When comparing Cubase vs Digital Performer 8, the Slant community recommends Cubase for most people. In the question“What are the best DAWs? ” Cubase is ranked 4th while Digital Performer 8 is ranked 54th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Powerful range of audio editing tools
Pro Supports chord tracks
Pro Quantize can automatically tighten MIDI inputs
Automatically tightens your MIDI inputs to be on time. Quantize has two modes. Hard Quantize will adjust based on strict settings (precisely on beat by default) and Iterative Quantize will adjust in increments. Excellent for keeping the human element in recordings.
Pro Incredible and well integrated EQ
Pro Great MIDI editing options
Pro Supervision
All in one plugin for advance audio analysis.
Pro Pro edition is also excellent for audio mixing
It provides all the industry requirements and features an optimized workflow for mixing.
Pro Recent updates have added some great features
Pro Sampler track
Has an awesome and easy to use sampler.
Pro Powerful, time-saving Logical Editor
Logical Editor allows customizing MIDI data according, in order to set rules to save time.
Pro All takes can be shown in a single track
When in stacked mode, all of your takes can be shown in a single track side by side. You can then select what parts of which take you need. If you are recording MIDI, the Cubase DAW allows creating a pattern that can overlap and be re-used as many times as needed.
Pro Large selection of time stretching methods
The Cubase DAW offers 11 different kinds of time stretching methods.
Pro Great summing engine
The summing engine is responsible for processing tracks and combining them into the correct output. In comparison to other DAWs, Cubase's summing engine is excellent.
Pro Direct offline processing
Apply any kind of process offline for selected single or multiple events . Without CPU load great for sound Design.
Pro Control room
A unique recording and monitoring for personal or studio use.
Pro Batch export
You can pick separate tracks to export in one pass. You can even have them open up a new project or drop in the same project automatically. Huge time saver and DSP Saver.
Pro Vari Audio better than Melodyne
Pro The industry standard for MIDI sequencing and arranging
Pro Superior sample editing
Lot's of options to edit samples on the fly with direct offline processing you can apply effects without sacrificing performance. You can even use Wavelab as an external wave editor.
Pro Allows changing a pattern in one place to effect each instance of it
Using Parts, the Cubase DAW allows creating patterns that can be re-used as many times as needed, and can be edited in a single place.
Pro Scale assistant
Great for those who are not piano players or just for quick ideas.
Pro SpectraLayers one
Great visual editing and audio separation source.
Pro AAF support
Great for those who collaborate with pro tool users.
Pro Great for Sound Design
Excellent time stretching , editing and bundled plug ins as well as powerful software instruments for creative synthesis.
Pro Best stock plug-ins
Best stock plug-ins in any DAW. Powerful yet easy to work with.
Pro MPE support
Compatible with the various MIDI controllers.
Pro Latency monitor
Great for tracking latency for each channel and plug-in.
Pro ARA2 implementation of plugins
Plugins that use the ARA2 technology can be implemented into the DAW for seamless and "native" like editing.
Pro Apple metal acceleration
Maximum performance for macOS users.
Pro Eucon support
Avid console compatibility.
Pro Intuitive layout, faster workflow
Prefer Cubase over Pro Tools and it's much less money, and you won't get gouged down the road.
Pro Harmony voices
With one click it creates up to 4 voices to harmonised your voice. Following your chords and scales with your chord track.
Pro Good Youtube trainers
If you find a person that their way of explaining things makes your life easier to understand what you are doing, you should keep going that way. That's what Dom Sigalas and Mixdown Online do on Youtube.
Pro Apple Silicon chips efficient
Cubase with Reaper are the only DAWs fully optimised and use all the cores (performance and efficientcy) with apple silicon MACs. See here.
Pro Their own Vocaling
They have Audio Alignment Panel, works pretty much as Vocaling. Included in the pro version.
Pro More features than any other DAW
Pro Notation support
Pro Made for small screens
Digital Performer is made to accommodate laptop screens so mixing can be done on the go.
Pro Easy organization
Chunks and Takes lets users record multiple projects within a single session file, and Takes allows users to save multiple recordings of a single instrument that can easily be switched.
Cons
Con Quite expensive
This costs significantly more compared to other DAWs.
Con Confusing pages
The Cubase DAW displays pages that tend to confuse users.
Con Not the best look
It looks a bit old and unorganized, If you come from another DAW like logic or Studio one, Cubase looks old.
Con Not beginner friendly
Con Runs poorly
Con Installs third-party software on your computer (e-licenser)
But needs no dongle.
Con Export Menu is not intuitive and bad
Con Not the most stable of DAWs; crashes relatively often
Software is relatively unstable. It is quite temperamental and can crash at times, especially when you're working on big projects.
Con Not the DAW for tech savvy users
Con Not what it used to be
The new updates kind of ruin the old classy feel.
Con Poor sample editing
The sample editor isn't too great and there's no option to launch external sample editors.
Con Closed source
Con Lack of built-in noise reduction
There's no built-in noise reduction FFT profiler like you might see in some other DAWs. There's noise gate but it's not the same. If you're on Windows, then you can get around this by downloading ReaFir.
Con A small number of slots for effects in the channel (max 16)
Con Unreliable plugin compatibility
Many AU and VST plugins don't load well with Digital Performer 8.