When comparing Pro Tools 2018.7 vs Cubase, the Slant community recommends Cubase for most people. In the question“What are the best DAWs for beginners?” Cubase is ranked 2nd while Pro Tools 2018.7 is ranked 13th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Very high performance, and very powerful
This software is very powerful, and has great audio editing, midi editing, automation, pan etc, but It only supports AAX plugins, no VST.
Pro Very fast precision editing
The Pro Tools DAW is know for making clip manipulation a fun and productive experience.
Pro Mature editing and mixing facilities
As the Pro Tools DAW was originally developed to be an audio-only system with recording, editing and mixing in mind, these core features have been the most developed over time. It can be argued that the Pro Tools DAW has the best editing and mixing capabilities of any DAW, and for these reasons is considered by many to be an industry standard. As such it is an excellent DAW for multi-track mixing and recording.
Pro 64 Bit
This long awaited feature has finally been added.
Pro Extremely clean DAW interface
The Pro Tools DAW is known for being simple and easy to use. The UI is straightforward and isn't weighed down with useless features.
Pro Clean, Uncluttered Interface
The UI is very clean and uncluttered so there's not too much going on onscreen to have to try to focus on, do wish they would implement a theme system though, so you could change the colors of the UI, I prefer a dark theme as they are easier on the eyes.
Pro Free trial available
You can get a free trial of Pro Tools for 30 days.
Pro Comes with 8GB of included sounds and 55 included effects
Pro Much faster than Pro Tools 10
The improvement from the Pro Tools 10 DAW to the Pro Tools 11 DAW is highly noticeable.
Pro If you're an audio engineer, you already know how to use it
Pro Easy to understand file system
Pro Designed with proper session organization habits in mind
Pro Constantly updated software to accommodate Post/Film industry requirements
Pro A signal flow that makes sense when working with a hybrid setup
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
Cons
Con Too damn expensive
Con No RTAS or VST plugin support
The Pro Tools 11 DAW dropped RTAS support in favor of their own AAX (Avid Audio eXtension) format. Without AAX availability, a VST wrapper is required.
Con No batch export
You can not pick separate tracks to export in one pass that gives you separated files.
Con Only subscription now
Just recently, pro tools has switched to a subscription only basis, you cannot get an upfront payment without using an external vendor.
Con MIDI and composition tools are a bit dated
Con No ARA (audio communication, e.g. with Melodyne / VocAlign)
Replaced by the commit function.
Con Slow, old, outdated
Highest processor usage of any DAW, poor software optimization and patching of outdated code has left a slow bloated husk of a DAW that struggles to run smoothly on even the highest end modern computers.
Con Audio Drivers and ASIO
You cannot change the audio outs in ASIO on the fly, like in some other software, without having to save and restart the entire program, plus it's very finicky about audio drivers.
Con Prone to crashes
While it might be the "Industry Standard" for recording award winning albums, Avid has focused more on anti piracy and security while sacrificing stability, it seems to me they just change their plugin standard and slap a new version number on it and rush it to market.
Con Proprietary
Con No built-in pitch correction
While some other DAWs are equipped with pitch correction, the Pro Tools DAW is missing this feature. In order to use pitch correction, it must be added as a plugin.
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.