Steinberg fail

[BatUtilityBelt]

Back in the late 90's, I found myself at a crossroads. I had a great home studio that paid for itself and then some, but not enough to pay all my bills. I was also working full time in R&D, and that was paying more and more. I preferred the music, but the other career was just blowing up, so I started my own tech company. Doing that meant retiring my music until later.

It's later now. I retired from R&D, and want to spin music back up to more than just a sideline. Before I benched music, I could work anywhere between fully analog and Pro Tools projects. I quit Pro Tools because AVID took them over and their tech support left me hanging (many corrupted project files).

I have a Focusrite 18i20 that will eventually bridge my old 8-bus console to a DAW of my next choosing. But I'm in a different house now, not ready to set up the whole studio again yet, and I know if I do any remote recording I don't want to take a rack. So I was looking for a simple interface that would support remotes and let me dabble in another DAW on my macbook with nearfield monitors.

I went with the Steinberg UR22C and Cubase because the UR22C's weak point is its mic preamps (which I already have covered with other gear), and its feature set looked otherwise very good. Plus, free Cubase...

Friday evening I started installing the Steinberg software on my macbook, but it was not going well. I kept getting an error dialog saying it could not talk to its eLicenser server, probably because of a WIFI, firewall, or proxy server configuration (blaming my end). I continued to fight this through all of Saturday, finally joining the Steinberg forum to post about the problem. Late Saturday, on the forum I learned Steinberg had a server problem and that many people were in that same boat with me. Steinberg had pushed a software update that was buggy, tried to fix it in situ, and failing that, was rolling back to a previous version.

Sunday, we learned Steinberg got their server back up and running. I resumed my install, and the software was able to reach the server, only to have yet another problem crop up - they were saying the license key to my brand new software had already been used. Having already fought this install all weekend, this just about sent me through the roof. Luckily, someone on the Steinberg forum told me that was a known bug from months before, and where to get a new license key from Steinberg to continue. After jumping down that rabbit hole, I was able to get Cubase installed finally, but was left with no interest in using it that evening.

Instead of being able to go into music mode, I was stuck in Software Architect mode. I knew that if I worked at Steinberg this week, I would have been yelling at a software development manager and his team, and the QA team for embarrassing the company and letting down the users so badly. It is not the failure itself, mistakes happen. It is that the software tells the user the problem is probably on their end when in fact it could easily convey where the problem was. I just happen to know that through vast experience.

I was kind of shocked, because Steinberg's WaveLab was one of my favorite digital tools back in the day. I saw them as highly professional. But today I see Steinberg is not the company they used to be. They have squandered their respect. Most of the features I loved in WaveLab are basic constructs in all DAWs today, so what do they have left? I am going to try out Cubase because it is now installed, but with a shorter fuse because holy cow, Steinberg did a lot to ruin my weekend.

[jtcnj]

okay so....it seems I am blessed with my recording blissful ignorance.

Hope you get it all sorted without more quandary.
Hey, at least you have more time to wrangle with it now.

[redman]

Like @jtcnj I sure hope you get squared away and quickly but you lost me after DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) see I do know what that is.

[glasshand]

This is why I hate software that "phones home" to check if it's licensed. Just too many things to go wrong. I get why it exists, but it is a massive pain from (in?) the user end.

[BatUtilityBelt]

okay so....it seems I am blessed with my recording blissful ignorance.

Hope you get it all sorted without more quandary.
Hey, at least you have more time to wrangle with it now.

Good point - I do have a ton more time for it now, just not the same energy as when I was 20. I don't even remember how both careers were full-time for many years.

[LightWingStudios]

Two Words..."Studio One".

[fatjack]

okay so....it seems I am blessed with my recording blissful ignorance.

Hope you get it all sorted without more quandary.
Hey, at least you have more time to wrangle with it now.

Good point - I do have a ton more time for it now, just not the same energy as when I was 20. I don't even remember how both careers were full-time for many years.

I think it was the energy,passions and ignorance of youth.

[Mossman]

Two Words..."Studio One".

I have Studio One (came with my PreSonus interface), and was considering stepping up from Audacity to either that, or Reaper. What do you like about Studio One?

[Spike]

@BatUtilityBelt, Nothing sucks my will to be creative more than fighting with technology.

@Mossman, I can't speak for @LightWingStudios but for me, Studio One is one of the easiest Windows based DAWs that I have ever installed and set up. There are also tons of help resources and quality YouTube videos out there to help out. I have heard good things about Reaper as well, just havent spent any time with it.

[Mossman]

@BatUtilityBelt, Nothing sucks my will to be creative more than fighting with technology.

@Mossman, I can't speak for @LightWingStudios but for me, Studio One is one of the easiest Windows based DAWs that I have ever installed and set up. There are also tons of help resources and quality YouTube videos out there to help out. I have heard good things about Reaper as well, just havent spent any time with it.

Thanks... That sounds encouraging. I've been on the fence about this for the last couple of months, not wanting to invest a lot of time learning a new DAW, only to find out it's not for me, or that a "better" option was available.

[BatUtilityBelt]

@BatUtilityBelt, Nothing sucks my will to be creative more than fighting with technology.

Egg Zakk Lee!

When you have a good block of time to put into music, you want to put it into creating, not admin. Guitars and amps never tell us to wait for an update and try again later or check our internet settings. And before DAWs took over, gear failures were a lot less common. That's the biggest reason I kept all my analog gear, so when I can get it all set up again I can compose and even record whether a computer problem is going on or not.

[BatUtilityBelt]

On the good news side of this... I haven't had any more glitches since Sunday. Also, I am impressed with the incredibly low latency using the UR22C, Cubase, and macbook pro.