Just to add a bit of a different tonality to this:
I find Cubase to be one of the most powerful DAWs out there; there’s hardly anything I CAN’T do with this beast. Workflow-wise, there are different philosophies between Cubase, Logic, ProTools, Studio One, Reaper, etc, but overall, all these DAWs are complex beasts - and need to be, in order to be used in a professional context without constantly hitting limits.
I’m not saying which user experience approach is better or worse - essentially, you can get used to anything, and once you’ve spent serious time with it, switching to any other DAW will feel strange and uncomfortable.
Cubase is my main DAW, but I also regularly use Reaper, and Harrison Mixbus for some special duties - I could live with all of them, but since I’ve been using Cubase since it exists, I get results faster with it than with the alternatives - tools you know…
If your engineer is struggling with getting Cubase to work nicely with the QuadCortex (I assume you are using it as an audio interface via USB - correct?) - I’d suggest going the old-fashioned way and simply record the audio output of the QuadCortex via a “normal” audio interface - just connect some audio cables! If you are talking about an “engineer”, I assume that a professional grade audio interface is in place - recording the QC that way shouldn’t cause any complications in any DAW (and no chance at all of Cubase “bricking” the QC, as you claim).
So provided your sound person knows what he/she is doing around Cubase in general, things should go nicely if you just provide a normal audio signal from the QC. Then your engineer can focus on what he/she does best and not fiddle with Quad Cortex issues.
If your engineer can’t get Cubase working smoothly, even without the QC involved, I’d suggest you find another engineer (if this is a trained person) - Cubase is used in professional setups all over the world, and any trained audio engineer should be able to get it to work nicely.
If OTOH your engineer is just a hobbyist acting as an engineer, there are probably easier DAWs than a full Cubase (Pro) to start out with - the complexity can be daunting, and you won’t need 80% of all its features anyway. There are “entry-level” versions of a number of DAWs - see this article for an overview:
I’ve been through all the “my DAW is better than yours” discussions - not starting to get into another one ![:wink: :wink:](https://emoji.discourse-cdn.com/apple/wink.png?v=12)
Cheers,
Torsten