Recording Studio Equipment

Great product with some fantastic plugins and thankfully it works very similar to SX3 no great learning curve there…

However, Installing and getting it operational was a nightmare (installed on WinXP(64) the LCC software protection was shocking to install and kept crashing.
And I searched for DAYS on online forums to find info on the various errors that came up when it failed to install.

BIG RECOMMENDATION FOLKS… find ALL the necessary windows updates FIRST!!!
Esp the windows media updates.
Search the web by typing in the error code and DON’T GIVE UP.

Cubase5 is a great program and even better on a 64bit OS because of the extended memory use (in our case 8Gb)
There is No mastering suite in Cubase5… I’m still researching that.

the Steinberg Forums worked but were equally as frustrating to use because they kept on rejecting my logins..

NOT GOOD FOR A NEW CUSTOMER!!!!!!!

IT ALL SOUNDS A BIT NEGATIVE DOESN’T IT?
But to be fair (on US, the customer) I don’t think it should take days of installing and re-installing (OS as well) to have an operational program..

it works fine as a box of new kittens now.. Was it worth it??? Hmmmmmmmmm

Cubase 5 provides a feature rich environment to do just about anything you need to do in audio/MIDI recording on a professional or advanced hobbyist level. It is compatible with just about every type of plugin on the market and comes with a good assortment of quality VST instruments and effects to get you started. It works well on Windows machines (I’ve used it on XP Pro 32 bit and Windows 7 Pro 64 bit) using ASIO drivers (no latency issues at all). From my discussions with other users, it works as well if not better on Apple based computers too. It is adequate for mastering, but if you are really serious, you may need another tool for that (but not necessarily).

As far as the features etc go, it rates a four or five out of five. However documentation and support only rate maybe a two or even a one. The help system does not even rate that well. However, I believe that a lot of software houses related to the music industry are quite poor in this area as well. Anyway, like I said, my biggest complaint is its poor documentation and non-existent context based help. Or any help system at all. Links to the pdf based manuals does not a help system make, and is quite frankly just plain lame. Everything around this area needs to be improved a great deal.

Cubase does have an extensive user base with a good online community hosted at [...]t. Unfortunately the Steinberg folks let the community provide most of the answers that Steinberg should be providing. Again, this seems to be the (very sad) industry standard. One thing that bothers me is that they insist you have a registered version of Cubase for you to join, search, or post to their web forums. I would prefer that it be open so that people who may use other DAWs can comment or possibly lend insight. It also would let others learn more about recording. I tend to like open communities that can share knowledge, therefore I find this aspect of their ’support’ to be mentally challenged (i.e. retarded). Granted I have my license but I do still feel this way.

Steinberg’s responsiveness to issues in their code (bugs etc.) seems to be average or a little below based on other software industries. But again, this seems par with music based software. i.e. the other options aren’t that much different to worry about.

I would also suggest Steinberg add more examples to their documentation on how to use the features of this overall good application for new users (heck, and even for not so new users… we all miss stuff in an app this complex). As well, I would suggest that Steinberg (or Yamaha… I believe they recently bought Steinberg) also create a ton of video based tutorials on how to use their products and post them to youtube in high def format (right now there are a bunch of well meaning but half assed video tutorials from the user base). That would end a lot of complaints from new users and probably help the company’s bottom line as they provide help over the massive learning curve users have to this level of recording tool. They would then sell more of the lower cost versions of this software. Happy users are the best advertising you can get.

In conclusion, Cubase 5 has all the tools you need for recording, and decent tools for mastering/mixing/etc. It lacks good directions on how to use them. I’m giving it a four out of five, but if I could give it a 3.5 I would. I’m tempted to give it a 3 based on the very poor documentation, but the tool itself is good, so I am giving it the benefit of the doubt. But it is a close call.

I needed a sound input / output device for my notebook, which is not that expensive and suitable for home recording. Not for professional recording – just to make a recording of my 6 years old daughter learning to play a piano. So… I was looking on Internet to find some inexpensive (but not the cheapest) USB PC Interface, and I found this device here on Amazon. I was quite impressed by the description of the Lexicon Alpha, which was all about 24 bit A/D converters and all the features, and included Steinberg LE, etc.

I ordered it directly from the Amazon (I mean it was sold by the Amazon, not the other company) a few days ago and received it as expected, no problem with that. I opened the box and I was somewhat disappointed by the cheap look of the device. The box is made from cheap plastic (this I knew from the previous reviews and was not surprised by that), but even connectors are made from plastic! Even nuts on the connectors are made from plastic and all this indicates that it would not last any long. Anyway, I thought, the convertors are 24 bit and they should produce some decent sound, and I don’t need anything better.

So, I connected it to my notebook, and voila! – it worked right from the start! My Windows XP did say – new device is found, and did recognize the device as “Lexicon”, even without installing the drivers. So far so good. But then I put on my headphones and tried to listen my Yamaha keyboard connected via the Lexicon – it did not sound right! It did sound like some cheapest Casio $20 toy. OK, let me listed the CD, I thought, but CD did not sound any good either, the sound was even worse then I can get from my notebook headphone output.

I thought, may be the problem is that I did not install the drivers. So, I inserted the installation disk and started the installation. The installation started as expected, I did all steps to unplug and plug back the device, and so on. After installing drivers I tried the sound again. Nothing changed. May be I need to restart the computer? I did – nothing changed. May be I need to reinstall drivers? I did – nothing changed. Apparently it was a sound quality, which this device can produce.

At this point I was quite disappointed, but still did not think to return the device. I thought, I needed it only for the simple home recording, may be it will work OK just for that. So, I tried to do some recording, only to realize that the background noise is so bad, that it is impossible to get any decent recording from this device. In other words – it was bad in all respects! I saw one review, where the reviewer did complain about horrible background noise, why did I not listen?

As a result, after several hours lost to make any use of this junk, I’m returning it back and I will probably never buy anything from Lexicon again.

I’m giving two stars to Lexicon Alpha only because it works and it has Cubase LE 4 in the package, but, really, it should be one star.

Updated: to be fair to Lexicon, I should mention that the background noise I got, while connecting my Yamaha to the Alpha audio input, and at the same time connecting Yamaha to the notebook to transfer MIDI using USB. This is what I needed. If you don’t need to connect some of your equipment directly to the computer, you may be ok, because you will not have a loop, which will pick up all the noise. However, I should also mention here, that other devices have a ground-off switch (for example, like e-mu usb audio interface, which I got after returning Alpha, and which, I believe, is excellent), which will allow you to connect equipment exactly as I did and have no noise at all.