this really isn't what I want to spend my time on at the moment, so I might just sit back and leave it until things hopefully get smoothed out after a few updates. Right now I just want to fire up my newly acquired Trinity VST and make shitty retro dungeon synth music instead. Simplicity!

But spontaneously I would say that if you weren't sold on expression maps before on the grounds of them being overengineered and complicated, this is unlikely to sway you.

Not much to say about the update other than that. Haven't really had time to fiddle around. I did notice some minor UI improvements, but most of the New Features list is stuff I don't use anyway.

Never done anything with video so I can't really comment on that either. Sorry, Larry.

The things I really want are better performance and day to day workflow improvements. How about slicker and reliable ways to work with multi-out instruments? How about always bringing VIs to the front, if they are open, whenever you switch channels? Core workflow stuff like that.

Remind me again, what's the problem with multi-out instruments?

Having done time in Reaper and Studio One, both have that feature where the plugin window follows track selection. Not always what I want, but it's a very useful option to have.

[Guy Rowland]

I wasn't tempted before and even less tempted now, thanks scherzo!

Remind me again, what's the problem with multi-out instruments?

After many years, the disabled track bugs with multi-out are I think fixed, but there's still elements I don't like. I hate that with instrument tracks the midi and audio are combined on a single track, and yet all the other outputs are separate. I want to label the outputs A-H or whatever, and then effectively the midi track just says Output A. I get why it's nice to have simple monotimbral instruments on a single track, but perhaps the answer is to break that out when you add extra outputs - seamlessly reconfigure it with logical labels.

It's stuff like that - everyday niggles that make Cubase feel quite messy

[Thomas Mavian]

I got Cubase 14 at the sale last spring. Upgraded as soon as I got the news. Really like 15, more of what I'd expect it to have from the beginning actually.

[Markus K]

I got Cubase 14 at the sale last spring. Upgraded as soon as I got the news. Really like 15, more of what I'd expect it to have from the beginning actually.

What is it that you like about CB15 Thomas?

I always wanted the volume fader and pan on audio tracks. This is a reason for me to jump on it. I already got the update a bit hasty probably and against my habit of waiting for the sale but didn't have the time to try it.
The new expression maps first looked nice but if I read the comments at vi cntr hardly understanding what they are talking about I ask myself if it improves anything for me after having set up everything and working properly or if it may even mess up something. Does everything work for you that worked in CB14?

And as Guy says the thing with multi out instruments is a bit messi indeed. You need for every midi track that isn't the first a dedicated audio out seperate from the midi track which is hidden in the project window in the first place and has to be made visible like an automation lane. In the beginning I had some confusion about this wondering where does the audio come from and how to adjust it.

[Thomas Mavian]

Well, expression maps in 14 was a big disappointment, coming from Studio One that is. New system seems better, but still not on Studio One level.

Modulators. To have a random LFO that is system wide makes me think of Cubase like a sort of modular instrument of its own where every track with a separate synthesis plugin can still be controlled from the same source. Brilliant. And yes, they were in 14 but without the all important random one.

Volume and pan on the tracks is something I've liked in both Logic and Reaper, like the fact that you can tailor what functions you want to see on the track as well.

As for multi instruments, stopped using them years ago, was nothing more than trouble. After I saw a video that showed how little difference there is between one instance of kontakt with 8 instruments and 8 instances of kontakt with one instrument each I never looked back. All preset management became much easier.

[Guy Rowland]

As for multi instruments, stopped using them years ago, was nothing more than trouble. After I saw a video that showed how little difference there is between one instance of kontakt with 8 instruments and 8 instances of kontakt with one instrument each I never looked back. All preset management became much easier.

The majority of my plugins are multi-out, but only a couple I use as multi-timbral. Every drum plugin I own I always have the individual outs routed to their own tracks, there's no way of (say) sidechaining a kick without this.

[Thomas Mavian]

As for multi instruments, stopped using them years ago, was nothing more than trouble. After I saw a video that showed how little difference there is between one instance of kontakt with 8 instruments and 8 instances of kontakt with one instrument each I never looked back. All preset management became much easier.

The majority of my plugins are multi-out, but only a couple I use as multi-timbral. Every drum plugin I own I always have the individual outs routed to their own tracks, there's no way of (say) sidechaining a kick without this.

Ouch. That hurts. I haven't used any drum plugin in Cubase yet. I have to check that out, sounds silly complicated.

[Guy Rowland]

Ouch. That hurts. I haven't used any drum plugin in Cubase yet. I have to check that out, sounds silly complicated.

Oh it's fine - I have it all pre-routed in the template. The only issue is the untidiness of the instrument track multi-outs.

[scherzo]

The new expression maps first looked nice but if I read the comments at vi cntr hardly understanding what they are talking about I ask myself if it improves anything for me after having set up everything and working properly or if it may even mess up something. Does everything work for you that worked in CB14?

Fwiw, I did load up some old projects and maps, and it looked like Cubase 15 could convert the old maps to the new system just fine. I didn't spend a huge amount of time tinkering, but in the time I did spend I didn't encounter any issues with that. So backwards compatibility should be ok... I think, at least. The things that do concern me have more to do with details on how things work under the hood, and that might not matter to most people. So don't be too discouraged.

I did a bit of experimenting last night (right after proclaiming I wouldn't!) with building new VSL presets and expression maps to see how I might better leverage the new features (addons, unlimited groups, etc). No firm conclusions yet, but I'm mostly liking it so far. We'll see.

After many years, the disabled track bugs with multi-out are I think fixed, but there's still elements I don't like. I hate that with instrument tracks the midi and audio are combined on a single track, and yet all the other outputs are separate. I want to label the outputs A-H or whatever, and then effectively the midi track just says Output A. I get why it's nice to have simple monotimbral instruments on a single track, but perhaps the answer is to break that out when you add extra outputs - seamlessly reconfigure it with logical labels.

Ah yes, there's definitely some weirdness going on there. I'm guessing there's some legacy baggage there, as it seems like Cubase internally is treating the instrument track and its outputs as entirely different types of objects. Cubase does feel messy in that regard, but I suppose it's inevitable that there will be some odd tech debt in a complicated long-lived program like this.

That said, I'm mostly good with the current architecture - it makes sense to me for when you use multi-outs for individual mic positions and such (although I do wish I could name the track and first output separately). Perhaps less so for multi-timbral use, but I don't see much point in that these days anyway.

Been a long while since I've seen track disabling bungle up the outputs, so I think that part is fixed now at least.

[Markus K]

Fwiw, I did load up some old projects and maps, and it looked like Cubase 15 could convert the old maps to the new system just fine. I didn't spend a huge amount of time tinkering, but in the time I did spend I didn't encounter any issues with that. So backwards compatibility should be ok..

Thank you for the info.

[RobS]

I feel like this update was done for me. Expression maps (per articulation delay) and a refinement of notation are exactly what I needed… all the rest like ai singers or stem separation are bonuses.