No thanks.

First of all, their cheesy product videos have turned me off instantly. That creepy bastard in them is obnoxious at least. Second, the price. Steinberg, it's not the 90s anymore when it comes to pricing software, especially on mobile devices. 50 bucks for an iPad app that makes music? You *have* seen the competition, right?

Then again, I wouldn't have any trouble paying $50 if the quality was great. But those audio samples on their website sound like my old Yamaha keyboard from the late 80s. Especially the strings sounds... jeez. Even GarageBand for iPad is much better than that.


PS: iPodNN, please fix your forwarding links. They haven't worked in the past, they still don't work. Stuck in an endless loop.

You're paying $50 for the software. The fact that you're getting all those samples and sounds is a BONUS.

Don't like'em? Record your own. Up to 48 tracks on an old iPad 2.

GarageBand does 8 and has no sample editor, and no CoreMIDI compatibility to play other apps (which is pretty awesome).

I'm only aware of two comparable products: Auria (which is $99 and does not do MIDI at all, AFAIK), and Harmonic dog, which can be expanded to a similar number of tracks through in-app purchases, which approaches the price of Cubasis, and also doesn't do any MIDI at all.

Yeah, it's not the 90s anymore, indeed: wake the **** up. You're getting a computer/software combo that can do more than a late 90s workstation, for a lot less than the software ALONE used to cost.

What's with the hostility??? The guy in the video is obviously not a native speaker, and you may be losing the message in the translation.

As for "$50 for a music making app", while I love GarageBand for the iPad, it is not really in the same league as Cubasis. GarageBand has limitations in many areas (limited number of tracks, limited ways to manipulate recorded MIDi, etc, etc), they don't really compare. As for the sound set, this is very much the matter of personal preference. While GarageBand is so obviously an American product, Cubasis is so clearly a European one, and the sound set reflects that very much. I could easily say that this sound set is much more contemporary than the conservative set in the GarageBand, but that would be silly, since it would only reflect my own personal opinion.

Cubasis has one other major advantage: it works with Steinberg's full desktop counterpart, Cubase. I have first used Cubase over 25 years ago (!!), when it was still called Pro-24 (and then Cubit, and then Cubase). This was, at the time, the most intuitive piece of MIDI recording software out there. While the US market was somewhat oblivious to its existence (mainly due to the fact that it was a German product, as well as because it was written for Atari ST computers), it was massively popular in the rest of the world. It remains one of the most intuitive and complete DAWs, right up there with Logic. I have no doubt that Cubasis for iOS will be very successful for those who need much more than a simple 8-track offered by the GarageBand.

Couple of nitpicks:

Logic/GarageBand are still made here in Rellingen, near Hamburg.
Steinberg is based in Hamburg directly.

Steinberg is owned by Yamaha, which makes it as Japanese as Logic/GarageBand are American. ;) (except of course that Apple does keep much closer control over the software than Yamaha does, and GarageBand wouldn't exist at all had it not been for the Aple takeover, yadda yadda yadda).

The most intuitive MIDI sequencer by far in the mid-to-late 80s was Mark of the Unicorn's (now MotU) Performer. That was Mac-only, though, so nobody had heard of it in Europe. In the US, it was the market leader.

Good post, though.

Thanks much for the clarification. I had no idea that the Logic / GB guys were actually still in Rellingen (the original C-Lab team, I suppose...??)!

I have seen MOTU Performer once, and it seemed intuitive enough, but that was much later than mid- to late 80's, though.

A lot of people complain about the high price of some IOS music apps. They way I see it, you can pay $15 for the iMS-20 or a few grand on an actual
MS-20. I got Beatmaker 2 for $20 and realized in a lot of ways better than my MPC-100 that I paid almost a gran for. I'm also one of those people that paid almost a grand for Logic 7;so for me, spending $50 for an app like Auria or Cubasis is only not worth it if the thing just doesn't work.

Agreed.

I won't buy Cubasis in particular (I have other uses for the iPad), but the package of iPad 2 and Cubasis would have cost me less than a quarter of what a full license of Logic Platinum 6 cost at the time I bought, EXCLUDING plug-ins, IIRC. And can do more.