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Stability: Cubasis 2 Vs. Auria Pro
I am relatively new to producing on iOS. In the past I have used Korg Gadget and Garageband to record into my iPod Touch. Because I was not expecting much I was really impressed with what I could do. I blew up my iPod when I was using it as an oscillator source for troubleshooting a DIY fuzz pedal circuit I built (a warning to others). So I decided to jump in and replace it with an iPad Mini 4 (I didn't want the bulky Pro). After going through many reviews I decided to heed Jacob Haq's advice and go with Cubasis 2 as my Daw. I also like the look of Cubasis 2. Coming from Ableton Live I had, perhaps, too great of expectations and realize now that producing on an iPad is really a state of early adoption. I would be very nervous using it for anything live as it seems to bug up quite a bit.
At this point I am interested in Auria Pro as I am hoping it is more stable. I am not too keen on the price tag, if only to find out it also has issues running AUv3's. Credit to the team over at Steinberg quickly responding to my questions and it is a lovely app in many ways. But I want to be able to set up my gear with a room full of people and know that everything is going to work. How is Auria Pro as an AUv3 host?
What are you thoughts, gripes, and final suggestions?
Comments
I'm a huge fan of Auria, but it also has its share of problems hosting AUv3s, sometimes transport information isn't sent, sometimes there are crashes. I think it's still early days for the AUv3 workflow and there are still plenty of growing pains, no host is really able to handle them as well as the desktop equivalents. So my advice would be to stick with Cubasis (or even GarageBand) for now and render to audio as often as possible to avoid leaving too many live plugins in your projects. Hosting multiple live synths and plugins is not really reliable yet on iOS.
for maximum reliability skip AUv3...not that AU is unreliable but that many AU are buggy. Keeping track of which ones are stable is a job in and of itself. When working with a room full of people use a DAW and only it’s native synths and effects, save the AU risks for after they leave.
I’ve found Cubasis extremely stable. Are you sure the issues are not caused by other apps hosted inside it?
Once the early bugs were ironed out, Cubasis has been pretty well 100% stable for me since on an 128gb Air2. Never had Auria but read it was cpu hungrier ?
I ran into minuscule timing errors on a 60 minute project I was working on on a mini 4. I was able to correct the problem by doing some specific cutting, rendering etc. So while it's not 100% reliable it's a solid 98%.
The honest truth is that Cubasis is more stable and easier to use than Auria Pro.
But - and it’s a big but - Auria Pro offers much more functionality, plus it’s the only IOS DAW to host Fab Filters. Few here would argue against the superb quality of FF for FX and mastering.
I agree. AP is amazing and midi is really useable too, Cubasis is really a great choice also. So far I’ve been using Auria Pro the most,
@richardyot said:
Cubasis is great for making the beats Auria pro is good for making the whole song
Auria Pro on an iPad mini is a bad idea - you need at least Air 2 or iPad Pro.
Cubasis is rock solid, stable and FUN to use and gets more up-votes in every poll.
I hear people use Cubasis for composing and Auria for the final mastering.
I do everything in Cubasis along with Poison-202, Kauldron, SwarPlug... and it has Waves plugins, FX packs 1 & 2, Classic Machines, Chanel Strip, SpinFX, etc.
You hit it right on the head about Auria. Replicant 2 struggles as an AU inside of it and sometimes delays too. Cubasis handles AU much better but it doesn’t have proper sub grouping or bussing.
According to this there is only about 10% difference b/w an iPad Mini 4 and an Air 2...
I use both and I can confirm that in practice I don't feel a noticeable difference in performance. They use the same CPU, and while in theory the Air 2 should be a tiny bit faster, it's not much and I would recommend going with the device form factor that works best for you.
I find both are super stable.
For me size matters.
Auria huge.
Fab Filter synth GUI small
Cubasis smaller
Instruments - more user friendly for me
Both are winners you can't lose
I think AURIA will cost more to get the IAPs and things you need.
Cubasis has about like $50 total and you got em all.
AURIA it is a lot of spending to get most goodies you would want. But they are worth it.
If you have extra money and don't mind smaller interface for DAW synth-- AURIA
Opposite - Cubasis
I have both but naturally gravitate to Cubasis
It never gives me any issues great with AU as well.
Interesting...I like how there was so much certainty that has been completely tempered. Yeah, I picked up the mini because I like to be as low key as possible when I am in public and I also like to take my music stuff to the beach or woods to work. Buy Auria because it is so stable (over $100 CA with all the whistles), then don't buy Auria because your mini is not good enough, then your mini is just fine, then the stability of Cubasis is better.
I don't know about you folks but I am very influenced by advertising, and the quality of the videos on Auria had me thinking I ought to be running it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdNY1CnvjZUK_sMwDD4RSpA
Particularly the video where David Kahne talks about Auria. Mind you it is now six years old and all the other videos date from at least a year ago from Wave Machine Labs.
I am slightly astonished that so little attention has gone into creating slick youtube videos by either WML or Steinberg. You would think they would be right on that with little trick tutorials coming out and master sessions.
Strange market.
@futureaztec
Cubasis video:
(11 tutorials)
(11 promos)
You mentioned a lack of Cubasis video did you mean beyond these?
Stability is kind of a Cubasis thing, comparatively.
Coming from Live, and looking for AUv3 stability you might also want to look at Intua’s Beatmaker3...
I use Cubasis, but if Auria seems right to you, go with your instincts. Plenty of people use it, many of whom seem to really know their stuff, so to me that means it is good. I read about bugs or shortcomings or whatever else, but no app is perfect. Every app gets crapped on by somebody around here at some point, so it is what it is.
My impression is that Auria is for the most serious iOS music creators. Cubasis is powerful as well, but not quite as Auria, and Cubasis is friendlier to new users. Then BM3 is coming on strong, and may surpass both of these at some point (and that point may have arrived already).
I would say it is a Small Market, in that the bigger companies with a history in desktop are not that enthused about iOS, since there is no money in it compared to what they are used to. It may be a viable market, but they are trying to make money and don’t want to spend on marketing, since they most likely can barely recoup their development costs.
Not sure if Auria has ever been especially known for stability, it's definitely had its fair share of bugs (many of which have been fixed it has to be said). Auria is usually recommended for its power, not its stability, because it's the most feature-rich and versatile DAW on the platform. It's a more advanced DAW than Cubasis, but also more complex and as a result less approachable, which is one of the reasons that opinion is divided and people choose one over the other.
Your original question was specifically about AUv3 hosting: I think people who are coming from the desktop world have expectations of plugin hosting that iOS isn't quite ready to live up to yet. Due to both hardware and software constraints running a multitude of live AUv3 plugins on iOS is likely to be disappointing compared to the desktop experience. It's one of the trade-offs of the platform.
Auria has its strengths, but I don't think running multiple AUv3s is one of them
Where it excels is in Pro-Tools style mixing: lots of control, excellent routing, the best plugins available (and unlike AUv3 the native Auria plugins by FabFilter and PSP are very stable and run extremely efficiently, you can easily run many instances of them without issue).
I honestly don’t miss my desktop for creating music using AUs. Mixing is a different story. I use BM3 and running multiple AUs is fine. I use nearly as much as I would Using Logic Pro. I’m sure I could get more if I had a more powerful iPad as well. Cubasis is probably better for AUv3 when put up against Auria
Many of these videos are either extremely short, debut a new feature, or outline very basic processes. Not what I would call "masterclass."
I am hesitant with Beatmaker 3 because I am using a bass and guitar with some of my music. Even though I produce some a lot of electronic stuff, I am more of a Audulus 3 guy than a sampler guy. Beatmaker 3 does have Ableton Link which both Auria Pro and Cubasis 2 lack, which has messed up my workflow, mind you. Presently I only own Cubasis 2.
@richardyot : Re; Stability issues: Are you running Auria on an older iPad? Would stability /glitches, etc be an issue on an iPad Pro w a more capable CPU?
I'm on an Air 2. I'm not actually saying that AUv3's in Auria are unusable, I'm just honestly pointing out that it's not hassle-free. Anyone trying to run multiple AUs in any iOS DAW is very quickly going to run into limitations, especially as most AUs can't run at latencies higher than 512.
Just for comparison with the latency set to 4096 I can easily run more than 20 instances of the native FF plugins in Auria. I doubt anyone can run as many instances of the equivalent AUs in any DAW, even on an iPad Pro
Even in GarageBand I have trouble running more than two instances of Roli Noise for example. They load fine, but trying to render the tracks out is always a complete nightmare, with plugins being unloaded and tracks rendered blank.
I agree with @richardyot for the most part.
I used Cubase on my PC for years. When I moved to iPad, I couldn't decide between Auria and Cubasis but I eventually bought Auria (pre-Pro release) because I come from a classic "recording studio" background and I wanted the most complete and fully featured DAW. Also, everyone raved about the audio quality of Auria and that sold me.
Since then I have had nothing but problems with Auria. I've had it crash and corrupt songs NUMEROUS times. In fact, one tune I've recreated from scratch maybe 5 different times due to some mystery bug that corrupts the file. It doesn't like hosting IAA or AUv3 very well, and the MIDI implementation is spotty for me. But I had plunked down the cash so I struggled and struggled and struggled with it.
FFW to earlier this year. I got my hands on a code for Cubasis (since I couldn't justify dropping the $$ for a second DAW when I already had one). It was instantly familiar to me given my history with Cubase on my PC, but more than that I found it FAR more user-friendly than Auria. I didn't have to fight it at all to get what I needed - it does what it does and that's that.
So anyway, that's my $0.73 - take it as you will.
I really like Cubasis but just recently I couldn’t get it to work @48khz project but then again it could have been a user error.
I have the 9.7 iPad Pro and I still run into glitches, corrupted session, and AU issues with transport information
I find both to be stable on my IPad Air 2. Over all I would say Auria Pro has more features, especially when it comes to the mixer. It just has more features , you can even import video via an IAP, but I record in Cubasis because it feels more fluid. Auria Pro doesn’t have manual punching in, just auto punch, and feels less spontaneous for me at times. With Cubasis you can jump to a different instrument track while the song is playing, jump in and out of record mode by hitting the record button. In Auria Pro if you want to jump to playing a different instrument, or go into record mode while playing a track, you have to always hit stop first. If I’m working with a vocalist in Auria Pro and they want to punch in and out a particular part I have to set in and out points and have Auria Pro punch in for me, in Cubasis I can just manually punch and out. If Auria Pro had punching in on the fly I’d probably use it almost exclusively for recording vocals and guitars, but as it stands now I use Cubasis for that. If you’re working with someone and they’re playing something killer and jamming to the track and you want to be sneaky and record them while they don’t know it in the middle of what they’re doing without stopping the track you can only do it in Cubasis. No manual punching in is my one and only con with Auria Pro and sadly the developer said it would just take to much to add it, and it’s strange because literally ever other Daw has it. Sorry for being so long winded about it, lol.
Well don’t get me wrong, I love Auria
I use it almost every day and I’ve mixed around 80 tracks with it. I rarely run into problems, but when I do it’s usually because of external plugins, so I’ve learnt to print tracks at the earliest opportunity and unload the IAA or AUs pronto, works for me. Other than that though my experience with Auria is overwhelmingly positive.
I do also own Cubasis and use it occasionally, but it’s still too limited for me to use as my main DAW. Steinberg have made great strides with it in the last couple of years though.
I also am frustrated often with the lack of Link support in Cubasis. The free app MidiLinkSync helps a bunch. Also, if you run Cubasis and other Link apps in Audiobus, you can get everything to play and stop together with the Audiobus transport. The fact that Link delays the start until the loop cycles makes it tricky sometimes, but it is possible.
In my experience, there's something to be said for getting what you pay for. A complete DAW that is reliable enough to trust on a live professional gig for $25 to $50, and pro plug-ins for less than that, on a platform designed for multi-purpose consumer use? Auria's dev is one guy! Let's just say my expectations are tempered. I love Auria and Cubasis for what they do, but to say it as generous as possible, it hasn't always been clear sailing. I'm also not a live performer, so there may be ways to make it work reliably if you stick to a limited set up.
Yep though this is a Noise AU issue. There are a few AU plugin vendors who you can really rely on...but there’s an equal number who’s plugins will raise your blood pressure
GB definitely likes a few though ...Brambos, FAC, Zeeon etc