Should I Switch (to Cubase)?

[mark4man]

I have been using Cakewalk (Pro Audio 9) for 2+ years. In that time, I have went through 5 major sound card mfg.'s; & continue to have problems with digital audio sequencing (lately it's dropouts...despite the fact that my current sound card is assigned an IRQ of it's own; & I have made all of the recommended OS optimization tweaks.) I am running Win 98SE; & thought maybe ASIO might be the answer. If anyone out there has utilized both Cubase VST & Cakewalk with Win 98SE; & could provide some comparison between the 2 apps, or some thoughts on the advantages of ASIO, I would like to hear from you. Thanks.

mark4man

 

[Trak]

The main advantage of ASIO is the low latency you get with ASIO drivers.

 

[NYMorningstar]

What kind of hardware do you use? I use win 98SE with Cubase and haven't had any problems. I do have a P4-1.4mhz processor with 256 megs of RAM and have done no tweaks. I haven't used cakewalk so I can't comment on that but the problems you described sound more hardware than software related.

 

[moskus]

Go Win2000, Sonar 2.0 and WDM-drivers! The latency when using WDM-drivers are dead low, even lower than with ASIO-drivers.

 

[Lopp]

For me, the user interface of Cubase kicks CW/Sonar's ass. My opinion is not as biased as a user of only one system because I own and use both CW and Cubase and I have been demoing Sonar.

Little attentions to details are what wins with Cubase. Especially in the user interface. For example, being able to use [Page Up] and [Page Down] to rewind and fast forward as opposed to having to hit [Ctrl}-[Page Up/Down] to only toggle across measures. Another example is the effects/eq which give IMHO more intuitive controls and displays of the results of the effect. Also, sync'ing with another device, like a VS-880, locks in perfectly for using the VS as a control device or for basic synchronization as opposed to having to hit play on CW before hitting play on the VS and then still suffering from lag (granted, Sonar may have fixed this problem).

These are just a few examples, and there are a few benefits of CW/Sonar over Cubase 5.1/SX. However, for me, Cubase wins after adding them up.


Matt