Opinions requested: Logic vs. Cubase

[anarchosyn]

Hello.

I'll preface this by expressing a primary interest in the Mac versions, but please express an opinion regardless of whether you've used either system. Also, feel free to add a comment if you've only used one or another.

Recently I was hit again with the macintosh bug and decided to scrap my crap, virii'd, warezed, non-professional sound card containing P4 for audio production and concentrate on building a solid, music only g4 enviroment to dabble with Max/msp and Jitter (which will be the very heart of my new system).

Of course though, I barely remember even advanced high school mathmatics (I hear you snickering :) so the learning curve for Max/Msp as a total sound / midi processing enviroment will be very very very very very very very very steep. To combat this, and allow some flexibility in my learning schedual, I've decided to use MAX as a complex midi thru for programs I already understand and *eventually* build more max intergration into the overall scheme.


Long exposition, no? Anyhow, long ago a friend took pity on me and offered up a cracked (and shitty, I might add) version of cubase 3 for me to explore, and since then I've "acquired" newer and better versions of cubase up to R6 of vst 5 (which I currently use). A few years back, I met people that made similar offers of Logic (which I always wanted as my first sequencer), but I could never hack any functionality out of the program, since warez are notoriously bad in the documentation department. Hell, I have logic v5.1 installed now, but (aside from admiring the clean and tasteful interface) I can't make heads or tails out of it.

Anyhow, I'm sick of warez and (now that I'm all grown up and have a "real" job) plan to actually pay those inflated prices for a mac version of either Cubase SX or Logic 5. My question is, which one would be ideal for running a low midi, high digital audio (via vst/vsti )system? I know logic rocks in the midi department, but it all seems kind of redundent with Max sitting in the chain. I've also sold most of my midi gear and what I do have sits in the corner until I get a G4 800 (or 867). I dislike how cubase 5 runs on my PC (even with 256 memory everything peels and takes forever to load, and the way the windows auto minimize when you leave them), but I'm comfortable with the cubase enviroment.

Key aspects I'm curious about are the audio Mixers, info on the logic enviroment's usability in a world with Max, how well VSTi and VSTs work in Logic, and any advise or opinions of trying to run MSP + jitter and a professional sequencer on the same machine (I know my cubase eats cpu cycles for breakfast) at the same time. Plus any other items you think I should be contemplating that I have yet to bring up :).

An alternative that I'm entertaining is keeping my P4 in the studio for driving midi from an existing sequencer, and slaving the G4 to it, but that would relegate my pro-sequencer solely as a source of midi data, no audio).

If you read this far, I'm in love...

[ischo]

you've got quite something planed there....

so here's all i can say:

i was a cubase user for quite some time, using it for sequencing midi gear on my PII 350MHz winshit thing. i never used cubase to record or edit audio, sequence audio or the likes. it just wasn't possible on my machine. then i wanted to go digital, the whole way, bought a notebook (toshiba, really nice) packed it with ableton, worked with that for some months. then i wanted to go back, play some midi-shit and record it, so i packed cubase sx on there, opened it and....
fuck shit....i remembered so trés bien why i left cubase in the first case:
millions of windows, fucked up interface-layout, shity zooming-options....and so on (but i do have the feeling, that this all occured cuz ableton's interface is sooooo fine).

oops, sorry for the biography-novel here, let's skip to the important parts.
i can't tell you anything about logic, but from what i heard from almost everywhere on the globe (remember, just what i heard)
is, that thanks to better interface and GUI-handling, you'll probably be better off with logic. plus the fact that logic's all apple now, you'll find better performance and update-possibilities with logic. also i read in recent posts that many people prefer logic-EQs over cubase.

i'm sure there will be more info to come....

cheers

[c s]

yeah emagic is all apple now but

- when using vst instruments, cubase is always a step ahead in compatibility (at least it was under windows) as steinberg invented the interface. so logic users often had to wait for an update to use new vsti's, sometimes they never worked correctly. this is, by the way, the main reason i chose cubase.

- concerning the better interface of logic, well, i only tried it out for a short while once but a friend who bought it told me it took him quite some time until he could only record some midi notes because he had to build an environment first (and he's competent, i think). but perhaps this is an advantage when working with very complex stuff such as max/msp.

- i personally don't see the problems with cubase' interface ? especially not with the one of sx. but in the beginning i did like the interface of cakewalk (now sonar) a lot better than cubase.

it all might be different on mac. ;)

[piscaries]

i'm kind of in the same dellema as you are with the whole cubase/logic thing. i've been using logic for a while now, but i have a friend who's a complete cubase nut. since emagic is now an apple company, you're probably better off going the route of logic just for the mere fact that you know where the support is going to be in years to come. it took me a while to really get into all the parameters of logic, but i did learn them, and once i figured them out the program got a lot less intimidating for me. at first i didn't really know how to work the vst's, and then after figuring that out life got easier too. if it's any consolation, my good friend just sold off his $30,000 studio and bought a titanium powerbook and went completely software because he's going into the navy and can't take his studio. his choice was logic and vst instruments and he's been making some good stuff. it only took him about 2 weeks to really learn the logic interface. one thing i don't like about logic though is that there is no drum mapping like there is in cubase... but that's just minor. it's all about learning the quick-key commands though. that just makes life easier. even though cubase may be more up-to-date on their vst's, logic will be more up-to-date to run on macs, as they are now a mac product, and i'd prefer to know my software was made for my machine...

[_JM]

Cycling just posted the OSX betas for Max/MSP and Jitter. Logic 5.3 runs great on OSX. If those are the two applications you're interested in, I'd jump straight to Jaguar and hook it up.

OSX will also smooth the VST issue, since Apple is pushing its own AU standard hard.

[TEC-HO]

You must take a look at steinberg’s nuendo, it looks good and its easy to use. I’m sure you will be able to do exactly what you want to within a matter of weeks. I’ve used pro tools, cubase and logic, not sure about cubase sx, but nuendo is definitely the best programme I have ever used. There were a few bug’s in the early versions but it works fine now. Nuendo2 is out soon, and I think it’s pretty much the same, but it’s got some cool new features. Take a look, www.nuendo.com if you are in to programming. For me the audio editing is the best thing ever. I really cannot say enough about it. You’ve seen the rest now see the best. I don’t work for steinberg, honest. This is for pc, I don’t know about mac, apart from they’ve got that silly one button mouse.

[c s]

on this occasion, could you point out the key advantages of nuendo over cubase ? i tried it out once, but for making music i didn't find any major differences, apart from less midi features. hmm but there must be something because it's much more expensive.

anyway it's available for both mac & pc.

[mr_chombee]

if you have external gear synchronized with your mac or otherwise, you should definitely go for logic or nuendo. take care about your midi interface (don't believe in all that Midex3/8 "linear time base" shit). usb midi interfaces are NEVER in time. I've changed my internal g4 modem into a stealth serial port and have a motu MTP/AV running on it. all the old drummachines sync pefectly like with my good old atari. excellent smpte /mtc sync is possible, too.

as far as for audio stuff, I can highly recommend nuendo. the audio engine is excellent! (btw, this is one of key advantages of nuendo =) unfortunately I don't know how good it works alongside max/msp.

also I haven't tested cubase sx yet, but I'm really looking forward that it will work as fine as nuendo does. steinberg says, sx has the same audio engine like nuendo. hope it has also the same midi-stability. I really loved the good old cubase user interface, but all the vst versions are full of bugs and sound crappy. would be great if sx goes a step ahead now...

good luck!

[c s]

Originally posted by mr_chombee
all the vst versions are full of bugs and sound crappy.

you really should consider reconfiguring your computers (now both then! lol) - i had good experiences with cubase 5.x. for me, sx is mainly facelifted, also menu items are now in the right place. it's generally much better to use but 5.x. didn't crash too often either. i think stability also depends on the plugins/vsti's. i also heard the audio engine is from nuendo, eqs as well but i didn't notice a too big difference. i'm not (yet) able to use the 96khz features, perhaps that would be it. sx definitely tends to eat more cpu power.

i found 2 big disadvantages though : the transport field is not capable of displaying time and measures at the same time - and the snap to grid settings now seem to be global for both project and editor view. i'll try to figure that out.

[mr_chombee]

Originally posted by mr_chombee
all the vst versions are full of bugs and sound crappy.

sorry...forgot to mention that I meant cubase for macs combined with a lot external midi gear ;)

as for the difference between cubase and nuendos audio engine, check this here out: we recorded a loop with a lot of stereo panorama efx & stuff to a dat. then we recorded the same loop on the mac (using peak) and played it back from different programs (cubase, logic and nuendo). the result was pretty funny: the stereo pan-action sounded totally cheesy in cubase. absolutely no room...poor result. it was much better in logic, but still not equal to the dat recording. the nuendo playback sounded nearly 1:1 to the dat recording. it had all the room and life like the original material.

btw, I wouldn't say cubase is a shitty program, but I'm a little bit pissed off after I spent again a lot of money for a mac license + tried thousands of midi interfaces with the freshest, hottest, spiciest XYZ-technology, which DEFINITELY work excellent with our blabla professional program. none of them did. (and that wasn't a reason of my computers configuration).

to come to the point: if anarchosyn thinks about slaving the mac to the pc, cubase 5.x is definitely a bad solution. that's all I can say, but everyone has to find the right config by himself...

[anarchosyn]

mr_chombee


You do know that Cubase SX (i.e. the current version) uses the same audio engine as Nuendo, right?

Here, check for yourself. (http://www.tweakheadz.com/cubase_sx.htm) (scroll down and look for a header called "new audio engine" or something like that).

I guess that leaves logic in the dust.. humm... or were you using SX when you did that test?

Btw- if I were to slave the mac to a PC, I would have the sequencer on the PC and MAX/MSP slaved on the mac. Maybe I misunderstood, but it sounded like you thought I ment to slave cubase on the mac to PC.

Now, since i posted this I downloaded the demo of cubase SX for the PC and knocked around with it. So far, my verdict is out, but it definitely hasn't impressed me that much. The interface reminds me of the candy cane lanes and lollipop highways of some distastefully bright, yet surreal, childhood movie. You're certainly right (cs) in regards to the added processing power needed just to run the menus, which (IMHO) is a definite knock against it.. I like it minimal and stripped down.

So, anyhow, as long as VSTs work, I think logic will be the smart move on a mac.. anyhow, thanx for the advice guys. Today will be my gig test day, but the coolest feature of SX (midi fx) really sounded kinda.. well.. lame when I get into them (and the value sliders were designed really bad.. hard to get exact values). Of course, I like how you can now load more then one drummap per song. I dunno.. what really sucks is that I can't understand logic well enough to put it through the paces.

What's the drum interface of logic like?

[mr_chombee]

as I already mentioned, I never tried cubase sx yet. we did the test with cubase 5.1, logic 4.8 and nuendo 1.x

[anarchosyn]

Ohh.. sorry mate, guess I was a bit bleary-eyed when I read that last. Ok, so even logic might fair better when compairing the two together.


thanx.

btw- does logic force one to use the piano roll for drums?

[TEC-HO]

Lightning quick reactions me!! Cubase vst is so user- unfriendly. I have to use it at college and I hate it. I would get more done in ten minutes on Nuendo than I would in an hour on vst. Nuendo is as easy to use as cubase on the Atari st, which everybody knows is the friendliest programme ever, but Nuendo has the use of vsti’s and the great audio editing options. If you use events to part you can chop a piece of audio up into a billion pieces, if you want to and then you can do anything you want to with that billionth. The possibilities are endless. Once you get into using Nuendo, which doesn’t take long, you can do just about anything with audio. Whatever turns you on.