Cubase 4 vs Audacity

[wutwuzdat]

I'm Currently using Audacity 1.3.11 to record/edit our services. Our Yamaha soundboard included Cubase 4. I never took the time to learn how to use Cubase since I was already familiar with Audacity. I have to do very little in terms of editing: a bit of normalizing sometimes, some trimming here and there... I like to use fade in/out... nothing major. I'm happy with the quality that I'm getting, and the LAME Mp3 plugin is nice.

Is Cubase much more powerful and/or worth the time and effort to learn how to use?

[Jeff92k7]

Originally Posted by wutwuzdat

Is Cubase much more powerful and/or worth the time and effort to learn how to use?

What you received with your console is probably Cubase LE4 or AI4. Those versions are "limited" compared to the paid for/standalone versions of Cubase. Whether or not Cubase is more powerful will depend on what you want to do. For example, Cubase LE4 is limited in the number of audio tracks it can record at once (16 mono), as well as having a few other limitations regarding MIDI tracks and other things. To my knowledge, Audacity does not have those limitations.

However, Cubase will be able to get much, MUCH more detailed in your editing, even in LE/AI4. I used LE4 for about a year and was amazed at the level of control I had over the recordings. The tradeoff to that is that the learning curve in Cubase is very steep.

The biggest downside to Steinberg software that I see is their very poor licensing scheme. They make you jump through so many hoops to get their software activated that it's almost frustrating enough to just trash it. They are very paranoid about software theft and take it out on paying customers by imposing their antiquated licensing scheme.

Is Cubase worth the time and effort to learn? I would say yes. If you take the time to learn it, you will not be disappointed in what it will do.

Additionally, the LAME MP3 codec you mentioned is good, but Steinberg offers the Fraunhofer MP3 codec which is arguably the best MP3 codec there is. You can buy the MP3 update for Steinberg software for $15 at their online store, and the MP3 update DOES work with Cubase LE4.

I liked Cubase LE4 so much that we just recently upgraded to Cubase Essential 5. If you take the time to learn how to use Cubase and decide that you want to upgrade, you might be interested to know that the Steinberg educational pricing DOES apply to churches. You can get their software for about half of retail prices under their educational program.

Jeff Foster
Technical Director
Northside Baptist Church
Carrollton, Texas
www.nsbcc.org

[pdc]

MP3 codecs are a non issue, as you can use whatever you want and you can get the best for free, so take that from the equation.

While Cubase may be overkill for what you want to do (it is production /MIDI composer oriented) it is not as clumsy. It may have more plug-ins to "improve" your production too. It is a different approach for sure. Cubase has a forum and there are many other recording forums that address the issues of Cubase. Research them.

Yamaha only packaged that software with the console because they own Steinberg. That does not mean that it is the best for you and your application. It is all about strategy and market share, etc. BUT, you have it, so why not expand your horizons?

[Tim Padrick]

I installed Audacity. The first thing I tried to do was add compression to a track - it could not do it in real time - you have to process the track then listen to the result. I uninstalled it only 15 minutes after I installed it.

[pdc]

There were other ways to do it. Plug-ins.