Cubasis as a music sketching tool

joegrant413

I'm not looking for another Cubasis vs Auria vs BM2 vs other DAW thread necessarily here.

What I'm looking for is feedback on how Cubasis stands as a music sketching tool. I don't really care about making final polished tracks. Mostly I want something that quickly lets me lay down chord progressions, rhythms, melodies, and some improvisation.

So far Fiddlewax and Gadget, together or separately, are my best answers. FWIW, I also have most other DAW apps, and can't say I'm satisfied enough to keep them on the iPad.

Since $50 is a lot of money in the iOS... I'd like your thoughts.

Thanks,

• Joe

TedBPhx

I wish Cubasis would let me set individual loop point markers per track, not global. Then it would be unbeatable on iOS.

Tritonman2

I have been wishing for this very same thing for some time now Ted. Perhaps I should make a request to Cubasis and see if it would be possible. I must say that Cubasis has been an absolute pleasure to use , the graphics are second to none and I have found it very easy to work with. Pretty much every single project ends up in Cubasis.

xen

Do you use Cubase 6 or later? I just upgraded from 4LE and discovered that I can import projects from Cubasis direct to Cubase. This is slick if you build a multi track audio mix and use the built in fx. Cubase assigns its native plugins to the tracks in place of the Cubasis ones.

This has just made Cubasis a real tool for me to do just what you describe. It has its quirks, but it is a solid product. I'm planning on trying out building tracks using various workflows and recording into Auria before exporting stems to Cubasis to be transferred to Cubase.

joegrant413

BTW, I've never used Cubase. In my desktop days, Ableton Live, Studio One, and Garageband were used most.

BigDawgsByte

Just FYI Cubasis was on sale last year just before Christmas, I am planning on buying it but holding out to Christmas to see if we get a sale again.

joegrant413

So how easy IS it to lay down a chord progression in Cubasis? IMHO, only a few apps really make it easy. Ideally, I don't have to "play", I can just say... "give me a 4 bar progress of Bm G A Bm", and it's done. If I want to tweak further, fine, but laying done a basic progression within a key should be quick and easy.

TedBPhx

Cubasis has pads where you can define chords. Bang them in then quantize.

Samu

For me the only thing missing in Cubasis is a 'sampler' with two modes, pads with mute-groups and piano-mode with key-zones and with velocity switching/crossfades and if not too far fetched support for soundfonts too.

For creating samples Cubasis already has most of the needed tools to record and edit samples, these could be 'streamlined' to allow the sampler to also directly record (from IAA or AB source) and edit the samples.

Support for iOS-Standard FilePicker would be a welcomed addition and allow us to import and export files from where ever we choose to import from or export to.

Crabman

@TedBPhx said:

I wish Cubasis would let me set individual loop point markers per track, not global. Then it would be unbeatable on iOS.

I doubt you would ever see this in Cubasis.Does the bigger Versions even do this?If yes,they must have added this in the last 2-3 years or so.

@topic: i wouldn't consider Cubasis a"sketchpad".It's more like a blank piece of paper that you have to fill with (your own) ideas,instead of playing arround with tools like Soundprism until you get a nice result.It does not even have an advanced internal keyboard with different scales,blades,chords.It only has a chord function where you have to pre define your chords (still missing presets here,would like to do my own).

I mean,it IS a sketchpad but ONLY for this purpose you will find better tools.I like Gadget more as a sketchpad.Or Garageband.

I see Cubasis more as a (powerful) production tool.I rarely use the internal sounds but external IAAs.So i use it more like a classic DAW on desktops.

Matthew

I think GarageBand is perfect for what you're describing.