Steinberg 40th Anniversary Sale

[Sascha Franck]

Just in case someone's looking after some Steinberg products, their recent sale is quite massive and you don't get things discounted that much too often. Pretty much everything for 50%, in case you own some stuff (or someone's sending you their otherwise unused voucher/code) it could even be 70% off.
I didn't really want to buy anything, but as I already got a voucher from another dude, I bought Absolute 6, which is quite a massive collection of instrument plugins. I'm actually only really interested in Groove Agent, simply because I want to get rid of Battery (or rather anything from Native Instruments, by now one of the biggest shitholes in plugin land - and no, there's no other name for what they're pulling off), but that bundle has some other things that I surely will like.
Got it for €150 instead of €500, pretty nice deal.
Also updated Wavelab Elements from 9.5 to 12 for 20 bucks.

Their crossgrade offers are quite decent, too. €180 for the full Cubase 13 Pro, should you be able to deliver proof of purchase for pretty much any other DAW. That's quite a killer deal. I was really tempted (not for the first time...), simply because Cubase is doing pretty much anything better than Logic (and by now it's even as CPU efficient), but I really don't feel like learning another DAW any day soon (well, hence that'd be in this lifetime...). I'd keep fooling around, though - would possibly just drive me mad.

 

[norminal]

I clicked on this after reading “Strandberg” in the title. I’ll see myself out.

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

I clicked on this after reading “Strandberg” in the title. I’ll see myself out.

Same

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

Just in case someone's looking after some Steinberg products, their recent sale is quite massive and you don't get things discounted that much too often. Pretty much everything for 50%, in case you own some stuff (or someone's sending you their otherwise unused voucher/code) it could even be 70% off.
I didn't really want to buy anything, but as I already got a voucher from another dude, I bought Absolute 6, which is quite a massive collection of instrument plugins. I'm actually only really interested in Groove Agent, simply because I want to get rid of Battery (or rather anything from Native Instruments, by now one of the biggest shithole in plugin land - and no, there's no other name for what they're pulling off), but that bundle has some other things that I surely will like.
Got it for €150 instead of €500, pretty nice deal.
Also updated Wavelab Elements from 9.5 to 12 for 20 bucks.

Their crossgrade offers are quite decent, too. €180 for the full Cubase 13 Pro, should you be able to deliver proof of purchase for pretty much any other DAW. That's quite a killer deal. I was really tempted (not for the first time...), simply because Cubase is doing pretty much anything better than Logic (and by now it's even as CPU efficient), but I really don't feel like learning another DAW any day soon (well, hence that'd be in this lifetime...). I'd keep fooling around, though - would possibly just drive me mad.

I was just installing Cubase 13 Pro on a new computer yesterday and when I went to their site, my jaw dropped with the deals there! $289 for full cubase 13 Pro! I paid twice that 15 years ago, and have ponied up as much as that price in updates!! Oh well, love what they do and their history, so I am going to stick with them. I will probably spend some money I don't have and buy an update to Wavelab Pro as I am on v9! Great deals, thanks for pointing it out!!!

 

[laxu]

I was really tempted (not for the first time...), simply because Cubase is doing pretty much anything better than Logic

What kind of things do you feel it does better?

I need to try out Cubase now. I had previously ruled it out due to cost but 289 € for the full version seems decent.

I have been using a trial version of Logic for now as I liked it best out of all the ones I tried, but would not mind a cross platform option.

Any reason to cheap out with the Artist version instead, for 120 € less? It's not like my needs are pro level by any measure.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Wow, Cubase Pro for just 285 EUR (and you'll probably get it even cheaper on some sites). This really is an incredibly great deal.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

[...] better than Logic (and by now it's even as CPU efficient), [...]

It even performs significantly more efficient than Logic because - in contrast to Logic - it also uses the efficiency cores of Apple's M chips.

I'd say go for it. I made the switch from Logic 2 years ago, bought the video tutorial from Holger Steinbrink, and after a very short time I knew how to handle the application. Now, when I go back to Logic to open older projects, I can't believe how bad I think Logic is compared to Cubase.

Apple has made the mistake of not investing the last few years of development time in fixing and improving really important things, but instead adding stupid (and buggy) gimmicks that nobody needs or wants. As a result, Logic just looks poor compared to Cubase these days.

 

[Aleksi]

I clicked on this after reading “Strandberg” in the title. I’ll see myself out.

I was thinking Steinberger. And then it turns out it's some bullshit for people who actually make music. No thanks

 

[Sascha Franck]

What kind of things do you feel it does better?

Timestretching and pitch shifting, Vario Audio, audio alignment, audio routing (their control room thingy seems to be excellent), drum pattern editing (they even took the best tool for that job, namely Hyperedit, out of Logic - wtf?!?), the Media Bay is quite nice, region handles for volume and stuff, retrospective recording for audio (incredible, really). Just top of my head.
Basically, anything you can do with audie is superior in Cubase, at least compared to Logic.

 

[Sascha Franck]

It even performs significantly more efficient than Logic because - in contrast to Logic - it also uses the efficiency cores of Apple's M chips.

I know which video you are refering to, but that's not true for all chips. With my Macbook Air M3, all cores (both performance and efficiency) are used to their full potential under Logic.

I'd say go for it. I made the switch from Logic 2 years ago, bought the video tutorial from Holger Steinbrink, and after a very short time I knew how to handle the application.

See, it's not that I wouldn't know how to handle it (after all, I used it from the 1.0 Atari version up to VST 3.5 exclusively and up until Cubase 5 ocassionally when I was teaching some sequencing workshops, which I was doing a bit back in the days).
It's that Steinberg's UIs are driving me mad. They just don't know how do that stuff well. Functionally, it's all top notch, visually (and also haptically) it's a glorious nightmare.
I'm just trying to get deeper into Groove Agent and their ideas of how menus, menu bars and what not should look like is a straight ahead offense of human taste and intelligence. I mean, look at this horrorshow:

And the entire plugin is STUFFED with that kinda thing.

Apple has made the mistake of not investing the last few years of development time in fixing and improving really important things, but instead adding stupid (and buggy) gimmicks that nobody needs or wants.

On that I totally agree.

As a result, Logic just looks poor compared to Cubase these days.

Not too sure about that. There's still something to be said in favour of Logic. When you look at, say, their deep integration of Drummer, partially Drum Kit Designer, Drum Machine Designer and their samplebased plugins, that's something you won't find anywhere else.

As said, I agree with plenty of things, though. I mean, a single look into Logic's sample editor is telling volumes already. It's looking pretty much 1:1 as in 1998.

Whatever, so far I still don't feel like switching. I'm now using Logic for the last 25 years, that's a lot of things engraved.

 

[laxu]

Early experiences trialing Cubase 13 Pro:

• Installer on MacOS failed with the .vstsound files because it was trying to cram them to /Library without admin permissions, instead of ~/Library (user Library). Of course it would inform about this several times.
• Totally non-native window implementation. It cannot be fullscreened properly. This feature was requested already in 2018.
• Inconsistent window close/minimize/zoom button sizing. The ones on plugins are smaller than the main screen.
• Scroll wheel behavior with a Logitech free scrolling wheel is very touchy. This does not happen on any other app I use.
• Some areas have the last list item cut in half, which means scaling is funky.
• Media browser is messy. It doesn't seem to make any distinction between loops and samples, so you might get a drum fill or a single drum hit depending on what you click. You need to constantly reset the attribute filter if you switch between collections.
• Not a huge fan of the separate views for inserts, sends and levels. The level meters also scale in an ugly way if you shrink the area or make it too tall.

So far, not impressed. The basic workflow seems good but otherwise not super impressed. Maybe it works nicer on Windows?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Maybe it works nicer on Windows?

Used to be like that, but all I heard was that they caught up massively on OSX, at least in terms of performance. Their development seems to still be largely Windows-centric, though, so maybe they're still trying to make Windows functionality work the same under macOS, which, especially regarding anything window-related (always on top, fullsize, whatever) just doesn't work.
For instance, Groove Agent has a "pop out" option for its file browser. You'd usually expect it to stay within your DAW, though. Doesn't make much sense to see it anywhere else anyway, I'm not planning to drag any GA samples into Firefox or so. Yet, the thing becomes a "super-always-on-top" window, floating above anything else, regardless of the program window you may tab to. IMO that's just downright stupid. But then, in their defense, Logic's very own help shows up in the same way.

 

[laxu]

Used to be like that, but all I heard was that they caught up massively on OSX, at least in terms of performance. Their development seems to still be largely Windows-centric, though, so maybe they're still trying to make Windows functionality work the same under macOS, which, especially regarding anything window-related (always on top, fullsize, whatever) just doesn't work.
For instance, Groove Agent has a "pop out" option for its file browser. You'd usually expect it to stay within your DAW, though. Doesn't make much sense to see it anywhere else anyway, I'm not planning to drag any GA samples into Firefox or so. Yet, the thing becomes a "super-always-on-top" window, floating above anything else, regardless of the program window you may tab to. IMO that's just downright stupid. But then, in their defense, Logic's very own help shows up in the same way.

With multiple monitors I can see the utility in cramming e.g plugin views on another display. Always on top windows are a pain in the ass though.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Always on top windows are a pain in the ass though.

I think they're useful sometimes. But I'd pretty much always want to have an option whether they'd be AOT just in the application they belong to (such as plugin windows) or become a global AOT window (which I sometimes use to have a mini version of a video player floating around somewhere).

 

[SeeD]

I got on it. I had Cubase 10.5 Pro and it was something that was wierd.. so I got the Upgrade to 13 Pro, 50% off and I like it so far. And it was cheap ish

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Yeah that's a pretty good sale, upped WaveLab and Dorico to the Pro version and almost ponied up for SpectrLayers 11 update but luckily remembered I get that those upgrades through Sequoia.

I got like vouchers from Cubase and Nuendo and now also from Wavelab and Dorico.

Let's see what other gear I can get I don't really need lol

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Used to be like that, but all I heard was that they caught up massively on OSX, at least in terms of performance. Their development seems to still be largely Windows-centric, though, so maybe they're still trying to make Windows functionality work the same under macOS, which, especially regarding anything window-related (always on top, fullsize, whatever) just doesn't work.
For instance, Groove Agent has a "pop out" option for its file browser. You'd usually expect it to stay within your DAW, though. Doesn't make much sense to see it anywhere else anyway, I'm not planning to drag any GA samples into Firefox or so. Yet, the thing becomes a "super-always-on-top" window, floating above anything else, regardless of the program window you may tab to. IMO that's just downright stupid. But then, in their defense, Logic's very own help shows up in the same way.

Yeah since like v9 or 10 it finally was fine on OSX.

I've been on it sinceNuendo 2, Logic since V4.8, seqouia since V6, and gave up in PT in 2022.

 

[LeftyLoungeLizard]

Maybe it works nicer on Windows?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, that Absolute 6 bundle seems to be absolutely worth it. Sure, there's some older library items slapped in, too, but there's also some really nice sounds to be had. For €150 it's almost a steal.

 

[Orvillain]

I already own and use Cubase 13 Pro. I love it tbh. I can fly around that thing. I've got Spectralayers 11, which is fantastic too; better than Izotope RX IMHO. So based on the strength of those, I also bought Halion. But haven't use it yet!!

Nothing in the sale that I'm too interested in really. Maybe Wavelab.